Would Jesus condemn or condone Yahweh for his crimes against

Well at least my affliction has a name lol

In order to commit a selfless act, you’d have to do something that didn’t ultimately benefit you and that is simply impossible. Everything you do is for your own benefit.

The closest anyone ever came to refuting that was the guy who testified that he ran to the aid of someone in an auto accident without even thinking first; it was totally reflexive. So I retorted that if it’s reflexive, then YOU didn’t do it, but rather it happened to you.

If you save someone from drowning, then it was because YOU couldn’t stand the fact that someone was drowning, so it was pure selfishness.
If you give to the needy, it’s because YOU couldn’t live with yourself if you did not, so it’s pure selfishness that you give.
And if a god cares for his people, then it’s because he couldn’t stand it if he did not, so it’s pure selfishness that he keeps people alive.

Unselfish acts are absolutely impossible.

I humbly accept!

You do realize that this is your description of (un)selfish acts and not actually a defense of your statement “any being can only love itself”. :-"

Well do you know of a possible unselfish act or do you have a unique definition for love? For instance, I love how you follow me about disagreeing with whatever I say without actually presenting a reason for disagreement :smiley:

I would say that it’s possible to love someone and to get a personal benefit out of that love. Love being a pleasant feeling for the lover, for instance. IOW, loving someone is not necessarily an unselfish act.

Therefore a discussion of unselfish acts is beside the point when defending the statement “any being can only love itself”.

So love is a function of dopamine? Well that argues for selfishness since any being would strive to maximize dopamine and it wouldn’t be genuine love at all.

From the bible perspective:

[i]Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

Mark 12:31 And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.[/i]

Well, those are two impossible goals because 1) we cannot control who we love and 2) we can only love ourselves.

Who is our neighbor? The parable of the good Samaritan:

29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?

The only way you can love your neighbor as yourself is if you happen to fancy the idea, and that is not anything you have power over. You cannot choose to feel bad for someone if you do not feel bad and you cannot choose to ignore the suffering of someone if the idea of it actually causes you pain. And whether you help the person is a function of how much pain it causes you.

When we get real with this fact and realize that none of us are righteous and every one of us are rascals, then we can lay down pretense and form mutually beneficial alliances and symbiotic relationships because, most often, what’s good for you is also good for me.

I have no special regard for the poor because I have no mechanism to have, but helping the poor helps me because a rising tide lifts all boats. I don’t support the minimum wage because I’m altruistic, but I support it because I’m a selfish prick. Robinhood didn’t steal from the rich to give to the poor because he gave a crap about the poor, but because he did what was best for him.

Ethics are what are good for me; not you, because keeping my word forms strong alliances which is good for me. I’m not striving to be righteous, but striving to make my life as good as possible. I don’t need a god barking orders to keep me in line; I need a brain to realize that being a decent person benefits me. That is probably why atheism and intelligence go hand in hand with an overall moral people while the opposite is true among the religious, most especially Islam, because it’s a more powerful incentive to act in a way that you can see with your mind, as clear as day, how acting moral is self-beneficial rather than blindly trusting in some law as a matter of faith.

Furthermore, I was listening to Hitchens last night who was going on about how morally relative the moral absolutes are and I was waiting for an opportunity to include it here:

Start at 1:10:00

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kZRAOXEFPI[/youtube]

if you can’t
71:57
condemn anyone without being yourself
72:00
without sin, then we can’t even arrest
72:03
Charles Manson unless we were sinless
72:06
ourselves, so these moral absolutes are
72:09
actually more full of more
72:10
moral relativism than you might think. And the
72:12
reason people want there to be
72:14
absolutes is this they want there to be
72:15
an absolute authority who can give them
72:18
to you because wouldn’t that save you
72:20
all the trouble of thinking out ethics
72:21
for yourself, which is where I started

Felix, apparently, according to Hitchens, one of the bits of genius I attributed to Jesus was knitted in late, so I wonder who it was.

the Nazarene says you can’t condemn
71:45
anyone unless you can cast the first
71:46
stone actually that bit was knitted into
71:48
the Bible quite late and is almost
71:50
certainly a fabrication but it’s
71:52
believed in by many Christians

Well at least my affliction has a name lol

In order to commit a selfless act, you’d have to do something that didn’t ultimately benefit you and that is simply impossible. Everything you do is for your own benefit.

