Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. --Richard Dawkins

Jakob Haferland

 Evolutionary beliefs provide no objective basis to justify traits like honesty. In contrast, to lie would be acting inconsistently with the teachings of the Bible, which says to speak the truth (Ephesians 4:25 and many other verses). When Christians act with selfless compassion and altruism, they are likewise acting consistently with their beliefs. Not so the evolutionist.

Andrew Lamb (on www.creation.com Feedback archive, Feedback 2008, “Was Dawkins stumped”)

I’m highly amused by this quote from Richard Dawkins. Not because what he says is right, but rather because just he is saying it. It is the same Richard Dawkins, the advocator of the evolution theory, who wrote many books on evolution and his disbelief in God and who calls his website ‘a clear-thinking oasis’.  

However, his teaching and writing on evolution contradicts his thoughts on generosity and altruism as Andrew Lamb points out: “[…] if evolution is true, and we are just an accumulation of millions of genetic mistakes, then our thoughts are just purposeless movements of chemicals and electrons in the brain, and there is no reason to presume that they are meaningful and rational”. The same thing applies to actions like altruism or generosity and feelings like love or happiness. If the evolution theory is true, there wouldn’t be any purpose in these things and it would be all a kind of lucky coincidence. However, if the Bible is true and these feelings are a creation of God, then it all comes together as the Bible teaches us to act in altruism and selfless compassion to our neighbor in order to serve him and God’s kingdom. Andrew Lamb points this out in the first statement.

So the amusing thing about Prof Dawkins statement is that he is preaching a Christian principal, which contradicts his general teaching about evolution and so on, which just shows once more how dubious and inaccurate the evolution theory is, as also much scientific evidence argues against this explanation for the origin of life.

 

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. --Ralph Waldo Emerson

Song Yang

If you were shown a picture of a baby that you thought was ugly, would the words “Oh, isn’t he/she cute?” come out of your mouth instead? It seems that is what most people do. What I find interesting about this is the child’s picture was altered to look “ugly” and still everyone said the baby was cute. What interests me about this was there are numerous phrases to use.

That doesn’t mean you should tell someone their baby is ugly. If your girlfriend asks whether those jeans make her look big or not. Personally I’d say, “Yes, and you know this…why are you asking me?” but I can sympathize with the boyfriend that says, “No honey…”.

In an effort to spare someone pain, even to strangers, we tell those white lies in an act of kindness. Being generous here, there are times when telling those white lies is “okay” but there are times when a person prefers the truth. Don’t do what is easier for you to tell lies, tell them the truth.

What I’m saying is that there is a time and a place for white lies and there is definitely a time to be mature and tell the truth.

Maybe without lies, relationships between people will not be harmonious and society will be full of chaos. Obviously, lying is an essential part of the human experience and mental health. It’s acceptable to lie in some circumstances.

Accordingly, truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.

We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.

Kota Sato

When we hear news about disaster or poverty far away from us, it’s a bit difficult to go to the place and save people, while some people may try to do this action. At that time we might feel our powerlessness and helplessness not to be able to do big things to save people who are suffering from hardships; we can only watch that news. At least I used to feel so.

Have you ever heard the word “philanthropy”? The definition of this word is “altruistic concern for human welfare and advancement, usually manifested by donations of money, property, or work to needy persons, by endowment to institutions of learning and hospitals, and by generosity to other socially useful purposes.” Moreover someone who gives money to people who need help is called a philanthropist. For example in 2004, the famous rock band U2 released their 11^th album called “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb”. The vocalist Bono, who is famous as a philanthropist, explained the meaning of the title of the record. He explained the title means while it’s very difficult to dismantle an atomic bomb in the present day, if you start thinking about how to do it in the future it’s possible to eliminate atomic bombs. He also shows his explanation that while now there are lots of problems in the world, if you can do some small help the process makes the world better and it will become the power to dismantle an atomic bomb.

Summing up, Bono’s idea has two aspects of help. One is big influence from people who have a big power like him. When he became famous, he decided to use the value of fame for saving people in Africa who suffered from poverty and also decided to give people, especially in developed counties chances or hints to think about help which they can do. After that people have been realizing small steps to help, getting hints from people like Bono. Actually I’m one of them. I think what we can do is having concern about small contributions and conducting what we can do. In other words, if there are lots of people who do a little help to realize the importance of them, lots of help results.

I suppose the worst thing is giving up on our small contributions because they are little. As I showed it’s a very important part of help overall and it makes the world better. On the other side, some people who have big influences on society should have some projects that people can join to help people who suffer from hardships and they also should give people the chances to make people think about “help” and what they can do.

What we have done for ourselves alone dies with us; what we have done for others and the world remains and is immortal. --Albert Pike.

Ayoub Al Kharusi

What a good feeling when you feel that you did help someone! How many people die when they were trying to rescue someone? Actually they did save someone’s life, but they put themselves at risk and faced death. But who can forget the Japanese police officer who saved a women and from a train and died? Who forget the Omani leader who put himself in danger when he tried to save the prisoner from a great flood and died with them? If you forget those people I won’t, even if I forget someone’s name is I don’t think that I will forget what he did.

