Okay, so I argued against the assertion, but I also provided some sort of argument as to why the assertion could not be true.
Was that part invalid in your eyes? Susposing I said nothing about the assertion, I did claim why the answer to the following question could be both true and false. Meaning, if you change the meaning of the symbolism we use to represent said metaphysical entities, the answer to the question could either be right or wrong? Has that no value in your exercise? Maybe I don’t totally get what you are looking for, but I feel that my criticism of the initial assertion is valid on its face. After all, I cannot accept the assertion as true and jump into a rabit hole by cotradicting myself on defending the answer, thereby proving the assertion false.
This isn’t mearly the potification of the mentally disturbed, it’s a legitimate meta-ethical question on the motivation of human behavior. Where the most skeptical make the argument that no behavior is truly altruistic.
Say you take a Mother Teresa type character their skepticism would say she’s not doing it because she cares about the people she is serving, but is doing it for the attention it brings or at the very least doing it for her own Salvation and not for the suffering souls underived her care though they may also benefit.
It is heady, but it’s worthy of consideration as to why you (or we) do what we do, even though the self benefit is not readily apparent.
We may never know the sociological answer, but we can answer it for ourselves, even if nobody believes you.
Ah, but math in the context of science is a measure that implies correlation. Not so much in measuring the vector of a ball dropped off a building, but in deeper hypothesis, where we don’t necessarily have the physical affect to measure and math is used as a predictive tool of unseen physical phenomenon is where math and the phenomenon in question can be in doubt.
That doesn’t mean the math is wrong. The math is absolute in its correctness. However, how much that math correlates to the physical reality is debatable.
In other word, math and it’s physical representation get murky in the depths of predictable phanomenon. More than likely, though, it’s that not enough is known about the phenomenon being measured.
In the real world, yes.
I’m just looking for an opportunity to “think beyond the tip of my nose”.
Maybe pick an assertion that isn’t objectively false?
lol, yeah man I wasn’t trying to say it was just crazy people saying these things. Sorry if it read that way.
I just was relating to where I had read about it.
Wouldn’t we have to define terms here though?
I mean: would her salvation be due to her actions, or due to her reasons for her actions?
“Does God care why you do something, or just that you do it?” I suppose different religions have different answers to that.
I think the altruism conversation might fit the bill, you’re the boss though.
Yeah man… Go on with it.
Ultimately it’s all fun and games.
Perhaps, if we do not have a commonly understood definition of terms. It’s a point of contention, for sure.
From a theological standpoint it would be both. Tripping up and doing something that is considered a ‘good’ act, say like a ‘Forest Gump’ syndrome wouldn’t have the same affect as intending to do a good act, doing the good act and requiring or wanting nothing in return for the act.
Of course this is assuming that Salvation or religious beliefs and works are on some merit based system. A lot of people think of it that way.
“Read 3 Bible verses, say a prayer and you get a smiley face next to your name on that big chart in heaven.”
That’s the short answer, long version. The long answer short, is that intent means a lot. The “why” of what your doing speaks to your character more so than “what” you are doing.
I cannot delve in to the mind of God in that sense. But there are many scriptures that indicate both. The why of your action and your action. The weight of one over the other is a big harder to determine.
For instance, say your on a boat and someone who cannot swim goes overboard, you jump in to save the person, but was not aware that someone closer also did the same and got to the drowning person first. That does not take away from the purity of your good intent, you just ended up not doing anything but get a little wet.
Arguments against the ‘goodness’ of action is that say you jumped in to get attention and that even if that wasn’t your original intent, you were still chasing a ‘hero’ status in the back of your mind.
More generally speaking the skeptic would say that all motivations are more self-serving than they are not and ultimately everybody is in it for themselves no matter what they do. Doctor’s without borders? They do it for the accolades or to draw some sort of pity out of people that makes them feel good. The patients they treat and the good they actually do is a secondary motivation if at all a motivation. The patients merely serve their self purpose of aggrandizement and\ or draw pity from folks for how much a doctor has to give up to do the job.
Being a skeptic here can make almost any action evil, even when on it’s face it looks good. Say you are taking care of a sick kid or sick parent? ‘Munchausen by proxy’. Get sick and go to work anyway? Playing the hero. etc. Think of any good act and we can make it evil in a couple of sentences, slandering the character of a person no matter the circumstance.