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Andree
Member   Posts: 112 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 23/9/2004 at 10:03 PM |
Regardless, Feral, empirical evidence would suggest that you do in fact
love tearing into people.  ____________________
< / hate >
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feralucce
Extreme Fanatic   Posts: 1810 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 24/9/2004 at 01:35 AM |
Andree: no... you are making an assumption... empirical evidence proves
that I DO tear into people... the emotions that accompany it can only be
guessed at unless you are me... and as such, is not evidence, but
hearsay...
For the record... I don't enjoy it... but I enjoy idocy even less ____________________
The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
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Schizo
Extreme Fanatic  Posts: 897 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 24/9/2004 at 02:23 AM |
Exactly, Feral. Your illustration is illuminating.
If a God exists, it is what it is, and all else is a matter of perception,
which is at best limited, and at worst faulty. What people often do is
worship themselves or a figment of their imaginations, and project that
image onto some almighty being as a justification.
Andree, I would rather see someone who blatantly worships themself than
someone who worships themself but pretends they're really worshipping some
widely accepted Deity. At least the first person is honest with themself
and others, and is taking responsibility for their own creed.
But you are right - an honest person in search of God will search
themselves and the world, and try to find as much of the truth as is
humanly possible.
And self-worship IS a practice that can be easily abused. Many people do
use it as a justification to do whatever they feel like at the moment. I
know people like that. But then again, many people use the authoriziation
of some outside Deity to justify the same thing. Look at all the cruelties
that have been done in the name of Christianity.
In the end, a person with a good heart will act on that good heart, no
matter what they say they worship, and a twisted, nasty person will find
justification somehow for what they do, again, no matter who they say they
worship. It all depends on the person. ____________________
"You can tell by the scars on my arms and the cracks in my hips and the
dents in my car and the blisters on my lips that I'm not the carefullest of
girls." - Dresden Dolls, "Girl Anachronism"
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Andree
Member Posts: 112 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 24/9/2004 at 03:37 AM |
Schizo: Well put. You said, "a person with a good heart will act on that
good heart." This is true, but sadly the reverse is not always true: Good
acts are not always indicative of a good heart. There are many who perform
"good" acts not out of a good heart, but out of the idea that it will gain
them salvation.
I believe this idea is backward: We should perform good acts
because we are saved, not in order to be saved. For those
who do not believe in a higher power, this could say, "We should perform
good acts because we have benevolent hearts, not because we want to appear
benevolent." The principle is the same. In other words, Do I perform good
acts because I want to, or because I want what I think it will get me?
As for self-worhship (which I've just learned is called "autolatry," thank
you Google), I have a hard time separating religious self-worship and
nonreligious self-worship. What I mean is, there's a difference between
simply being arrogant, and actually praising oneself as a god. Maybe
religious autolatry, believing you are your own god, is just an exaggerated
form of arrogance; extreme selfishness. This selfishness can easily be
shrouded in the guise of religious conviction.
Feral: Forgive me; I imagine it's a tough job, but somebody's got to do
it. ____________________
< / hate >
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feralucce
Extreme Fanatic Posts: 1810 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 24/9/2004 at 10:19 AM |
Then explain this...
I do good acts...
But I am not what would be classified as a good person by 95% of people
would consider a good person.. I don't even classify myself that way
I don't do them to feel good, or for religious reasoning, or fora rewardof
any type...
Beside... not all deities are considered good... and if we are discussing
divinity, we cannot even begin to leave out polytheistic beliefs ____________________
The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
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Andree
Member Posts: 112 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 24/9/2004 at 12:39 PM |
I cannot begin to explain your motives to you; to do so would be
assumption. But like I said, truly good acts are not done for
reward. Intrinsic motivation is a powerful thing; extrinsic motivation is
fleeting. Good trees bear good fruit . . . but at the risk of sounding
like a cop-out, I am not you; I don't live in your head. I could assume
any number of things, but I learned my lesson last time.
