Compassion and charity have been central themes in the works of many great philosophers throughout history. These virtues are not only essential for personal growth but also for the betterment of society. Let’s explore some of their profound insights and timeless wisdom.
Aristotle on Virtue and Charity
Aristotle, in his work Nicomachean Ethics, emphasizes the importance of virtue and the role of charity in achieving eudaimonia (flourishing or happiness). He believed that true happiness comes from living a life of virtue, and charity is a key component of this virtuous life. Aristotle wrote, “The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.”
Immanuel Kant on Duty and Compassion
Immanuel Kant, in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, argued that moral actions are determined by duty rather than consequences. He believed that compassion is a duty that we owe to others. Kant stated, “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.” This highlights the importance of treating others with dignity and compassion.
Simone Weil on Compassion and Love
Simone Weil, a French philosopher, emphasized the importance of compassion and love in her writings. She believed that true compassion involves a deep understanding and empathy for others. Weil wrote, “The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him: ‘What are you going through?'”
Peter Singer on Effective Altruism
Peter Singer, a contemporary philosopher, is known for his work on effective altruism. He advocates for using our resources to do the most good possible. Singer’s approach to charity is pragmatic and utilitarian, focusing on the impact of our actions. He wrote, “If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it.”
Conclusion
The writings of these philosophers remind us of the enduring importance of compassion and charity. Whether it’s Aristotle’s emphasis on virtue, Kant’s duty-based ethics, Weil’s deep empathy, or Singer’s practical approach to altruism, these insights continue to inspire and guide us in our pursuit of a more compassionate and just world.
Love is a universal concept that has been explored by many religions. While the forms of love and their emphasis may differ, all major religions share the common theme of love and compassion. In this post, I will explore what major religions say about love.
Christianity: The Christian Bible speaks directly of two different forms of love (although more may be interpreted): Philia and Agape. Philia is described as brotherly love. It is a love that is found between neighbors, friends, family, and demonstrated to strangers. Agape is a divine love. It is considered to be an unconditional, and selfless love from God to mankind. Within Christianity there is a large emphasis on this spiritual love 1.
Judaism: In Judaism, the fundamental forms of love are the love of God, neighbor and strangers. One of the core commandments of Judaism is “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This commandment stands at the center of the central book in the Torah. To discuss love is also to discuss giving to those whom you love. The act of giving increases and produces love. However, the love of God is considered to be the truest form of love, and all other loves are a motivation to love God more. Romantic love is included in the command to love one’s neighbor, but romantic love itself is not a central theme in Jewish sacred texts 1.
Hinduism: In Hinduism, there are considered to be five stages of love: Atma Prema, Bhakti, Maitri, Shringara, and Kama. Atma Prema is a form of self love that is cultivated through loving others. The more one pours love out the more love returns to them (this is based on the ideal that all are one.) Bhakti is a love that extends to all of creation and further connects to the love of God. Maitri is considered to be a compassionate love that exists through kindness for all. Shringara is a romantic love, specifically the intimacy found between romantic partners. Finally, Kama is a love stirred by attraction and sexual desire 1.
Buddhism: Buddhism has four elements of what is considered to be true love. Maitri, Karuna, Mudita, and Upeksha. Just like in Hinduism, Maitri is a form of love born through acts of kindness. Karuna is a compassionate love that focuses on the ability to understand one another and to be able to aid/help/assist someone else. Mudita is simply known to be joy (the absence of joy in love is not believed to be true love). The fourth and final element is Upeksha which is inclusiveness. This love is one of acceptance and non-discrimination 1.
In conclusion, love is a universal concept that has been explored by many religions. While the forms of love and their emphasis may differ, all major religions share the common theme of love and compassion. Christianity emphasizes spiritual love, Judaism emphasizes love of God and neighbor, Islam emphasizes divine love and human love, Hinduism emphasizes self-love and love for all creation, Buddhism emphasizes true love through kindness, compassion, joy, and inclusiveness, and Sikhism emphasizes love for the Lord and His creation.
Religion forms a moral foundation for billions of people throughout the world.
In a 2019 survey, 44% of Americans – along with 45% of people across 34 nations – said that belief in God is necessary “to be moral and have good values.” So what happens to a person’s morality and values when they lose faith?
Religion influences morals and values through multiple pathways. It shapes the way people think about and respond to the world, fosters habits such as church attendance and prayer, and provides a web of social connections.
