Implications for happiness and social values
If man is religious in a social sense his happiness lies in adopting a religious path in his unique bio-graphical situation. His religious path is the path voluntarily chosen by him. He may feel happy by following the prevailing religious practices, by rejecting the prevailing practices, or by adopting practices subscribed by a new religious sense. Several people carry ambiguous and ambivalent status regarding religious beliefs. Thus man may accept, show indifference towards, or fight to remove the prevailing religious ideas. He may reinterpret or reinvent the established religion. From both individual and social points of view the best situation will be one when an individual acts religiously in the interest of society and in the name of those social values which lead to human happiness. Humanism, love and compassion must be the key concepts of this act. No wonder all religions expect the religious leaders and followers to act in the interest of society at large, combining metaphysics, cosmology and ethics. It’s a different matter that in some cases (as in Hinduism) this combination is a bit loose and in some cases (as in Islam) very strong. Thus to be happy religiously is linked closely to work for human happiness. The problem is of making religion a subject of contextual thinking.
According to Buddhist ethics (Keown, 2005, 5-6) “karmic actions are moral actions and the Buddha defined karma by reference to moral choices and the acts consequent upon them.” To quote Keown:
Moral actions are unlike other actions in that they have both transitive and intransitive effects. The transitive effect is seen in the direct impact moral actions have on others; for example, when we kill or steal, someone is deprived of his life or property. The intransitive effect is seen in the way moral actions affect the agents. According to Buddhism, human beings have free will, and in the exercise of free choice they engage in self-determination. In a very real sense, individuals create themselves through their moral choices. By freely and repeatedly choosing certain sorts of things, individuals shape their characters, and through their characters their futures. |
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