Mod Note: Second warning to PhilosophyGirl.
Please be watchful what you write.
i) No ad hominem arguments
…It helps no-one to start throwing insults around the place.
ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/vi … p?t=139918
I don’t think that explains it thourougly enough. Why stop and help a random person change their tire?
Why jump in the water after a total stranger?
For the most part this statement is true, unless of course you are the mightiest on the playground, you can do whatever you want and no one will retaliate.
it depends on how much power and money you have.
right, when a company (I.E. Microsoft, Walmart) perform unethically, business wise, they are punished by the consumers right?
BUT, why? What evolutionary trait/advantage is their to feeling warm and fuzzy for helping your neighbor with their groceries?
You didn’t really answer the question though, why be good if there is no benefit of an afterlife? yeah it makes you feel good (which in itself cannot be explained purely by evolution), and it keeps you safe (if you are powerless) but … even then you could simply do nothing, it’s easier than helping is it not?
Other animals do not participate in such behavior. When a male gorilla comes across a baby that is not his own, he smashes it and devours it.
Wikipedia <3
* Dolphins support sick or injured animals, swimming under them for hours at a time and pushing them to the surface so they can breathe.
* Wolves and wild dogs bring meat back to members of the pack not present at the kill.
* Male baboons threaten predators and cover the rear as the troop retreats.
* Gibbons and chimpanzees with food will, in response to a gesture, share their food with others of the group.
* Bonobos have been observed aiding other injured or handicapped bonobos. [1].
* Vampire bats regularly regurgitate blood and donate it to other members of their group who have failed to feed that night, ensuring they do not starve.
* In numerous bird species, a breeding pair receives help in raising its young from other "helper" birds, who protect the nest from predators and help to feed the fledglings.
* Most mammal carnivores like wolves or dogs have a habit of not harming pack members below certain age, of opposite sex or in surrendering position (in case of some animals, the behavior exists within entire species rather than one pack).
* Vervet Monkeys give alarm calls to warn fellow monkeys of the presence of predators, even though in doing so they attract attention to themselves, increasing their personal chance of being attacked.
* Walruses have been seen adopting orphans who lost their parents to predators.
* Kamuniak, a lioness that adopted a series of oryx calves.
And maybe altruism for humans has more to do with empathy. It’s hard not to feel bad for a dog that was run over by a car or a horse shot in a war movie. Even if we try to prevent others pain for our own benefit of not feeling crappy, i’m all for it.
Remarks like this by theists (I assume you are theist by your thread prompt) are what influence some people to become atheists. Stop giving us a bad rep. Ironically, your initial thread prompt was about caring. LOL!
No actually it is easier and more benificial to help, then do nothing. If you help then a favor is owed to you. Being kind and helpful has benifits to extend your life and make your own life more comfortable and happy. If you are not then more then likely you will be stressed out, miserable and have to watch your back. It just makes more sense to help then not help. How much does that Gorilla have to fight and watch his back?
Besides All athiests do not believe the same things about death, nor do they believe the same things about gods and omnipotent beings. That is kind of like saying if you are christian you must also be catholic. Or if you are Islamic then you must also be a suicide bomber. Get It?
I would be called athiest i do not believe in good or bad afterlife rewards or punishments. I do believe that there are supieror sentient beings in this universe and it is possible one of them or a group of them seeded us here. But Gods? no/ Omnipotent beings Yes, at least to us, probably.
My view is if one of these creatures said we are to worship it and be rewarded for that following and worship, I can’t do it, Even with the threat of eternal pain, I wouldn’t do it. It makes no sense to me. I am not a pet nor am I inferior because I happen to have less intellect or powers. I am just not developed. I will not be bribed nor threatened by some creature that has ego issues. So if it does exist well it will have to come talk to me about its wants or desires and then maybe we can strike a bargain. If not it can eliminate me.
Until then I will help and continue giving to charities time and money because it is ethically and selfishlly the right thing to do and it feels darn good to get a smile from a stranger.
This is one of my biggest concerns for Christianity today, actually. People who can’t live up to what they claim to be.
One does not have to claim a belief in God to serve Him well. However, there’s a difference in motivation.
Reasons why people are nice to other people:
- They think it’s the “right” thing to do.
- They want to do it for God’s glory, to lift up his name bring others to know him.
- They do it to feel like they’re going to get into Heaven.
- They do it to bargain with God to get themselves into Heaven.
- Various other personal reasons
Only one of these is practiced by Christians. Two more are practiced by people who call themselves Christian, and all but the second one are practiced even by those who do not claim belief in God.
To clarify what I started out saying, God is not always served only by Christians. We should all consider ourselves extremely blessed that the 99% of the world that doesn’t quite get it (including many so-called Christians) can still be nice to people.
