Are Believers truly Altruistic, or Does an Ulterior Motive Exist?

Question

When a non-believer does non-selfish good deed, no expectation of heavenly reward exists. When a believer does a good deed It would ultimately be for the purpose of Heavenly rewards?

Ulterior motive?

Answer 1

First of all, I don't know what you mean by "believer". Anyone who believes anything is a believer. Avoid letting fundamentalists box you into their label. That gives them power. If you're something other than a "believer", than it makes it sound like you're just stubborn or something. You may well believe in all sorts of values, such as an objective quest for facts and trying to be good just to make the world a better place. Instead of calling them "believers", if you're talking about fundamentalists, call them fundamentalists or fanatics. Be aware, however, that there are lots of religious people who are opposed to the whole notion that the only way to be good is literally following a book.

The whole point of America (I'm assuming you're American, but I realize that that may be a false assumption) is that we all have the right to believe whatever we believe. If some people believe that the Great Kumquat is God, that's their right.

Secondly, if I understand what you're saying correctly, you're asking if it's better to be good just because you think you'll get into Heaven and avoid Hell or whether you think it's better to just be good for good's sake. That begs the question: what does it mean to be good. With all due respect to those who follow holy books, I'd like to state my opinion about ethics. I'm sorry if it offends anyone, but that's my opinion and we're hopefully all here to communicate. So, any holy book devotees have now been fairly warned that they might not like what I have to say. :-) (I still respect you guys as human beings, I simply disagree with a lot of you.)

It seems absurd and even dangerous to me to base one's ethics on literal belief in a book. I think that ethics REQUIRES thought and reason. We have to be able to understand how our actions affect others before we can truly be ethical people. If we blindly follow some book or other and believe that that book is a literal communication from the Divine without any evidence that it is, and that book rationalizes doing terrible things to others, we'll do terrible things to others. In the years of the Inquisition and the Witch Craze, the Church did exactly that! So, I'm sick and tired of people who can use their book to rationalize torturing people to death telling me how to be a good person.

Here are several reasons to be good that are totally separate from any concept of the Divine, Heaven or Hell:

1. The world would be better off if we were nice to others and avoiding harm to others. It would be worse off if we hurt others.
2. Actions have natural consequences. If you punch someone in the face, they're likely to punch you back, or worse, go to the police and report you for assault. Conversely, if you're friendly and nice to others, they'll be more likely to be nice to you. Therefore, we should be nice and avoid harming people.
3. If one thinks literal belief in an afterlife is absurd because of lack of proof (literal belief in God, Heaven and Hell are to many of us as absurd as believing in Santa Claus and his toy shop in the North Pole), one must conclude that we only have this life to live. If we believe that, than our only acts in life that really matter after we die are those acts that outlast us. If we leave a legacy of pain and sorrow, then we left the world worse off for having been here. If, on the other hand, we leave the world a better place for having been here, our life has lasting meaning. Every person we help and every person we're kind to is a legacy.

Through a combination of empathy and logic, we can be good people, but, in my opinion, we're only really good when we liberate ourselves from blind faith in books and arbitrary rules, because, blind faith in books makes us ignorant as to what truly helps others and what truly hurts others. On the other hand, reason and empathy allow us to see what harms others and what helps others clearly. Therefore, in my opinion, it is only through that combination that we can truly be good people.

Do I think that people who claim to have absolute literal faith in a holy book have ulterior motives? Yes, I think many of them may INDEED have ulterior motives, particularly preachers and other charismatic religious leaders. Preachers like Pat Robertson and Billy Graham make a lot of money and gain a lot of power by preaching dogma. I suspect that they're truly motivated by greed and power and have bamboozled a lot of innocent people.

I also think there are quite a few people out there who like telling other people that they're going to burn in Hell, because it makes them feel superior. They like tormenting people. I think it's abusive and I think they MUST be stopped. We know from history that such people are likely to commit terrible atrocities. It's dangerous to naively live and let live with such people, because I think they'll rationalize whatever cruelty will make them feel superior.

However, I also think that there are a lot of fundamentalists who are ignorant. A friend of mine who was a former fundamentalist Christian (and was raised as such) said that she at one time really believed in it all. She really thought she was being a good person. It wasn't until she started getting ideas outside of fundamentalist culture that she started to realize the problems with it. She also, ironically, rejected fundamentalism BECAUSE she read the entire Bible and concluded that the character of God is a tyrant with all the maturity of a two-year-old (the way He treated Job is one example of this and the Bible also says that He hardened Pharaoh's heart AGAINST the Jews - so God was the one who MADE Pharaoh be tyranical to the Jews). So, I think we need to have compassion for fundies who mean well but are ignorant.

Moreover, there are lots of religious people who are NOT fundies. They believe in just being good people and leaving others alone. Many Christians just try to love their neighbor, do to others as they'd have others do to them and avoid judging members of other religions BECAUSE they follow the teachings of Jesus.

So, I think whether or not someone has ulterior motives with his or her apparent morality must be looked at on a case by case basis.

