Are we wired for goodness?

[RussellK]

The God thread got me thinking. For those that have a belief system with a heaven hell / return as option I guess good behavior is base on a reward system. What about the rest. What makes you behave. Karma? Compliments? Fear of punishment? Some other understanding? What keeps more of us from throwing in the towel and just acting out.

[glasseye]

It just feels good to do good. What's the saying? "Practice random acts of kindness" It works.

I love to play a game, especially when I'm driving. It's called "fishing for thank-yous". Fishing for compliments is a mug's game. Even if you get one, it's suspect. Fishing for thank-yous, however, is auto-justifiying. It's also very satisfying. Hopefully, it's contagious.

The other side of the coin, however, is more difficult to deal with. My reaction to poor behaviors in others is less satisfactory.

I'm workin' on it.

[hambone]

It all seems t be lessons. Think about it, our situations always seem perfect for growth and development. We are also wired as evolved social chimps so we carry that baggage, warring apes with bone clubs. And then love is the glue that seems to hold the universe together, imagine this reality without it....
Ultimately what do we have? A big bang expanding and collapsing infinitely. Oh great, just dancing molecules that we have somehow arranged into mom n' apple pie.
It is a Great Mystery why it has all jelled this way. Some say it is just God at play; until we get hurt and come crying back to Mother. Did the Earth create us just to marvel at Her own splendor? Why this muddy eddied backwater? Wha?

We all know what is there when a banana is peeled. We have just "forgot". Somehow, we all just know. "Life is but a dream, sweetheart".

[RussellK]

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[RSorak 71Westy]

It's very simple, the golden rule, treat others as you wish to be treated.

[Sylvester]

In my opinion, I believe it is so easy for humans to be cruel mean and indifferent. It takes little effort to be mean to another person, hardly any thought at all. To be kind, to do something putting ourselves second and thinking for another first, take a lot of effort.

[whc03grady]

As one of "the rest", I don't know what more to say than that I know what's right/wrong in the same way I can see that 1+2=3. I no more know how to respond to someone who asks, for instance, "why is torturing an innocent person wrong?" than I know how to respond to someone who asks, "why doesn't 1+3=7".

As for the post's title, I strongly suspect we aren't wired for goodness, or for badness. We're wired (or rather, our genes are wired) for self-preservation and everything else falls from that.

(edited twice; once for clarity, once for spelling)

[hambone]

Exactly, it's all a set of conditions. Cause and effect, defined by pairs of opposites.

[Cindy]

Would you all mind if I shared some of these responses on my Facebook page? Wish more people felt along these lines--want to give them something to think about. (I will give you due credit, of course.)

Cindy

[Sylvester]

Only if it is used for good and not evil!

[JLT]

The God thread got me thinking. For those that have a belief system with a heaven hell / return as option I guess good behavior is base on a reward system. What about the rest. What makes you behave. Karma? Compliments? Fear of punishment? Some other understanding? What keeps more of us from throwing in the towel and just acting out.

In Homo Mysterious: Evolutionary Puzzles of Human Nature, David Barash brings up that very subject. He cites research that indicates that altruism is a trait (genetic or social) that is selected for because it promotes the well-being of the group, even as it reduces the well-being of the individual.

I had a scout leader who explained his logic for "good deeds" in a similar way. His example: when you go to the supermarket, look for a shopping basket near you in the parking lot and bring it into the store. It doesn't really cost you any extra effort, but it reduces the effort somebody else has to make. If everybody behaved according to this dictum, the net effect would benefit everybody.

He also espoused the principle of "make everything better:" as you go through life, always strive, even in little ways, to make the space you pass through better when you left it than when you entered it, even if it's picking up one piece of trash or one cigarette butt. The logic is similar, in that if enough people do it, the world looks better to everybody, even though each person's contribution is small.

[hambone]

I wonder if the next evolution of humans will lack the primitive ancestry that drives the current generations to the darker arts of war, lust, and greed?
That, with abundant energy and clean water would change the world. Is it enough to know darkness, or must the opposite be actually acted out? It's an old question I'm sure.

[Amskeptic]

I am clearly not striving for any particular goodness at any particular time, because I do not believe it is about having to choose goodness. I think the Whole is only apparent with a good understanding of both goodness and badness. I am so much more informed by my badness than my goodness. I see chirrupy do-goodners all the damn time who are so smug in their goodness that they make me barf, and I wonder if they have had a conscious day. I see someone who is aghast with their latest error and I want to connect with them, there is an alertness, a loss of shiny stupidness, a humbleness that I think is far more real. My badness is all that I have to keep me grounded and aware, it is somehow an intrinsic part of my consciouness.

On good days, I pick up more litter and help more people, and adore music and humor, I am glad to have the experience of giving a damn. On bad days, I could happily order the annihilation of Creation, this whole damn thing is so fucked up that it is the obvious grotesque result of a stupid lonely Creator who tried to play God. Then I feel bad for God's huge error, and I want to connect with Him/Her ?whatever, to make the promise come into being. Does anyone here take seriously that we are the promise and we must make the promise, that all the possibility we see is within our grasp? We wanted Freedom and we damn well have freedom.
Colin

[Velokid1]

Karma is real, though I normally refuse to refer to it as karma. Energy in, energy out. It's about universal balance and equilibrium, somehow. I don't pretend to understand how it works, but it does. In my opinion, there is no good or bad. It's all about self-preservation. It's self-serving in that you get what you give. The more you take, the more you need... and the more you need, the more likely you are to not have your needs met. The more you give, the less you need... and the more likely you are to live in abundance, relative to what your needs, and thus, expectations, are.

I am good to other people (on my good days) because it benefits me and my own evolution and happiness. I am bad to other people on the days when I am feeling so rotten or blue or selfish or angry that I no longer care if I am working toward my own evolution or happiness.

[hambone]

Does anyone here take seriously that we are the promise and we must make the promise, that all the possibility we see is within our grasp? We wanted Freedom and we damn well have freedom.
yeah man