Stoicism In Religion

Stoicism is a religion that was founded in an ancient Greek school of philosophy. Tillich states that, “Stoicism in this sense is a basic religious attitude, whether it appears in theistic, atheistic, or transtheistic forms.” Stoicism is both a philosophy and a religious attitude. Stoicism is not as unusual of a religion as many people think. Stoicism is actually quite similar to Buddhism, and even Catholicism. Stoicism does have a few different views on things like the way they view the world. Logos is also a part of their religion which they have many different types of explanations. Stoicism also has a lot to do with obeying nature through reason. Stoicism is actually quite an interesting religion to learn about. While Stoicism is about

To live and act in accordance with our nature is to be virtuous. Virtue is a trait that is referring to moral excellence. Runar Thorsteinsson, a Professor at the University of Iceland, stated that, “The opinion that human beings by nature are good was a traditional Stoic doctrine. It did not mean that every human being, as it were, automatically possessed virtue itself, but rather that every human being possessed a natural disposition to virtue.” This did not mean that they believed that every human being would possess virtue, but that some part of every human being naturally had a part of virtue inside of them. Stoics believed that human beings by nature had some good inside of them. Musonius was also following along with the Stoic’s theory regarding the fact that every human was given a part of the divine reason and they were all born with a disposition towards virtue. Seneca also stated that, “No man, indeed, is good without God- is any one capable of rising above fortune unless he has help from God?” Without having God in your life, our virtue is not present, but once we have God present in our lives, we have our virtue once again. I think that we all need God to help us rise above our costly desires instead of letting our love towards materialistic things overwhelm us. We can often become emotionally invested in materialistic things to the point that our emotions override reason. The

Seneca mentions in one of his letters to Lucius that, “First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.” To live the good life, you first need to have what you absolutely need, and second you need to know when enough is enough where you don’t need anything else. Essential properties are required to be what it is, whereas accidental properties are not essential to be what it is. Seneca states that, “It makes no difference whether it is built of turf or variegated marble imported from another country: what you have to understand is that thatch makes a person just as good a roof as does gold.” This means that just because you don’t have the best item does not mean that it won’t work just as well. You don’t need the most expensive item that will make you look like you are rich, you just need what will work the best. The bare necessities will do just as good of a job as the most expensive item, if not better. Think with reason before you choose to do something abruptly without thinking. Reason causes all of us to think over what we plan to do instead of rushing into something. Seneca writes in a letter that, “Reason does the same; to the outward eye its dimensions may be insignificant, but with activity it starts developing.” Seneca is saying that once you continuously start to slow down and think about what you are going to do before you do it, then reason will start to appear more and more throughout everything