I think being a Christian would be so much easier without other people.

I’ve had a bad experience, too. Several years ago, I went away on a missionary trip for a month, with a bus-load of Christian teenagers. My anticipation on how great a spiritual experience it was going to be was quelled by the self-centredness of so many people. I quickly became infected with a “look out for myself” mentality on that trip, because it was clear that there was no atmosphere of mutual dependence on each other. Altruism is impossible if you’re the only one in the room doing it. I suppose I was naive about teenagers, but I just expected a little more, because they were Christians.

Darryl - that is a perfectly valid point, but you have to realise that on the whole, this usually arrives when people already have worked out to survive - how to provide for themselves. People who devote their lives to doing good often get foodstuffs from others (such as Shaolin Monks receiving food from other villagers, volunteers recieving funds or sponsorship from an organisation or Missionaries receiving funds from the Church that usually - but not always - instructed them to be in that area). And yes once you have worked out how to get just enough to live on, you can look at more altruistic values. Some even put the cause of others first to their own detriment. But in the scheme of things, when you look at the numbers, how many of us do that?

If you bring religion into the equation I would be surprised if people were not more altruistic. But it isn’t always the case - and I am speaking from a limited but very personal experience here.

I really do the like the sound of your ideal vision of an altruistic Christian society, I just can’t see it - being a natural cynic and agnostic.

Personally I think people are often inherently selfish due to insecurities. People who make lots of selfless acts of charity are usually, in my experience, stronger people who have no need to dedicate their lives to building personal walls to keep the world out. Many Christians are like this, their faith being merely another security blanket. Christians for what suits them alone.

I think the sooner people can admit to being afraid the quicker they’ll learn to cope with it.

Group hug everyone!

To answer that question, consider that there are rare individuals who devote their lives to the welfare of others, to the point of giving up well-paying jobs to work overseas in the Third World, or some similar sacrifice. You could argue that they are giving up a physical benefit for an emotional benefit: the satisfaction of doing good. But I don’t think that’s necessarily the true motivating factor.

In recent times I have been waking up to the fact that nothing you do for yourself is worth a damn in the final analysis. The only things that count are the marks you make in the lives of others: investing your time and energy in things that are outside your own self-centred interests.

That’s where real meaning in life comes from, and I’m only scratching the surface of what I could do. At least it means that when someone asks for my help, my first thought is no longer “What’s in it for me?” but “Another opportunity to do something that matters.”

We are capable of living lives that are not capitalistic. The reason we have to embrace a degree of capitalism is because we’re living in a society where that’s the way everyone lives. To be 100% alruistic would leave you homeless and starving. Nor is it good to fully embrace capitalist thinking. Too many people do. When you’re rich, how rich is rich enough? How many rich people ever say, “Enough. I’ll stop now”?

I am against all organised religions equally - but that was merely accidental and not part of the argument. I made no distinction between any form of the Church - lumping Protestant in with Catholic.

Yes yes, the Catholic Church was rife with corruption, power-hungry psychos, and had vast riches with which it suppressed and manipulated the poor, blah, blah, blah, and a million other inaccurate anti-Catholic sentiments. But the bottom line is this: the Catholic Church has always declared usury as a moral evil, and their perspective on the matter was the only thing keeping unbridled greed in check. After the Reformation, this all came tumbling down, and Protestant society gave birth to the modern banking system, that money-sucking vampire nowadays chewing into everyone’s neck. You can also thank post-Reformation era Protestants for modern industrialized society, out of which came the working class, and many many other social ills and injustices.

Darryl’s comments about the Church in the first century contrasted with what we see today are very justified. The truth is that the Church (by which I mean the Catholic Church, not the nebulous, ethereal, doctrinally decadent “church” believed in by Protestants) has never stopped professing those first-century beliefs, but it is merely her children who fail to live up to those beliefs.

But as for the point about Capitalism - not sure if this makes any sense,…… men are naturally territorial and protective of what is theirs. Why does anyone create anything if not for some sort of reward, be it financial, emotional or physical etc. Otherwise why bother? If I grow crops, I grow enough presumably to feed myself, my livestock and possibly trade for other necessary supplies. Money is just another form of reward, the result of an act of trade.

In theory if we forget the money side of things you trade one service in return for another under a barter system. If you grew crops which help prolong your existence and guarantee your survival, you are perfectly entitled to some form of reward - it doesn’t have to be money. You could provide grain for flour and someone could provide the elements to go into a sandwhich….. of if you feed someone, they could help you grow more by working on your land, or do building work on your house etc. If you don’t yet know how much you need, are you going to share with others who are needy and risk depleting your stocks?

I guess the point is not to get too hung up on Capitalism etc. But think of it as survival. After a recent apocalyptic event, are people going to be easily able to throw off the shackles of past behaviours and beliefs and swiftly take on a new lifestyle and belief system? It may be expressed as Capitalistic sentiments, but the deeper cause may be a need for survival.