Tim, I think the defintion of selfish you posted us the kind I am talking about. Yes, I AM saying we make these choices with disregard for the other person. Our intentions just tend to be to be what we think is in the others favor because it lives up to our idea of who we are in society and how we act. Did I not make that clear? Tim you are uncomfortable with the way I use selfish because you associate selfish with bad. I'm simply trying to get you to see it differently, as human. I am going to be extreme here and say that I think the act of killing someone is the same thing as giving your lunch to a homeless man. It's a selfish act and one is simply more accepted by society. The latter keeps with your image of a nice guy, and the former to some person who's evaluation of the world he lives in quite far off from the yours and mine. And yes society should put him away because he is a danger to the rest of us, but it is not an evil act. There are circumstances that put that person in that mindset, just as there circumstances that put you in yours. You would not kill someone because it is ingrained in you that it is very wrong, and thus you would feel very badly about yourself because you are not being consistant with your nice-guy self. SImply because that man has been through different circumstances than you that has causes him to be the way he is how can you say he is an evil man? Our minds are much more fragile than we think, normal people are driven over this edge all the time. And of course we think killing is wrong. We are human and we think of ourselves as more important than everything else. So we kill animals, its the same freakin thing, in all reality you are not any more special than a deer. We crush rocks, in all reality you are not more precious than a rock. Simply because we are a little more complicated than these things we are more valuable. I wouldn't even say we are more complicated, simply different. YOu thinking murder is bad is your mind trying to keeps itself alive. It's instinct. Just as a deer will run when it sees danger, you will perserve yourself at all cost and will think that your life is very valuable. But outside of your head you are no different than everything else.

I know I'm going to get reamed for this one....