Collectivism is where it’s at!
I never heard of a person who does not believe in God, and kind to people. I suppose they are faking it for a purpose. A beautiful woman, and evil man, fake your kindness and you have an advantage.
I’m not kind to everyone, and I’ll wager that you aren’t nor are all Christians.
Hey PG,
Grudger strategy, prisoner’s dilema, a tit for two tats. Look 'em up. Any successful social group has some (dare I say… inbuilt) tendency toward in-species altruism. Wether they believe in God or not. The ideology of religion only lends impetus to something that is already there in all of us, or most of us anyway, you know, the nice guys, with the white hats and the ‘kick-me’ signs taped to their backs… 
If there is a universal human trait, and that is doubtful, it is the capacity of empathizing with other life forms - not just humans empathizing with humans. We can un-learn empathy from cultural circumstances and obviously much of the violence and neglect we see in the world comes from this cultural un-learning, but whether Dawkins explains it or any holy texts tell us, there is a part of us that is called empathy. It is heart/mind, affective/cognitive, or any other label you choose.
You see Tents - Dawkins would stop and help you change that tyre. But God… Well, he helps those who help themselves.
An ability to empathize is inbuilt too. Why’s everyone so afraid of thinking of themselves as only a very complex machine…? It’s something to do with the ‘only’ in that sentence, isn’t it…?
But Tab,
ANYONE can lock up the conclusions in the definition. Dawkins simply refuses to allow any definition that doesn’t fit his theory. Almost religious, huh?
Sorry to keep coming back to the evolution thing, since it undercuts all of the deep philosophical thoughts, but I don’t think ants believe in God, yet they’re pretty obviously altruistic. Also, I don’t think the Bible has always been around, yet languages formed and societies developed; I don’t think these things would’ve happened without some inborn tendency to communicate and organize–and play nice.
…That’s a little silly, don’t you think? How many atheists do you know in real life? How many have you heard of?
The answer is absurdly simple, or was before religion hijacked the concept and claimed it as its own. Compassion is merely a recognition of ourself in another, and kindness is a by-product of that compassion.
We all intersect somewhat in our joys but find commonality in our sorrows. That’s the soul of empathy, thus the soul of kindness.
This is an outstanding example of people on both sides of a question buying in to the premise of the question, without ever questioning the premise. I suppose this is acceptable on a religion board.
Everyone here wants to tell us that they are compassionate, or empathetic, and that they represent the very species.
Moo.
Nice work PG - you’ve snookered them all.
They aren’t really. Not unless you count doing yourself a favour as altruism. An ant colony is really a single (genetic) unit dispersed throughout physically, but not reproductively, separate individuals. A skin cell does not regret its death when you scratch yourself, and neither does an ant. Only the queen - with whom they all share a half-quota of genes - can reproduce those genes. She is the bottleneck through which the entire colony squeezes itself into the future. An unaltruistic ant, is a cancer cell.
Think about which you would rather lose… Your balls…? Or your right arm…?
To you as an individual, your right arm is incredibly more useful, and will make your life a hell of a lot more easy than your little baggy friends. And yet the idea is anathema. Why…? Because it has to be. It has always had to be. It’s the same with the ants.
Hey Phaedrus.
Whoo ballfans - suddenly Phaedrus comes in out of left-field and knocks one right out of the ball-park…!
Yay!!! The crowd goes wild.
But - let’s just take a look at that again folks… In slo-mo.
Hmm. Something a bit repulsive about this one. Take your fork elsewhere.
Better, more appetizing, but a little bit fuzzy, a little slippery. Keeps squirming out of your grasp. Careful Spoon-fare, definately not chopsticks.
Instantly rings, crisply and clearly, true. Scrumptious.
So - these three explainations, these three ideas, roughly cover the same thing. All contain the word ‘empathy’ - an invisible (subj) abstract concept - and attempt to connect it to kindness - An objective, witnessed event/behaviour. And all, when looked at in a harsh light, are simple conjecture, more or less.
So why does Phaedrus’s idea instantly strike a cord, ring true…? Certainly sounds true. Let’s put it another way:
[size=75]“Phil - Run the slo-cam”[/size]
"Compasson is X - and from X, Y.
Group H shares a greater amount of quality 
than quality 
.
Commonality of is the essence of Y → is essence of K."
Hmm. That didn’t sound so good did it. A bit jumpy, a bit tenuous in places - The batsman in close-up with his shirt untucked and spinach between his teeth. Eugh. The ball zings by the bat and… Strike…!
You may already know this, but if someone has a nasty industrial accident and gets a six inch nail in the skull that cuts the area processing sensory stimulus away from its connection to the areas of the brain that deal with associative emotional response… That person begins to believe resolutely that they are dead. Even if logically they are shown they are, must be alive - it makes no difference. They still instinctively rationalize that they are dead. Their ‘self’ dies without a connection between external reality and internal emotive layering.
ie: (Lack of) emotion wins out over logic.
