EVIL!!!!!!!!

Is there a God? If so, what is She like?

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-1-
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Re: EVIL!!!!!!!!

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Dachshund wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 8:18 am This paragraph of prose is nothing more than utterly meaningless jibberish. There is nothing more tedious than reading pop mysticism.

Dachshund
Oh, there is, Dachshund, there is. The pulp truly religious people write. Now that's absolute crap if you ever want to see any.

Pop mysticism at least has some heart. Theoretical theology, the so-called "serious stuff" has long ago killed any sort of humanity out of religious thinking.
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Re: EVIL!!!!!!!!

Post by Dachshund »

-1- wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 10:39 am
Dachshund wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 8:18 am This paragraph of prose is nothing more than utterly meaningless jibberish. There is nothing more tedious than reading pop mysticism.

Dachshund
Oh, there is, Dachshund, there is. The pulp truly religious people write. Now that's absolute crap if you ever want to see any.

Pop mysticism at least has some heart. Theoretical theology, the so-called "serious stuff" has long ago killed any sort of humanity out of religious thinking.
Are you suggesting that the passage of prose I referred to was not an irrational dog's breakfast of mindless verbiage? The ideas in it didn't make any sense and in any case they were splattered all over the place like a MAD WOMAN'S SHIT. It reminded me of kindergarten child's finger painting, only the later tend to make more sense. Ordinarily I would waste the time to mention it, but unfortunately, I have a personal loathing for this kind of material as it is a hallmark of the political Left (socialism) and the people who write it vote Democrat. The have succeeded in destroying America - just a matter of time now. In 2024 there will be a socialist administration in the White House, it will, of course, fail and when it does what will be left is a giant 3rd world human jungle ( a kind of large-scale version of today's South Africa). Oh, and by the way, when the (White Anglo-European) Nation dies, every other Western country will perish with it - that includes YOUR country darling.


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Re: EVIL!!!!!!!!

Post by Greatest I am »

Sculptor wrote: Mon Aug 12, 2019 10:21 pm
Greatest I am wrote: Mon Aug 12, 2019 8:56 pm
Sculptor wrote: Mon Aug 12, 2019 8:28 pm
Are you seriously suggesting that "evil" is some sort of primal force of nature like gravity. I suppose that "good" is likewise a force of nature?
How would you account that the simple observed fact that what is one person's good is another person's evil and Vice Versa?
Hobbes had it when he said that which is good is that which pleases man; Evil is that which pleases him not.
I would like to comment on this and did in that rather longish post on page one.

Yes, human against human evil is natural and so is good.
We default to good to a point where science is having a hard time explaining why we are so good.
We default to evil as a last resort.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ADgh3yCSdM

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DL
No I do not think you have answered the point at all.
We know people do good and bad things. But there being good or bad is generally dependant on POV.
As for the video..
Dawkins struggling with Altruism is just an embarrassment to many people who find goodness near to their own way of life. Natural Selection results in a variety of strategies, that are not determined by eventual outcomes, but given by the results of survival. Evolution is not expected to get everything perfectly right. Darwin's theory does not have to result in every single act only working to promote the genes doing the act.
So, in general an altruistic attitude tends to result in good co-operative acts which promote the wider family. But since there is no DIRECT feedback mechanism, altruism of a dog bitch in suckling kittens; or a lioness adopting a baboon baby does not fly against natural selection in any sense, because traits are generalising, they cannot hope to always be specific. Cross species acts of altruism, or altruism for one's own species for people a thousand miles away simply underlines the fact of Natural Selection, without doing anything to argue against it.
Cases of psychopathy where individuals were wholly self centred are rare, but are able to thrive on the backs of those that are more generally well disposed to help others. One has to imagine what a world would be like if everyone were psychopathic. It would not be very successful at all.

I was arguing against the absurd notion that "evil" or "good" are forces of nature. They are simply not. Even a psycho can do good things - that is to say act according to another's benefit, though the psycho might have ulterior motives, the act can result in good.
Let us imagine that a psycho wishing to lure another person into their will, continues to provide nice things to that person; food, lifts, job offers, outings. Now let us imagine that his target is also a psycho and feels no obligation but is using the association for their own benefit. The acts are still good for the target. We could easily enough re-arrange the combination; two psychos; two non psychos; and one of each vice versa. The acts would be good acts, but the outcomes would be different.