As researchers who study the psychology and sociology of religion, we expected that these psychological effects can linger even after observant people leave religion, a group we refer to as “religious dones.” So together with our co-authors Daryl R. Van Tongeren and C. Nathan DeWall, we sought to test this “religion residue effect” among Americans. Our research addressed the question: Do religious dones maintain some of the morals and values of religious Americans?
In other words, just because some people leave religion, does religion fully leave them?
Measuring the religious residue effect
Recent research demonstrates that religious dones around the world fall between the never religious and the currently religious in terms of thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Many maintain some of the attributes of religious people, such as volunteering and charitable giving, even after they leave regular faith practices behind. So in our first project, we examined the association between leaving religion and the five moral foundations commonly examined by psychologists: care/harm, fairness/cheating, ingroup loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion and purity/degradation.
We found that religious respondents were the most likely to support each of the five moral foundations. These involve intuitive judgments focusing on feeling the pain of others, and tapping into virtues such as kindness and compassion. For instance, religious Americans are relatively likely to oppose acts they deem “disgusting,” which is a component of the purity/degradation scale. This aligns with previous research on religion and moral foundations.
Most importantly, and in line with the religion residue hypothesis, we have found what we call a “stairstep pattern” of beliefs. The consistently religious are more likely than the dones to endorse each moral foundation, and the religious dones are more likely to endorse them than the consistently nonreligious. The one exception was the moral foundation of fairness/cheating, which the dones and the consistently religious supported at similar rates.
Put another way, after leaving religion, religious dones maintain some emphasis on each of the five moral foundations, though less so than the consistently religious, which is why we refer to this as a stairstep pattern.
Our second project built on research showing that religion is inextricably linked with values, particularly Schwartz’s Circle of Values, the predominant model of universal values used by Western psychologists. Values are the core organizing principles in people’s lives, and religion is positively associated with the values of security, conformity, tradition and benevolence. These are “social focus values”: beliefs that address a generally understood need for coordinated social action.
For this project, we asked a single group of study participants the same questions as they grew older over a period of 10 to 11 years. The participants were adolescents in the first wave of the survey, and in their mid-to-late 20s in the final wave.
Our findings revealed another stairstep pattern: The consistently religious among these young adults were significantly more likely than religious dones to support the social focus values of security, conformity and tradition; and religious dones were significantly more likely to support them than the consistently nonreligious. While a similar pattern emerged with the benevolence value, the difference between the religious dones and the consistently nonreligious was not statistically significant.
Together, these projects show that the religion residue effect is real. The morals and values of religious dones are more similar to those of religious Americans than they are to the morals and values of other nonreligious Americans.
Our follow-up analyses add some nuance to that key finding. For instance, the enduring impact of religious observance on values appears to be strongest among former evangelical Protestants. Among dones who left mainline Protestantism, Catholicism and other religious traditions, the religion residue effect is smaller and less consistent.
Our research also suggests that the religious residue effect can decay. The more time that passes after people leave religion, the more their morals and values come to resemble those of people who have never been religious. This is an important finding, because a large and growing number of Americans are leaving organized religion, and there is still much to be learned about the psychological and social consequences of this decline in religion.
The growing numbers of nonreligious
As recently as 1990, only 7% of Americans reported having no religion. Thirty years later, in 2020, the percentage claiming to be nonreligious had quadrupled, with almost 3 in 10 Americans having no religion. There are now more nonreligious Americans than affiliates of any one single religious tradition, including the two largest: Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism.
This shift in religious practice may fundamentally change Americans’ perceptions of themselves, as well as their views of others. One thing that seems clear, though, is that those who leave religion are not the same as those who have never been religious. Given the rapid and continued growth in the number of nonreligious Americans, we expect that this distinction will become increasingly important to understanding the morals and values of the American people.
What is Prosperity and what does the Bible say about it?
Job 36:11 (KJV) “If they obey and serve him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.”
If we obey and serve God he shall grant us prosperity through our life. So we are told through obedience and Servitude is the path to prosperity. We are also told that God is pleased to see his servants in prosperity in Psalms
Psalms 35:27 (KJV) “Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause: yea, let them say continually, Let the Lord be magnified, which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant.”
Thus we can conclude that God wants us to live in Happiness and Prosperity. But then what is prosperity in the bible, is it riches, jewels or is it simply being at a point in life where one needs for nothing such as food a home and health?
