ME ME ME
I haven’t given much thought to philosophy or religion lately. Maybe it’s because there are so many other things going on, maybe it’s because I find it too frustrating. I have been getting sick of the pointless debates on context and all that, the myriad of opinions on so many things, which so often seem empty.One thought I did have while scootering home last night, was the concept of selflessness. I know it is a big thing within many religions, to be completely selfless, to be given over to one’s God or philosophy in such a way that ‘I’ does not exist.
This thought is contradictory. It cannot work because we are absolute subjective beings. Everything is. If one says to them self, ‘I want to be selfless’ they have already stated their want and therefore performing an action for them self. Therefore, even the thought is born out of egoism.
I cannot think of a single situation where this is not true. Even the most benevolent action finds its root in self.
It is not because we are ‘bad’, it is the way this world is formed. It is how gravity makes mass pull everything to itself. It is Evolution’s survival of the fittest. We are all innately hedonistic, and we must be otherwise we wouldn’t exist.
This takes me back to a conception within Christianity that Jesus is completely selfless. Jesus died on the cross so that creation might be reconciled with its creator. God wanted to mend the broken relationship with him and creation.
Is Jesus’ death on the cross a truly selfless act?
I had this thought - that I recon should be in the last page of "the book" in hugh fuck-off type.
None of us can go to heaven unless we all get in.
Think about it for a sec...
Posted by
Anonymous |
2/21/2007 12:41:00 am
A mate and I had a discussion whether Mother Theresa was selfish or not; me saying she was, and my mate saying that she was selfless.
The one thing it made clear to me is that I have a different meaning of selfish to other people. It seems there is a traditional meaning, 'to act to do benefit to yourself monetarily or materially' etc. and the postmodern definition, doing things for the benefit of the things you value. That is to say, if you value your parents highly, it is hardly selfless to take care of them at your own expense. If you love all humankind, it is hardly selfless to sacrifice yourself for their benefit. That kind of selfishness seems to be what you are saying about JC. It is stretching yourself beyond the bounds of your own body and stretching it onto other people, ideas and things.
I think it is more of an eastern dualism destroying notion. If you can stretch your own self to include everything, you are left with a single unity.
Just a thought.
Posted by
Crypticity |
7/18/2007 02:20:00 pm