The source of evil.
- Thread starter Mojotronica
- Start date
Agreed - we have evolved a code of conduct amongst ourselves, through a combination of rational thought and selfishness. What we define as 'evil' changes with time, culture and even personal philosophy. Is abortion evil? fur farming? animal experimentation? I know people who would say yes and those who would say definitely not in each case.
Even acts that most of us would regard as undeniably evil are not viewed as such by those who commit them, for instance child abuse.
If 'good' and 'evil' were extrinsic and sourced from a deity then I would expect them to be immutable. Since this is not so I conclude that evil is a human concept evolved to label acts that are beyond the limits of society's acceptability.
Jorge
Yo mismo
As a curiosity, in a recent travel to Mexico I found that the Mayas thought that when dying people went to a better place. They had a game played with a ball and I always thougth that the looser was sacrified. I was very surprised when they explained me that it was the captain of the winner team who was executed, and it was considered a prize and an honour. Only very important people could become captain of a team. It's evident that such sacrifice that we would consider evil was completly the opposite for them.
Pikachu
Emperor
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What would the world be without evil? Extremely boring if you ask me! What if God always stopped you every time you would like to do something evil? That would have been very annoying
. Life is good. If you don't think so you have your freedom to quit. God would be very disappointed if you quit life at your own choice, but still he has given you that option. Freedom is more important than good and evil
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. Life is good. If you don't think so you have your freedom to quit. God would be very disappointed if you quit life at your own choice, but still he has given you that option. Freedom is more important than good and evil.
RoddyVR
Veteran Board NESer
i've been reading the phylosophical essays on the "Matrix" website. and some them touch on this question.
people seem to think that god should have made earth be heaven. i'm not sure i understood everything i've read over there, but as i understand it, you cant have heaven (christian bible type heaven) without sacrificing one of the following:
free will
real interaction with other people
and the third one is something like "our value system, including definitions of good and evil"
for those of you who have a lot of time to spend reading interesting ideas (or those who got intrigued by the idea/story of the Matrix movie) i highly recomend reading some of that stuff.
www.whatisthematrix.com and then at the bottom there is a link to "philosofical...."
and more directly on topic:
i agree with "there cant be good without evil" cause they are just quantities or values on the same scale, and we'd have no way of knowing what is above "zero" and whats below, if there was never anything below zero.
people seem to think that god should have made earth be heaven. i'm not sure i understood everything i've read over there, but as i understand it, you cant have heaven (christian bible type heaven) without sacrificing one of the following:
free will
real interaction with other people
and the third one is something like "our value system, including definitions of good and evil"
for those of you who have a lot of time to spend reading interesting ideas (or those who got intrigued by the idea/story of the Matrix movie) i highly recomend reading some of that stuff.
www.whatisthematrix.com and then at the bottom there is a link to "philosofical...."
and more directly on topic:
i agree with "there cant be good without evil" cause they are just quantities or values on the same scale, and we'd have no way of knowing what is above "zero" and whats below, if there was never anything below zero.
EdwardTking
Deity
Evil is Live spelt backwards
CurtSibling
ENEMY ACE™
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Mojo, you seem to hammer on about 'evil' a great deal.
But it is obvious that it is only a concept.
A mere word cannot easily sum up a complex dynamic of human motivation.
But I suppose that is the trouble with modern man, the desire to easily label and quantify.
But it is obvious that it is only a concept.
A mere word cannot easily sum up a complex dynamic of human motivation.
But I suppose that is the trouble with modern man, the desire to easily label and quantify.
Mojotronica
Expect Irony.
Curt --
I know. The forum gives me am excuse to iterate and reiterate my opinion or random thoughts ad nauseum.
Really this thread was just an excuse to post my mini-essay about evil being the decisions we make that are oppositional to our interests in the BIG scheme of things, but that we can't always comprehend as such.
But no one responded to it, so it's just a hollow echo of an idea, as many turn out to be.
An upshot about this is that not all actions that appear evil, ARE. Obviously, HARMING someone is evil, but RISKING harming someone is only evil because of you can't know for certain that the risk will not harm them. If you were God, you could absolutely control the risk, but you are not.
It's DE FACTO evil, but not evil in an of itself.
Some actions, such as dumping toxic waste in a lake, are probably evil because they are risky to others, but not evil like bludgeoning someone w/ a tire iron, which is definitely evil.
I know. The forum gives me am excuse to iterate and reiterate my opinion or random thoughts ad nauseum.
Really this thread was just an excuse to post my mini-essay about evil being the decisions we make that are oppositional to our interests in the BIG scheme of things, but that we can't always comprehend as such.
But no one responded to it, so it's just a hollow echo of an idea, as many turn out to be.
An upshot about this is that not all actions that appear evil, ARE. Obviously, HARMING someone is evil, but RISKING harming someone is only evil because of you can't know for certain that the risk will not harm them. If you were God, you could absolutely control the risk, but you are not.
It's DE FACTO evil, but not evil in an of itself.
Some actions, such as dumping toxic waste in a lake, are probably evil because they are risky to others, but not evil like bludgeoning someone w/ a tire iron, which is definitely evil.
Ohwell
Deity
Evil is in the eye of the beholder.
PantheraTigris2
Deity
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Originally posted by bigfatron
So all this suffering is undergone so that God can bask in a bit more glory?! I had a number of reasons for depising the god espoused by some, but this gives me another one....
