None of those experiments concluded that there is no such thing as human compassion, EXC, so not everyone who believes they are compassionate can be deluded. Apparently some 5-10% of us actually can think past our own selfishness, so clearly compassion does exist.

On another note, almost all of them were compound tests revealing little precisely about the number of compassionate people but, rather, a lot about the number of people who are all of brave, knowledgeable and unselfish at once and ALL of them revealed at least a person who proved to be that.

Great pic, captain. But where are his ears? Pinned back??

Let's try some real data.  http://www.heartmath.org/research/rp-physiological-and-psychological-effects-of-compassion-and-anger.html

If you don't want to wade through the entire article, I will attempt to summarize.  Please remember that I am not a psychologist, nor a research scientist of any sort.  Two semesters of college level statistics do not an expert make.

This was a small study.  30 people, more female than male, a fairly wide age range.  They used standard psych tests to measure people's mood, measured heart rate  and salivary IgA.  The S-IgA is a portion of your spit that is directly associated with immune response.  More S-IgA, better immune response.  Less S-IgA, lousy immune response.

So, they tested people.  Then, they asked them to remember incidents or watch video that was either care and/or compassion or anger and/or frustration.  Then they tested them again.  Cutting to the chase: if people remembered incidents from their lives, they were more affected than if they watched videos.  People who remembered A&F incidents experienced briefly higher levels of S-IgA followed by five HOURS of abnormally reduced levels of S-IgA.  People who remembered C&C incidents experienced significantly higher levels of S-IgA for a brief period and then levels quickly returned to normal.  The C&C people also had vastly better moods and their heart rates returned to normal more quickly.  no duh.

My interpretation:  If you dwell on A&F incidents, you have a higher chance of being ill.  Deathly ill.  Including - from what I can tell in a very brief search on the 'net - autoimmune diseases which are strongly associated with depressed S-IgA levels.  People who dwell on C&C seem to have good immune responses and a decrease in risk.  Therefore, they are likely to live longer.  Therefore, their fitness is increased.  Therefore, we have a reasonable hypothesis that C&C is evolutionarily superior to A&F.  Which ties in with studies that have shown people who have strong social networks live longer and are healthier.

Is it important that people are C&C for self-gratification?  I don't see that it is.  The whole point is that C&C improves your mood and therefore, your immune system.  If your mood is improved because you care for someone else or because you are pleased with yourself for the act of caring, is unimportant.  "Do it because it feels good." 

Does this make them "selfish"?  <Shrugs>  Who cares?  Only you.  When discussing health care, there are valid economic reasons for improving the current system in the U.S.  Healthier people take fewer sick and vacation days, are more productive, and are more pleasant to work with.  A healthier work force means lower costs for everyone - business, people, society.  Yeah, I can argue the economics with you - and I can also feel care and compassion for other people.  I think it is sad that some people emphasize the economic concerns and ignore the human concerns of those who are doing the best they can with the hand they have been dealt.  Is their best as good as your best?  If you haven't been there, how would you know?

Please note that in this experiment, there is no peer pressure as people were not encouraged to share their experiences.  There were no expectations of caring or not caring or of someone else doing something.  Having been involved in car accidents, and drunk old ladies sleeping it off in the Phoenix afternoon sun, and dog rescue, and general life, what I know is that people are good, bad and indifferent - sometimes it is the same person all on the same day.  Saints don't exist, but neither do devils.

-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.

I think the point that he (for it is a he, right?) is trying to make - constantly - is that selfishness is at the bottom of all motivational energies of all organic compounds, humans included. There are no extraterrestrial dimensions of angelic love and goodness; there is only the feverish daydream of beliefs and imaginations that so many humans prefer instead of confronting reality in its raw and naked essence.

Whereas I agree that it doesn't much matter why people do the right thing, I can also see the point of educating at least the future generations about the evil consequences that have a tendency to follow in the footsteps of ideologies which are based only in vague emotions and imaginary "spirituality". We are not gods, we are monkeys. The mind can be a wonderful tool, but it can also be a terrible thing. How to tell the difference before shit happens?

Exactly, thank you. It amazes me how atheists that ridicule theists for their beliefs about 'holy' and 'righteous' behaviors do exactly the same thing. At what point in our evolutionary history did our cells and genes stop behaving in ways that favor others instead of ourselves? All we've evolved is a capacity to cooperate at times with other when it's mutally beneficial. But at the same time this desire to cooperate is something that is often taken advantage of. The people that preach compassion, morality and unselfishness instead of rational cooperation are just trying to gain something for nothing.

I don't understand that kind of thinking. When you fly on an airplane, don't you want the pilot and the designers to understand why the plane does "the right thing"? So if one want to be part of making society better and be taken seriously, shouldn't we understand why humans do what they do?

The greatest gift a parent can give to his/her child is to not pass along their insanities. I think the best thing people can do for society is not pass along their delusions about being 'compassionate'.

Just because you have a unique combination of nurture and nature has an effect on the choices that you make don't actually preclude the freedom to make one choice or another.   I suppose freewill might be delusional thinking but how would we quantifiably test whether or not we can truly make any choice we want or if we're landlocked by our past experiences and biology.

Who is this "We"?  I don't recall having this argument.

Can you post a link to these 'overwhelming studies'  sounds like an appeal to authority or the masses.

