RE: Religion and pleasure
July 27, 2013 at 1:11 pm
(This post was last modified: July 27, 2013 at 1:16 pm by genkaus.)
(July 27, 2013 at 12:36 pm)apophenia Wrote: ]While Christianity adds its own spin to it with sin, I think there has historically been a tendency to separate out the bodily pleasures and experiences from the mental and spiritual, viewing the former, if not bad, as either dangerous or less valuable. I think one of the reasons Christianity places so much emphasis on it is likely a result of Plato's thinking as interpreted through Augustine. But even Aristotle, with his maxim about everything in moderation, and the Stoics, with their disapproval of impulsive and uncontrolled emotions, tended to frame the more hedonistic delights in a negative light. And you find similar themes in other religious and non-religious writings. The pleasures of the body have typically been identified with excesses and ruin, and for better or worse, ranked as inferior to those of the heart or the mind (or the spirit). I don't think it's specifically religious, but since much of religion is concerned with proscribing how you should and should not conduct yourself, any normative guidelines about the value of earthly pleasures generally is bound to be reflected in religion.
I think that there is an important distinction to be made between criticism of hedonism, considering earthly pleasures as inferior and considering them outright sinful.
As I said, there are different aspects of of happiness, different avenues to them and maximizing happiness from each avenue would maximize your overall happiness. Under hedonistic pursuits, or if one acts in an impulsive of uncontrolled manner, one closes off other avenues to happiness. Which is why disapproval of excesses in this regard is justified. The the corollary should apply as well. You shouldn't live an ascetic life following some greater meaning because then you are sacrificing other forms of happiness.
As for considering one form superior to another - I would have no idea on how to compare. The happiness I feel while eating good food is of a completely different form from what I feel when I am with my family. Comparing them as inferior or superior is difficult - which is why the wisest choice would be to pick a way of life where you don't have to keep sacrificing one for another.
As for calling those earthly pleasures a sin - I consider that to be a sin itself.
(July 27, 2013 at 12:49 pm)oukoida Wrote: Back when I was a theist (actually, in my final phase of theism, a sort of christian pantheism) I once thought and wrote that since our view of the world is (by necessity) centered on ourselves, everything we do is mainly for ourselves. Yet in living our own lives we are presented with two opportunities: one is living without caring about others, the other is living while caring about others. Even then, there are plenty of combinations of the two opportunities, so I can care for my nation but not for others etc. . Of course now, as an atheist, I think that we as humans should care for the greater good of our own species, and in fact I live my life and I sacrifice the small pleasures I could have now to make something good for humanity in the future, but I still think that we have those two opportunities in the way we live our lives and that the limelight of our life is always centered on ourselves - that is, our actions, not the others'.
I sort of disagree.
I'd say that how you decide to live your life for yourself would ultimately determine whether you should care about others and how much.