You don't understand. You are intended to be taking part in His glory, once evil is defeated once and for all. Not too shabby, considering man has sinned against God, and is unworthy & unclean before the Allmighty. But fear not, the Merciful God has sent a Savior, His own Son, so that all whom have faith in Him, shall be saved, and not suffer the second death on the day of judgement.
If you are angry at God, (yes I have been there, too - many years ago), it simply means the evil one has deceived you. He has fooled you, the sheep, into being angry at the Shepherd - the one that can protect you - so that you will depart from the Lord, where the wolves can pounce. The devil has you exactly where he wants you, if he has succeeded in turning your anger towards the Lord.
This is no game. You need to ask yourself, how important is it to you, to be saved? Or would you rather just take your chances...
Personally, I can't even imagine being foolish enough to take that second course, knowing what I have come to learn in my life.
EdwardTking
Deity
There is a film called "Time Bandits" which explains it all.
nihilistic
Intergalatic Delivery Boy
But isn't god also omnipotent and omnicient? Would god not know of (and be able to pre-determine) what his creations will do and what will happen to them even before he created them? So are we really responsible for our actions, or is god ultimately responsible for creating us this way? What is life, if not an orchestrated play? What is free will, if not a grand illusion? What is sin, if not god's will? What are you, if not a toy among other toys?
PantheraTigris2
Deity
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No, we were given the power of free will. The power to make choices. That is the one true power we do have. Best to use it wisely... though we all make mistakes. Atferall, it's our nature.
CurtSibling
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Any man can be a knight or a beast.
We have the potential for extremes in us all.
Simple as that...
We have the potential for extremes in us all.
Simple as that...
test_specimen
hope lost
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Evil is where you choose to harm someone else, by definition. Not a god given concept, something that comes into existance, as soon as you define the actions that precede it. If you choose something evil, there wont be any punishment by some sort of god, society will punish you, if you don't hide it well enough. We make the rules as we go along. Or why is killing someone in a war different from killing someone because you want his share of the hunt?
God is a placeholder for things science cannot explain yet, so s/he (if you consider it a human-like being) can't really punish or reward you. Belief in god is a way to soothe ourselves, concepts of good an evil are social concepts used to protect ourselves from one another. They evolve more and more, so we as a whole can survive. Every once in a while belief stagnates and someone has to stand up with some new commandments to push us forward to make new rules for a bigger community.
If we were low on food, cannibalism would not be evil, it would be a ritual commanded by god. However those concepts become obsolete from time to time, and now that religion is stuck in old concepts it is hard to change (see abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, equal rights for women, etc.).
God is a placeholder for things science cannot explain yet, so s/he (if you consider it a human-like being) can't really punish or reward you. Belief in god is a way to soothe ourselves, concepts of good an evil are social concepts used to protect ourselves from one another. They evolve more and more, so we as a whole can survive. Every once in a while belief stagnates and someone has to stand up with some new commandments to push us forward to make new rules for a bigger community.
If we were low on food, cannibalism would not be evil, it would be a ritual commanded by god. However those concepts become obsolete from time to time, and now that religion is stuck in old concepts it is hard to change (see abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, equal rights for women, etc.).
nihilistic
Intergalatic Delivery Boy
But god is all-knowing, he already knew what you, his intentional creation, will do in the conditions he has given you. The script to the play that is your life has been known to god for since your inception. Every choice you make has been foreseen, and every attempt you make trying to deviate from his "script" has been planned in the script anyway. There is no free will to speak of, since your will, however free, has already been determined. Following from the assertion that your will is actually a part of god's will, the entity that holds ultimate responsibility of your actions, is god. There is no sin too terrible that we can commit that god would not plan.
You were refering to the nature god created of us, of course.
Ayatollah So
the spoof'll set you free
Evil is a human concept? But all concepts are human concepts -- only humans (and probably a few other primates) grasp the world conceptually, i.e. invent concepts.
Free will does not require evil. Any parent worth a dime can raise a child to avoid evil and make it unlikely (albeit not impossible) for them to be led astray. This is not opposed to raising them to be free, responsible agents. It goes hand in hand.
Omniscience and omnipotence would be far more than sufficient to make the avoidance of evil a sure thing. Although many churches have long pushed the bizarre understanding of free will as acting for no reason whatsoever, I don't understand why so many people buy it.
Free will does not require evil. Any parent worth a dime can raise a child to avoid evil and make it unlikely (albeit not impossible) for them to be led astray. This is not opposed to raising them to be free, responsible agents. It goes hand in hand.
Omniscience and omnipotence would be far more than sufficient to make the avoidance of evil a sure thing. Although many churches have long pushed the bizarre understanding of free will as acting for no reason whatsoever, I don't understand why so many people buy it.
Aphex_Twin
Evergreen
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As I said a few weeks ago, evil is not intrinsec in human nature. Evil is just a consequence (or byproduct) of freedom. It's the freedom of some tresspassing over the boundaries of others' freedom. An evil-free society would be one where everybody has the same level of freedom. An alternative would be to remove all freedom. But tose are Utopias...
(http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52987)
(http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=52987)
nihilistic
Intergalatic Delivery Boy
It doesn't matter what it is. If god is omnipotent, then god either created it or created the conditions that caused it. God is therefore, ultimately responsible for it.
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