An act to save a person's life might be well intentioned yet do evil. Whereas killing intended as evil might do good. It would not take much imagination to find such examples. But where is "evil" as a force?
Evil is not described as a force in any dictionary I have seen so I do not accept your argument.

I do agree that good and evil are subjective and different individuals will disagree from their subjective views as to the merits of an act.

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DL
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Re:

Post by Greatest I am »

henry quirk wrote: Mon Aug 12, 2019 11:52 pm "At what age does one become self-owned? Not a baby, not a toddler not anyone who has not reached the age of reason."

Yeah, if you really have an interest in my view (I don't think you do), go to the two recent abortion threads ('person or meat?' and 'BOLLOCKS'). Having wasted a whole buncha time and energy in those threads layin' out my positions I'm not inclined to do it all over again here.

#

"If you see someone about to murder and do not kill him if you can, then not killing him is immoral."

Why? If there is no moral dimension to Reality (no natural law), if morality is wholly subjective, then why is it immoral for me to not stop the killing? Why is it immoral for your bank robber to kill the innocent bystander?
There is a moral dimension to reality so you have no argument for me to counter.

If you doubt that, just go somewhere and do something immoral and see how quickly someone shows you that there is a moral dimension to reality.

You do not even have to kill. Just walk about scratching people cars to see how long it takes before someone shows you why you should not do so. Let me know when you get out of the hospital or jail.

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DL
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Re: EVIL!!!!!!!!

Post by Greatest I am »

Lacewing wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 3:03 am
Walker wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 2:51 am
Lacewing wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 12:29 am I'll try to clarify. I'm using the word divine to mean sacred, heavenly, celestial (love, light, and expansion) ...
Does your truth also remove God from "heavenly," just as it does for "divine?"
Why does a concept of heaven require a god? Heaven is in your mind. You need to expand beyond your small ideas, Walker. You're trying to limit communication and understanding by defining words very narrowly based on archaic concepts. Let go...and see how much more there is. :lol:
I see unearned smugness here.

You are using words that are beyond definition. Like God, divine, heavenly etc.

The first link in this old O.P. is why I give you the following that was written for literalists.

See what this scholar says of the language we use.

I hope you can see how intelligent the ancients were as compared to the mental trash that modern preachers and theists are using with the literal reading of myths.

https://bigthink.com/videos/what-is-god-2-2

Further.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, "The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it."

Please listen as to what is said about the literal reading of myths.

"Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, "God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning."

Matt 7;12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.
This is how early Gnostic Christians view the transition from reading myths properly to destructive literal reading and idol worship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR02cia ... =PLCBF574D

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DL
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Immanuel Can
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Re: EVIL!!!!!!!!

Post by Immanuel Can »

f12hte wrote: Mon Aug 12, 2019 3:22 pm If who we are is shaped by our experience, and since each of us has a different set of experiences, we all have different ideas about what is evil and what is good.
It's true we all are, in some ways, different: that makes us individuals. However, we can easily overemphasize the idea of "difference," to the point where there is no longer any recognition of commonness, community or communication. We are different, but different within a range, and similar in some things.

Now, notice how you had to word that: "we all have different ideas about..." Not "we all have different evils." Some people have somewhat different ideas about what objective good and evil might be. But the fact that they are discussing it shows that it is a more objective concept of evil that they are after: subjective, opinion-type views will not be good enough for them. They want to arrive at some common understanding.

In point of fact,It is simply not true that every person is SO different from every other that no common definitions are even possible. If "difference" were the totality of the story, then this conversation we're having would be impossible. So would any discussion of evil.
Given the strife there has always been in the world, it seems obvious to me that morality is relative.

This does not follow. "There is strife" does not lead to the conclusion "morality is relative." It only conduces to some deduction like: "people strive about what morality might be," perhaps. But it does not logically lead to subjectivism or relativism.

