Why do right?

Yes, when the species is extinct. No individual organism evolves, but you are genetically distinct from your parents and not simply as an admixture of their genetic materials. You aren't evolving now, but your children will be somewhat genetically distinct from you as you were from your parents.TTFN,WK

No idea. However, I have a hunch that the future course will be far more interesting than we can ever imagine.

This is hard wired into our brains. We have neurons called mirror cells that fire when we observe reactions in others. They mirror the expression or even physical action of the observed individual.Thus we feel what others feel if it is expressed in a way we can percieve it.No mystery.ABE: People on the autistic spectrum disorder continuum sometimes display deficits in these neurons and can appear aloof and uncommunicative as they can not react well to empathic signals. Edited by Larni, : No reason given.

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But you do fear reprisal, do you not? I'm speaking about civil law here.

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Whether one is more effective than the other doesn't change the fact that both exist, which I have mentioned repeatedly, yet no one wants to seem to actually comment on it.

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That seems to change often on people's death beds.

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What makes you think that? He also wept and prayed three times that if there was another way to absolve people of their sins that He be shown it. But He ultimately say, not My will, but Yours.

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"A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." -C.S. Lewis

I have "commented" that negative reinforcement is fairly insignificant to me. Bear in mind that we are only talking about the threat of negative reinforcement here - and threats are even less significant to me.If you want more elaborate "comments", you'll have to elaborate on what you want. The "deathbed conversion" myth is just a variation of the "no atheists in foxholes" myth. If it were true, there never would have been a Red Army.Those who are constantly in harm's way, at "death's door", don't come home from the wars and automatically do what's right because they have "seen the Light". Living with the threat of death often hardens them to the living. They might well ask, "what's the use of helping the homeless when we're destroying homes in Iraq?"Anyway, deathbed conversions have no effect on the right-doing of the living, do they?Edited by Ringo, : Made deathbeds consistent.

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For me, when I do something wrong I feel bad mostly because I know that I would not have wanted the bad thing done to me. This is compounded by the fact that I know I just did the bad thing, therefore I could have prevented it, and the regret makes me feel even worse.Conversely, I 'do right' because I can imagine how I would like things 'done right' for me, so I try to do those 'right things' for other people. I do not believe that true love is meant to be. I believe that true love is possible, but I have clearly seen many lives that have not been touched by true love. I understand that not everyone finds it, and I used to think I may not find it (I believe I have found it, but that's off-topic here, I think...) Through your post, I can assume by 'magic' you mean one of two things:1. Magic = "Feeling of Fate, or 'meant to be'"
As I've stated above, I do not share this feeling of fate. My 'magic' is that I found something very special that I do not think everyone finds in their life. Although, it's not so much 'magic' as.. finding something that I don't think everyone finds.2. Magic = "Feelings of extreme happiness"
This makes a bit more sense to me. I can understand a sense of wonder, and awe, when someone feels so much more happy than any other time in their life. This feeling can obviously seem quite 'magical'. Although, I do not agree that feeling an extremely high sense of elatedness is 'magic'. I think it's... feeling happier than you've ever imagined or thought possible.And, in either case, what makes you think that we NEED it? I lived very happily for a long time without it. Before I had it.. I could understand, and see my life continuing without it since I have been led to believe through life-experience that not everyone gets to experience it in their life. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to experience it myself. However, this never made me feel like stopping my search, even if that search was to last until the day I died, without ever happening. Why do you think that just because you cannot live your life without something, that no one can?

Lol. You have left another hole for God.Your analogies are fun and interesting, but they are sometimes misleading.You sense a space and it is not there. You create an analogy which assumes there will never be a space, when in reality there may be a chasm the very next time you turn the lights on. You can think all you want. But please, if our feelings of empathy are soooooo important to survival of the species, why do we have to write books about how to be 'good'? Why do we have to make laws? Not everyone is following this empathetic instinct, obviously. Are they just mal-functioning? Do we put them in jail because they are not helping our species survive? Silly me, what are all the abortion doctors doing on the streets, then? If you don't need a Celestial Spook, the question should be easy. What IS the meaning of 'right and wrong'? What makes right, right? If I keep getting answers like; 'right is just right because it is right', and 'the meaning is whatever WE make it', then I think you are correct.

I don't want a 'how'. I want a 'why'. Why are we hard-wired to feel empathy for another? And how do you account for the fact that hard-wiring or no, some folk seem to feel zero empathy even if they aren't autistic?

I don't "assume there will never be a space". There "may be a chasm" the very next time, but so far there hasn't been. All I'm saying is keep your high-beams on. Don't pull over just because there "may be" something in the dark. We don't "have to". We don't make laws to help us be good. We make laws to deal with the bad. A lifeboat doesn't help your enjoyment of the cruise. It's there "just in case". Yes. We put them in jail if they are a direct threat to members of our species, yes. Come on. Abortion is good for the survival of the species. Unwanted babies are not. We've been there and done that.There is what is right and wrong for me, determined by me, based on what makes me feel good or bad. There is what is right and wrong for society, determined by society, based on what makes society feel good or bad. And there is right and wrong for humanity, determined by humanity, based on what makes humanity feel good or bad.There is no need at any of those levels for a magic formula to be spoonfed by an outside entity.If you want a better answer, ask a better question. The thing is, your God is also whatever YOU make it. Otherwise, why do people make so many different ones?

