EVIL!!!!!!!!

[attofishpi]

There are some written material left from eg.Goebbels and Hitler. To me it seems, having read parts of his diary, like Goebbels was evil. Cunning, intelligent and sly, Hitler was less evil but worse. He really believed he was right. His suicidal letter was written with no remorse, his hate of jews was unquenced. The kind of attitude that makes people even more dangerous. Evil is bad, bad conviction is worse.

This context that you are using evil - with mere mortal man is not true evil. It is just stupid bigoted egocentric power hungry controlling scum with no regard for human life at best.

TRUE evil is when you are trying to Live when eviL via the 3rd party intelligence is being done to you.

[Immanuel Can]

There is really no mystery in any of this.

Then I fear you've misunderstood the question.

The question is not, "Can people have feelings about moral values?" because clearly they can have all kinds of feelings. The question is, "How can one prove to oneself that one's moral feelings and values are justified rather than merely arbitrary or contingent?"

There is nothing to decide that except what a civilisation collectively or a person privately decides is moral.

Not a good answer. Both societies and persons disagree...in fact, they often disagree with each other, for that matter -- individuals within a society disagreeing with their own society's morals, let alone with any other society's.

So if that's what you've got, you've got the problem, not a solution.

As I said there is no mystery to any of this. This is especially the case if, as you state, the Big Bang is simply an accident which presupposes that everything in it is also an accident including all of its gods.

You believe in multiple, created gods?

But you still haven't said what in your mind constitutes evil as an independent entity and what power it was that proclaimed it!

Sure I did. I said it was revealed by God. As a Christian Theist, that means by way of the Biblical record.

Your revealed version of morality isn't any more certain than any other of the more secular types simply because you cannot truly know what you accept as revealed must, because it's so claimed or written, be concluded as true. You have only anchored yourself to its so-called revealment which was your own arbitrary choice to make.

Not "arbitrary." There are criteria. But you're not wrong to think that faith, based on criteria, is going to play a role in any decision that this or that morality is better or ultimately correct. It's not something anyone's going to get on cold facts (Hume already argued that cogently).

Now, I understand why you think that's true, that morality is necessarily merely arbitrary. From a secular perspective, you have to believe that, because not believing that would, by definition, make you stop being agnostic or Atheistic. But let me put the contrary to you: what basis do you really have for such a conclusion. What if God HAD revealed what was morally right, but some people were refusing to accept it? How would you refute that possibility on conclusive evidence? Of course, you can't. So you're going to have to believe something, launching it from the best, most coherent evidence you can find.

In summary, morals remain relative even when they are chosen as revealed and inviolable since the proof of its inviolability can never be made manifest.

What's making you think that is only the mistaken belief that we have "inviolable" proof of ANYTHING.

But we do not. As Descartes showed, skepticism takes us down to nothing more than "cogito ergo sum," I think, and I exist, but gives us no reason for more. So skepticism will not reveal anything to us: to know anything at all, even in science, we're going to have to be content with the best available partial evidence, plus at least a little bit of well-invested faith.

That's the human lot; one can accept it or pretend it's not so, but it will be anyway. Nobody gets home without faith.

So again, how do you know what "evil" is?

[Ansiktsburk]

There are some written material left from eg.Goebbels and Hitler. To me it seems, having read parts of his diary, like Goebbels was evil. Cunning, intelligent and sly, Hitler was less evil but worse. He really believed he was right. His suicidal letter was written with no remorse, his hate of jews was unquenced. The kind of attitude that makes people even more dangerous. Evil is bad, bad conviction is worse.

This context that you are using evil - with mere mortal man is not true evil. It is just stupid bigoted egocentric power hungry controlling scum with no regard for human life at best.

TRUE evil is when you are trying to Live when eviL via the 3rd party intelligence is being done to you.

Please explain for a poor scandinavian with english only being the 2nd language.

[henry quirk]

"So again, how do you know what "evil" is?"

Me, I know evil as it stands, and the degree to which it stands, apart from what my conscience tells me is right or true or just, and my conscience, I believe, is what the Creator installed in me (as compass). I believe every person has such a compass, and that all compasses always, unwaveringly, point north. I also believe, as a free will, a person can choose to ignore the compass, and that -- the choice -- undergirds evil.

[Dubious]

So again, how do you know what "evil" is?

