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I'm back for a minute or two, and I am also enjoying this discussion.
I tend to use the term "self-interest' instead of selfishness, as the latter has a somewhat negative connotation, trained into us from childhood. "Enlightened self-interest" is perhaps even better, and includes the idea that serving the interests of others aids in furthering one's own interests, which I think is not only true, it's a pretty good basis for personal ethics. It's also entirely rational and non-dependent on revelation.
"Selfishness" often connotes "unenlightened self interest" - in other words, inconsiderate, myopic greed and disdain for the well-being of others. I presume that this has not been the intended usage of it in Alex and GD's posts.
My few minutes are almost up - I'll throw in a quick and almost entirely irrelevant anecdote. I just returned from performing an interactive murder mystery. Our audience was a local Christian private school, and the kids were mostly high school age. (Our show was their reward for doing well in their "Academic Olympics.") Anyhow, during the Q&A section of the show, where the audience gets to question the actor/suspects, one of the students, a young lady of I'm guessing sixteen or so, demanded of the detective character, "Did you vote for Obama?" The actor playing the detective said, 'I don't know what that has to do with the murder, but yes, I did." The girl looked right at him and said, "How dare you!" Then she sat down. The room got real quiet, until the detective went on to the next table. Awkward.
Anyway, neither here nor there, but it just now happened, and I wanted to share. I'm off to my next show. Check back in later.
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