nonsense
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Why not be selfish?
- Thread starter Erebus
- Start date
nonsense
Trey of Diamonds
Well-Known Member
Gjallarhorn
N'yog-Sothep
You cannot choose to do something without it being a selfish cause. Therefore, unless those monks were selfless or mindlessly living, they were being selfish in their self-immolation.:faint:
"A number of Buddhist monks (including the most famous case of Thích Quảng Đức) immolated themselves in protest of the discriminatory treatment endured by Buddhists under the Roman Catholic administration of President Ngô Đình Diệm in South Vietnam" - Wikipedia, Self-Immolation.
Many self-immolations are for noble causes. To give up ones life so that others may benefit from their sacrifice is noble, if extreme. Your basically saying that those monks who give up their lives for others and for goodness do so for selfish reasons......... that leaves a repulsive taste in my mouth. Such defamation is beyond disgraceful......AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not twisting anything. I am merely stating a fact: all willed actions are selfish. What you call "doing good" is selfish.You seem to have a habit of twisting goodness into some corrupted form of selfishness. The only person you are fooling is yourself.
It is you who seems to be twisting selfishness into something immoral or evil.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
Look up the definition, it implies that you should love others MORE than yourself.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
How isn't denying yourself a negative thing?
not what I'm calling nonsense on. I'm calling nonsense on the idea that altruism is denying yourself and that being a negative thing.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
Definition:
Disinterested and selfless concern, that means denying yourself.
You see altruistic religions denying the self as well, Buddhists saying that there is no "I", Hindus saying similar, etc
Doesn't mention sacrificial giving so it doesn't imply denial of self. In my view denial of self is sacrificial. Also I'd say that altruism is selfish as people give altruistically to get a different type of pleasure.
I'd go more with what someone else mentioned about not expecting anything in return. I also want to note that if you treated somebody as yourself you'd be willing to give them your car, your house, food and what not, you don't think that is altruistic? I also mentioned loving your enemy, how can you love your enemy and expect anything good to come of it, loving your enemy is close to actually doing harm to yourself.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
As I pointed out it does mention denial of the self, which is sacrificial without using the word sacrificial.
You do not do things for yourself if it is altruistic, thus it cannot be selfish.
There's a fine line between helping and altruism
How do you define denial of the self? I think we should make this clear before continuing
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
Because the action you are taking is an action that is done for other people in a selfless manner, it doesn't matter what happens to you because you done it for another, which is completely selfless and thus denies the self.
Such as, jumping infront of a train to save someone.
It's completely evil and destructive.
so any selfless act denies the self? Also your definition of denial of the self does not imply sacrifice, at least not in a bad way. In fact acting selfishly can also be sacrificial. It's sacrificing the pleasure of helping someone for the pleasure of helping yourself.
Any less extreme examples?
I disagree. Destructive to the self yes, but definitely not destructive and evil to the whole.
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How selfishly evil.
Gjallarhorn
N'yog-Sothep
Your example is selfish unless they did it by accident.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
It's kinda hard to give examples when altruism is necessarily not possible, this was the closest I can think of.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
That's the meaning of the word "self" "less", the lack of self, denying the self.
Does not matter, denial of the self is always evil.
But if you get pleasure from it at all, it is not altruism, hence the word "selfless" in the definition.
And we are not a whole and should never be a whole, we disagree on everything as a whole, therefore there can only be individualism.
What happens to my friends does not matter to me for morality is based only pleasure and pain. Pleasure is good and pain is bad. We all have different pleasures and pains, therefore what is pleasureful to you is good to you, and just because a friend experiences pain (bad) does not mean you do, thus it is not bad when your friend experiences pain, it's only bad to him.
That is why there's only individuality.
The Sum of Awe
Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
It is evil because you experience pain, and pain is the only source of 'bad' in moral sense. There is no such thing as pain as a whole.
According to you.
you dodged my point. Selfish actions are just as sacrificial. You either sacrifice a or b.
We're a social species whether you like it or not.
I feel pain when a friend is hurt or when a friend is taken from me. People close to you influence your feelings more than I think you realise. At least that's what I take from the last paragraph
a genius who works by himself can be surpassed by people who work together and share knowledge. Being an individual is good but learning team work is far more important.