THOUGHTS ON GOD AND RELIGION AND SELF-DISINTERESTED LOVE

Altruism is loving others with no interest in yourself.  Egoism is serving others to get the reward of good feelings.  Egotism is setting out to hurt others. 

#Is religion altruistic or capable of it?

It is easy for religion to condone the calamities God sends when it doesn’t have much bother with him. The answer is no. It goes out of its way to be about itself and goes beyond nature so it is egotism we have here.

#Is it the case that if we are so selflessly good then we would be strict but we are too worried about what other people think and not what is good for them?

Yes.

#Should those who demand sacrifice make plenty themselves first?

Yes. We are glad when somebody is tragically killed because it was them and not us. These things are at the back of our minds all the time though they are only shown when the conditions are conducive. They are still present and behind all our supposedly virtuous actions because they are present subconsciously. Any good we do it is only done because it suits us.

#If we are so altruistic then why are we so changeable? Why are we such a peculiar mixture?

Good question. A wife can hate her husband more than anybody else in the world and then stand up for him when somebody says something slighting about him though it is really nothing. She believes he deserves to be talked about so why does she stand up for him? One thing is for sure it is not for logic or because of reason so it must be for emotional gratification. If she were really altruistic she would be using her reason as she understands it and be behaving in a consistent way. Altruism hates reason but at the same time it would need it to exist.

#If we are so altruistic then why do we love people who are good to us no matter what harm they have done to other people or can that be reconciled with altruism?

No. We are in effect saying, “I am glad it was them they hurt and not me. If it had been me I would not be their friend. I know that they would hurt me if I became the persons they have hurt. This relationship is false but I still love it.” This love of enemies as long as they belong to other people has no resemblance to altruism.

#If we are capable of being altruistic would likes and dislikes influence us so much?

No. These likes and dislikes are arbitrary by natural law. For example, some Christians like people to be celibate and others do not and it is just the way they are. We are not altruistic as shown when it is the end of the world for one when a love affair ends. One should be just grateful to be alive so long and to be living where one is instead of being dead or entrapped in a hell-hole in the Third World?

#If we are so altruistic or able to be then why do we smuggle a prejudiced guess into nearly every judgment as if we know it all?

If Jake hits Billy we will side with Billy even if Billy was always a worse person. We certainly cannot use reason to defend this but only prejudice if we believe in free will.

#Even if we are unselfish will selfishness emerge?

Selfishness is going to emerge and altruism is egotistical hypocrisy. The Humanist refuses to succumb to religious and altruistic propaganda and pretend that this problem of altruistic hypocrisy doesn’t exist for it has to be admitted and dealt with. Dealing with it ensures that self-interest emerges not as egotism but as egoism and is properly balanced. The altruists and religionists have only their own agenda at heart as long as they turn their blind eyes to it and they can only succeed in increasing vice.

#What is the proof from the limits of knowledge that altruism is a hoax?

You cannot be sure when you are helping a child that you are not helping a future mass murderer. Everybody seems prone to the everything happens for a reason or a reason can be made idea which amounts to saying that if you maul a child to death you can say maybe he would have grown up to be a murderous dictator.

#What does it mean then if I am also a believer in God?

God goes with the notion that everything happens for a reason so I kill a child in a road accident I can tell myself that God let it happen for the child would grow up to become a monster or something as bad.

#But do we know anybody that says that?

It is what they mean by their ideas even if they do not say it outright. The craftiness is just egotism.

#What is the proof from human motivation and our inability to control all the consequences of our actions that altruism is a hoax?

We can only hope or believe that the good we do actually does good. We could help a beggar man with money and he could use it to buy pain-killers to kill himself with. It is about what we think not the other.

#But we did this because we intended to be good and that is what counts surely?

But that is really an attitude of, "As long as I have a good motive I don't care if it works or not. My motive is really about me and not the other person." Another thing it says is, "It is the rule to have good motives. I can have a good motive just for the sake of the rule. I do it for the rule."

#Can you say human nature is egoistic though it is not ingrained?

Yes. I can be made to be for myself or I can be INDIRECTLY made to need to be and have to be egoistic.

#So we are saying DNA makes you egotistic but even if it didn't there are other ways for it to become ingrained?

Yes. Egoism even if not ingrained in our makeup is what we have whether we like it or not or what we live by whether we realise it or not. So in that sense it is part of human nature. I do not have to eat but I do and my nature is that I am an eating creature. This is an example of ingrained being indirect.

#What if we cannot prove it is our nature?

We can. It is proven. And we have shown that you may as well count everybody as an egoist anyway.

#What is the proof from the arbitrary nature of society’s morals that altruism is a hoax?

Altruism is really egotism in disguise – it is vicious and unnatural and deceitful. For example, nobody really knows what a fitting punishment is for any criminal. Nobody agrees on it.

