There is no such thing as "good" or "evil". Good and evil are nothing more than human perceptions originated from religious beliefs or backgrounds. Nobody is inherently born with an idea of what is good and what is evil, its something that has to be taught...its an idea, an opinion. What may be good to one can be considered evil to another and the other way around. ...but thats just my opinion.
how does that make it any less real. Love is nothing but a creation of the mind. How about beauty, faith, hope..... that only makes it all the realer in my opinion. evil is a very real thing, hitler was evil, sadam hussein was evil, osama bin laden was or is evil. not calling it so makes what they do seem understandable, and its not.
well said stneod. honestly i dont understand how people can say that good and evil dont exist, and that they are simply human fabrications. good and evil is all around us.
Hitler was evil according to who? Same with hussein and bin laden? There are people out there who believe in and support those you speak of and there are those who believe we (americans) are the true evil in the world. So who is right? You? Us? Them? Where is the true evil? My point is that this is a "majority rule" type world we live in....which is sadly why religion will probably never die. However, does a majority belief make something true or real? Just because 90% of the worlds population believes in some type of "god", does that make god real? No. You make a mistake when you compare things like "love and hope" to things like "good and evil". I stand by my point that "good" and "evil" are religous terms and nothing more. There is no such thing as TRUE GOOD or TRUE EVIL, therefore they dont exist. I'll say it again, whats evil to one is good for some. Sure, I could consider it "Evil" to fly a jet plane into the side of a building, killing thousands of innocent people.... ......BUT what about those who did it because they believed they were doing good, doing "the work of god"? Who is right and who is wrong? How can you argue that TRUE GOOD or TRUE EVIL exist? The only possible answer to this question is that you suffer from a condition that most people do: You think your way is the right way. That your ideas and your beliefs are the correct ones to live by, and everyone else is, in a sense, wrong. This last part is important... Your idea of what is good or what is evil was brought on by how you were raised, by who raised you and what kind of enviornment you grew up in. Thats why you think the way you do. If you had been born in Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea or South Korea...you think your idea of what is good and what is evil would be the same as it is today? I think we both know the answer to that question. *Edit: Again, this is just MY opinion.
If you spread hate, destruction, death, pain, etc that is evil. A psychotic person never thinks their crazy, but that doesnt make it any less true. In ethics, evil refers to violations of an empathetic ideal which manifests as morally or ethically objectionable thought, speech, or action; behavior or thought which is hateful, cruel, violent, or devoid of conscience.
another point is, to pigeon-hole the whole into either good or evil, or even to pigeon-hole any part of the whole as good or evil, is bluntly, stupid. not just stupid, but a catalyst to making more stupidness. talk about dumbing down. sheesh. the fabric of reality is much more vibrant and lush than a digital ON/OFF switch. ps, David Icke talks about some of this quite eloquently, government/corporate/military/ideological powers playing off each other... "oppo-sames". not opposits. though, if i were him, i woulda looked into changing the first part of the word "opposits" instead... maybe called them "homo-sits" instead.
Then I guess everyone is "evil".... I've pretty much summed up my feeling on the matter in my previous post. Although I love to debate with people on matters such as this, its obvious that its going to have to be one of those "agree to disagree" situations. Spreading hate, destruction, death, and pain takes on a new and different meaning depending on what side of the river you stand...thats all im gonna say.
We all have different ideas of what good and evil are. There is no absolute that everyone agrees on, which ultimately is destructive to the whole that experiences this concept. Very good points JesusC. The concept of good and evil is learned, and has no absolute to really teach everyone the same concepts. We could become totally different by just changing our upbringing and surroundings, even time we are born. Without an absolute, we are almost set up to fight about morality on this planet. Very interesting... Not cool, but interesting.
