Living the Good Life – Without Monotheism

I’m reading a nifty little book for the Amazon Vine program (they send the book, I review it). It’s called “The Ten Golden Rules” and it’s authored by M.A. Soupios, professor at Long Island University, and Panos Mourdoukoutas, PhD. This book is about “How to live the good life without being rich or religious.” It is based on the wisdom of the Greek philosophers and it “condenses the wisdom of the ancient Greeks into 10 memorable and easy-to-understand rules that, if lived by, can enable modern readers to have rich, meaningful lives.”

I’m very impressed by this book, not so much by the cost (suggested retail $15.95 for about 100 pages in paperback) but by the content. I’m reminded of Marcus Aurelius’ meditations, first given to me by my mother. They helped her get through my brother’s death and they helped me through my own hardships over the years. A Christian might turn for comfort to Boethius, but comfort can be had outside of Abrahamic faith, as these authors demonstrate.

The 10 rules are:

Examine Life
1. Worry Only about the Things You Can Control
2. Treasure Friendship
3. Experience True Pleasure
4. Master Yourself
5. Avoid Excess
6. Be a Responsible Human Being
7. Don’t Be a Prosperous Fool
8. Don’t Do Evil to Other People
9. Kindness toward Others Tends to Be Rewarded

Now clearly Christians will see some similarities here to their own beliefs. But they will be deceived if they think the Greeks took their wisdom from the Hebrews, let alone the Christians! And as the authors note, religion hasn’t been a happy solution to the troubles of humankind:

the varying religious prescriptions have given rise to violent factionalism. Rather than serving as a source of common spiritual insight, the different theologies have too often resulted in blood and mayhem. Religious conviction without consideration of rational potentials has oven proved an obstacle to scientific and economic progress and, eventually, to the spiritual state of humanity.

Too true!

And needless to say, these problems did not exist in polytheistic times. There was no gulf between reason and religion and there was no religious strife. If all gods exist, there is no cause for it. Obviously, we do not live in polytheistic times and so the old answers will not avail the mass of humanity today. So the authors offer up a path to the good life, based not on faith, not on the plurality, diversity and tolerance of polytheism, but on reason, which is itself a gift of our common polytheistic past.

This delightful little book is filled with quotes, beginning with Plato: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Each of the 10 chapters illustrates the point with a brief account of an individual, a very useful method of bringing the point home. Add to this little info boxes that condense the lesson. For example, in chapter 1 we find: “Examine life, engage life with a vengeance; always search for new pleasures and new destinies to reach with your mind.”

How can anyone find the Beatitudes more beautiful than anything the philosophers of Greece said? Such wisdom! As the authors point out, “Living life is about examining life through reason, nature’s greatest gift to humanity…To be human is to think, appraise, and explore the world, discovering new sources of material and spiritual pleasure.” And as they observe, “A properly examined life protects people against living life as spectators.”

Christianity, worshiping death as it does, abhorring nature, turns reason on its head, viewing humans not as participants but as victims of life, waiting for what is truly important, something not of this world. Polytheists, including our Greek philosophers, understood that it is this life that we live, not some future life nobody has ever come back to report on.

One of my favorite aspects of this book is the “Meditation Grid” which sums up each chapter. This is the grid for the first chapter:

• Approach life with childlike wonder.
• Engage life with a vengeance without preconception.
• When the mind is engaged, the soul is most alive.
• Grasp life aggressively and squeeze from it every drop of excitement, satisfaction, and joy.
• Always search for new things, new pleasures…
• Something new is always waiting for you: a place you haven’t visited, a book you haven’t read, a friend you haven’t met, a meal you haven’t tasted.

Isn’t this better than waiting to die? To enduring life rather than enjoying it? To hoping this one ends so you can move on to something else? Be part of the world, not outside of it!

I think these are things our ancestors knew how to do. They weren’t trapped in the life-denying and world-rejecting reality bubble most of us grew up in. They were free to experience life, to enjoy it, to participate in it, to appreciate it, to find joy rather than sorrow and to worship life instead of death. These are the things the modern Christian worldview opposes, but as I’ve said before, Christianity has no universal truths to offer, no one right answer to give us. Our ancestors had other truths, other answers, that were right for them. It is up to us to reach back and grasp those, to pull them forward into our own time, to throw off the chains and find freedom in the wisdom our ancestors held dear.

I would urge every reader to obtain this book. Whatever form of Paganism they practice, wisdom is wisdom, and we do not have to reach for the Bible or other foreign sources of wisdom, including those of the Far East. We have it in abundance as part of our own cultural heritage. It was stolen from us long ago, but it is there for us to reclaim if we will but reach out and grasp it.