The closest anyone ever came to refuting that was the guy who testified that he ran to the aid of someone in an auto accident without even thinking first; it was totally reflexive. So I retorted that if it’s reflexive, then YOU didn’t do it, but rather it happened to you.

If you save someone from drowning, then it was because YOU couldn’t stand the fact that someone was drowning, so it was pure selfishness.
If you give to the needy, it’s because YOU couldn’t live with yourself if you did not, so it’s pure selfishness that you give.
And if a god cares for his people, then it’s because he couldn’t stand it if he did not, so it’s pure selfishness that he keeps people alive.

Unselfish acts are absolutely impossible.

I humbly accept!
[/quote]
You brought up the word selfless.
I never used it and do not see true love as selfless as it must have reciprocity to be true love. Seems we are on the same page.

Regards
DL

I honestly have no idea what you are talking about.

Are you saying that “genuine love” has to be entirely selfless?

Why isn’t the lover ‘allowed’ to get anything out of it?

Why bring up the bible? I didn’t. And you’re an Alan Watts style Buddhist?

If you are going biblical, then a recurring theme is that of free will. Which suggest that one can choose to love.

This seems to be another tangent … this time about selfishness and the ability to choose.

I think the term selfish gets meaning when you lack care for others. Your interests do not include the interests of others. You do not care about other people.

Yes, an empathic person is also taking care of their own preferences and emotions. That’s who they are, the kind of person who is affected negatively by the pain of others in some contexts.

Of course people will even die to save others. Some animals will help animals of other species, including us.

I think it makes sense to distinguish this behavior and the attendant attitudes and feelings from people who do not give a shit about other people.

Selfish would describe those who do not give that shit.

You said “love being a pleasant feeling for the lover” which is saying love = feeling, which is saying love = dopamine.

Yes I actually thought that went without saying.

Because then it wouldn’t be love. If love is selflessness, then selfishness is not love.

Because: 1) I have a decent working knowledge of it. 2) it’s the context of the thread. 3) the bible has some authoritative value concerning the definition of love.

Alan was an Episcopalian Priest who described himself as “semi-Buddhist, semi-Hindu”, though I’m not sure why since he also said “Buddhism is Hinduism stripped for export” and he clearly favored the “dramatic model” over the “organic model”, so I have no idea in what way he considered himself Buddhist at all. For me, I don’t know where I fit except that I’ve fancied the panvitalist idea. I tend not to fit many categories. Alan used to say “This is reality [claps hands or bangs gong]… and we wont give it a name.” I’m not a big fan of labels either.

There are words for people like me,
But I don’t think there’s very many.

Name that tune?

You have free expression of your will, but not the freedom to determine what your will wants.

Well it’s ethics and bible, so it’s on topic.

I thought it was common knowledge that love is selfless, especially with regard to what god to worship.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

[i]4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.[/i]

I suppose so, but most Christians don’t see it that way.

A lot of your arguments are based on “Stuff that goes without saying”.

It’s not at all clear that love has to be selflessness. It’s just your idea that it is.

And even that is far from the original statement “any being can only love itself” which remains unjustified.

You do like your authorities.

It seems then that love is a condition when the interests of one person aligns with the interests of another in symbiosis and is therefore often a function of intelligence. Psychopathic lack of empathy is a deficiency of the brain. Jesus’ request of forgiveness for his crucifiers was an expression of the intelligence required to realize that the people didn’t understand what they were doing. Primates are more capable of love than earthworms. Love is the extent to which one realizes that consideration for others is consideration for oneself.

So what should I assume that you do not know? Everything?

My physics professor said the same to the class: what is it that I should realize that you do not know? I have to expect that you know something or we can’t communicate at all, which is becoming to be the case. You must at least have some prerequisite knowledge.

And it’s just your idea that it isn’t.

Nooo… it remains to be challenged. You’re free to offer a challenge at any time. Show me how a being could love something other than itself.

Well upon what are we to hinge our definitions, which are completely subjective and arbitrary, if we do not have an authority? Shall we burn all the dictionaries because they might be authoritative? What is your point?

Your making some claims about love but your assuming we have the same definition of love as you do. And frankly I don’t think it’s the only possible definition or even the majority definition.

Yes it is my idea.

You’re making a claim. I’m asking you for your reasoning.

Why should I show you anything when I’m not making a claim?

I’m pointing to some examples in order to draw out your reasoning.

It’s still a mystery.

