What if one really CAN find happiness without God?

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It is a common teaching that one can’t be truly happy without God. Once they take God out of their life, things will go downhill for them. Without God, the will live a cold, empty, life that is led by base desires and nihilism.

I tend to agree with that as well, but I don’t understand stories like this where a Buddhist monk can be scientifically the “happiest man in the world” yet be a devotee to a religion that is not centered around God.

Is the teaching of “No one can have true happiness without God” a false assertion?

I mean, this guy is the happiest man in the world…

www.independent.co.uk

A 69-year-old monk who scientists call the 'world's happiest man' says the secret to being happy takes just 15 minutes a day

[This article was originally published in 2017]
www.independent.co.uk www.independent.co.uk
 
How can science judge happiness? Happiness is not empirically observable.

-Fr ACEGC
 
Define “happiness.” The abandonment of all hope; the view of life as a delusion does not strike me as being happy.

More like my cat: aloof.
 
Buddhist monks are through their practice embracing some forms of communion with God even though they do not acknowledge Him, so they are not a great example to use here.
 
You really can’t be happy without God, as He not only supplies everything that can make us happy in this life, but is our ultimate Joy in the next.
 
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Jesus - never used the word “ happy “.
The closest word is “ blessed “ -
So…
Blessed are they that mourn…for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are ye when ye are persecuted…etc
 
BenSinner said:
It is a common teaching that one can’t be truly happy without God. Once they take God out of their life, things will go downhill for them. Without God, the will live a cold, empty, life that is led by base desires and nihilism.

I tend to agree with that as well, but I don’t understand stories like this where a Buddhist monk can be scientifically the “happiest man in the world” yet be a devotee to a religion that is not centered around God.

Is the teaching of “No one can have true happiness without God” a false assertion?

I mean, this guy is the happiest man in the world…

A 69-year-old monk who scientists call the 'world's happiest man' says the secret to being happy takes just 15 minutes a day
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We may or may not find happiness, relatively speaking, in this world, with or without belief in God. But we can certainly benefit from the God-given desire for happiness, as we strive for it in whatever way seems fit. And so God is there whether we acknowledge Him or not. Buddhists can probably offer much in terms of finding ways to achieve detachment from those things that weigh us down and enslave us in this world-and rob our peace. But they cannot find the ultimate unbridled happiness that we were made for, that would cause one to wish to exist eternally, the happiness that our faith teaches about, that many mystics have experienced, and that awaits us in full-form in the next life. This is, simply put, the truth, for all humans.
 
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It’s my opinion that even though Buddhist monks may be astray, God appreciates their radical efforts and gives them graces. As it’s said, people of other religions can be saved, but only the Catholic Church saves.
 
I can only answer this through experience … I have had times in my life where I don’t go to mass and stop praying for a period of time … not proud of it … but it does happen occasionally … I know for a fact that I am not as happy during those periods of my life as I am when I am going to mass and praying … thank goodness it hasn’t happened in quite a while … I have a lot of health issues and without the Lord I would not be able to live with it.
 
Katherine438 said:
I have had times in my life where I don’t go to mass and stop praying for a period of time … not proud of it … but it does happen occasionally … I know for a fact that I am not as happy during those periods of my life as I am when I am going to mass and praying
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This happened to me too. For a couple decades I was only going to Mass sporadically - sometimes I wouldn’t go for months, and I was sort of a Chreaster for a while, but I suspect I missed some Christmases and Easters even. I wasn’t going to Confession, wasn’t praying regularly and wasn’t doing anything else Catholic. This did not make me happy. It was like seeing my room get messier and messier and feeling unable to do anything to fix it and choosing to just turn my back on it, but it was always lurking there. For a few years during this time I was involved in an activity where I was flying around a lot to different cities and I would go in this airport chapel at an airport I often passed through. It’s now been removed for being too “Christian” for the state authorities’ taste, and replaced with a plain old meditation room, I refuse to ever go in it now, but at the time it had a Crucifix and Catholic prayer cards in it because it had been originally designed for Catholics traveling to go to Mass. I would just sit there and pray for myself and my friends and the whole situation I was in and ask God to please help me and if I was doing the wrong thing (which I probably was) to please guide me to do the right thing.

I really missed God. I wasn’t happy without God. It was like I’d had a really good childhood friend and life got busy and I lost touch with them and didn’t know how to get the friendship back. There was a big hole there that wasn’t filled by just turning up at the Easter Mass once a year. It was awful. I don’t want to go back there again.
 
It’s difficult to live without God in our lives … thank goodness we are on the right path.
 
Please forgive my presumption, but I feel the premise of the question ‘What if one really CAN find happiness without God?’ is faulty. To ask whether I can find happiness without God is to put the focus squarely on ME, when it should be on Christ. I should be looking at Him, not in the mirror. In a sense, I do not matter; He is the only one who matters. I should be concerned, not with achieving personal happiness for myself, but with pleasing Christ by my way of life and my actions and behavior. To completely lose my ego, for my soul to become as transparent as possible a conduit for conducting Christ’s love to my fellow human beings, is the highest goal for which I can strive. May God grant that I achieve that goal!
 
Happiness is a relative term. This world can provide you with a certain level of happiness, meaning you have comforts and such. But the Beatific Vision is happiness on quite a superior level. The problem is if you get attached to this world you may miss the next. We are temporary passengers here.
 
totally agree with you there, science cannot measure happiness and this story is fake news IMO.
 
In end times many will try to delude the remnant. Many false doctrines will abound. Stop looking elsewhere for your Lord! If we were meant to be happy 24/7 we’d have been born in Denmark. (Allegedly the happiest people en masse)
Our purpose isn’t to be fulfilled through the world, but to loose our desire for all passionate and sensual earthbound delights–ALL of them! “To save yourself, loose yourself for my sake” says Adonai Yehoshua–Lion of Judah, King of kings, Lord of lords–in all four Gospels. Shalom
 
Um yeah, but He works through the sacraments of the Catholic Church.
 
JanSobieskiIII said:
Who says the point of life is to be happy?
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CCC 1718 The Beatitudes respond to the natural desire for happiness. This desire is of divine origin: God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw man to the One who alone can fulfill it:
We all want to live happily; in the whole human race there is no one who does not assent to this proposition, even before it is fully articulated. (St. Augustine, De moribus eccl. 1,3,4:PL 32,1312)

How is it, then, that I seek you, Lord? Since in seeking you, my God, I seek a happy life, let me seek you so that my soul may live, for my body draws life from my soul and my soul draws life from you. (St. Augustine, Conf. 10,20:PL 32,791)

God alone satisfies. (St. Thomas Aquinas, Expos. in symb. apost. I)
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CCC 1719 The Beatitudes reveal the goal of human existence, the ultimate end of human acts: God calls us to his own beatitude [i.e. His Joy]. This vocation is addressed to each individual personally, but also to the Church as a whole, the new people made up of those who have accepted the promise and live from it in faith.
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