If that disaster is man made in the form of tanks rolling across your countryside hell-bent on imposing their will upon you, and if you do not like it you die, then using violence is the only logical course of action. Sitting back and allowing it to happen is absurd, if you have the means to try and stop it. Similarly, if I am saving a drowning victim and they start freaking on me, I better use violence to end their struggles or we are both going to die. You do not sit around and discuss the rational behind needing to stay calm in that situation, you punch the person, and save their life. There is no logical reason to reach the conclusion that violence is evil and should be done away with. As I have tried to illustrate in this post, and others, there are many instances were violence is very useful, and accepted. Drawing the line is not hard. Is it right to fight a war for greed? No. Is it right to fight a war to defend yourself? Yes. Is it right to beat someone up for looking at you funny? No. Is it right to beat someone up who is trying to harm you? Most certainly. In some cases it is even acceptable to kill them, depending on the level of harm they are trying to do to you. If lives are at stake we should simply let the fire burn? When flood waters rise should we sandbag or just let the water do what it naturally "wants" to do? Like really... That does not make any sense. How is putting out a fire killing innocent lives? Or are you simply speaking about the innocent lives that some people allow to die everyday for whatever reason? At any case, using the logic I see here, we should not even farm because people are going to die anyway, why put off the inevitable, right? So, by putting out a fire we are committing the very crimes we are trying to stop? I do not understand the argument. We have a man in a tank driving through a city running over cars, and people, and even managing to fire a few shots off from the tank. Now, according to you trying to use violence to stop this man is sickening. So, the police drive around in their cars on a loud speaker begging the man to stop, he does not. They engineer a blockade and after awhile manage to prevent him from going anywhere. He still has some ammo left and begins firing off bullets, and shooting off a tank round or a few. People are dying, but because we cannot use violence to resolve the situation, the cops sit there and wait. I mean, he cannot have infinite bullets right? Eventually the man runs out of ammo and is just sitting in a tank, the cops (again, no violence) wait, and wait, and wait some more, trying to talk some sense into the guy. When he finally comes out, he is asked to politely enter a police car. He refuses and walks home. The cops, again being unable to employ any violent measures, simply allows it to happen. That is the scenario I see you painting. That is the world I see us living in if, as a society, we decided to not use violence to solve any of our problems. Eventually, strong men with guns would shoot us all into submission, and that society would change back. Of course, the government people find themselves under would not be very pleasant I would imagine. The more the merrier! But that is violent! So, some violence is good and useful... Awesome, some common ground. Well then, this argument is done. You've just accepted my whole argument. On a side note, telling someone to see "God" for the details on what is an appropriate measure of violence is the same as telling someone to ask Hitler. Neither responses will be good, or logical, or even moral. I can see how the ten commandments could colour your perceptions of the reality we find ourselves in, they're a pretty bad set of rules to live by, however, many Christians equate "thou shalt not kill" with "thou shalt not murder". God never followed that commandment, and he certainly did not expect the Jews too either. It would make more sense if it said "Thou shalt not murder", it is a big flagrant red mark on the ten commandments and validity of the God of Abraham himself. In my opinion of course. I am sure it is an opinion that is shared, however. Hiroshima was an atrocity, no matter how you slice it. The American's could have went in there and fought without the need to drop the bombs. They dropped the bomb because of Stalin, they wanted to impress upon him their might. Is that a valid reason for killing many people, and their children, and their descendant's for years to come? Of course not. Who ever said Hiroshima was a good thing? I certainly did not. You imagine the American government actually cares about any of the bullshit it feeds to its people. This talk of going to war for freedom, peace, and democracy, is insane. It is illogical. It makes no sense. Yet people buy into it because it is very easy for someone to believe they are the good guy and someone else is the bad guy. There is no good guy or bad guy, there is no Righteous and Godly Empire fighting for God and Good in this world, no matter how much some Governments would have you believe it. I cannot agree with that. If we do not constructively criticize people how do they learn? It is very hard for people inside a situation to gain a good perspective on it, and they tend to justify bad actions because they "know what they are doing". Someone on the outside can come in and give a new perspective, which can often time helps a person to learn something useful, and help them out in