An Atheist, a Philosopher and a Religious Teacher

The camera zooms in on three men trekking down a sandy road. They came upon what seems like a body fully covered by a huge canvass.  The three men - an atheist, a philosopher, and a religious teacher - speculated that the man must have died from the cold dry wind of the night before.

So, one of them started a dialogue with the rest.

Atheist:  What a way to die. No money. No success. Can't even afford a decent burial.

Teacher: I agree. Death has consumed him. But at least his happiness now lies in his rebirth. He can start his life for the second time and live it as if it was his last.

Philosopher: You speak as if know for sure that his next life will be happier than his first.

Teacher: Nothing is for sure in our life or in our rebirth. Only three things will lead to true happiness. They are knowledge, works and freedom from desires. In his next life, he must come to know his true identity, the essence of his being. His true self is authentic, infinite and imperishable. His true self is his soul, which is immortal. Once he knows this, he will then be able to work out his happiness. He must do good works, perform charity and live blamelessly. Attaining all these, he will be able to free himself from desires for the things of this world, for material satisfaction. He will then be one with his true self.

Atheist: Do you have any proof of this rebirth? You people talk too much about the unattainable. Why don't you take a reality check and examine the body. Where is his soul? Where is his true self? Weight him. Has his soul left him? What you see is all there is! He's dead and his death is the end of it. There's no rebirth. No true self. No more life.

Philosopher: Tell me my friend, what is happiness for you?

Atheist: Happiness? Well, I do not have the answer. Not yet maybe. But one thing I know for sure...happiness is not in chasing shadows, self-deluded dreams or hallucinations. I believe we create our own happiness. It starts with our mind and ends with our two hands.

Teacher: Then tell me, my confident friend, do you think that this man here died happy or sad?

Atheist: He? His death has nothing to do with me. He died and that's it. Hopefully, it's disposal with benefit the ecology.

Teacher: How about you? (turns to the Philosopher)

Philosopher: I believe that each of us is responsible for our own happiness.

Atheist: Amen to that...oops. I mean I can agree to that.

Philosopher: ...and one person's happiness is based on this simple principle...maximizing one's pleasure and minimizing one's pain. In other words, happiness equal pleasure minus pain.

Teacher: Mmm...interesting. Tell me more.

Philosopher: You see, to me, pleasure  is absolute. It's king. There is no higher order of happiness other than pleasure. The main guide to being happy is to seek to maximize your pleasure. By doing so, you minimize your pain.

Teacher: But isn't that a question disguised as an answer? What then is pleasure? How do you account for pleasure in sadism? Pleasure derived from seeing others hurt by your gratuitous cruelty.

Philosopher: Well, the pleasure in my definition cannot be divorced from the consequences arising from attaining it. Let me illustrate. I have the right to throw a punch but I have to ensure that it doesn't end up on your nose. The pleasure one seek is a responsible one. It is nobler and saner than the one sought by a masochist or sadist. It's pleasure with a conscience.

Atheist: I agree with you. I believe there's unbounded happiness in virtues, honor, beauty and order. An upright man is infinitely happier than a corrupt one.

Teacher: Mmm..pleasure with a conscience? Can we really trust a man's conscience? You see, some men never do evil so fully and cheerfully as when they are doing it out of a clear conscience.

Atheist: I see your point...they say there is one way to attain happiness in this terrestrial ball. Either to have a clear conscience or to have none at all. So, there's happiness whether you have or have not a clear conscience.

Teacher: Yes, it seems that way. How does that glitch fit into your pleasure-with-noble-consequences definition? Isn't one man's conscience is another man's contention? Or one man's nobility is another man's venality?

Philosopher: Well, men are selfish. They are born that way and most will probably die that way too. In fact, many mass murderers think that they are doing the world a favor by eradicating an entire village! Some people deserve death, so they think. But these are exceptions to the rule and rare ones in this civilized world we live in. As we evolve, and continue to evolve in knowledge and morals, we automatically seek those pleasures that are life-affirming and avoid those that are life-denying. In the end, my pleasure/pain equation evolves together with modernity and it's the best of the worse measurement of happiness.

