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Comment by hprotagonist | Hacker News Reader

I have long regarded happiness in the same category as grace: it is an undeserved and unasked for free gift. An epiphenomena that is not a consequence of, but happens along with, other positive actions.

And for me that's living a less self-centered life.

I am happy when what I do with my life enriches the lives of others. But being transactional about this ruins the game. It is, among other things, the opposite of zero-sum. Do the thing for the exuberant joy of the thing itself, don't take yourself too seriously or try to carry too much weight, and act in the trust that, but do not demand as payment that this will lead to a happier place.

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This pretty much sums up Christian ethics.

I didn't say it was a particularly original idea. :)

Christian ethics is all about demanding a payment, ie. the promise that one's good deeds will be rewarded in afterlife.

From the Catholic perspective this is not true. People do not Earn heaven, it is a gift. And doing the right thing is good for it’s own sake.

This seems like a murky area even for Catholics. My understanding was that it is still contingent on faith and all the rituals.

Yes, but the Catholic position is based on St James idea of "living faith". E.g. Faith without works is dead. It also is based on Jesus' instructions about "he who loves me, does my commands". The grace and love are free gifts, but what is love without good actions?

The best analogy I can think of is if a husband says they love their wife, but they never help them, show affection, do anything to serve them, do they really love them? Now in marriage, love should ultimately be unconditional (to a point, all analogies fall down at some point). If a wife loves their husband freely, but the husband says they return the love but do nothing to show it, what can we infer about his love?

At a glance it doesn't seem you're contradicting me but that faith stipulates following Biblical instruction. That describes the religion in practice, anyone that dons faith would do that (or portend to) as faith encapsulates all those ideas.

The notion that people should do good for its own sake doesn't really change the fact that it's the ticket for Catholicism. Conversely in, say, Calvinism nothing you do can guarantee Salvation.

there isn't such a thing as the singular christian ethics.

And the theologians i've read who seem the most on point explicitly reject the transactionalist nature of payment-demanding as inhuman and a fundamental misunderstanding of the game.

i'm on board with universal reconciliation, so "pie in the sky when you die" never did it for me anyway, but to be clear i'm also not describing "some happier future state" in my top post as anything other than improvement for our lives as we know them right now on this planet.

No, we are all sinners, and Jesus paid the price for each one of us on the cross:

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." [Ephesians 2, 8-9 NKJV]

"If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us". [1 John 1, 8-10 NKJV]

Probably worth adding the famous John 3:16:

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (emphasis mine)

Yes! That it is were it starts and continues in aeternum. :-)

More accurately that worship / faith will be rewarded with salvation. For Christians afterlife is broadly considered a certainty, it's just a question of whether you'll get the good or bad one.

Hmm, that understanding is a little bit off. Here's a common analogy:

You go before a judge for sentencing, and he says that you have inherited a debt of a trillion dollars. He then says he offers to wipe your slate clean. Your possible responses are:

1) I don't believe you, I don't owe any debt. (atheist)

2) I believe I owe this debt, but I reject your offer. (demons)

3) I believe I owe this debt, but I will pay it myself. (good works)

4) I believe I owe this debt, and I am eternally grateful that you have paid it for me. (christians)

So your description would fall under category (3). You owe a debt of a trillion dollars and then say, hey, here's a couple hundred bucks I earned through my good deeds, we're good, right? That's a complete insult, to reject the gift, and then try to pay it back with a pittance.

Just wanted to say I find this a really great framing, particularly:

> Do the thing for the exuberant joy of the thing itself

It's something that I've started to act on recently, and I'm finding that thinking about activities in this way overcomes the paralysis I often feel when thinking about trying something new. Framing it this way gives me permission to try something, and not feel negatively if I fail or am bored by it. I've discovered so many things that I can enjoy purely for the experience of them, that none of my friends know I do (and that I don't need external validation for), that also happen to be beneficial to other people who I would otherwise have never interacted with.

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