Empathy Does not Exist for Selfish Reasons

[socrtwo]

The Washington Post Article mentioned in the previous post, speculates
that empathy is "adaptive". That is it somehow serves the selfish
gene. This is as usual wrong headed. All of Biology must be put on
the new foundation, that life is the struggle between empathy and
selfishness. The triumph of empathy is personal sacrifice for
unrelated organisms.

This sacrifice allows selfishness to exist at all, not the other way
around. Selfishness is a luxary afforded by selfless sacrifice. Even
perhaps a prey giving up his/her life to the predator may be seen in
some ways as a successful sacrifice allowing life to continue. It may
be an extremely difficult thing to do to give up one's life for
another and even Jesus wanted to avoid it if at all possible, but from
Jesus death sprung new life of modern culture.

The study of the selfish gene is the study of the destruction of life,
not it's creation. Biology in the form of the modern Darwinist
perspective is the study of death, not life! I may not be able to
parse out my arguments super clearly because I do not understand. For
instance, what benefit does it bring to the animal that sacrifices.
The answer may be eternal life for the organism, but this does not
seem to exist in the Scriptures. Only humans seem to get eternal
life.

Service to the creator may be reward enough and the attainment of some
kind of Nirvana for the organism that sacrifices and "hears", "Job
well done."

[socrtwo]

Why do animals caught in traps wimper? Are they not trying to appeal
to our empathy? Why make such an appeal unless at least part of the
time it exists and results in their freedom? An animal caught by a
predator will do the same thing right? You say it is a call to
members of their own species for help, but the mouse and the cat share
a commonality that they are both mammals and live in the same local
environment, let along they are both alive. Has any study ever been
made into the possibility that predators have mercy on their prey
sometimes or that certain individual organisms might show "mercy" and
"wisdom" more than others.

Science has been now been too narrow minded. The selfish gene may
like Newtonian Physics explains gravity, explain most of life, but it
doesn't explain it all, and it is not fundemental nor is it
foundational!!!