It’s a great feeling you have when you help someone in everything good for him, you and your society. Then if you help someone in something and feel like this, how do you think your feeling will be when you rescue someone’s life, even it is an animal! Did you know that if you rescue someone’s life it is like you've rescued the whole world? So, let’s think how great emotion that will be!

Every society in this world must be as a body because if an organ from this body falls down all the other organs will try to get it up and continue its life. That is what we must do, but I think that will not happen because each nation in this world is trying to be the strongest without thinking of others who try to find crumbs of bread to eat and medicine to treat their people, and that is what is happening now. You will say that isn’t true because the strongest countries are sending a lot of food to Africa, but do you think that’s enough for them? I think the real help which we can give them is education including food and other things until those people can depend on themselves.

It’s not necessary to be immortalized because of what we do, because we’ll find everything we have done in this life laid out on the Day of Reckoning, otherwise it’s very good to allow others an accurate impression about us.

If you wish to provide peace, provide peace for another. --The Dalai Lama

Ahmed Al Salmi

We live in this big world with different cultures and different kinds of ideas, so sometimes some people try to enforce their culture on every place in this world. This kind of thinking lets wars start and makes the world in a bad way. What things should we do to keep the world in peace?

To answer that question lets go across the meaning of 'help' in the dictionary. 'Help' is to do something for somebody in order to be useful or to make a person’s work easier, so from that meaning we can understand that if we help anyone we will give him an easy way to do his work and that makes life easy for all people when everyone helps others who need help. From helping people we can provide peace, but if we see our world nowadays we will see that some countries start wars for simple reasons and that thing kills a lot of people, so you can’t see any peace. However if wars are switched with helping other people with the things that they need the world will be better and there will be peace.

Moreover we can see that the peace doesn't come without giving help when needed. For example when any country has a disaster most countries give it  help by giving it  medicine and food. In this situation the world will live in the perfect way that everyone dreams about .From all that lets help people to grow peace in our world.

We can see the tsunami for example when it happened in Samoa, New Zealand gave Samoa's people help and sent some doctors and firemen there to help rescue people.

Finally I hope all people will provide peace by helping each other and move away from the malicious. That would make the world a big fantastic family. 

What we have done for ourselves ... dies with us; what we have done for others ... is immortal. --Albert Pike

Sharifa Al Balushi

No one can deny that helping others has a special taste. When you give some help for anyone, you'll feel that you are doing a great thing. It's enough to hear the word 'Thanks ' from others. Maybe you'll forget what you did but it's impossible to be forgotten from a person's memory if you did him or her help.
Helping others is one of a few things which people will remember forever. If you want to gain others hearts, give some help to them. I think helping others is a main part of human psychology. Some people are ready to lose their lives in order to rescue others, so how can you explain that? You also see children help others although they are too young and don't understand help's meaning. If anyone asks me to help, absolutely I won't hesitate to help. Sometimes you are doing a very small help but it leaves a big impact. So, try usually to offer help because it will remain even after you die.
Everyone needs help. Poor people need money. Old people need care. Teenagers need someone to hear them. So, don't hesitate and offer help to all. You also need help. If you help others, you'll find a lot of people want to help you when you are in need.
We are collecting money and doing a lot of things for ourselves but all of them will die and finish immediately when we die. One thing will remain and that is what we do for others and the world. Give others a chance to remember you.  

The truth will set you free, but it will make you miserable.

Kota Sato

The truth will set you free, but it will make you miserable. I suppose this sentence is true. Let me elaborate. There are truths around us and we are able to understand them. However how many people want to know and get truths which are given to them? While it depends on the kind of truth which people get, I think so many people don’t want to know truths because getting and knowing truths is sometimes quite miserable and demanding of courage for people. I’ll illustrate the two cases with examples. The first one is a sort of personal example and the second one is a very large-scale example.

First of all, when you meet a person you admire like the president of your company or your favorite actor or musician, your mind is divided into two aspects, one which is exhilaration and the other fear to know the real truth about the person. If your admired person doesn’t have the personality which you expected, it means you know the miserable truth. Your image of the person would be broken immediately. It might be a little bit difficult to get over the damage.

Secondly, in 2003, the United States started the Iraq War. The reason why the USA government decided to begin the war was Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. The government stated there is a possibility for Iraq to possess weapons of mass destruction and also stated Iraq hadn’t accepted open inspections from the United Nations. However after the end of the battle, an investigating commission from the USA conducted a search for the weapons of mass destruction. In October 2004, the USA government introduced a final report which said there were no weapons of mass destruction. If this story is the truth, why did the USA government start the war? Why were innocent people in Iraq dead? What remains except the misery?

Knowing the truth sets us free. In other words, we can understand the naked reason or fact, getting the truth. However, it’s not always good for us. There are miseries following truth, which you receive. But I want to suppose anyway that if you got a truth which involved misery, in some cases, you should accept it and think about it, especially in a case like the Iraq War so not to make something similar happen.