Early on the 16th we came down a hill to a road and saw a sign that read "Trail Magic - Belgium waffles, pork stew, ice cream and cold drinks. 350 yards down the road to the left at the house with a concrete driveway." That sounded amazing so off we went. At the top of a steep driveway was a nice house. At the door we were greeted by a nice older gentleman named Hercules. He ushered us in to the dining room and sat us at the table, which already had 5 or so hikers around it. We had full silverware setup with white cloth napkins and were asked if we wanted the waffle appetizer, of course we did. After the waffle I had some pork stew, they had veggie stew for people like UV that don't eat meat, and some homemade raisin bread. After that we were offered the choice, warm apple crisp with ice cream, warm blueberry crumble with ice cream, warm fudge brownie with ice cream or just out of the oven warm bread pudding with pears, apricots and cranberries... topped with ice cream. As I sat there contemplating my options UV went with the brownie, I quickly followed suit (photo below). After that Fal (Hercules' wife) asked if I would like to try one of the other choices as well. How can you turn down an offer like that? The bread pudding was delicious as well. During dessert they did talk a bit about religion and offered to give us some free books on Christianity but they weren't that preachy and even if they were with trail magic like that I would have gone along with it. It turns out they thru-hiked in '99 and now spend a lot of time doing this. They said annually they feed roughly 400 hikers, what great people.
Besides that nothing amazing happened the last few days, we walked in the woods. Going up and down a lot. To kind of demonstrate what I think about sometimes when I'm hiking I'm going to share some philosophical musing I had today. Many times when I am hiking my mind wanders and I start contemplating deep questions. Anyway here it is... WARNING Below are rough thoughts that came to me while my body was using a lot of my energy for mountains. Take it with at least one grain of salt.
If an atheist lives a "good" life is it inherently more "good" than someone who lives a "good" life because they were told to, fear eternal torment or are hoping for eternal reward. The logic here being that since the atheist believes there is nothing after death, being "good" is only something to do because it is the right thing to do. Whereas someone who believes in something after death might do "good" things not for the act itself but for the reward or fear of punishment, even if subconsciously. It also means that the only truly selfless acts must be performed by those that believe in nothing after death. I spent about 3 hours pondering this basic premise today and it seems logically sound for the most part. The easiest counter argument would be that you can't live a "good" life and be an atheist but that point could be debated. If anyone knows a philosopher that has thoughts similar to this let me know, I might want to read their work. Also let me know if you think it makes no sense at all, there is a distinct possibility of that.
Lastly, I leave you with a photo of a typical bear cable to try and bring some of the more mundane parts of trail life, to life.
I never really understood the "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" song. Be good, or you won't get presents. So be good for goodness sake!
ReplyDeleteAs soon as a reward and/or punishment is part of a decision then one and/or both will automatically become part of the decision making for good or bad actions.
Not sure if that matters in the end, because good actions regardless of the motivation is beneficial to society. The opposite goes for bad actions.
That isn't to say that atheists decisions can't and aren't influenced by materialistic reward/punishment systems.
Good for goodness sake is, by its very nature, more genuine. And that has to count for something.
Atheists are probably more likely to be genuinely good, compared to theists. Theists, however, probably do more good overall, even if it is out of fear of punishment and hope for reward in an afterlife.
So, not sure if it was conveyed, but I concur with your logic.
I'm not sure that anybody does "good for goodness' sake". I mean, if you act in a certain way because you believe it is the morally correct way to act, you're really just avoiding how you'd feel if you had acted in a different way. The reward in this case is the "warm fuzzy" feeling (or the lack of a negative one). Without the watchful eye of some powerful cosmic force, people have very few incentives to behave in a "good" way. As long as the laws and expectations of society are upheld (or perhaps circumvented), the only consequence to behaving in a non-good way is the impact those behaviors have on our interpersonal relationships (because hey, no rewards, no punishment, no karma!). Going the cultural anthropology route, humans have survived and thrived because of how we interact with the greater social network, and how much we care about our position in it.
ReplyDeleteAlso, "good" can be somewhat subjective, as demonstrated by the fact that few civilizations have completely agreed on morally acceptable behaviors through the ages. Without a religious structure to provide a baseline definition of "good", people are left to their own personal experiences, societal influences, and intuition (and what is that, anyway?) to flesh out their understanding of right/wrong.
Ultimately, whether you're acting "good" to stave off the wrath of some deified entity, to reap the benefits of the celestial, to bolster your position in the social network (at any scale), or to be chemically rewarded by your own biology, everyone has a motive. In this context, the difference between atheists, Christians, Buddhists, etc., is simply which set of metrics their behaviors are held against.
In summary, I don't believe that an atheist's actions are more pure or inherently more "good" merely because they use a different system for reward and punishment.
Also: boobies.
I personally think you're on to something NN, with respect to the generous intention, the act on its own merit as opposed to the motivation of fear.
ReplyDeleteBy the by, that ice cream looks good enough to enlarge and use to sell my wares.
Steve
My guess is you reach Erwin today or tomorrow. Sorry I can't ship ice cream. The comparison between the ice-cream and the bear bags is provocative indeed.
ReplyDeleteLiked your post. You know the distinction I make between an individual's "faith", the "church" they may belong to; and the "religion" that may have established the system of churches. While I tend to support Kyle's argument that we are all rational and only do things that pay off in some way, for some people, feeling that we have done the moral thing is the reward. ... and I certainly would not tie the meaning of 'good' to the guidance of a religion structure providing a baseline definition.
The addition of a biological reward [do we get an endorphen blast when we think we've done good?] was a nice additional touch to Kyle's argument. It looks like he threw every possible argument against the wall to see if anything would stick. :-{)
Hope you enjoyed Erwin. Looks like you have a number of wet days ahead for the next week.
And I'll just add that even if a person believes in god, fear isn't necessarily the motivator. A good friend of mine is one of the most genuinely charitable people I've ever known, and she's also Catholic. While I'm sure that there must be Catholics who give with heaven (or fear of hell) in mind, my friend is motivated by a strong belief that giving is the right thing to do. So even though she's religious, there's no difference between her charitable actions and an atheist's. But anyway, I do agree that there's always a reward to giving, although the person who gives in a spirit of "what's in it for me" takes the whole thing to a pretty crass level.
ReplyDeletePerhaps you should meet Kyle. That seems his perspective.
DeleteAgain, that baseline religious structure definition of 'good' has a pretty appalling history. ...and you don't even need to go back to the Crusades for some amazing examples. Just read some work news....