How do you feel

[Ben Davis]

Fortruth. Feel free to tell us a little more about yourself on the Introductions board. Here are some simple answers to your questions. We can develop each discussion, in turn. Some of them are big questions though and we may want to break them out in to different threads. Feel free to do so (as will I)!

Lets go a bit deeper. What makes human beings different from other living things?

Genetics.

where did that feeling/reasoning to want to do good things for others come from?

Well, the feelings and the reasoning are 2 different things but they all have the same cause: our social development. Hominids with effective social cooperation survived and reproduced consequently attributes which serviced that cooperation were selected for. Over time, those attributes built up, resulting in our current, complex social environment and responses. The 'want to do good things for others' is an emergent property of the survival need for effective social interactions.

why do some do good and why do most don't?

Most do do good. If most didn't, we wouldn't survive as a species. Why do you think that most people don't do good?

what drives us to want to do good?

Our instinct for effective social operation.

what happens if we don't do good for others?

Generally, we're marginalised or ostracised from society.

what happens if someone dies and we did not do anything about it?

Sorry, this question's not clear. Do anything about what?

are you really a good person doing good deeds in your power?

Yes.

did you sell all you have and give it to those who have absolutely nothing?

No although I do local charity work and donate food, clothes & money to a variety of charities which fight impoverishment.

did you save someones life?

Yes. I've saved a few, in my time.

what makes us a judge?

Our need to understand if the social interactions of ourselves and others are effective.

Evolutionists believe that everything came from a big bang

No they don't. The term 'evolutionist' is a creationist term used to try and misrepresent evolution as a belief system so I challenge your use of the term, in principle. Either way, evolution has nothing to do with the big bang. The most you can say about 'evolutionists' is that they accept that evolution is the best explanation for the facts of speciation.

..if that explains the physical world then ...did reasoning, love, thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc, come as a result of a big bang too?

Indirectly, yes, although I suspect you know this is a deliberate over-simplification. Love, our thoughts, feelings, emotions etc. are the result of chemical processes in our brain.

Are there atoms in love?

No. Love is the quale of particular types of intimate social interaction. Researchers don't understand everything about it but they can detect love by measuring certain neurological & physiological responses to stimuli.

Can we measure good in degrees?

There's no generic 'scale of goodness' but we do have an understanding of 'good, better, best'. The application of those measures is subjective, necessarily.

what is our standard for good?

Depends entirely on the circumstance. There is an 'objective' standard of sorts (health is preferable to sickness, pleasure is preferable to pain etc.) but humans have developed complex neurological & cognitive capabilities in order to make better judgments, given the circumstances. If all we needed to do was to follow a set of standardised instructions, universally applicable regardless of circumstance, higher cognition would not be necessary.

what if what's good for me is bad for you?

That's a situation we face every day. The fact that this situation occurs so regularly is one of the reasons why we've developed such complex judgment abilities.

What's our reference? -our feelings? other people's feelings?

That and much more. It's all subjective.

what's considered the norm?

Under what circumstance? Why would a norm be applicable or useful? Once again, context is the key.

A Bible-believer may argue that most atheists do good because they are using the good that was put in them when they were created

They may argue that but what's the evidence for that position?

...as we all were created in His image, and those that do not do good chose to overlook the good that is in them.

Not necessarily: there are people with clinical psychoses/sociopathies who simply are not aware of concepts of 'good/evil' or lack the neurological capability to apply them, if they are aware. You statement cannot apply to that group.

But who do we look to for the right answers?

Those who can give us the most practical, effective information. After all, this is a survival mechanism, we're talking about.

I'd like to think there are answers...

You can rest assured that there probably are.

...and that there is a purpose for my existence...

The consensus among experts is that your purpose is what you make it.

...and that there is a truth out there that I can grasp.

Well, we all hope that. Unfortunately, our ability to understand the truth has no bearing on its truth-value however your drive to understand it brings you closer to the truth than those who would remain willingly ignorant.

People who really study the Bible know that the book is all about Love.

Plenty of people who study the bible would disagree with you about that.

Love that God has for people...

The people who he kills and makes suffer? That's a funny way for an omnipotent being to demonstrate love.

...and Love that God wants us to have for each other.

By giving us rules which are designed to separate people on tribalistic grounds, directly resulting in conflict? I'd have thought an omnipotent being could come up with better advice than that.

And through all that God has given us free will to choose and be on His side or not.

Well, the jury's still out on that one. A lot of very knowledgeable people suggest that free will may not really exist, that it only feels to us like we have free will, that free will is the quale of an entirely predictable neurological process of judgment/decision-making. That aside, assuming that we have free will, god threatens us with hell as a punishment for not choosing to be on his side. Coercion, resulting in decisions made under duress, is not the same as free choice and any being who acts like a supernatural mafia boss is not really showing us love.

The Old Testament in the Bible shows us how it was before God came down (Jesus Christ) to die and pay a price for sanctification and set things straight.

Actually, the Old Testament is a gathering of ancient tribal myths from nomadic desert dwellers. The more we learn, the less resemblance it bears to historic events. In the New Testament, Jesus (allegedly) set things straight by telling us that the rules set out in the OT still apply.

All this education talk is funny to me...the more I learn the more that I realize that the instincts of the people who were created thousands of years before us were much sharper than ours. Our senses are blocked by all the noise around us.

What's your evidence for this: for both your statement that people were created and that their instincts are sharper than now or that our senses are somehow 'blocked'?

The ancients felt the spiritual world, and we can too if we want to

Please can you provide evidence of the spiritual world?

...nope, not all the weird stories you hear can be explained by science

We don't know that. All we know is that there are things that we currently don't understand but it appears that the scientific method is the best tool humanity's developed for gaining new understanding.

...there is God

Evidence please?

...and evil out there.

Does this mean that you're defining evil as the opposite/absence of god? if so, are all atheists evil by definition, irrespective of their works?

I choose to be with God.

As is your right. However if the above is an explanation as to why you have your religious belief, I would challenge it on the grounds that it's based on clear misunderstandings of demonstrable realities of the world in which you live.

What if...The Natural disasters were triple in number than they are...the hungry children are triple in number than they are now and the diseases are more severe and uncurable than they are now....what if God IS protecting us and we are seeing screenshots of what could really be?

Protecting us? By exposing us to unimaginable disaster and resultant suffering? Do you not see the contradiction inherent in this statement? Would not an omnipotent, omnibenevolent being remove all suffering?

Right, we don't really know...all we know that some say He is out there and is watching and helping and some like you say we're left alone and are actually surviving on our own with no help at all.

For the former, there is no evidence. For the latter, overwhelming amounts. If you take no survival action, you don't survive. Simple. There's no disputing that.