If you recall in the bible the rich were not celebrated, So I say that the prosperity God grants is more based on the needs of one to survive and live happily not that of wealth, power or possessions. Servants of God be that they be preacher,teacher,messenger or just a follower. should spread the message of the prosperity of God not of the prosperity of the wicked and foolish world.
Mathew 6: 19-20
19 “Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal.
Which Roughly means do not put faith in things that are of this world, they are temporary. Put faith in God and the things of his kingdom for they are forever..
Regret, the enemy of happiness and being at peace with one’s self. Regret of the things undone, unsaid and missed out on through ones life are nothing but obstructions in one’s path to happiness. Regret that last longer than a short moment is but the lack of the ability to forgive yourself for your mistakes and/or shortcomings. If you can’t undo or make up for the wrongs you’ve done or if the opportunities you’ve missed are far gone then why waste any time or energy on them. Far as the wrongs you can bring to right and the opportunities you still can utilize they should be your main focus to accomplish. Forgive yourself, forget about the unchangeable past and live in the now, do not make more situations to regret by hanging on to the dead weight of things that are beyond you ability to control or change.
Free yourself of living in the past so you can make the most of the present, free your heart of the burdens of past mistakes to make room for the happiness, love and serenity that you deserve.
Why cant the many religions of the world come to peace with one another? Why must we have hatred for those who either believe different or don’t have a belief? I never could understand how one person could hate another because of their religious beliefs, race or even nation origin. We are all human after all, we all are brought into this world in the same manner and we all leave it in the same state. We all want happiness for ourselves and those we love and we all have the same basic needs to survive. The differences we have divide us only because we allow them to. Our diversity as a species is what has since the dawn of humankind made us a resilient and thriving species. It gave us the ability to survive many climate changes and challenges.
I have had many friends of different religious beliefs and never judged them one way or another because of their beliefs. If I did judge them it was by how they treated me and others around them. We had many disagreements on religious ideals but we didn’t allow them to become a stumbling block in our friendship. Sad thing is even within a religion there can be division in belief and that sometimes even leads to violence within it. Is it the religion that causes this violence and division or is it caused by the darkness within some of those within the religion.
Either way, I will always be one who believes in every persons right to believe as they wish and I will respect what ever choice they make. I also will not turn away anyone as a friend nor anyone in need because of their beliefs.
I know how I believe and how I chose to be may not be popular and may be looked down on by some in my religion and in others as well, but It is how my heart tells me to be and that’s what I choose.
I face many battles ahead of me in this short life God has blessed me with. Some are battles forced upon me by the world I live in, others are battles of my own making through the choices made in my life. Some are battles within the heart others are battles with and within the mind. None of the battles will be easily won, but they will be won through faith and with love.
No other person can fight these battles for me, but I will not stand alone in these battles I face. He is always with me and he that is within me is greater than any enemy I shall face ahead.
I once walked in fear, I once lived in doubt and now I choose to walk in faith and to live in love.
Stop trying to rely on your own strength , learn to rely on that inner strength God provides you. It is a strength beyond the physical and mental strengths we cultivate and acquire through life. Remember where all your strengths come from, for they all originate from God. And be thankful for what you have as well as what you have had as well.
So easy it is to open your eyes and see the needs of others, so simple is it to open your heart and give to those who need. It isn’t all about money, it’s about friendship, fellowship, kindness and compassion. Even a smile or a kind word can change the hearts and minds of those around you. A little compassion can go a long way in helping someone get through the day. Just give what you have to give to help others and it will multiply within the person you help.
Try to remember the person you seeing in need, be it a need of food, clothes or just a kind word or two could easily be you. So try to treat others with that fact in mind, they too are only human and have problems, challenges and circumstances just like you do. They are your brothers and sisters in the eyes of God, we should love one another as Jesus commanded us to do.
Time to open you eyes, time to let go of what was and the things that shall never be. Most of what you want you don’t really need and probably would just bring you unhappiness in the end or just a short moment of joy that is hollow. Time to be appreciative of the things God has blessed you with, He has given you things that money, gold or Jewels could never get you. Love, Peace, Hope and last but not least his grace. He gave you a family, friends and another day for you to cherish them as well.
Time to put the fear away for faith is stronger and time to put away greed it only leads to the ruin of your life. Lust is just an perversion of love and is what has caused so many divorces, broken hearts and even some wars along the way. Selfishness is a true enemy of happiness and it stands between us and god.
Temper your heart with the love of God, Tame your mind with the Gospel and put all of your heart, mind, body and soul into walking in faith. Do everything you do for God and not for your self.
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