New theistic chew toys wanted!

[vulcanlogician]

I haven't studied Taoism.  But I have Buddhism.  Happiness isn't really related to Buddhism either unless you associate contentment and peace with happiness.  It becomes difficult to nail down. 

Well, from one perspective, happiness is among the benefits of Buddhistic enlightenment. The Four Noble Truths lay out a path to escape suffering. Inasmuch as happiness becomes possible once one is no longer suffering (and one may argue that non-suffering is a kind of happiness)... you could say that Buddhism is concerned with happiness.

In many ways I think of happiness as a very modern invention.

I disagree. Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus all saw happiness as some kind of fundamental good, or at least as a product of good living (as did many other ancient thinkers).


From Plato's Symposium:

‘Then,’ she said, ‘let me put the word "good" in the place of the beautiful, and repeat the
question once more. If he who loves loves the Good, what is it then that he loves?’
‘The possession of the Good,’ I said.
‘And what does he gain who possesses the Good?’
‘Happiness,’ I replied; ‘there is less difficulty in answering that question.’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘the happy are made happy by the acquisition of good things. Nor is there any
need to ask why a man desires happiness; the answer is already final.’

http://faculty.sgc.edu/rkelley/SYMPOSIUM.pdf

To Plato, the only reason to seek beauty was to come into contact with (and then possess) the Good. Why would one want to possess the Good? To gain happiness. And, even though we are philosophers who question everything, there is no reason to ask why we want happiness. It is self-evident. It is foundational. It is the reason we seek to possess the Good in the first place.