Why does Phaedrus’s explaination win…?
The answer is absurdly simple
!Bing! - ‘The’ - only one answer folks - and this is it.
!Bing! - understanding simple is good. Not understanding simple is bad. We must understand this - our self-esteem is at stake.
Compassion is merely a recognition of ourself in another
!Bing! - ‘merely’ - simplicity again - something so unimportant, so apparant, it’s hardy worth mentioning cos… You already know it - of course you do… Right…? Right.
and kindness is a by-product of that compassion.
It flows. It’s definite. It is. No hows, but who cares, it flows.
We all intersect somewhat in our joys but find commonality in our sorrows.
We know this is true - we’ve all felt it. Something to hold onto in the murk. Reassuring. We get it. And if that’s true - then so must be the rest… No…?
That’s the soul of empathy, thus the soul of kindness.
And a great finishing flourish. Pleasing repetition of soul. =D> Deserving of a Mexican wave.
Now look - snidey deconstruction aside - I’m not saying that Phaedrus’s explaination is untrue in its context. I like it, as I said, as I read it I instantly denoted it ‘true’. Emotively I denoted it true. True or not - it is convincing.
I’m just saying that the objective ‘truth’ of a statement dealing with abstracts, is immaterial. Whatever you believe to be its source, kindness happens anyway, you do it anyway. It’s like cars. You may believe that brakes stop cars, and that gas makes them go. Or you may believe that red-lights stop cars, and that green lights make them go. As long as you ain’t driving, or standing in the middle of the road - it doesn’t matter, the cars stop, the cars go, what you believe has no impact on you.
Let’s run it backwards:
kindness<–empathy<–shared sorrow<–recognition of oneself<–Compassion.
Kindness is concrete. I’ve been kind. I’ve been taught to associate kindness with goodness and goodness with presents and pats on the head. And if presents are good then things associated with presents are good too, unwrapping them, days on which they are given, birthdays, growing up, giving them in turn - dah-de-dah-de-dah. A nice warm glow in my limbic system.
Empathy - well, less of a glow, few concrete things to associate it with because it’s a bit too abstract to get a grip on - its an ‘all things to all men’, at once full of meaning and empty of it. But wait…
Sorrow - yay!!! - limbic system ablaze - we know sorrow intimately. It’s not nice. But doulble-Yay!!! if it results in empathy (which we’ve kinda learnt is a good thing apparantly, even if we don’t feel it so much) then… Sorrow can’t be all bad now can it. =D> Hurrah.
Recognition of oneself - Hey! he’s talking about me!!! I recognize myself… Fireworks go off.
And Compassion. Another one we’ve learned from women’s magazines is something that if we say we have it we get laid more often and that must be a good thing right…?
It reinforces itself in steps, and even - with sorrow - pulls a rose out of a thorn.
ie: Emotively - it’s allll good.
And therefore true.
Much of Philosophy discounts emotion in favour of logic. Which is why no-one believes philosophers. Not really.
jon.
[size=75]Ps: Faust - ever prickly. You wrote while I was posting. Un-Moo me please. [/size]
faust,
OK. You’ve taken your shot, now how about your explanation? We’ve all thrown labels at whatever this emotional response is. Call it empathy, kindness, whatever… The fact remains that it is there. Sooooo, explain it in your terms. We eagerly await your response.
Mr. Daw… err, I mean Tab,
So let me get this straight. You aren’t suggesting that there isn’t any way to find “truth” in abstractions are you? That would be dangerous thinking. It would come very close to a denial of metaphysical knowing, which would be a denial of most of religious thought and a goodly portion of philosophy as well. That it would place limits on the individual’s capacity to know anything beyond objectivity is exceedingly dangerous. People have been crucified for less. 'Splain this to a poor deluded old man, please? [-o<
tentative - everyone is talking as if they didn’t have parents. Our parents teach us compassion for entirely practical reasons. I have known meek two-year-olds, but no compassionate ones. It may have become institutionalised, okay. But to treat it as, for instance, some result of natural selection is just an atheist’s defensive reflex.
It’s also a reification (my new theme). People possess differing amounts of compassion, and some seem to possess very little. Those whose parents have locked them in a closet or otherwise abused them seem to lack it entirely.
This thread is “virtue” philosophy. We possess a virtue by virtue of a virtue - and the argument here is about the source of the virtue.
Why do atheists kneel if they do not pray?
How can I rationally utter “goddamnit”?
Why be nice - God or Darwin?
These are “spoof” questions. So is PG’s. It’s a sucker punch.