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Music and art definitely seem to be a by-product of our innate 'something' but obviously it is not dependent on words. I am not sure how this relates, not that I am policing you. Ringo was talking about doing 'right' because of garden-variety empathy for others. From there the question went on to whether empathy is a survival mechanism. See, it is no good. First of all, we don't all open doors. Even if we do, we only have a possibility of having the favor returned, and then once it is returned, things are even. We put out effort, we get relieved of effort. As a survival tool it is pointless. We are expending effort on people who may not ever return the favor, and if they do, we are in absolutely no better position for survival then we would be if we opened our own doors and no one elses.Nope, I am thinking 'right' has nothing to do with survival, or we would see more people doing it. What we do see is people in love with anti-survival. They are bound and determined to avoid reproductive relationships, abort babies, use drugs or birth control. It is 'wrong' to tell people that these actions are bad. So, please do not tell me survival of the species is important to us. Humans seem to be the most selfish beings which look only to survival for the individual.

Why not just kill them? They are using up the resources while in jail, of the productive and functioning members of society. They are not reproducing, and for God's sake, why would we want a mal-functioner to reproduce any way? Don't you understand why Rob is always rambling about Hitler? Because this is the logical conclusion to your 'survival' instinct. It is self-defeatest. We empathize with others, and this helps us survive (supposedly) but then we empathize with criminals, so we use up our time and resources on them even when it is detrimental to our survival? So, since when does survival think about 'wants'? It doesn't have those kind of emotions. That is a grossly ignorant statement, for all the wrong reasons. Go tell the children in the orphanages that they are not helping the survival of the species. Tell that to my husband...he was adopted. Are you feeling Hitlerish?

That is what I am afraid of You decide what is 'right'.
You have no idea if it is 'right' or not, and
no idea what is 'right' about it.
Just some little tinglies in your brain that 'feel good'? Are you high on righteousness?

Empathy. There's always the possibility of rehabilitation. Malfunctions are not necessarily hereditary. No it isn't. It's Rob's misunderstanding (and apprently yours too) of the survival instinct.We fought Hitler because of the survival instinct - short-term pain for long-term gain. (Does it occur to you that exterminating the Jews would have narrowed our gene pool and weakened the capability of future generations to adapt?)It's old news, girl. Survival doesn't think. It only wants. You can't compare orphaned children with aborted fetuses. Have you forgotten the word "empathy" already? We (as a society) simply do not feel the same empathy for a fetus that we feel for an orphan. Maybe you think we "should", but we're not talking about "shoulda-be's" here, we're talking about what is.We (as a society) also have empathy for the woman. We (as a society) feel that society is better served by her making her own decision, weighing her own chances of survival against the chances of the unborn. (Like it or not, survival is a competition.) You're arguing against yourself. Compare the number of adoptions with the number of abortions. If all those babies had been born, the vast majority of them would never have been adopted.Adoption is one way of dealing with unwanted babies - put them where they are wanted. Abortion is another. Godwinized in 56 posts. On a more serious note, yes, I do feel "Hitlerish", but in a way you probably can't understand. If a certain boat hadn't left Hamburg on a certain day, I might very well have wound up shoving Jews into ovens.Would I have done what was right for humanity or what was right for me?

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So, what's the difference between me feeling "right" about what I do and you feeling "right" about what Somebody else tells you to do?

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This is thread is not about what is right. Everyone got that? Good. Don't ask that question again. It's off-topic. interesting paragraph. let's start at the beginning. First, must everything have a reason? I say no. Still, I have a reason for doing the "right" thing. I've stated it a million times by now. Because it is. Somethings don't require more. Why is the earth 93 million miles from the sun? It just is. Why is our solar system in one arm of the galaxy? It just is. How come we percieve blue to be blue? It just is (granted, blue is a specific wavelength, however, why we percieve it to be blue, and not violet?) Some things just are, that's the way it is.Not everything is tied down to logic, either. Humans are very irrational creatures. Kant would argue that the latter choice is "right". Lying is always wrong for him, even if a murderer comes to your door looking to kill your friend. I don't agree. I say, if you were out having fun instead taking care of your responsibilities, you oughta lose the sitter by telling the truth.Survival ain't everything its cracked up to be. not everything we do is coldly calculated (sub/consciously) toward survival. Neither is peer review--and that, is just the same as your mother telling you what to do. I don't see what the law has to do with this case. Dumb luck clearly doesn't apply--you were in control of your destiny here. Had you actually gotten a flat tire, it'd be different. that is pure dumb luck (of the bad kind, too). no. no. no. no. no. no. no. no. no. no. no!
popular has nothing to do with it. It is/was popular to smoke marijuana. That doesn't make it the right thing to do.
I was not telling you what "right" is--except for in one instance. I was pointing out the differences in the usage of right in the phrase
(I do the "right" thing because it is the right thing to do).
Think of it like this. Pick anything that you think is "right". why do you do it? If you're like me, you do it because it is the right thing. otherwise you end up with the phrase "I help because I help", which is circular.Blame the damn english language if you want for this confusion. I refer you to the top of this post. Again, the title is "Why do Right", not "What is Right". It doesn't matter what you, or I, or anyone else thinks is "right". The only thing of concern is why we do the things we think are "right". again, not the focus of the thread (if you mean what is "right"). If you're talking about why I do the "right" thing, that being because it is, I don't know. he is, then, telling you what "right", and why right. you're not doing it of your own violition (wrong spelling, i think). you're still rooted to the "God has decided", or "Mother has decided".

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