Regarding evil deities . . . inflicting harm, according to (dare I say
universal?) ethical standards is never acceptable, evil gods' commands
notwithstanding. Would polythestic beliefs be any different? ____________________
< / hate >
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feralucce
Extreme Fanatic Posts: 1810 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 24/9/2004 at 12:42 PM |
and I am not being confrontational... but discussing...
explain what you mean by truly good... ____________________
The earth turns on a tilted axis - just doing the best it can.
Hohenheim of Light~Full Metal Alchemist
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Andree
Member Posts: 112 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 24/9/2004 at 01:30 PM |
Truly good, let's see . . . if a "good" act is done for some kind of
reward, its results may be good, in the utilitarian sense, but it was done
for the wrong reasons.
I guess "wrong" is a subjective term. Is "useful" a better one? Good acts
performed for rewards are not useful if one's goal is to be a decent
person? Of course, "useful" and "decent" are subjective terms as well . .
. can we . . . assume?. . . that these terms have generally-understood
meanings, or shall we begin to define what they mean in a strictly
objective sense? ____________________
< / hate >
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Schizo
Extreme Fanatic Posts: 897 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 24/9/2004 at 01:47 PM |
Not all self-worshippers are arrogant - some who consider themselves god
also realize the deity in every person. I would think it would be far more
arrogant to consider oneself "saved" and others "unsaved" because they
don't have what you think you have.
And I'm not sure that I agree that harm is always wrong. To be perfectly
honest, we cannot live without inflicting some degree of harm to something
or other. If I so much as eat a slice of bread, I have contributed to the
harm of hundreds of stalks of wheat. My steps on the earth at times end
the lives of tiny insects, and bruise tender blades of grass. I pick a
flower, and a plant's life ends. I contract a disease, and my white blood
cells slaughter bacteria and viruses by the thousands.
Harm is inevitable, and part of the circle of life (not to sound new-agey
or anything.) Life begets death, which begets life again. The goose feeds
on the insect, and the fox feeds on the goose, and the fox dies, and the
insects feed off of the fox again. And no ethical standard is being
violated.
To inflict no harm you would have to not exist, and to end your existance
would be to harm yourself. So I would like to project that the point is
not to harm at all, but not to harm unnecessarily. And how much harm is
necessary? Well, at this point I will have to give a resounding "I don't
know", because that is a decision that each person will have to make for
themselves in each circumstance.
And as for the concept of reward, I do things solely for the reward all the
time. Every morning, I go to a factory and build ball bearings for eight
hours, and I do it entirely for the reward of a meager paycheck on
Thursdays. I work for pay, and I work well for my own satisfaction, and
both are a reward. Does that mean that I am not truly good in working
eight hours a day? Maybe so, maybe not. You might ask, why do I seek a
reward? The answer - so I can pay my bills. And why do I pay my bills?
Again for a reward - the privilege of having electricity, a phone line, a
roof over my head, and a car to drive.
Are there ever things that are done solely because they are good, with no
reward whatsoever? Perhaps. I think there are completely selfless acts
done at times. Does that mean that they are the only good things ever
done? I don't believe so. Perhaps it is good to expect a reward when you
deserve a reward. After all, if good things are done for the benefit of
other people, then good things can be done for your own benefit, too. Once
again, it is not that only selfless acts with no reward sought are good,
but that the right balance struck between selfless acts and acts for reward
is good. Once again, what is that balance? I don't know. Again, it is a
matter that each person must decide in each circumstance.
And what does this have to do with God? Everything and nothing, I
guess.
More and more, I am becoming an agnostic. I am coming to terms with my
ignorance, and it doesn't scare me. Is there one god? Many gods? No god?
I don't know. I may never know. Does that change the way I'm going to
act? At this point, no. Once upon a time, I changed my behavior for the
sake of a God I was certain existed, but that was quite some time ago. Now
I think, if I can't figure out right from wrong without the help of a
deity, then I'm not going to be able to do it with one. And I'll have to
say, the more I go with my own instinct, instead of what other people (or
deities) tell me I should be doing, the smoother my life goes, and the
happier I am. And other people seem to like me better, too. Except for a
very few, who have suddenly started hating my very guts. Of course, these
people hate almost everyone's guts who don't do everything their way, so
I'm not too worried. In fact, I take their hate as yet another sign that
I'm doing OK.
