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Goodbye Jesus

Christian Narcissism -- Atheistic Selfishness


Llwellyn

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What place does serving yourself have in morality?  In Christian morality, there is a perfect overlap between serving yourself and serving Yahweh.  The best way to please yourself is by obeying Yahweh's law.  By doing so, Yahweh will determine not to curse you, but rather to bless you.  You will escape infinite grief, and you will benefit from infinite joy.  Yahweh and his retribution is an important factual data point that is considered when the Christian decides how best to maximize his pleasure.  "There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day."  John 12:48.  By suiting yourself, you will suit Yahweh too.

 

In Platonic morality, too, there is a perfect overlap between pleasing yourself and meeting the requirements of the Absolute Good.  As Socrates says:  "The men and women who are gentle and good are also happy, as I maintain, and the unjust and evil are miserable. . . . The unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case,-more miserable, however, if he be not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men."  By conforming your mind and behavior to the Form of the Good, by submitting your flesh to Divine Wrath, the Platonist will maximize his pleasure.  By suiting yourself, you will suit the Absolute Good too.

 

In Humanist morality, we admit the reality of the self-sufficient moral consciousness.  You must judge goodness by exercising your own reason.  If a rule does not make logical sense, then it should have no force of appeal.  We must be the ultimate judge of the nature of goodness and we do not care what Yahweh says about it.  Nor do we care about any abstract and antecedent moral "nature of things."  The only force of appeal to us, which either a living God or an abstract ideal order can wield, is found in the "everlasting ruby vaults" of our own human hearts, as they happen to beat responsive and not irresponsive to the claim.  Thus, morality begins with "Number One."  

 

But it does not necessarily end there.  Our reason tells us that satisfying felt desires is concretely right, right after the fact, and by virtue of the fact, that desires are actually felt by a living being.  Reason also tells us that our life is just one of many lives.  Thus there is not necessarily a perfect overlap between pleasing yourself and doing what is right.  Humanistic morality may require you to set aside your interests for the sake of the interests of others.  That act must be the best act, accordingly, which makes for the best whole, in the sense of awakening the least sum of dissatisfactions.  By suiting yourself, you may violate the moral law that requires you to satisfy as many demands as we can.

 

In the words of Josiah Royce:  "Pain is pain, joy is joy, everywhere, even as in thee. In all the songs of the forest birds; in all the cries of the wounded and dying, struggling in the captor's power; in the boundless sea where the myriads of water-creatures strive and die; amid all the countless hordes of savage men; in all sickness and sorrow; in all exultation and hope, everywhere, from the lowest to the noblest, the same conscious, burning, wilful life is found, endlessly manifold as the forms of the living creatures, unquenchable as the fires of the sun, real as these impulses that even now throb in thine own little selfish heart. Lift up thy eyes, behold that life, and then turn away, and forget it as thou canst; but, if thou hast known that, thou hast begun to know thy duty."

 

As we see, Christians, Platonists and Humanists agree that we would best look out for the interest of Number One.  That is where we begin. That is also where most of us end.  And if we are simply meeting our own needs, without harming others or serving others, that's probably okay.  It's better than a lot of alternatives.  What do you think?  What place does serving yourself have in morality?

 


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One of my innate wants is to be part of a group. Since a piece of my identity is bound to others, serving them is, in some sense, serving myself.

 

Any time I ignore my own needs for too long, I get bitchy and paranoid. This causes me to act like as ass towards other people, and doesn't do them or me any good. If I care about other people, I am obligated to take care of myself at least well enough to minimize the frustrations that I'd be tempted to take out on them.

 

My ethics start from the assumption of balancing your own desires against those of other people. A friend of mine's ethics start with individualism, where getting your own desires is only limited when you interfere with someone else's freedom. Somehow, we come to similar conclusions about how to treat other people.

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"The unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case,-more miserable, however, if he be not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men."

 

Yeah, see -- this makes no sense. A bad person feels miserable if he doesn't get punished? Seriously? Can someone explain this to me, please?

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Yeah, see -- this makes no sense. A bad person feels miserable if he doesn't get punished? Seriously? Can someone explain this to me, please?

 

That's exactly what Plato remembered Polus saying to Socrates when Socrates asserted that hypothesis in the Gorgias.  Polus said "You are maintaining a strange doctrine, Socrates," and Socrates responded, "I shall try to make you agree with me, O my friend, for as a friend I regard you."  I'm not sure if you will be persuaded by Socrates -- I am not -- but his argument is related to Socrates' belief that justice is a nonhuman thing which is independent of what anyone says or thinks about it.  