Teacher:  Ok, even if I accept that, I still have a bone to pick...

Philosopher: I am waiting...

Teacher: Yes, I too believe in virtues. I believe in acts of charity, benevolence and devotion to a good cause like marriage and friendship. But enlighten me, how does the pleasure/pain equation work? What unit of measurement would you assign to pleasure and what unit to pain? How do you calculate whether a particular act or acts give more pleasure than pain?

Philosopher: That's not a fair question. What makes you happy does not necessarily make me happy. My pleasure/pain equation is more an exercise in the metaphorical rather than in metrics. Further, no one in his right mind goes around assigning and calculating every pleasure derived from his act in the same way that no musician worth his repute would be conscious of every beat and tempo in a piece of music he plays. It takes pleasure out of the act if one constantly performs such tedious mental calculations, don't you think?

Teacher: So, happiness is subjective, a personal experience, which differs from people to people, and circumstances to circumstances?

Philosopher: Yes.

Teacher: Indulge me with this last query...surely, mere pleasure, even those derived from acts of virtues and charity, cannot be the sole foundation of a worthy life?

Philosopher: Well, if you are talking about an afterlife as a life of some measure of substance, or a so-called worthy life, that's not my specialty. But I do believe that pleasure also takes into account of hope, faith and the general belief in things unseen. For example, the hope of getting to heaven is a legitimate form of pleasure in the same way as fear of being reborn from a prince living in a palace to a pauper begging for the next meal is a legitimate form of pain.

Atheist: Why do you even bother to place your hope in things unseen anyway? Don't you think you are adding too much dead weight or wishful thinking to the definition of happiness by deceiving yourself into believing in the mambo jumbo of heaven and hell, soul and spirit, demons and angels?

Teacher: Wait, didn't you say earlier that happiness starts with your mind and ends with your...hands?

Atheist: Yes, that's about sums up happiness for me.

Teacher: So, how do you deal with human suffering?

Atheist: Like I said, it's all about how you perceive it, suffering I mean. Surely you've heard of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter.

Philosopher: But aren't you living in denial?

Atheist: I don't think so. What I am sure is that happiness is about nurturing an attitude of mental indifference to whatever is beyond my control. I figure that life is difficult and to some, born to appalling circumstances, life is hell. So instead of sulking and bitching about it, I strive to embrace it - all the while keeping as open a mind as possible. In all events, the happiness is in the coping and growing from crisis and not in the wallowing and surrendering to it.

Philosopher: That's quite an enlightened approach. But, can you still say that when you are in the throes of suffering?

Atheist: Hey, I am an atheist and I thank god for that. People like us have no invisible means of support. We accept our fate. We make the most of it. If I have to go through pain and trauma, then so be it. How do you prepare for that? Why should one even bother to prepare for it? If it's not raining, I'm not going to lug a cumbersome umbrella along. I travel light...I don't want to be burdened by all those religious and existential baggage!

Teacher: (pointing to the canvass) Look at this man lying before us, do you think he had coped well? Do you think he had embraced death with honor and distinction?

Atheist: To be honest, I don't know. But I don't think so because it seems like he did not rise above his circumstances. It seems to me he died for nothing. A worthless death implies a worthless life.

Philosopher: So, what is a worthwhile life?

Teacher: Yes, what's a purposeful life? (the Atheist shrugged)

Just at this time, as the camera pans away, skyward, the canvass covering the body started to move. The three men were stunned into silence. A small head emerged from the canvass. Then came two tiny arms and legs.

Soon, a little child no taller than the dead man's knee toddled out of the canvass and ran to the teacher. The child was crying and shaking in fear and hunger.  That day, the three men did not utter a word to one another. They had realized that the man had died saving the child from the deadly cold wind.

They then each took turn to nurse and care for the child.

As the camera distances away, the scene ended with this afterword:

"You have not lived until you have done something for someone who can never repay you."