# "Live a good life", with or without Gods- quote of Marcus Aurelius
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [May 16, 2011, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080 "2011-05-16T12:30:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/21 "2011-05-26T16:46:09Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
> – Marcus Aurelius
>
> This pretty much sums up my philosophy of life. For people who disagree, what’s your best shot at convincing me I’m wrong?
What exactly is a good life? Consider, for instance, that at the time Marcus Aurelius lived infanticide was legal and common. Because boys were economically more valuable than girls, many people killed infant girls. It’s estimated that a quarter to a third of girls in ancient Greece and Rome were killed in this way. Now, doubtlessly many ancients Greeks and Romans, after they were done crushing their own child’s skull, went right on living what they viewed as a “good life”. So if we agree that it wasn’t actually good, then clearly the concept of good needs to be defined differently from how people at that time defined it.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/22 "2011-05-26T16:47:07Z")
I suspect that this thread is going to do quite a bit of wandering, but the specific topic of ritual is really a hijack to this thread. It needs to be dropped or opened in a new thread.
The OP has alreday noted that he is interested in the thought expressed in the quote on the OP, and not in the authenticity of the quote, so that line of discussion is also a hijack.
[/Moderating]
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/23 "2011-05-26T16:56:30Z")
That could sum up my philosophy as well, except that bit about living on in the memories of friends and loved ones. Don’t much care about leaving a mark, or whether the good I do (if any) is buried with my bones. While I’m here to watch, doing good is it’s own reward. Because I’m a narcissist 🙂
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### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/24 "2011-05-26T17:02:53Z")
This is Pascal’s Wager, but for actions rather than beliefs. And frankly, it sits better with me than Pascal’s because of the last line. Belief by itself means nothing except for you and a god who can read your thoughts, should one exist. Actions are what have effect.
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### Author:  [@Meatros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meatros)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2011, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/25 "2011-05-26T18:25:41Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
> – Marcus Aurelius
>
> This pretty much sums up my philosophy of life. For people who disagree, what’s your best shot at convincing me I’m wrong?
That sounds an awful lot like Socrates in one of Plato’s books (Crito? The one where he’s dying…).
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### Author:  [@Apollo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollo)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2011, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/26 "2011-05-27T23:29:36Z")
We are the custodians of life’s meaning.
Humans have a tendency to project our nature onto Nature. Deities, meanings etc are human concepts and only valid insofar as they pertain to the human experience.
The question of what constitutes a good life has probably been asked since the dawn of man and will continue to be so until the last man.
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### Author:  [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/27 "2011-05-28T11:52:59Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#):
>
> But there are gods, and they’ve made it possible for you to act in such a way to avoid bad stuff happening to you.
Then Marcus Aurelius was just another fool.
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### Author:  [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/28 "2011-05-28T16:27:55Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> “Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
> – Marcus Aurelius
>
> This pretty much sums up my philosophy of life. For people who disagree, what’s your best shot at convincing me I’m wrong?
Amusing, considering the quote was by an emperor who murdered thousands simply for refusing to worship him.
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/29 "2011-05-28T20:14:48Z")
[hijack] The quote is all over the internet. In google books, it is listed in a 2010 book of quotations by Sean Gallacher. It is also on page 298 of [The Tale of the Last American, Part II](http://books.google.com/books?id=2Qrn82jZyR4C&pg=PA298&dq=they+are+just,+then+they+will+not+care+how+devout&hl=en&ei=E1LhTeT0CZTUtQO2ns25Bg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CC8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=they%20are%20just%2C%20then%20they%20will%20not%20care%20how%20devout&f=false) (2010): a character in that work of fiction sources it to Marcus Aurelius. Amazon only lists reviews for Part I. Tate Publishing, who released both works, appears to be a Christian vanity house. But there are no cites before that. [/hijack]
The OP presents a variant of the [Atheist’s Wager](http://www.answers.com/topic/atheist-s-wager) which shares some vulnerabilities with Pascal’s original. Neither are entirely robust to the full range of metaphysical possibilities. A mostly benevolent God might be a jealous one. It’s not clear whether a powerful creator who made the world isn’t due some respect, even if His views and morality don’t match perfectly with those creatures operating within an entirely different environment or context. Furthermore, to simply assume that virtue is its own reward is facile. Nonetheless, I am sympathetic to applying decision theory to such metaphysical questions, provided it is done at a minimal level of detail.
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2011, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/30 "2011-05-28T20:20:53Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#):
>
> Amusing, considering the quote was by an emperor who murdered thousands simply for refusing to worship him.
Cite ?
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### Author:  [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2011, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/31 "2011-05-29T01:35:02Z")
> [@Kobal2](#):
>
> Cite ?