 

Socrates says if a person is justly punished his soul is improved.  He who is punished is delivered from the evil of his soul.  He is then delivered from the greatest evil.  If a person does wrong, "he ought of his own accord to go where he will be immediately punished; he will run to the judge, as he would to the physician, in order that the disease of injustice may not be rendered chronic and become the incurable cancer of the soul."

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"The unjust or doer of unjust actions is miserable in any case,-more miserable, however, if he be not punished and does not meet with retribution, and less miserable if he be punished and meets with retribution at the hands of gods and men."

 

Yeah, see -- this makes no sense. A bad person feels miserable if he doesn't get punished? Seriously? Can someone explain this to me, please?

 

To add to what Llwellyn said, I think this has something to do with the idea of a conscience (what Socrates would have called his daimon). If people are basically good, then when we have done wrong we will suffer the conviction of our conscience. This can only be relieved by confession and retribution, even if that involves punishment. I'm not sure this is a correct view of morality, but Socrates, as the song goes, was permanently pissed.

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As we see, Christians, Platonists and Humanists agree that we would best look out for the interest of Number One.  That is where we begin. That is also where most of us end.  And if we are simply meeting our own needs, without harming others or serving others, that's probably okay.  It's better than a lot of alternatives.  What do you think?  What place does serving yourself have in morality?

 

 

I try to take a pseudo-democratic view of morality. My perspective is most valuable to me, as is my well being. But I am no more special than anyone else. By working together, I think that society as a whole can establish (and, indeed, does establish) valid ethical frameworks. This leaves room for individual dissent, to be sure; if I like, I may contend that a particular action ought to be considered right or wrong despite the fact that society condemns it. But it does have the advantage of meaning that nothing may be called right or wrong simply because I say so.

 

This represents a fundamental break with the Christian worldview. The Christian view of morality is based on what God's will is. But when asked how one can know the will of God, Christians are never able to give satisfactory answers. What this means is that each individual Christian is, ultimately, responsible for deciding what is and what is not the will of God. This leaves us with individual Christians (or Christian leaders, depending on the denomination) determining right and wrong, and feeling as if their opinions are absolute because God wills it so. I think that a secular view of morality which recognizes that each individual opinion is just that is far superior to this.

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Any time I ignore my own needs for too long, I get bitchy and paranoid. 

 

It seems like under normal circumstances, we should be content to please ourselves, even while we share companionship with other people who are content to please themselves.  When we do interact, we scratch hard-to-reach places on each others' backs.  Yes, we continue scratching the other's back even when one of us grows too old to reciprocate.  But undisturbed harmony is probably better than a storm of obligations, claims, and expectations; obediences, refusals, and disappointments.  It is easy for Christians to call this "selfish," -- but these are the people who call us "sinners" simply because we are human.  Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
 
I don't think that enough moral credit is given toward people who are harmlessly interested and happy in their own ways.  It seems to me that by far the greatest number of human needs are met by the very human who has the needs.  For example, when my nose itches, I scratch it.  No one can scratch my nose in as satisfying a manner.  Nearby my house there is an older man with a wild beard who jogs through parts of the city juggling balls.  I see him almost every day, in different parts of the city, and at different times, jogging and juggling.  So far as he feels anything to be good, he makes it good. It is good, for him.  Most of the moral life involves simply creating your own ideals and meeting those ideals without benefitting or harming anyone else.  If a person contendedly lived their life while never harming or helping anyone else, I would be willing to call that a "moral life."  
 
I think that the word "selfish" should not be used to describe such a life.  It should be reserved for people who please themselves in ways that hurt others.  For a lot of us, there may rarely come an opportunity to meet the needs of other people even while you butcher your own interests.  I think that it is a relatively uncommon factual scenario where you have to give up your life in order to give life to others.  In The Wrath of Khan (1982), Spock says, “Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”  I agree, but the less common an exchange like this is required, the better.  In times of peace an prosperity, there may rarely be opportunities to serve others in ways that involve your own sacrifice.  Normally there will be little to no outward obligation.  Perhaps that's for the best.  
 
Much more common is for sacrifice to be called forth by someone else's selfishness.  For example, the Christian pastor who tries to convince others that divine hatred is real, and who tries to convince others to tithe to the church...  Knowing what we know now about Christianity being a malignant meme, this behavior should be recognized as selfish.  It asks other people to "give until it hurts."  These kinds of acts of sacrifice should never be made.
 
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