Answer 2

I am a "believer," but I am a believer in Paganism, which is probably different than your definition. I am also a giant fan of altruism, and I think that we should strive to be selfless as possible without letting others exploit us. I believe that everyone goes to the same place after death, so there is no Heavenly reward for my behavior; I can't be bribed to behave. I strive to be altruistic because it is the right thing to do.

Answer 3

First, some readers have missed the second half of the first example: you specified a non-selfish good deed, and some are still saying it would be selfish... "No child left behind" at work here?

Anyway, many Christian churches teach that salvation is by faith alone. Somehow I can't reconcile that with James's admonition that "Faith without works is dead". But I suppose that they still believe that works aren't necessary. Paul said that Salvation is not determined through works "Lest no man should boast". Who was right... James or Paul? The world may never know.

Pagans, at least Wiccans, believe in the three-fold law. That what we give comes back to us. That may be an understanding of how the universe works, but does that mean that the doer of good works is necessarily selfish? Again, James says "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Meaning to be selfless and pure. As a Pagan, I believe that too.

For anybody, Christians, Pagans, Athiests, there are two kinds of people. There are those who do things for selfless reasons and there are those who do things for selfish ones. No religion, or non-religion is pure, filled with altruistic folk. We all have our good, our bad, our hypocrites and our saints.

An altruistic athiest doesn't detract from Christianity and a saintly Christian doesn't dispove Wicca. All religions have those who selflessley serve. For examples:

Patrick Stewart, a Wiccan who was killed in the line of duty in Iraq, who still awaits more than a year later, a grave marker bearing his emblem of belief.

Mother Theresa, who tirelessly served with the poor, earning a Nobel prize.

Jim Dobson, (who I personally disagree with on some things) who even after suffering a stroke, comes back to work his hardest to promote what he believes is right.

R.C. Sproul, who has one of the finest minds around, and preaches his messages without resorting to put-downs.

Bill Gates, and agnostic, who is donating more money that probably anybody ever has to charity.

Warren Buffet, probably an atheist, donating 85% of his 40 Billion dollar fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

So these are the positive side. Does anybody doubt that there are religious in the prisons for serious crimes, such as child mollestors, rapists, murderers and such?

There are good and bad among all of us. There are selfless and selfless in all groups. These are not endemic to any particular group, but simply represent the range of human ill or good in every single group of mankind.

Answer 4

Everyone does everything for their own benefit. We treat friends well so we don't feel alone; we obey the law to keep our freedoms; we help others so we have a better society for ourselves.

When christians kiss their imaginary "god"'s rear end by "obeying", they're trying to keep their own hides out of "hell", and not for any altruistic reasons, and not because it's "the right thing to do".

Everybody's selfish. The only question is, Who is honest about their motivations?


Additional:

"Angel Baby", you are QUITE mistaken about Bugger Teresa - oops, mother. Her "hospitals" reused needles, which spread AIDS; she took stolen money from convicted criminals (Keating, the S&L fraudster) and refused to return it to the victims from whom it was stolen; she kept the poor in squalor and offered "comfort" and "prayer" but no treatment; she lied about how many "hospitals" there were or the "quality" of treatment; she accepted tens of millions in donations yet spent little of it on the poor, instead funnelling nearly all of it to the vatican; all the while SHE got her ugly face on TV and was "praised" (more like worshipped) and was taken to the best and most expensive hospitals in Europe as children lay dying in pain in her "hospitals".

Can you say "hypocrite"? I knew you could.

Go read Dr. Aroup Chatterjee book, "Mother Teresa: The Final Verdict", among other links below. She was a self-serving sadist who only loved herself.

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/312/7022/64/a
http://www.meteorbooks.com/
http://website.lineone.net/~bajuu/chatlet.htm?22,17
http://www.ibiblio.org/prism/oct97/mothert.html

Anyone who believe Smother Teresa was interested in charity is woefully misinformed. Hers was the worst sort of selfishness, that practiced by some of the worst dictators like Kim Il Sung, Mao, Stalin and the pedophile pope John Paul II: a desire to be personally worshipped.


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Answer 5

I think that believers are capable of purely non-selfish good deeds (or as much capable as anyone is), particularly in religions where "salvation" is by faith and not works.

However, I would argue that most belief in and of itself is the product of an ulterior motive--to reap whatever reward is promised by said belief. (Note I said *most* and not *all*.)

Answer 6

the problem is the word selfish..if you do anything because it ultimately makes "you" feel good, it's not altruism. And nobody not even Jesus can say that..
Yes, I may have saved that man from a burning building but I did it because "I" didn't want him to suffer, or "I" couldn't live with myself if I didn't do something..after the instinct wears off it becomes purely selfish, which can be a good thing, but refutes the meaning of altruism.

Answer 7

this question has been asked before. i would say that non believer is definetely doing it just to be a good person, not to take anything away from the believers who do good work

Answer 8

All good deeds are attributable to God and no one else.
That is why I do not do "good" deeds. I do what is necessary, and no more. Therefore, if any good deed is done by me, it will truly be miraculous.

Answer 9

You are assuming that atheists never have selfish motives and that believers always do.

False assumptions on both ends.

Answer 10

Good works won't open the door.