Subject:
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Re: Will Libertopia cause the needy to get less?
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 29 Nov 2000 22:55:59 GMT
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Viewed:
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786 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, John Neal writes:
> I don't understand how "altruism in animals" is different than an instinct of
> cooperation, compromise, etc. I guess I'm saying that I think only sentient
> beings who have free will (or the illusion of it-- different debate, but I
> digress) are *able* to be altruistic.
I likewise don't understand how "altruism" in sentient beings is different
from an instinct of cooperation, compromise, etc., nor why in sentient
beings we must ascribe such altruism to a higher power.
> God acts in the world through His people. If I as a Christian give to a
> charity, then that charity has been blessed by God (through me).
If you as a Christian, in a fit of pique, cut someone off in traffic, is
that discourtesy likewise God's doing? Or does God only get props for good
deeds? (that's rhetorical; I know the answer.)
> I do good things because I am actively called to do good things, not because
> of some altruistic impulse (although I am not sure of the origin of such
> impulses in atheists-- perhaps they are from God?)
This comes back to the notion of a non-Christian's pursuing ideals which
parallel Christian ideals--are they still "good?"
> > I flatly reject the notion that we are doomed to doom ourselves.
>
> Me, too. I was speaking hypothetically as if there weren't a God.
And I was speaking literally as if there weren't a God. With or without
Him, there is no evidence that we are self-dooming.
> Luckily, there is:-)
Next time you and I are out together you'll have to point Him out to me.
> I am not a doomsday predictor by any means. All I am asserting is that that
> would be the fate of a Godless society. Certainly cultures and societies in
> history have self-destructed because of moral decay.
This, too, is 20/20 hindsight and smacks of revisionism. Did Rome, for
instance, fall because of moral decay or because of longterm lead poisoning?
Did the Incas fall because of moral decay or because Pizarro had gunpowder
and European diseases? One could say (and I suspect that one has said and
will say again) that God acted through Pizarro or through the tainted lead,
a la Mysterious Ways, but that's pretty thin.
> And then take a look at the Jews.
First of all, to refer to "the Jews" as a single unit is overly simplistic
and utterly (deliberately?) fails to recognize the vast and disparate
ideologies, cultures, histories, and experiences of the sub-groups, in much
the same way that one might incorrectly refer to "American Indians" or
"Africans" as a single people.
> They have survived as a people (through invasions, transplantations,
> exterminations) for thousands of years because they have centered their
> existence upon God. How else to explain it?
Secondly, one could also argue that they (sic) have really gotten the
short end of the stick for millennia; is that also "because they have
centered their existence upon God?" May we consider generations of
persecution to be the rewards of God-centric living? Obviously that's not
what you're suggesting, but everything in this argument depends on how you
spin it.
Elie Wiesel in "Night" recalled an episode during The Holocaust when,
while lying in a sickbed of some kind (the details escape me, but not the
bottom line), a dying man in the next bed proclaimed that he believed more
in Hitler than in God, because (and this part I *do* recall clearly) "Hitler
kept his promises to the Jews."
Dave!
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Will Libertopia cause the needy to get less?
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| (...) Well, wouldn't instincts of altruism *always* be obeyed? Certainly altruism in sentient beings is random at best. (...) lol This reminds me of a story a friend told me. His dad was driving and came up to a stop light behind a car that had a (...) (24 years ago, 30-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Will Libertopia cause the needy to get less?
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| (...) I don't understand how "altruism in animals" is different than an instinct of cooperation, compromise, etc. I guess I'm saying that I think only sentient beings who have free will (or the illusion of it-- different debate, but I digress) are (...) (24 years ago, 29-Nov-00, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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