People disagree or "strive" about all kinds of things, in which some are right, some are wrong, and some are closer to right than others. There's not even anything remarkable about that; it's routine.
There is no absolute right or wrong.

That's a self-contradiction. You made an absolute claim. That is, unless you're saying I would not be absolutely wrong to say there was such thing as absolute right and wrong.

But it seems to me that that is what you are trying to say: for if it's not absolutely wrong to say there's such a thing as absolute right and wrong, then you'd be admitting that somewhere there IS a right and wrong that is "absolute": meaning unconditional for everyone, and hence universal and absolute. Then your claim would be wrong.

In other words, it will be wrong, no matter what you do with such a claim. There's no way to save relativism.
There are only the rules which cultures establish for themselves,
If this is true, then there is no evil. Anything a culture allows -- murder, rape, paedophelia, whatever -- is not "evil" outside that culture. Moreover, even in that same culture, the people in it can revise at any minute, and say, "Before we said rape was wrong; but now we say it's morally virtuous," and there would be no possibility of saying whether such a change was "good" or "evil."

Moreover, your original post would make no sense at all.
People learn to do evil by experience.
Hold that thought.

What do you mean? From what do they "learn," and what "experience"? How can a creature that is morally neutral or good suddenly turn "evil" because of some "learning" or "experiences," when within them is no instinct to respond to such things?
They experience the knock-on effects of other peoples' 'goods' and 'evils', as determined by their own experience sets, and the actions which result from that morality contribute to the morality of all subsequent generations.

But if we "learn" evil from other people, from where did they "learn" it? And from where did those people "learn" it? And who started the chain, and when, and where, and why? How could a chain like that ever get started, if all people are morally neutral or good by birth?
Today's humanity has inherited the follow-on actions of its predecessor's moral decisions.

Who is this uniquely evil "predecessor" who first started evil? If he was an ordinary human, it would be impossible for him to start it, if humans are naturally good. That is, unless he already had within him the potential and instinct to do evil. But then he's not different from you and me, and it's not true to say he's the true source of evil. We all are.
What do you believe to be the nature and origin of evil?
This is a good question, but only under a few basic understandings. (I'll underline for clarity, not emphasis, if I may.)

Firstly, by "evil" you must mean something objective: if not, you are not really asking a question at all.

Secondly, your answer that it comes down from ancestors is obviously incomplete: it had to start somewhere, and your chain not only lacks that explanation, but relies on us overlooking that the chain must needs have had a start. But "ancestors" does not allow that start to be in human causes.

Thirdly, the culturally relative explanation is obviously a non-answer: it allows absolutely anything to be good or evil, without any solid distinction, so there is no such thing as "evil," then, because everything is potentially both good and evil, at the same time, and even the names "good" and "evil" refer to nothing in particular. Again, your question then becomes impossible to understand.

And fourthly, relativism is wrong. It's an absolute claim that things are relative...and thus it self-defeats at the very first step. Moreover, the disagreements among people about good and evil are no evidence at all that there is no good or evil -- it only shows that people are confused. And of that, we can be quite certain.
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Re: EVIL!!!!!!!!

Post by Greatest I am »

-1- wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 10:39 am
Dachshund wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 8:18 am This paragraph of prose is nothing more than utterly meaningless jibberish. There is nothing more tedious than reading pop mysticism.

Dachshund
Oh, there is, Dachshund, there is. The pulp truly religious people write. Now that's absolute crap if you ever want to see any.

Pop mysticism at least has some heart. Theoretical theology, the so-called "serious stuff" has long ago killed any sort of humanity out of religious thinking.
I agree.

I think that original religions were more concerned with how people treated people than worrying about what supernatural fantasy people made up for themselves.

Unfortunately, living is a dualistic world, religions developed rules for their in group and more dastardly rules for the dreaded non-believers.

Insecurity is the emotion that has created an awful lot of unnecessary harm to us. That is why the world is always perched in war readiness mode.

We just may be getting nearly smart enough to recognize this and if we do not go extinct due to our wanton destruction of our eco system, we might just form a better world wide ideology.