 
#Give an example of goodness pretending to be unselfish?

At funerals, you have to listen to the minister extolling the sacrifices made by the dead person. You know the minister is glad he never had to make them and he is approving of the pain that the dead person underwent while he wouldn’t take as much.

#Does empathy show we are not really as good as we pretend to be?

We know that it is bad for hurtful things to happen to other people but we never feel sorry for them unless we remember what it was like for us to have had similar experiences. It is not the person’s pain that causes my pain but my memory of my pain. In the short-term, I cannot help what I feel for the past causes it. When I feel sorry for another person I am merely only indirectly feeling sorry for myself. This being true, one wonders how religion can have the nerve to say that suffering has a good purpose.

#If I feel depressed all the time as an adult because my mother beat me up as a child and I go to therapy and end up happier have I helped my feelings?

It only looks as if I did. I could have been the kind of person therapy could do nothing for. It was the way nature turned me out that cured me not the therapy. The way I was made needed that catalyst. I do not create or make the goodness in me so I can never be called selfless.

#Can you refute the examples that show that we do not just go after benefits for ourselves in all that we do?

Yes.

#Isn’t knowledge something we go after though it will not bring us a lot of pleasure showing that we are not all about ourselves?

But without knowledge you cannot be happy for the brighter you are the better you can think of a way to be happy and to cope.

#Surely if you were just out for yourself you would not care if others think well of you or not after you die?

It gives you pleasure now to want people to miss you after you have gone. If you don’t want them to then you don’t think much of yourself now.

#When you are not your child and you want that child to have a good successful life how can anybody say you are self-focused?

You made them and worked for them and want the thrill of being considered a good parent and because nature forces you to have feelings for their welfare. You see children as extensions of your body and your personality so you love yourself in them.

#Persons can choose to die horribly to save strangers so how can you question their altruism and sacrifice?

Suggested Answer: They do not want to die but to live. But they feel their life will be worthless with the burden of guilt if they do not die for them. They feel forced by this fear to give up their life.

Suggested Answer: They see the full horror of life and what can happen and seeing that ugliness makes them want to react to the terrible evil by trying to escape it by going into non-existence. The vision of evil when it is happening has maximal power and force. The evil seems less bad when the moment is over. The evil forces them to try to escape.

Suggested Answer: We do nothing unless we feel like it and the persons are taken over by raw emotion. It is the emotion that makes them crazy so they risk their lives. It is not the goodness in them that wishes to save a life. If they didn't have the emotion that strongly they wouldn't bother. They cannot think so it is not a real risk – real risks go with informed calm consent.

Suggested Answer: Does anybody see death as real? People who commit suicide often have forgotten that it is annihilation and seem to picture death as getting rid of current problems and enjoying that freedom!

Suggested Answer: The questions about what being loving and good and selfless make us feel unprotected. We know that we cannot get the safety we crave from altruism or morality or egoism or anything. Death to some is an escape route though they not be aware. You always know more than you realise.

#Are you not mad for saying that nearly everybody is wrong for saying altruism is possible and not only that but an important reality?

Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Buddhism all command people to check why they do the things they do. The thoughts and feelings associated with the act have to be identified and their role in the act has to be discerned. The devotees must start to admit the truth that altruism is deception. They know already.

#What is the link between egoism and Maslow's self-actualisation the term he coined?

He defined it as “the desire to become more and more of what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.” He saw love etc as a means for getting this. He is saying what we are saying. Good deeds and love are about me even if I don't realise it.

Spiritual concerns are not to be included.  Maslow would affirm that needing shelter when the volcano erupts matters to you than anything spiritual.  Faith cannot stop the ash from burning you alive.  It cannot shelter you.  It cannot bring you to a shelter.  Luck does that.  Jesus himself tacitly agreed.  What did he do?  He offered and promised an earth style afterlife where you get new brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers.  And there are mansions there.  Christianity then despite selling itself as spiritual is not.  It is deferred materialistic consumerism.  It does not change the materialistic heart.

Conclusion

No argument for human beings being capable of being unselfish works. It is hardly selfless to say you can be selfless when you cannot really show it! So you cannot be human without being for yourself. "Ask not what others can do for you but what you can do for them." That sounds good but it is a cynical trick. Human nature is not like that.

And moreover human nature responds to what is around it so egoism is directly programmed into human nature and indirectly as well. It is not a matter of just being egoist - it is reinforced. Human personhood is inveterate in being about itself in its construction and also inveterate in simply having to be about itself because of the world around. There is direct programming and there is another direct programming that lets reality program you. Direct and indirect force does not necessarily imply strong and weaker force. Indirect can be the strongest programmer. Egoism is natural but can at times get corrupted into egotism.