boasts of Athiests II

So does it then apply to everyone from the particular time context you are talking about? Is a selfish person interested strictly in the short term different from a selfish person interested in long term goals? To clarify i was asking your motives for implying selfish reasons before any other form of reason. However, when you answered it in the first portion of the post again you did not answer the why question. You did give I think this without a clear justification but again in earlier i asked why you think selfish interests are applied first.

What "time context"? People have always been selfish--me, you, everybody. At least I have never met any unselfish saints in MY life. I answered it. I hear so much about how wonderful everyone is on this forum--having such great moral character and the like--that I thought I needed to go in the other direction to balance the picture.

Are you using the term selfish as: Concerned chiefly or only with oneself: “Selfish men were... trying to make capital for themselves out of the sacred cause of human rights” (Maria Weston Chapman).The reason why I ask about the time context is because several selfish behaviors can be demonstrated to be selfish, but not chiefly concerned with personal gain.From the way I experienced life so far, long term self-serving motives encompass the needs and gains of others, whereas short-term self-serving motives have only limited personal gain.

I agree with this statement by Chapman. There's always some kind of "personal gain" involved, even if it's only a feeling of self-satisfaction: "I'm a good guy." Nothing wrong with that, of course.What period of time was Chapman talking about?

I understand that there is always some kind of "personal gain" but is it always chiefly personal gain. For example the "I'm a good guy." yes is a extremely self-flattering comment and it only serves to promote themselves if said just to say it.But if you were to consider a teacher that is trying to promote critical thinking skills within her students. A long term selfish goal could be that there are more people prone to thinking out what they are doing before acting, thus indirectly helping the teacher's life. But at the same time the teacher has helped developed tools that can improve the student's lives a great deal. So in that case the teacher is not being 'selfish' but selfless because the gain goes mostly to the students. I am not sure as I pulled that definition off of Dictionary.com.

We need to make a distinction between the motive (the reason why one does something) and the result.All motives are personal. There is no such thing as a political or group motive except in a manner of speaking. One does things for oneself, but sometimes it results in good things for other people too. If you make yourself useful to others, good things will likely come to you. But I was speaking of the motive, not the results. I wasn't suggesting that people would say, "I'm a good guy." They would just think it. But I guess you're right. Nowadays, boasting seems to be socially acceptable, since we are supposed to love ourselves.This doctrine of loving ourselves came out of the sixties. It had to do with building people's "self-esteem." This mantra took hold and is now apparently universally accepted. It's rather silly since we have no problem at all in loving ourselves. Now we are supposed to be PROUD that we love ourselves. I don't see it as something to be particularly proud of. It's so easy to do. I never had a problem with loving myself.Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.

I can understand the need to establish this premiss but how is this related to selfishness? I don't feel I can see a connection to what you have stated. The mantra of loving ourselves is actually very important because not everyone has the ability to love themselves or understand their inherent value. I would say that because I am pretty sure there are several people who derive all of their self-worth from the opinions of others and they do not understand the personal strength of 'loving' and using their internal strength. However, the 60's and 70's did warp the idea of self-love into something monstrously irresponsible in use. Businesses sold a great deal more bsed on an appeal to 'treat yourself better' (and still have been utilizing the tactic).

some of us have a great deal of trouble loving ourselves. you learn to love yourself based on how well other people love you. if you have been abused, it becomes patently obvious that you have no worth and do not deserve to be loved and thus you are unable to love yourself.

Some people I know took a long time to get over that precise problem. Their lack of self worth, coupled with anger, drove them to destructive, risk taking behaviors.The two people that come to mind most prominately are over it, but it took a lot of hard work. One is an atheist, the other is someone who is very spiritual, but learly of any organised religion.

What did this abuse consist of?

What "inherent value"?

I perfer to believe that each person has some form of social value, social contribuition or unique perspective they can bring to the world and their fellow humans. This is probably closely related to the intellectual gratification I derive from exploring the variety of percepeptions I encounter.If you are stating that there is a lack of value at all to a human life, well thats fine too. But it begs the question, why do you even keep on breathing?

What one "prefers to believe" about the value of individuals is not "inherent value" but simply a value you subjectively assign (in your quest for the sentimental high that makes you feel good about yourself). "Inherent value" on the other hand means the value is objective, something built in. Totally backwards. Stating that human life has no inherent value doesn't keep anyone from assigning subjective value to one's life, as you have done above, and as Robin already said he has no trouble doing.

I'm not sure what you mean by sentimental high, nor the link it has to making me feel incredibly good about myself. It makes me feel good (intellectual engagement), not necessairly good about myself.Ah yes, thank you for clarifying sorry for my inappropriate use of inherrent value.And also thank you for clarying my last portion of the post.

Also though would to like ask you where inherrent refers to objective though. From my understanding it does refer to an intrinisic value which is value fort he sake of its value, vs actually assigning a kind of objective value which seems to be unmeasurable.Inherrent value then means a value for the sake of it, so it can be stated there is an inherent value in the sake of social contribuition or uniqueness just for the sake of it. Demonstrating this intrnsic value is a little trickier though. I would question the need for even subjective value to life, when you could instead assign an intrisic value to life.