Skip to main content

On Living Virtuously

By Webmdave ~ 

As a Christian, living virtuously meant living in a manner that pleased God. Pleasing god (or living virtuously) was explained as:
  • Praying for forgiveness for sins 
  • Accepting Christ as Savior 
  • Frequently reading the Bible 
  • Memorizing Bible verses
  • Being baptized (subject to church rules) 
  • Attending church services 
  • Partaking of the Lord’s Supper 
  • Tithing 
  • Resisting temptations to lie, steal, smoke, drink, party, have lustful thoughts, have sex (outside of marriage) masturbate, etc. 
  • Boldly sharing the Gospel of Salvation with unbelievers
The list of virtuous values and expectations grew over time. Once the initial foundational values were safely under the belt, “more virtues'' were introduced. Newer introductions included (among others) harsh condemnation of “worldly” music, homosexuality and abortion

Eventually the list of values grew ponderous, and these ideals were not just personal for us Christians. These virtues were used to condemn and disrespect from the pulpit the lives of non-Christians who ignore various so-called Christian virtues. Of course, for us Christians, acceptance of the teachings of “the church” held the promise of unending bliss in heaven. Conversely, rejection of certain popular doctrines received threats of God's punishment now and perhaps with hellfire. For today's Christian, religious practice is mostly about keeping your head full of approved religious opinions and their associated pious feelings. It's about praying without ceasing. It's about mental gymnastics. It's about supernatural fantasies. It's about childish pretending.  

In contrast, Stoic Virtues, which predates Christianity by several hundred years, promoted just four virtues:
  1. Wisdom (prudence) 
  2. Justice (honesty) 
  3. Courage (fortitude) 
  4. Discipline (temperance, self-control, moderation)
Stoic virtues placed less emphasis on feeling pious or religious, focusing instead on actually living virtuously and maturely with the rest of society. In short, it was about trying to be a good and noble person, not in order to avoid a threatened punishment or promised reward after death, but to have a good flow of life right now and help make the world better by having lived well.
"The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing." — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book IX, 16
When I enlisted in the United States Air Force, I was taught these Three Core Values:
  • Integrity First 
  • Service Before Self, and 
  • Excellence In All We Do 
Not unlike the Stoic virtues, these Core values have practical expression only when interacting with others. Integrity, Service and Excellence have little application to someone all alone on some deserted island.

Christian beliefs and ethics are failing worldwide because they are built on an invisible foundation of rewards and punishmentsAlso, to have Integrity includes the Stoic virtues of justice and courage. It takes courage and a sense of justice to live with unswerving integrity. Likewise, service includes discipline, and excellence requires wisdom. Although I didn’t realize it when I enlisted, it seems obvious now that Stoic principles significantly underpinned my military basic training, and from there the rest of my life. 

Christian beliefs and ethics are failing worldwide because they are built on an invisible foundation of myth and superstition with promised rewards and threatened punishments. The reason for following Christian teachings is more about obtaining Hellfire insurance or earning Heavenly rewards than about living an exceptional life. When the masses of humanity were ignorant or less informed, these ridiculous threats and promises held considerable sway. These days people are better informed and many are seeking something more solid on which to base their lives. Something noble and honorable. Something un-miraculous and real. Something that actually contributes in a measurable way in making life more satisfying.

Some, like me, are finding principles and concepts in Stoic and other Western Philosophies useful and beneficial. Others are finding encouragement from Eastern Thought. As I continue to build my life outside of Christianity, I intend to keep one piece of wisdom front and center. Authentic virtuous living is about much more than being raised to obey a bunch of self-serving religious mandates.
"Being raised right doesn’t mean you don’t drink, party or smoke. Being raised right is how you treat people, your manners and respect. – Anonymous"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

THE FRIGHTENING FACE

By David Andrew Dugle ~ O ctober. Halloween. It's time to visit the haunted house I used to live in. When I was five my dad was able to build a big modern house. Moving in before it was complete, my younger brother and I were sleeping in a large unfinished area directly under the living room. It should have been too new to be a haunted house, but now and then I would wake up in the tiny, dark hours and see the blurry image of a face, or at least what I took to be a face, glowing, faintly yellow, high up on the wall near the ceiling. I'm not kidding! Most nights it didn’t appear at all. But when it did show itself, at first I thought it was a ghost and it scared me like nothing else I’d ever seen. But the face never did anything; unmoving, it just stayed in that one spot. Turning on the lights would make it disappear, making my fears difficult to explain, so I never told anyone. My Sunday School teachers had always told me to be good because God was just behind m