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution\_of\_Christians\_in\_the\_Roman\_Empire#Under\_Marcus\_Aurelius](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Roman_Empire#Under_Marcus_Aurelius)
> [@](#):
>
> Belonging to the later Stoical school, which believed in an immediate absorption after death into the Divine essence, Marcus Aurelius considered the Christian doctrine of the immortality of the soul, with its moral consequences, as vicious and dangerous to the welfare of the state. A law was passed under his reign, punishing every one with exile who should endeavor to influence people’s mind by fear of the Divinity, and this law was aimed at the Christians. At all events his reign was a stormy time for the church, although the persecutions cannot be directly traced to him. The law of Trajan was sufficient to justify the severest measures against the followers of the “forbidden” religion.
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### Author:  [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2011, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/32 "2011-05-29T02:04:14Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#):
>
> Amusing, considering the quote was by an emperor who murdered thousands simply for refusing to worship him.
Your subsequent post has done nothing to provide evidence that he “murdered” anyone for failing to worship him.
The law passed in his reign, (with no citation regarding his influence over the Senate’s decision), imposed exile, not death.
Nothing indicates that he sought to be worshipped.
I rate your quoted statement a failure.
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### Author:  [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/33 "2011-05-29T02:16:43Z")
> [@tomndebb](#):
>
> Your subsequent post has done nothing to provide evidence that he “murdered” anyone for failing to worship him.
>
> The law passed in his reign, (with no citation regarding his influence over the Senate’s decision), imposed exile, not death.
> Nothing indicates that he sought to be worshipped.
>
> I rate your quoted statement a failure.
[http://www.johnreilly.info/maraur.htm](http://www.johnreilly.info/maraur.htm)
> [@](#):
>
> This is more than a little odd. The author recites for us the history of the Roman attitude toward Christianity, of which the most striking feature is the general trend toward toleration under the Good Emperors. Trajan endorsed the policy of one of his governors of requiring reputed Christians to sacrifice to the Olympians to prove their loyalty, but forbade that the governor (Pliny the Younger, to be precise) to hunt down Christians to question. Hadrian and Antonius had required strict standards of proof for the fantastic crimes of which Christians were routinely accused; local persecution of the sect was clearly disfavored by the imperial government, even if not quite forbidden. Then Marcus the humane philosopher came to power, a man who believed that logos governed the world, and persecution broke out everywhere. In some places, notably Lyon in Gaul, there were horror-shows in which hundreds of people were sent to the arena without a shred of due process. In other places, little Pilates tried to weasel their way around the law by offering the accused technicalities to snatch at, which even more disconcertingly the accused often refused to do.
>
> No decree or rescript from Marcus survives ordering a general persecution of Christians, but it is certain that he knew what was happening. Some of the victims were locally prominent Roman citizens, and in any case, Marcus would have received many queries about these proceedings as an ordinary part of his legal work. Furthermore, there was a flurry of sophisticated “apologies” for Christianity, some of them addressed to the emperor himself. Even some of the Christians seemed to believe that the emperor would relent if only someone told him the tenets of their religion and that they prayed for him daily. We know for a fact that at least one person did tell him: Athenogoras delivered his apology to Marcus in person at Athens in A.D. 176. It did no good. The persecution eased under Commodus partly because he had a Christian mistress and partly as an aspect of the general paralysis of government during those years.
>
> The author argues, persuasively, that the persecution of Christianity was the correct thing to do in the context of Marcus’s world view. There were second-century Romans who opposed metaphysical monotheism; Tacitus comes to mind. However, the empire was willing to tolerate the monotheism of the Jews, even though the Jews had launched two catastrophic revolts against the empire, since it was the monotheism of a self-limiting sect. The Church, in contrast, claimed to be a cosmopolis in just the way that Epictetus’s empire was cosmopolis: an eternal community that rightfully laid claim to the final loyalty of all mankind. In the light of such claims, it was irrelevant that Christians prayed for the emperor. To promise to render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s is to imply that there are things that are not Caesar’s. That is the sort of claim against the state that the Classical world, from first to last, was never able to accommodate.
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### Author:  [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)
#### Post date: [May 29, 2011, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/34 "2011-05-29T03:59:20Z")
Sigh. Qin. 1. It’s good form to retract or clarify when you find works that fail to back up your claims.
1. John J. Reilly, the book reviewer you linked to, is no expert. That’s ok, but he didn’t substantiate his claims, though they appear credible to me (who assuredly knows less about these matters than J.J. Reilly). Anyway, the accusation is that M.A. looked the other way, not that he signed warrents against Xtians himself.
2. The Catholic Encyclopedia thinks that “Marcus Aurelius was one of the best men of heathen antiquity”, although, “Christian blood flowed freely in all parts of the empire. The excited populace saw in the misery and bloodshed of the period a proof that the gods were angered by the toleration accorded to the Christians, consequently, they threw on the latter all blame for the incredible public calamities. Whether it was famine or pestilence, drought or floods, the cry was the same (Tertullian, “Apologeticum”, V, xli): Christianos ad leonem (Throw the Christians to the lion).” FWIW. [CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02109a.htm)
3. M.A. didn’t write the OP anyway.
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### Author:  [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2011, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/35 "2011-06-01T13:41:31Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#):
>
> (Some) Christians believe in salvation by “faith alone” – which is distinguished from “works.”
