seeks individual advantage. Fame, wealth, power and other reward structures are making the idea of individual advantage more prevalent than they should be but that doesn't make us evil any more than behaving socially makes us good. As far as the Baptist and its kindred Calvinist belief goes,..
This answer (and several others) seems to focus more on how we act socially. But what about individually, in our private lives? A person who shows only love & concern for others writ large could be a jerk to his own spouse or cheat his own employer, for example.
I have some mulling to do. Thanks and good conversation.
I think Calvin painted himself into a corner viz-a-viz "How could God be perfect if he didn't concern himself with the flight of every sparrow?" It ends up creating epicycles on epicycles to explain the evidence of peoples' eyes. The universe imho is unfeeling and we're motes on a pale blue dot.
