It's impossible to be unselfish.

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No but if you decide to do it, it’s so you can feel better about doing it. Your own good feelings. You want those feelings which is why you perform the action. If people weren’t selfish, they wouldn’t eat. It’s selfish to kill other organisms and not give them to others. Isn’t it? We wouldn’t be alive if we weren’t selfish.

The Diabolical One...
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ok but that still doesn’t mean that in some instances you can be unselfish... If the act benefits someone else more than it beneifts you than isn’t that unselfishness...

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Yeah it is. You are still gaining some sort of positivity. Part of the goal of performing the action was to obtain good feelings. You wouldn’t do it if it didn’t give you that.

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really... well even though you did get some good feelings what if you could have felt better by doing something else... at that point aren’t you being unselfsih since you are sacrificing some happiness elsewhere to do something that doesn’t make you as pleased isn’t that unselfish....

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You would have done something better if you knew you could. The only reason you would sacrifice your happiness for someone elses would be if you knew you would feel bad if you didn’t.

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what are you saying that guilt is the main cause of others helping each other... man you are more pessimistic than I am...

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Guilt can be associated with it yes. I’m sorry. I just love debate. And your about the only one that can come up with intelligent things to talk about lately.

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are you in it at school... and what about if you are helping someone you care for... would you not do almost anything for them... what if you died for them isn’t that unselfish...

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I’m not in school right now. I will be tomorrow. Ummm.. With the helping people you care about thing, you get positive feelings from them. You don’t want them to be hurt because it would cause you sadness, guilt, remorse, etc. Anywayz, hey man, I gotta go. Be back tomorrow, see ya.

The Diabolical One...
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well what if you save their life isn’t that helping them more than it is yourself... I don’t know i consider that unselfishness... of course you may see it differnetly..

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Gotto love the thinking process here...

Taking the discussion further a notch......helping others does not usually mean you will get happiness from it...more often than not, ppl that had been helped may not appreciate your intervention....say...helping an old lady cross the street, that old lady may feel that she’s not old enough to need assistance and you get hit with her stick instead....or you see a man unconscious on the sidewalk and you to help him, but later you may get sued by him....etc...so if one helps someone with an expectation to make oneself feel good, it usually doesn’t last...'coz you are expecting that other human to feel gratitude for your action. However, for people who keeps helping other despite the lack of appreciation, are the ones that can be considered unselfish...

and sometimes helping others/animals is an instinct rather than a decision...

it is not impossible to be unselfish...it depends, however, on each individual’s true nature.

Last edited 24 Apr 2006 01:09 am by Nitya

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You, (Yourself) is still gaining some sort of positivity out of it though. It’s not necessarily bad to be selfish. We have to be selfish or we would not be alive. It’s not something you should have to balance. If it involves yourself, it’s still selfish, whether it be a little selfish, or extremely selfish.

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well yes very little positivity comparatively... I still believe that if the outcome is more beneficial to the person you are helping than to yourself than that is unselfishness... cause if you die for someone then how do you get any enjoyment out of it at all... you get nothing... but the other person gets everything... that us unselfishness...

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You get something out of it. You get what YOU wanted. To save the other person.

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Anywayz

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Well what if you didn’t mean to save them but you died and did anyways... then what do you get out of it huh...

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Ok, today was garbage day and, as often happens in the windy city Rev. Storring and I reside in, there were several garbage and recycling containers on the road after the trucks went by. Now I won’t go over, again, my current maladies but I am not well and my balance is shot. Yet Whenever I see those containers the first thing I think of is “what if someones car hits that?" and the first thing I do is move them onto the curb. I crossed the street today to retrieve and set 3 trash bins straight, I fell while trying to grab the second one, and chuckled at myself before righting the third.

After I did it I set on my merry way again, but laughed as I remembered THIS thread. So what was my selfishness in this, because I truly HAVE tried to find something. But I can’t, and I’m sure Rev. Mathew can verify my level of selflessness, not that I am saying I am totally selfless, but I AM consciously UNselfish every chance I have

James R LeClair

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If you give your life to save someones else’s is that selfish? You get no good feeling from that, you’re dead! Or if you defend someone who is being beat up by a group of guys and end up in the hospital, is that selfish? Feeling good about something isn’t selfish, and besides, most people don’t help others simply for the good feeling.
What of D-Day? Where was the good feeling there? The marines helped and the marines died, but they get no good feeling. But I am a firm believer in the Bible and the biblical afterlife.

Nitya, I like your sig.

Last edited 26 Apr 2006 06:39 pm by Duriel

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Nothing. It was an accident if that happens. You just get death. But you never knew it would happen so it wasn’t purposeful. That’s not being unselfish either because you didn’t purposely do it.

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The definition of slefishness isn’t having good feelings about doing something if you do some thing for yourself or keep something for your self thats selfish, helping others and knowing you did the right thing isn’t selfish