There's no such thing as 'Evil'...

[drinsomno]

evil is...an internal weakness to me why be evil if you can join the light and be forever aided in what ever you may choose to do and also have great mental strength[][][8D]

[Mystic Cloud]

So hop into the consciousness of the 'evil' and look at everything from that viewpoint. Do you consider yourself as evil then?

I think not.

[jilola]

Well, my answer to being told God doesn't exist would be somethign like this:
We are god both as individuals and as the collective whole right along with everything else in existence. There is no separate being or consciousness that functions as god. We, you, I, Beavis, the chair are it. The good and the bad comes from us, not from a separate God or a separate Devil. They are in a very real sense symbols for communicating ideas.

2cents & L&L
jouni

[jilola]

I see what you're getting at and I agree, well close enough anyway []
You're saying that God and Devil are separate as the common foci of the good and evil in our consensual perceptual reality. That's what I read anyway and that's the interpretation I can agree with.

My point of view is perhaps a bit at odds with the entire notion of separate entities having experiened that all is one.
Your reality may vary.

2cents & L&L
jouni

[Mystic Cloud]

quote:Originally posted by runlola

So hop into the consciousness of the 'evil' and look at everything from that viewpoint. Do you consider yourself as evil then?

I think not.


the consciousness of Satan delights in evil. The whole purpose of evil is to put out the light.

Delights in evil from what viewpoint?
Without the light it would not try to put it out.
And why isn't the light the bastard trying to put out the darkness?

[jilola]

Satanists are people who have some very different ways of thinking.
Their existence does not prove an entity often called Satan exists. It does in some cases prove that behaviour called evil exists.
But not always, there are satanists and then there are Satanists, if you get what I'm aiming at. They are not all animal sacrificing, child eating, loonies any more than every Christian is a saintly, compassionate and always wonderful person.

Horrible people do exist. And the tendency of peple is to attriute their behaviour and actions to some other cause in order to shed their responsibility of their actions. Satan is a convenient image for that.

2cents & L&L
Jouni

[Interek]

Satan does not exist.

Surely, not as the contradicion of the real powerful god.

Satan may exist as some astral being, but doesn't have as much power as God has. Because there is nothing bigger than God.

We have created Satan as an astral being, I am sure such sn astral being does exist. It is so, because what people believe in and what they think becomes the reality in the astral world. This is conntected with the so-called thoughtforms.

[jilola]

quote:We have created Satan as an astral being,

We have also created God in a similar manner. In my experience, that is.
A personification of what we perceive from our various perpectives to be good.

2cents & L&L
Jouni

[Moonburn33]

satanism is about recognizing yourself as the ultimate power- therefore service to yourself is the highest good that one can do.  selfishness is divine.

most of the time it's not about worshiping satan

[Mystic Cloud]

quote:Originally posted by jilola

quote:We have created Satan as an astral being,

We have also created God in a similar manner. In my experience, that is.
A personification of what we perceive from our various perpectives to be good.

2cents & L&L
Jouni

I agree that there is a 'God' being created in a similar manner but
that is not the same thing as the Being itself.

As for the Black Magicians I'm a bit speechless. Can't really come up
with an counter-argument []

[Interek]

Well, we have created many Gods as astral beings. I am sure there are Krishna God, Catholic God, Allah, Jahwe and others exisitng as astral beings in the astral weorld. They've been created as the so-called thoughtforms, because everything what people believe in, becomes reality in the astral world.
However, besides of those God astral beings there is the true God as well. The true God that isn't any astral being, but he's the Everything. He is the only one Lord of the Universe. This fact is of course up to faith...

[jilola]

The distinction between good and evil comes from the perspective each of us have when we view ourselves as separate from Oneness.
An action is an action as such. Its only when we view it against "the rest" as seen from a point of view we have as incarnate individuals not connected with existence.

2cents & L&L
Jouni

[Lighthouse]

Okay... I was steering away from this thread because I thought it was going to be like the Abortion thread but someone convinced me that it was worth a read... Thanks Jouni!

