Quote Originally Posted by Tenacity View Post
Just because people betray you, it doesn't mean that their allegiance was a potential gain at the time of the good deed. I'm not saying kindness is impossible. I'm just saying that nobody is kind without (potential) gain unless they are manipulated to do so (often by people who use the word 'selfish'). I can even show that giving money to poor people even when they dislike you is selfish - you give money to them because you believe it is right to (you admitted this), but the only reason you do that is because you want to a morally good person. Is that not itself a selfish motive?

You're right, it is called being nice. But you don't have to be selfless to be nice. If I give a compliment because I want someone to like me, rather than because I want to make them feel good, is giving the compliment a bad act? Of course not. The effect of the compliment is ultimately the same regardless of the intention.

Yes, even that, but I meant even as simple as not saying 'thank you' to a waiter or waitress just because it made your friend anxious.
There was never any potential advantage to me. I knew flat out what the consequences were going to be but I did it anyway because, guess what? I felt like it. And to answer your question, just because I'm religious does not mean I have any motives behind my kindness. I'm not the most religious person out there and I never think to myself "hey what can I do today that will make me a morally good person?" That's not something I do. If someone asks me for money I give it to them. Simple as that. Why does there have to be any advantage or motive behind it? Being a morally good person has nothing to do with this, or maybe it has everything to do with this because this is inherently a battle between evolution and religion, a circular argument with no true answer. So you can try to prove me wrong all you want but we're at a stalemate that cannot be breached.

That's called deceit. Doing something nice with an ulterior motive that is unclear at the presentation of the original intiation or soon after is keeping something from someone which is wrong. So while the compliment itself might not be mean, the fact that you haven't actually stated outright or at least made the intention clear in the first few exchanges is qualifying as deceit, which is wrong.

Hm… you know, I'll be honest, I'm not sure. Here's why. Firstly, I've never been in the situation so I can't give my proper reaction. Secondly, where I've been raised, it's second nature to say thank you and be polite like that. I believe I would try to be more careful about it around them but seeing as I just automatically respond in that way, it would be very difficult. However, I would not completely shut myself off from humanity even if the person wasn't around since that's not how I think and work. You said it yourself, humans are social creatures. Despite being effectively a slave to my peers, I enjoy being around other people. However, more often than not, I have found that the kindness that I share is hardly returned and my continual expression of it is based from my birth, raising, and past experiences, all factors than cannot be controlled nor used as motivation because, at best, you can claim that I was brainwashed, which, in effect, I was. In which case, if I was brainwashed then I would gain no advantage from any action I have ever done since none of my actions are my own but the decisions that are made others.