I made a decision to post this and acted on that decision.  Was that a random behavior as you posit?   I don't think so.   In fact a deterministic model would say that it wasn't random at all because everything that led me to this point (nature and nurture) forced me to come to that decision.

I might agree that the default position of the non-existence of freewill without conclusive proof is true but to say that the proof is irrevocable by calling it delusional is going into a territory which I would regard as you making a claim.

Delusion:
1 : the act of deluding : the state of being deluded
2 a : something that is falsely or delusively believed or propagated b : a persistent false psychotic belief regarding the self or persons or objects outside the self that is maintained despite indisputable evidence to the contrary; also : the abnormal state marked by such beliefs

We always have a choice.  I don't have to behave like my parents or my peers.  I can choose to do something else.  Always.  I can choose to murder the people on my block, but I choose not to.  I am not forced by society or the law or my early toilet training to not murder everyone on my block.  It is my conscious choice.  Some days, I make that choice more than once.  Most days it never crosses my radar.  Many of us on these forums have made the choice to be atheists regardless of our family and peer pressures.  I honor their courage to make that free will choice.

-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.

And then we read your quote "I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe." So your non-belief is based on how it makes you feel.

You choose not to murder because you believe this will make you feel better.

So at the end of the day, you're an atheist because it feels better to be this way. This overcomes any social penalty you might pay from friends and family. Your theist family and friends feel better staying with this belief.

So you always do what feels right at the moment, you have no free will to do anything else. You can claim you can do something else but you can't.

Not really. If your house was burning up with your child inside, you may not be able to force yourself to touch something extremely hot to save them. Your nervous system puts your own self preservation first. It's not a moral failing or lack of compassion if you can't.

That's news to me. Then why do we all have a different moral standard and so many moral dilemmas? So many disagreements in politics, religion, teaching children ect.. if we all know the same moral standard for right and wrong.

Because everyone judges right and wrong by the neural firings in their own brain producing pleasure or pain. Sometimes this means conformity to some social standard for behavior, sometimes not. This requires no moral judgement because morality is really just a force for bringing pleasure or pain via social approval or disapproval.

No, my non-belief was based on reason.  The better feeling was a pleasant side effect of giving up the nonsense.  P.S. That was over 30 years ago that I gave it up.  Ancient history.

And I don't murder my neighbors because 1) it is a lot of effort and I am basically lazy and 2) I don't want to deal with the consequences - especially since I faint at the sight of blood.  And less facetiously, because it is not the right thing to do.  It is against my morals.  MY morals, not society's and not religion's and not the law.  MY personally chosen morals about what is right and wrong for ME.

I am an atheist because religion is bullshit.  Feeling better is just icing on the cake, not the raison d'etre.  My social penalties with my family are few at this point in my life.  They have largely given up on me.  My friends like me the way I am or they aren't my friends.

I don't always do what "feels right".  What I do might feel very uncomfortable, or it might hurt, or it might be pleasant but not "right".   If I have chocolate ice cream, it is very pleasant, but it may not be "right".  I don't have to have the ice cream and I don't have to refuse it, either.  My choice.  Mine to make every day and I spend about 30 seconds making the choice. 

Explain to me the firemen who risk life and limb for that child.  The parent who does go into a burning building to try to save that child and is severely burned.  Or the parent who is drowned trying to save a child from drowning.  A thousand or more times a day, we make choices.  Often, they are not life threatening or even painful or mildly uncomfortable.  But we make choices all day long.  We are often not aware of the choices being made, but that doesn't mean they didn't happen.  We can work at becoming conscious of the choice and then they become our expression of our will, instead of the mindless float through the day many people do. 

It is up to each person to make the choice to look at what they are choosing to do and then to make up their minds as to whether they wish to continue with the same choices or to make new choices.  You don't have to accept the mindless choices of yourself or others.  You can choose to be aware - to attain the state of mindfulness - and to exercise your free will.  Or not.

-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.

The brave heros that do this that are to be admired ulike the lowly cowards that won't. Isn't a big part of it social reward, the generous pensions and benefits help. Also social preassure from other firefighter. A genetic compenent in play as well, people that are 'brave' may be more popular and attractive to women.

It's the feeling this must be done. They would feel horrible if they did not.

And the choice is always to do what feel right at the momement.

But I can only do what feels right. We have no free will for anything else? Are you free to shut your mind down and have no thoughts at all?

Personally, I like to think I follow some form of ethical egoism.    I'm not a strict egoist because I've learned in life that the most expedient self-serving thing of the moment for this situation is not necessarily the best way to maximize my gains long term.     So, yeah I could have pleasure from  XXXX frowned upon activity in the moment but long term being in jail is not going to maximize my pleasure seeking nature.

I also find that cooperative strategies tend to be best for long term maximization of my happiness.   I also find happiness in helping other people (believe me giving to charity is a selfish motivation for me).   So for me concepts like 'isms' can work toward my happiness seeking behaviors because by helping others sometimes I help myself through reciprocity or by just the pleasure of doing something 'nice'.)    I don't mind punishing or letting society punish other people though for fucking with me or society.  That's a way to disuade douchebag behaviors.

But in the end my only morality is selfishness though sometimes I've found that doing good deeds and not the immediately gratifying thing is the best long term strategy.