ween individuals and extend to the most enlightened co-operation between nations, in order to make war, the fear of war, and the worst of man's miseries only bitter memories of the past (Ballou 3).
Religion promised a reward, and the reward might be identified with happiness. It might be happiness in this world, or it might be happiness in the next. Confucianism speaks of human behavior and does not speak of God or of an afterlife, so happiness has to be found in right behavior in this world. In Hinduism the highest good was to stop the cycle of rebirth, and so achieving a perfection of being in this world in order to accomplish that task would be considered happiness. Taoism and Judaism also sought happiness in this world, and the good life, or happiness, was distinguished by peace, prosperity, and happiness:
But regardless of the differences in the states sought as the result of the religious life, all agreed that they could be achieved only through individual purity of heart and mind, good work, and righteous loving-kindness to one's fellow-men in recognition of the essential unity of men, each with all others, and each and all with the divine principle (Ballou 5).
The achievement of happiness thus had both an individual and a social component, and the two were often tied together so that achieving happiness meant achieving peace with one's fellow man. Still, the concept did differ from one religion to the next in terms of the meaning of happiness, the way to achieve it, the way to do so with reference to one's fellow man, and on other dimensions of the issue.
Different religions have different views of the idea of a perfect or perfected being and of the possibility of attaining this level of existence. Such a person is one in whom the religion's highest ideals are embodied. In traditional Buddhism, there have been two goals related to salvation and perfection, either birth in heaven (svarga), or liberation (mo...