The Blame Game or Shit Happens

By Webmdave ~ A relative suffering from Type 1 diabetes was recently hospitalized for an emergency amputation. The physicians hoped to halt the spread of septic gangrene seeping from an incurable foot wound. Naturally, family and friends were very concerned. His wife was especially concerned. She bemoaned, “I just don’t want this (the advanced sepsis and the resultant amputation) to be my fault.” It may be that this couple didn’t fully comprehend the seriousness of the situation. It may be that their choice of treatment was less than ideal. Perhaps their home diabetes maintenance was inconsistent. Some Christians I know might say the culprit was a lack of spiritual faith. Others would credit it all to God’s mysterious will. Surely there is someone or something to blame. Someone to whom to ascribe credit. Isn’t there? A few days after the operation, I was talking to a man who had family members who had suffered similar diabetic experiences. Some of those also suffered ea

Christian TV presenter reads out Star Wars plot as story of salvation

An email prankster tricked the host of a Christian TV show into reading out the plots of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Star Wars in the belief they were stories of personal salvation. The unsuspecting host read out most of the opening rap to The Fresh Prince, a 1990s US sitcom starring Will Smith , apparently unaware that it was not a genuine testimony of faith. The prankster had slightly adapted the lyrics but the references to a misspent youth playing basketball in West Philadelphia would have been instantly familiar to most viewers. The lines read out by the DJ included: "One day a couple of guys who were up to no good starting making trouble in my living area. I ended up getting into a fight, which terrified my mother." The presenter on Genesis TV , a British Christian channel, eventually realised that he was being pranked and cut the story short – only to move on to another spoof email based on the plot of the Star Wars films. It began: &quo

Why I left the Canadian Reformed Church

By Chuck Eelhart ~ I was born into a believing family. The denomination is called Canadian Reformed Church . It is a Dutch Calvinistic Christian Church. My parents were Dutch immigrants to Canada in 1951. They had come from two slightly differing factions of the same Reformed faith in the Netherlands . Arriving unmarried in Canada they joined the slightly more conservative of the factions. It was a small group at first. Being far from Holland and strangers in a new country these young families found a strong bonding point in their church. Deutsch: Heidelberger Katechismus, Druck 1563 (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) I was born in 1955 the third of eventually 9 children. We lived in a small southern Ontario farming community of Fergus. Being young conservative and industrious the community of immigrants prospered. While they did mix and work in the community almost all of the social bonding was within the church group. Being of the first generation born here we had a foot in two

Are You an Atheist Success Story?

By Avangelism Project ~ F acts don’t spread. Stories do. It’s how (good) marketing works, it’s how elections (unfortunately) are won and lost, and it’s how (all) religion spreads. Proselytization isn’t accomplished with better arguments. It’s accomplished with better stories and it’s time we atheists catch up. It’s not like atheists don’t love a good story. Head over to the atheist reddit and take a look if you don’t believe me. We’re all over stories painting religion in a bad light. Nothing wrong with that, but we ignore the value of a story or a testimonial when we’re dealing with Christians. We can’t be so proud to argue the semantics of whether atheism is a belief or deconversion is actually proselytization. When we become more interested in defining our terms than in affecting people, we’ve relegated ourselves to irrelevance preferring to be smug in our minority, but semantically correct, nonbelief. Results Determine Reality The thing is when we opt to bury our

Reasons for my disbelief

By Rebekah ~ T here are many layers to the reasons for my disbelief, most of which I haven't even touched on here... When I think of Evangelical Christianity, two concepts come to mind: intense psychological traps, and the danger of glossing over and missing a true appreciation for the one life we know that we have. I am actually agnostic when it comes to a being who set creation in motion and remains separated from us in a different realm. If there is a deistic God, then he/she doesn't particularly care if I believe in them, so I won't force belief and instead I will focus on this one life that I know I have, with the people I can see and feel. But I do have a lot of experience with the ideas of God put forth by Evangelical Christianity, and am confident it isn't true. If it's the case god has indeed created both a physical and a heavenly spiritual realm, then why did God even need to create a physical realm? If the point of its existence is to evolve to pas