>
> But I’m not sure whether prayer, worship, etc., would come under the heading of “faith” or “works.”
The new testament constantly tells Christians to do good works. The distinction is that you are not saved by them. You don’t go up to God and say, “sure, I hated you, I didn’t want to do good things, (really wanted to do the bad things,) but I did good, so you HAVE to reward me.” You do not save yourself. King David was a terrible father, an adulterer, and a murderer. But his attitude when shown his mistakes has him listed as “a man after God’s own heart.” Conversely, Jesus berated the Jewish leaders who felt self-righteous because they followed the letter of the commandments, calling them adulterers and murderers in their hearts.
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [June 1, 2011, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/36 "2011-06-01T14:02:38Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#):
>
> The new testament constantly tells Christians to do good works. The distinction is that you are not saved by them. You don’t go up to God and say, “sure, I hated you, I didn’t want to do good things, (really wanted to do the bad things,) but I did good, so you HAVE to reward me.” You do not save yourself. King David was a terrible father, an adulterer, and a murderer. But his attitude when shown his mistakes has him listed as “a man after God’s own heart.” Conversely, Jesus berated the Jewish leaders who felt self-righteous because they followed the letter of the commandments, calling them adulterers and murderers in their hearts.
Faith cause works.
Also David was not punished/disciplined by God for adultery, neither was Bathsheba as far as the scriptures state. Only for David’s murder of Bathsheba’s husband to cover up her pregnancy was David disciplined. For Bathsheba’s act of adultery God seemed to reward her by making her a queen and her son the wisest king ever to live. Yes the child by David and Bathsheba was lost but that was clearly stated from the bloodguilt of the murder, not the act of adultery. Bloodguilt was David’s only real infraction that prevented David from building the temple.
Also note that Jesus did not condemn the woman caught in adultery.
David showed great compassion for this child and for his son Absolon, so I would say that he was a great father under very difficult circumstances.
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### Author:  [@ch4rl3s](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ch4rl3s)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2011, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/37 "2011-06-02T13:07:17Z")
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> Faith cause works.
exactly, James 2:17
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> Also David was not punished/disciplined by God for adultery, neither was Bathsheba as far as the scriptures state.
I only said he was an adulterer, not that he was punished for it.
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> Also note that Jesus did not condemn the woman caught in adultery.
But, he did tell her to go and sin no more. He confirmed sin. As when he said to look on a woman for the purpose of lust is still adultery in your heart. The point of David, and this woman, and his deriding the Jewish leaders, is that sin can be forgiven… if you don’t continue to entertain it in your heart.
> [@kanicbird](#):
>
> David showed great compassion for this child and for his son Absolon, so I would say that he was a great father under very difficult circumstances.
And being compassionate is enough? Compassionate parents all know how to properly raise a child? You can look at the accounts and say that David had no fault in how any of his children turned out? My whole point really is not any particular sin of his, but that David was a flawed man who could be forgiven when people who never commited the same acts could be condemned for the same sins.
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### Author:  [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)
#### Post date: [June 2, 2011, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/live-a-good-life-with-or-without-gods-quote-of-marcus-aurelius/582080/38 "2011-06-02T13:50:35Z")
> [@ch4rl3s](#):
>
> exactly, James 2:17
> I only said he was an adulterer, not that he was punished for it.
OK, my take is under the new covenant the act of physical act of adultery is not necessarily a sin, as God judges the heart, not the act. But under the old covenant, the law that leads to death, yes it would be a sin.
It is also my belief that the new convent was always available for those who sought God, and David was under the new covenant and knew God personally.
> [@](#):
>
> But, he did tell her to go and sin no more. He confirmed sin.
Yes, Jesus did not say to her don’t commit adultery, but not to sin. Jesus did not identify the adultery as the sin, only the pharisees did that. The sin may very well have been what lead to the outcome of what we call adultery. It is possible to violate the written Law and yet found not guilty by God.
> [@](#):
>
> As when he said to look on a woman for the purpose of lust is still adultery in your heart.
What about looking at a woman for the purpose of Love?
> [@](#):
>
> The point of David, and this woman, and his deriding the Jewish leaders, is that sin can be forgiven… if you don’t continue to entertain it in your heart.
When one sins they are a slave to the sin, only God can remove that. The entertaining it in your heart may have one try to stop doing that, but without God it is doomed to failure. The answer is Love of God, not trying to stop in your own efforts.
> [@](#):
>
> And being compassionate is enough? Compassionate parents all know how to properly raise a child? You can look at the accounts and say that David had no fault in how any of his children turned out? My whole point really is not any particular sin of his, but that David was a flawed man who could be forgiven when people who never commited the same acts could be condemned for the same sins.
Yes part of the point is that we are all flawed, but Jesus promises, though Paul’s writing for one, to make everything we do turn out for the good if we are truly seeking Him, even with all David’s flaws he was perfect because God made it so.
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