{"id":6123,"date":"2016-11-17T21:04:44","date_gmt":"2016-11-17T21:04:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.plato-philosophy.org\/?post_type=teachertoolkit&#038;p=6123"},"modified":"2025-03-03T15:11:31","modified_gmt":"2025-03-03T23:11:31","slug":"can-god-happy-sad","status":"publish","type":"teachertoolkit","link":"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/teachertoolkit\/can-god-happy-sad\/","title":{"rendered":"Can God be Happy or Sad?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the central questions in Theology involves the nature of God. \u00a0While religious studies employs different standards of proof that other disciplines in philosophy, one longstanding method has involved looking for logical consistency among different traits proposed. \u00a0In this lesson, the Polish philosopher\u00a0Leszek Ko\u0142akowski calls for us to think about the question of God&#8217;s Happiness. \u00a0In answering this question, it requires that we both think about the nature of an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omni-benevolent entity and to think about the notion of Happiness.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Teacher Preparation: <\/strong>The teacher should be prepared to talk about how happiness is measured in recent empirical studies. \u00a0A useful guide to this is found at <a href=\"https:\/\/worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl\/collections\/measures-of-happiness\/examples-of-measures-of-happiness\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">http:\/\/worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl\/hap_quer\/introtext_measures3.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Activity<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Students should start by answering and sharing their answers to the first two discussion questions (see Discussion Questions tab).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>After this, they should read the\u00a0Leszek Ko\u0142akowski article\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/articles\/2012\/12\/20\/is-god-happy\/\">http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/articles\/2012\/12\/20\/is-god-happy\/<\/a>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>After reading the article, the students should answer the remaining questions on the Discussion Questions tab.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the central questions in Theology involves the nature of God. \u00a0While religious studies employs different standards of proof that other disciplines in philosophy, one longstanding method has involved looking for logical consistency among different traits proposed. \u00a0In this lesson, the Polish philosopher\u00a0Leszek Ko\u0142akowski calls for us to think about the question of God&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/teachertoolkit\/can-god-happy-sad\/\" class=\"more-link\">&#8230;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Can God be Happy or Sad?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":16054,"template":"","toolkitcategory":[756,29],"gradelevel":[48],"topics":[312,311,313],"class_list":["post-6123","teachertoolkit","type-teachertoolkit","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","toolkitcategory-ethics","toolkitcategory-history-social-studies","gradelevel-high-school-and-beyond","topics-nature-of-god","topics-philosophy-of-religion","topics-theology"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Can God be Happy or Sad? - PLATO - Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Can God be Happy or Sad? - PLATO - Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the central questions in Theology involves the nature of God. \u00a0While religious studies employs different standards of proof that other disciplines in philosophy, one longstanding method has involved looking for logical consistency among different traits proposed. \u00a0In this lesson, the Polish philosopher\u00a0Leszek Ko\u0142akowski calls for us to think about the question of God&#8217;s ... 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