Here's my take...

I have had many experiences in my life where I could interpret the actions of others towards me as evil.  Actually, now that I'm an adult (sometimes [^]) I agree with what was being stated earlier in this thread... ACtually, I feel all acts of evil could be interpreted as benefiting the whole... sort of the crisis or chaos before the shift in global consciousness (refering to any mass scale atrocities you can think of, Hitler included)

The chaos or crisis always escalates before the shift... As when Christ was crusified.  

Also, I believe that we are all infinite and we only perceive that there is evil... in others, in ourselves.  (Oh by the way, this makes me remember, earlier on in this thread, someone mentioned that the word evil was necessary in order to state that something was unethical and immoral... why not just say it's unethical and immoral according to your way of seeing it and not label it as evil?) When we perceive evil in others it is because they are showing us our own perceived weaknesses (our belief in mortality for example)... Hence, where we perceive our limitations, they are showing us where we have room to grow.  

When I was a kid, this very good looking, richest kid in the county was on my school bus.  I had a massive crush on this kid and every day, he would scream at me in the most disturbing voice he could possibly muster up... "FAAAaaaAATT"  To a bystander, this would seem evil... this bully picking on this slightly chubby girl and humiliating her every day (it worked wonders on my self esteem I'll tell ya [B)])

As an adult, I realized that I already perceived myself as unworthy of being loved because of the circumstances surrounding my parent's divorce, I needed love and attention and got none from either of my parents during that time... I internalized these feelings and determined that I was unworthy of being loved.  

Then this kid came along who I had a crush on and delivered to me the EXACT lesson I needed to show me what I had been thinking (that I was unworthy of being loved because I was fat.)  And I'll tell you... He was SOOOO GOOD at delivering this message that I dont' think there's another person alive who could have been as much of an A**HOLE as he was then.  

In a vaccuum, this would seem to anyone that this guy was pure sh*t but I feel differently.  I see his actions as the exact lessons I needed in order to heal that part of my mind and recognize that the exact opposite is true.  I am completely worthy of love, in fact, I have a great capacity to give and receive love.  It was only my own distorted perception that made me think otherwise... and it was the "evil" act of this 7th grade rich kid who gave me the gift of clarity.

So, it is my opinion that evil as we see it is actually the circumstance we need to make positive change and motivates us to see things a bit differently.

Love & Life,
Kerri

[Lighthouse]

quote:Originally posted by Interek

let's take a look on the best example: World Trade Center tragedy.
Many of us, perhaps even everyone of us, would say that this what happened in New York on 11th September 2001 wasn't good. I do think so as well. But, there are people who think otherwise. For them it wasn't "evil", it was good - at last the Big Powerful America has been punished for their greed and swaggering... It was for such people a day of celebrity. I mean for instance the Palestinian people.

I actually believe this to be true... not for the same reason you quote

by the way, just so you know where I emotionally stand on this one, I am from NY and can not bring myself to Ground Zero yet... NYC is my favorite place on the planet and I have friends who worked and died in the WTC tragedy... My last visit to NYC, about a year ago, I just wanted to sit in St. Pat's Cathedral and say goodbye to all those beings who gave their lives in this tragedy.  

I believe it was good because it was a BIG GIGANTIC Wake up call.  A call to action if you will for beings such as I believe most people on this board to get off our arse and do what we're supposed to do (only you know what that is) to live our light and to be an expression of light in the hour of this dark, sorrowful night.  

In the same sense, I will be eternally grateful for that guy who called me FAT because he gave me one of the greatest gifts anyone could ever give me... The experience to understand the flaw in my thinking... (I know this may not make sense but that's the way I feel)  I actually even wrote him a letter thanking him for the experience...  Because I know that in order for someone to inflict that much pain upon another, they must hate themselves even more.