their life, or in the task they are trying to accomplish. Well, yes. It would be nice for people to grow up and realize that all these things that we imagine separate us is nonsense, hopefully we can come to terms with out nature and change our world for the better. There are many things that need to change though, our entire culture and society in fact. Right down to how we work, how we are educated, how we are governed, and how we relate to each other. We have a lot of work to do in order to pull ourselves out of this childhood we find ourselves in. Perhaps we will do it. I sadly do not expect to be alive to see it, but we can hope. We determine what is to be, that is kind of the point of life and living. If we have free will, than that realization is self evident. No God has planned out our lives or our future, to do so would go against the free will we were given. We may make mistakes, but I think we are supposed to, how the hell else would we learn anything? We are no where near perfect, maybe one day we will be? I would define evil as being selfish, willing to get whatever it is you want at the expense of others, whatever means necessary. We are born with an ability to fit into a group, we are very social creatures as children. To live in a group and to ensure the survival of that group you have to function within it. You cannot really do that with an ends (my personal satisfaction) justify the means (whatever the hell I need to do to get it) mentality. The problem we see is we attach the good and evil distinction to things we cannot. Some people say smoking cannabis is evil, obviously that is nonsense. Good and evil, as words to replace right and wrong, is generally based upon cultural/religious/superstitious beliefs, and I would agree that our laws are not accurate reflections of good and evil. I can even agree that for the most part it is some made up term that people use to get other peoples attention to get them on to their side. That does not mean there is no such thing as evil and good, however. It simply means, humans, in their attempt to label everything, got a lot of shit wrong. The problem? Not having all the facts, and at times, failing to use logic and reason to arrive at their conclusions. It does not matter if someone claims genocide to be good, it is not good. Just because someone thinks it isn't does not instantly validate their claim and lead one to conclude that there is nothing that is good and nothing that is evil. That is because people tend to look at a symptom and class it as something, instead of looking at the root issue. Break it down to its simple terms, and what is evil? I think I answered it above, but hey, I could be wrong. Chimps and many others animals seem to be quite good at teaching proper behavior. They do not even have the benefit of our "advanced" mind. They are not as thoughtful as us, but you do not see serial murderers and rapists throughout the animals kingdom. Point is, I think evolution gave us some natural instincts to help us get along with one another. It also gave us some helpful instincts to defend ourselves with. We also got a rational mind to help us come to terms with the world around us like no other animal that we know of. So while we do not know from birth that stealing is wrong, we also do not know about this thing called property, that we humans invented the concept of. Stealing is not wrong in a society that has no understanding of personal ownership, everything would belong to the group, and no one would ever steal, or think it wrong, or evil. Yeah, we have invented much shit that is not evil in and of itself, that is not good in and of itself, however, that does not mean that there is no good and evil.
I will agree that the concept is absurd. It's about as absurd as the concept of world peace. We cannot use violence to stop violence. We are only teaching people how to use it. That is what I am saying and I realize it is ridiculous! I don't want to lay down and let it happen, but if we keep fighting that is what we will teach every single child. If you truly want to fight something and actually beat it- you have to get to the root like you are talking about. That means absolutely no violence. It's not like I am a saint either, I would just rather hurt someone than kill them is all. Not a good decision to have to make really. But I realize the importance of violence in a violent society and recognize your argument. I just hope you see that I wish it didn't have to be that way- and how else are we to achieve that, unless we become non-violent? Still I really believe that people who don't want to deal with this anymore when they die are allowed to go somewhere else. That's the only reason I try to have these ideals, even if I don't follow them on earth all the time when I'm violent. I just want to go to another place when I die, because I really feel like we are set at being a warrior race, because of our history. There really isn't anything we can do but learn violence and how to deal with it with violence. I see both your and Rasta's take on that, it's just I still feel it shouldn't be that way for me. I hope you understand.
They do exist!, they are very real. But a social construct, no less. Only they are helpful human inventions. Much like the laws of physics! They are describing something empirically, but, unlike the laws of physics, they cannot be observed objectively, or not entirely objective.