Easy enough to know without any theistic roadmaps what evil is when one is witness to it or more potently is subject to it. Sorry if this idea is foreign to you or if you need input from your bible to determine whether or not certain human activities actually are evil.

[henry quirk]

So again, how do you know what "evil" is?

Easy enough to know without any theistic roadmaps what evil is when one is witness to it or more potently is subject to it. Sorry if this idea is foreign to you or if you need input from your bible to determine whether or not certain human activities actually are evil.

Sure, it's easy to recognize, but why is easy to recognize?

I see a fella kicking a whimpering dog, I think the fella is a jackass, mebbe even evil. Do I think this cuz I have some psychological affinity for the dog (the little guy), or cuz I know in my gut, the fella is just wrong?

You might say it's the former (just empathy), I might say the latter (a recognition of objective wrong-doing).

Does it matter either way?

I think it does, though I'm hard-pressed to tell you why it matters.

[Immanuel Can]

So again, how do you know what "evil" is?

Easy enough to know without any theistic roadmaps what evil is when one is witness to it or more potently is subject to it.

Apparently not. You don't seem to be able to say how you do it at all. You keep falling back on some kind of vague intuition you have.

You say you know how to "witness" it: how? What are its features? How do you convince someone who doesn't "see" the same way you do, that they should recognize it as evil?

You say you know evil when you are "subject to it": how do you know the difference between "evil" and just "stuff Dube doesn't happen to like"? What are your criteria to differentiate, "I don't happen to like X" from "X is genuinely evil, and any right-thinking person should know it"?

[Immanuel Can]

So again, how do you know what "evil" is?

Easy enough to know without any theistic roadmaps what evil is when one is witness to it or more potently is subject to it. Sorry if this idea is foreign to you or if you need input from your bible to determine whether or not certain human activities actually are evil.

Sure, it's easy to recognize, but why is easy to recognize?

I see a fella kicking a whimpering dog, I think the fella is a jackass, mebbe even evil. Do I think this cuz I have some psychological affinity for the dog (the little guy), or cuz I know in my gut, the fella is just wrong?

You might say it's the former (just empathy), I might say the latter (a recognition of objective wrong-doing).

Does it matter either way?

I think it does, though I'm hard-pressed to tell you why it matters.

Maybe because the guy down the road thinks it's fun to kick dogs, and doesn't see anything wrong with it, and you want to tell him why its' wrong, so he'll stop it.

[Dubious]

"So again, how do you know what "evil" is?"

Me, I know evil as it stands, and the degree to which it stands, apart from what my conscience tells me is right or true or just, and my conscience, I believe, is what the Creator installed in me (as compass). I believe every person has such a compass, and that all compasses always, unwaveringly, point north. I also believe, as a free will, a person can choose to ignore the compass, and that -- the choice -- undergirds evil.

Very much in compass with my own views. The last sentence is what I tried to express that free will creates choice whether chosen on a theistic or secular basis. One can't claim an overlord morality just because one decided on a theistic approach. Conscience, for those who have one, is an autonomous entity which is far more potent in determining one's reaction to events than any inscriptions of sacred texts which, as any story ever written, has always been created by us.

[henry quirk]

Easy enough to know without any theistic roadmaps what evil is when one is witness to it or more potently is subject to it. Sorry if this idea is foreign to you or if you need input from your bible to determine whether or not certain human activities actually are evil.

Sure, it's easy to recognize, but why is easy to recognize?

I see a fella kicking a whimpering dog, I think the fella is a jackass, mebbe even evil. Do I think this cuz I have some psychological affinity for the dog (the little guy), or cuz I know in my gut, the fella is just wrong?

You might say it's the former (just empathy), I might say the latter (a recognition of objective wrong-doing).

Does it matter either way?

I think it does, though I'm hard-pressed to tell you why it matters.

Maybe because the guy down the road thinks it's fun to kick dogs, and doesn't see anything wrong with it, and you want to tell him why its' wrong, so he'll stop it.

Sure, but, if like some in-forum, he rejects the idea of an objective wrong-doing, then I'm wastin' my breath, yeah?

That's why Crom made shotguns, I think, cuz the world harbors a whole whack of folks who like kickin' dogs, and the dogs need to able to kick back.

[Immanuel Can]

I think it does, though I'm hard-pressed to tell you why it matters.

Maybe because the guy down the road thinks it's fun to kick dogs, and doesn't see anything wrong with it, and you want to tell him why its' wrong, so he'll stop it.