Anyway, I think if there's really a God of the sort that I'd want anything
to do with, it's certainly not going to be penalizing me for not getting
everything all figured out about it before I die. And if it does, then I
really wouldn't want to spend an eternity with it, anyway.
Hey, haven't I come a long way from the Resident Christian? Huh? ____________________
"You can tell by the scars on my arms and the cracks in my hips and the
dents in my car and the blisters on my lips that I'm not the carefullest
of
girls." - Dresden Dolls, "Girl Anachronism"
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Andree
Member Posts: 112 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 24/9/2004 at 02:22 PM |
There's something to be said for the good of the individual vs. the good of
the whole. I often hate work too, and to be honest, I don't even like
school all that much. It's stressful and stress is harmful (I'm going to
have ulcers by the time I'm twenty), but I do it all for a future (and
sometimes very far-off) goal that I think could be "good." Look at the
Eskimos. Killing babies, for them, is good in the big picture. So I agree
with you, mostly. I agree that death is part of the circle of
life, but death does not always constitute harm. In fact, I think death is
usually NOT harm. Death, destruction, and decay are only harmful when they
DO violate ethical standards . . . and they usually do not.
Doing things soley for reward . . . you're right. Everyone does things
soley for reward. We go about life, working and creating our own rewards
because doing so is useful for our survival and well-being. This is
utilitarianism at its simplest. But creating your own reward is different
than doing good acts to appease a higher power. And it's certainly
different than inflicting undue harm for reward, whether it be holy warfare
or penitence.
Haha . . . you asked, "Are there ever things that are done solely because
they are good, with no reward whatsoever? " This reminds me of a Friends
episode (for once it didn't remind me of the Simpsons!) Phoebe and Joey
are having an argument. Joey says there's no such thing as a selfless good
deed, because every time you do something good, it makes you feel good
about yourself. Phoebe is determined to find a selfless good deed. So she
comes to the apartment that evening and says that she found a selfless good
deed. She let a bee sting her. She didn't like it, and it made the bee
look cool in front of all his bee friends. Then Chandler says, "Ya know,
Phebes, the bee probably died after he stung you . . ." Which is all to
say that there is no selfless good deed. I haven't decided whether this is
true. ____________________
< / hate >
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Schizo
Extreme Fanatic Posts: 897 Registered: 31/12/1969 Status: Offline
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posted on 24/9/2004 at 05:19 PM |
Yeah, it's one of those million dollar questions that no one ever seems to
be able to answer - is there ever such a thing as a purely selfless act.
Well, there seem to be at least mostly selfless acts, but never quite
perfectly selfless acts. But then, since when does anyone really do
anything perfectly. The whole bite about being human is that we're all
flawed, even the best of us.
Actually, I don't really think a truly selfless act would be a healthy
thing. After all, the self exists, and if you don't take care of it, who
will? Most extremely selfless people end up breaking down eventually from
sheer neglect, and then if they don't croak entirely, they end up being a
burden on someone or other to put them back together. It's our duty to
take care of ourselves, so someone else doen't have to do it for us. That
wouldn't help anybody. That's why rescuers are trained to not put
themselves in unnecessary danger. Otherwise, you end up with three people
going up a mountain to bring down one injured man, and end up with one
rescuer trying to get three injured people off the frickin' slope. Valor
without discretion does no one any good, and neither does fanatical
selflessness.
It's all about balance, balance, balance. And if you've ever watched
anyone try to balance on, say, a log floating in a pond, you'll know it
often entails a lot of back and forth. Trust me, as the mother of a two
year old, I know all about the challenges of trying to balance selfless
motherhood and taking proper care of myself. It ain't easy. ____________________
"You can tell by the scars on my arms and the cracks in my hips and
the
/>
dents in my car and the blisters on my lips that I'm not the carefullest
of
girls." - Dresden Dolls, "Girl Anachronism"
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