Presumably people use the dictionary because they believe it to be correct.

You use the bible as an authority but you don’t believe it. Right?

Aren’t you basically saying that all love is selfish and also pointing to the bible which says that love is selfless? WTF

I don’t think it need be a function of intelligence. It’s not something one needs to work out. Empathy can come directly. There may need to be some minimum intelligence, but once that threshold is crossed I don’t think there is some neat graph. And animals even take risks cross species for other animals in trouble.

Or it was guilt disguised as love on Jesus’ part.

Why would I believe that there exists people who do not consider love to mean selflessness? Giving is an expression of love and that is surely considered selfless whereas greed is selfish, even though giving is ultimately selfish, but not apparently selfish (readily seen as selfish).

Ultimately, you cannot love someone else because you cannot care about someone else unless caring about someone else benefits you, but then it’s not caring about them, but caring about YOU.

Use whatever synonym you want:

You cannot love someone else.
You cannot care about someone else.
You cannot regard someone else.
You cannot worship someone else.

So, you (the one who ironically hasn’t differentiated between your/you’re properly - innocent mistake no doubt, but ironic that it would occur in the context of appealing to yourself as an authority) don’t think the majority definition of love is selflessness. So what merit should I derive from that? Should I say to myself “Phyllo doesn’t agree, therefore I’m wrong.”? You’re appealing to yourself as authority.

And I’ve supplied my reasoning in abundance.

Because you’re making the claim that my claim is wrong, yet you refuse to substantiate your claim.

Where?

If so, then it’s not my fault.

Well, if we don’t have agreeable definitions then we have nothing.

It depends on the issue. The bible is a great source of wisdom but also a great source of confusion. Alan says the bible should be ceremoniously and reverently burned every Easter and I agree. We shouldn’t callously or irreverently burn books, but we should ceremoniously burn that book lest it become a graven image and object of worship.

Yes. I’m saying the bible is right in defining love, but wrong in that love can exist. What we call love, is not love; it’s just selfish ass-hattery, but that fact isn’t readily apparent, so we flatter ourselves for possessing this divine attribute that’s no less simian than any other of our attributes. Once again, arrogance rears it’s head in the conversation because we’ve deified this love concept in adoration of ourselves.

I’m just pointing out that empathy comes from some part of the brain, so if it doesn’t exist, it’s like missing part of the brain, which is a good definition of lack of intelligence I think. I suppose you could argue that neuron count may not be as important as architecture, but once again, if someone is missing a part or the brain, then they’re probably missing that bit of architecture as well.

Then we have empirical correlations such as race, iq, and crime (ethics, morality, love or lack of) and countries with higher average iqs have less violent crime. Intelligence seems strongly correlated with ethics.

Helmuth Nyborg says the threshold is about 80-85 iq before democracy breaks down, so he’s worried about nuclear countries who are letting Muslims in because the ave IQ will become increasingly watered-down until democracy fails and we have a dictatorial country with nukes. I can link you to a video on it if you’re interested.

I don’t doubt it, but they’re probably not earthworms.

I never considered that. Why would it be guilt?

I see it like a child says to the parent “I hate you!” And the parent says “Oh you’re just mad and I don’t believe that.”

If the crucifiers had understood what they were doing, they wouldn’t have done it, so no sin had been committed.

Perhaps, but I do not trust people who idol worship a genocidal son murdering demiurge that they can somehow see as good.

If Christians are that far of the mark on good and evil, why would you trust them on any other issue?

Better to trust the Gnostic Christian as they do not agree much with the Christian worshipers of a satanic god.

Regards
DL

When I look around, I see lots of people who love other people. I see lots of people who care about other people. I see lots of people who have high regard for other people.

I don’t know it they love selflessly. I’m not in their heads. But it seems possible in some cases considering their behavior.

I don’t think that love needs to be selfless. I don’t think there is anything wrong with loving and getting something in return. That doesn’t negate love.

These are my observations of myself and others.

That’s all I’m going to say about it.
:romance-inlove:

Missing the mark a lot doesn’t mean they don’t hit it sometimes and even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

What’s a gnostic christian? Is that opposed to an agnostic christian where one values faith and the other values conceptual knowledge?

Gnostic = conceptual, cataphatic knowledge = what god is = painter applying paint to produce an image
Agnostic = nonconceptual, apophatic knowledge (ie faith) = what god isn’t = sculptor removing stone to reveal an image