If I can't stand to see people starve, so I say, come, come now, here's some food, eat, so you won't be starving, I'm doing that so I will feel right about how I reacted. So you're telling me, that you could give someone something that is of little consequence to you (a tiny bit of food), and that in helping that person, you could receive some spiritual comfort and joy. You would both benefit from the simply act of giving? Holy cow! That's almost like, "do unto others as they would do unto you."
Look, I've enjoyed this conversation, but I don't think you've honestly given any of these issues real, serious thought. Why do these things that we're discussing require theism; that was my original question. In no way have you given any support to the idea that you are able to do or think things that I cannot, when it comes to charity and helping others.
There are many, many absolute creeps (just look at Congress) who take care of their families very well.
I honestly find your anti-family stance a little creepy, and my two guesses are bitchy step-mom or absent father. It has to be one of the two.
Here's a neat example of the standard pathetic attempts to reverse the truth you've been using, in our long-running back-and-forth where you say you are:
... here to speak on behalf of a non-theist justification for morality.
Really, you claim that you have secular humanist, atheist "righteousness".
To wit, you ask me:
Do you only help people because it's a commandment, or do you also do it because you have an innate human aversion to suffering.
Sans question mark, but still a question, nonetheless.
You thus imply that in your athiestic "holiness", you have
"an innate human aversion to suffering".
But in that same post of mine you quoted from, I was actually pointing out the folly of a person claiming their own righteousness based on the fact that they help the poor if the help they gave cost them relatively very little. Immediately following what you quoted I wrote:
"That's being done for me, not them.
Real love is sacrifice, and it's difficult for people to even understand let alone do."
That is to say, if the "help" is only a tiny fraction of one's wealth or income, the giver has not had to make any significant sacrifice - it was nothing. In some languages, a phrase equivalent in meaning to "you're welcome" literally says "it's nothing". In Spanish, de nada.
"It's nothing" is a HUMBLE response as opposed to a boastful response to someone expressing their appreciation for something we've done that helped them. "It's nothing" GIVES UP the claim to righteousness based on the "good deed" done, because they reply that the deed was not asking much of them, it was no trouble.
So the excrutiatingly obvious point I made was that your holy athiest claim to be righteous based on how you would alleviate the suffering of the poor is actually shameless boasting on the internet of how benevolent you are. You said nothing about your giving being a real hardship for you, a real sacrifice.
And, in any case, by posting your tale of "innate human aversion to suffering" on the internet - you're boasting about whatever "good works" you've done or would do, even if they were significant. If I donate all the money needed to put up a wing on a children's hospital, then my name is put up in a bronze sign over the front door, the sign is a boast that taints the donation. There is seemingly no end of wealthy Americans, indeed, wealthy persons in every country of the world, who bask in the glow of their own well-publicized benevolent tax credits and deductions.
Jesus taught on this subject clearly:
Mark 12
"41 And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money into the treasury: and many that were rich cast in much.
42 And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing.
43 And he called unto him his disciples, and saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, That this poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury:
44 For all they did cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living."
Back to my response to your question, you conveniently ignore the line prior to the one you responded to when you imply that you have the "innate aversion":
"If I helped someone because I had an innate human aversion to their suffering, I'd be actually helping them in order to satisfy my own desire to avoid my aversion."
when you reply:
So you're telling me, that you could give someone something that is of little consequence to you (a tiny bit of food), and that in helping that person, you could receive some spiritual comfort and joy. You would both benefit from the simply act of giving? Holy cow! That's almost like, "do unto others as they would do unto you."
Of course, the answers are no, no, no and no, but I'll move on to once again make the same point I was making (probably so you can ignore it again).
You're deliberately missing the point I made about the giver "having an aversion to human suffering" which causes them to "give".
If I'm giving because I can't stand to see poor hungry people, because the thought of it bothers me, I'm giving for reasons of self-centeredness, to get those nagging thoughts that bother me out of my mind. That's like offering a dirty houseguest a bath because they're stinking up your house. You're not offering the bath because you want to help your houseguest, you're offering the bath because they're stinking up your house and you don't like the stink. Once they've bathed, you won't have to deal with their stink. Once I feed the poor hungry people, I won't be bothered by the sight or thought of them any more. IF THOSE ARE THE REASONS A PERSON HELPS SOMEONE ELSE, THEN THE CLAIM OF PURE ALTRUISM IS FALSE.
I could of course discuss the Biblical doctrine of sin-tainted works, but I'll leave that for the reader who is so moved to research for themselves. The Westminster Confession of Faith is a good place to start:
http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/ch_XVI.html