All the political and religious sheeple needs do is wake up.

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DL
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yes: natural law & natural rights exist, are intrinsic to the individual, are not subject to shifty cultural redefinitio

Post by henry quirk »

"There is a moral dimension to reality"

Yes, there is. That's what I've been sayin' in threads all over the forum.
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Re: yes: natural law & natural rights exist, are intrinsic to the individual, are not subject to shifty cultural redefin

Post by Greatest I am »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 3:03 pm "There is a moral dimension to reality"

Yes, there is. That's what I've been sayin' in threads all over the forum.
Some have to be shown how that works.

It is all in the delivery. I wish mine was better.
I often use a baby experiment link to prove my point.

What do you use to prove your point?

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Re: EVIL!!!!!!!!

Post by uwot »

Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 2:50 pm
f12hte wrote: Mon Aug 12, 2019 3:22 pmWhat do you believe to be the nature and origin of evil?
This is a good question...
Mr Can, as you tirelessly remind us, a good question, in your view, is one about what you believe. Not so good are the questions are the ones about why you believe it.
Immanuel Can wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 2:50 pm...but only under a few basic understandings.
Yep, par for the course. First you demand that we accept your hackneyed premises. Any fool can cobble together a fairly coherent argument, the hard part is to demonstrate that your "basic understandings" are sound - ya don't just get to own them.
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"What do you use to prove your point?"

Post by henry quirk »

When I can be bothered to: I make appeals to reason, to common sense. That most folks don't wanna reason, and have almost no common sense, is why, nowadays, I mostly can't be bothered.
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Re: "What do you use to prove your point?"

Post by Greatest I am »

henry quirk wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 3:56 pm When I can be bothered to: I make appeals to reason, to common sense. That most folks don't wanna reason, and have almost no common sense, is why, nowadays, I mostly can't be bothered.
I hear you and that is why I focus on getting better and keep the lurkers in mind more than the obtuse and immune to logic and reason.

I am a WIP on toning down my passions which sometimes take over.

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DL
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henry quirk
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I hear ya...

Post by henry quirk »

I used to be a work in progress, now I'm just old & cranky.

Mebbe the only reason I post anywhere is just as a big middie finger, a reminder that some of us haven't been domesticated.

Or, mebbe, it's just a bad habit.

Mebbe I ought try the patch.
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Re: EVIL!!!!!!!!

Post by Greatest I am »

I hear you buddy.

A cause is a good way to keep us young and feeling that we are a part of a greater whole.

If we are to live on spaceship earth, we should work to protect and purify it.

Protectors are cranky as we hate all that would jeopardize that which we love.

I would be upset with myself a lot more if I did not recognize that hate is born from love.

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DL
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Re: EVIL!!!!!!!!

Post by Lacewing »

Dachshund wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 8:18 am
Lacewing wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 12:29 am I'll try to clarify...
This paragraph of prose is nothing more than utterly meaningless jibberish. There is nothing more tedious than reading pop mysticism.
There was nothing wrong with my paragraph. Your lack of comprehension and interest is your own trip. Have fun with that.
Dachshund wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 11:47 am ...an irrational dog's breakfast of mindless verbiage? The ideas in it didn't make any sense and in any case they were splattered all over the place like a MAD WOMAN'S SHIT. It reminded me of kindergarten child's finger painting, only the later tend to make more sense.
Ah...you are still angry about my earlier creative assessments of you. :lol: Yes, you are a dramatic fool... enraptured and saturated with your dull ideas.
Dachshund wrote: Tue Aug 13, 2019 11:47 am I have a personal loathing for this kind of material as it is a hallmark of the political Left (socialism) and the people who write it vote Democrat. The have succeeded in destroying America - just a matter of time now. In 2024 there will be a socialist administration in the White House, it will, of course, fail and when it does what will be left is a giant 3rd world human jungle ( a kind of large-scale version of today's South Africa).
Boo hoo. Everything is doomed because it's not the way you think it should be... as if your tiny-ass little viewpoint is somehow so much more brilliant and important than all/everyone else.

:lol: :lol: :lol:
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