Sure, but, if like some in-forum, he rejects the idea of an objective wrong-doing, then I'm wastin' my breath, yeah?

Yeah.

But then you're going to need to call me, and explain to me why, in this case, you and I should go down the street and tune him in. And if you've got a reasonable explanation, and I'm a policeman, you and I will go and do that.

And the dog will be better for it, too.

But you're going to have to say something more than what Dube wants to say, which is that "I personally feel dog-kicking is naughty." That's what Dube doesn't have: the rationale that should persuade a reasonable and moral person to agree with him.

[henry quirk]

"So again, how do you know what "evil" is?"

Me, I know evil as it stands, and the degree to which it stands, apart from what my conscience tells me is right or true or just, and my conscience, I believe, is what the Creator installed in me (as compass). I believe every person has such a compass, and that all compasses always, unwaveringly, point north. I also believe, as a free will, a person can choose to ignore the compass, and that -- the choice -- undergirds evil.

Very much in compass with my own views. The last sentence is what I tried to express that free will creates choice whether chosen on a theistic or secular basis. One can't claim an overlord morality just because one decided on a theistic approach. Conscience, for those who have one, is an autonomous entity which is far more potent in determining one's reaction to events than any inscriptions of sacred texts which, as any story ever written, has always been created by us.

I agree, though I think conscience can be supplemented and bolstered through the writings of conscientious men and women. Now, on the subject of conscience: what's its source? I said, up-thread, what I think the source is. You, what's your thinkin'?

[Dubious]

"So again, how do you know what "evil" is?"

Me, I know evil as it stands, and the degree to which it stands, apart from what my conscience tells me is right or true or just, and my conscience, I believe, is what the Creator installed in me (as compass). I believe every person has such a compass, and that all compasses always, unwaveringly, point north. I also believe, as a free will, a person can choose to ignore the compass, and that -- the choice -- undergirds evil.

Very much in compass with my own views. The last sentence is what I tried to express that free will creates choice whether chosen on a theistic or secular basis. One can't claim an overlord morality just because one decided on a theistic approach. Conscience, for those who have one, is an autonomous entity which is far more potent in determining one's reaction to events than any inscriptions of sacred texts which, as any story ever written, has always been created by us.

I agree, though I think conscience can be supplemented and bolstered through the writings of conscientious men and women.

No question this is true.

Now, on the subject of conscience: what's its source? I said, up-thread, what I think the source is. You, what's your thinkin'?

You may not agree but I think conscience is something we were long trained for by a long interacting combo of intelligence and its increasing reflections on bad deeds. As Newton said for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction and, to some extent the same holds true for human behaviour.

I think evil in all its forms from mild to near absolute is the catalyst which invokes conscience. Without evil, gross transgression and injustice there would be no necessity for conscience to exist. You can’t cook a potato by just leaving it in the pot! Conscience is a derivative of reflection searching itself. Even the more intelligent animals have what can be described as a form of conscience not in the sense of evil as humans would have it but simply in being aware of their own minor infringements.

For me conscience and intelligence are entities which reinforce each other. It’s as impossible to think of conscience existing sans intelligence as it would be the other way around. Each process operates as a corrective to the other by their interactions.

[Immanuel Can]

You may not agree but I think conscience is something we were long trained for by a long interacting combo of intelligence and its increasing reflections on bad deeds.

So...a bunch of people in the immemorial, unrecorded past decided that certain things were "bad," for no particular reason, and with no particular criteria in mind. After that, we practiced calling things bad, and passed on the idea to the present.

Not a great explanation, is it?

[Dubious]

You may not agree but I think conscience is something we were long trained for by a long interacting combo of intelligence and its increasing reflections on bad deeds.

So...a bunch of people in the immemorial, unrecorded past decided that certain things were "bad," for no particular reason, and with no particular criteria in mind. After that, we practiced calling things bad, and passed on the idea to the present.

Not a great explanation, is it?

It's unfortunate isn't it that all of these cavemen didn't yet possess the holy bible to tell them what's right and what's wrong. Such manuals were in short supply in those days!

Not everyone is as fortunate as you in immediately obtaining a conscience out of the bible instead of having to develop one revealing in a virtual flash the ultimate mandate of morality and its underpinnings.

Congratulations on your eliteness which discovers more through biblical revelation than learning.