We can only give out what we have and if all we have is hate, fear and pain, that is what we will give.  We also increase whatever we have by sharing it with others so again... if we only have hate, pain and fear to dole out, that is what we increase in ourselves (our ego's.)  So by this person bringing me that great degree of pain and by these other "leaders" bringing pain upon the world at large, they must be harboring tremendous pain and fear, otherwise, why would they feel the need to harm another.  They are suffering from the same degree of pain (if not more) than they inflict...

So the evil they express is the fear of their own weakness and their own attempt to disguise and dissociate themselves from that perceived weakness... IMHO.

I hope this makes sense.

Love,
Kerri

[Moonburn33]

i think that anton lavey went overboard, but he rephrased a philosophical argument that has been around for a real long time.  people only do what's in their best interest, or perceived best interest.

[Aileron]

my own view on this subject varies since the topic itself is quite relative.

As the subject seems to be ground into the same terms, what we all seem to be saying is that evil/ negative/ chaos and good/ positive/ harmony or whatever you want to call them, are not to be offered to each other as what we define them as, but more so for our own personal understanding, such as lighthouses example of a kid calling someone fat. To everyone witnessing such an action it is taken differently.

The "victim" seemingly either takes on a separate role by allowing the comment to hurt and snowballing into what would be thought of as negative thinking, wishing hurt upon the person who hurt them, or they take the comment made and come to realize although intentionally meant as an insult, it was a correct assumption and then leads to the person taking action to correct what they might see as a flaw lending a positive outlook to a "bad" situation.

The person making the comment may be saying such a thing for any number of reasons depending on the situation such as the victim hurting that person in some way prior to the insult, thus it is a defense mechanism. The person might be using what basic instinct tells them to survive in an environment as needing to establish dominance. Or the person may even get some gratification from hurting another, thusly gratifying themselves (physchological disorder or just selfish and ego absorbed).

The people surrounding as well can attain any number of perceptions from the scenario depending.

Really it seems as though everyone realizes that some will see the subject matter differently because we are independant of each other.

Levay, if you ever read the satanic bible, also is a prime example in his thinking. He doesnt consider himself evil, he considers himself more human because he attempts to gain better understanding of the physical realm; desire, pain, pleasure, and since "God" in religious aspects defines our soul, our spirit, our astral and ethereal, the devil/ lucifer/ satan what have you, defines the physical aspects of our nature.

In his sense, one must know the flesh, before one can understand the spirit.
Satan and God.
Of course this is another obvious attempt to define what is positive and negative in those terms, however some believe that God does not represent either spectrum but both. Since God created everything and Satan as well, this must lead one to believe that there must be another opposite to Satans "Evil" since God is the whole and not the "Good."

So who or what would that be?
Jesus...?
the earthly realm itself?
Another of Gods angels?

This is another representation of one side, so if anyone has a different take on it, by all means.

[narfellus]

well, bickering aside, i think this thread holds a lot of strong truths and opinions on the nature and good and evil. Here's my take, and it is not so different from some others:

Good and Evil are mainly interpretations. Bottom line (in my understanding) There IS Positive and Negative. The Negs, as others have pointed out, excel at scaring, intimidating, and in worse case scenarios, possessing and shadowing and influencing humans. Again, is this evil, or is this Normal? The negs fulfill a very real and valuable role in the evolution of mankind, and it is only through the valiant explorations of men like Robert Bruce and others, their careful research and willingness to share what they have learned, that others are able to piece together the meaning of our common existence. These are the same lessons that Wise Men have known for thousands and thousands of years, but time and society tends to forget. It will come around full circle again, i'm not worried.
  Anyway, my take is that Evil exists (or Negativity) exists as a direct counterpart to Good (Positivity). Are their Beings that only want to hurt/maim/kill humans? Yes. From a human perspective that is bad, but look at it from another angle: God put those negative things in existense to strenghten us. Pretend like the Negs are weights: you have to lift them to get stronger. Be careful though, because you can hurt yourself.

[aissy]

I read the article "Spirits, Angels, Origins & Relationships" by Robert Bruce and wanted to impart a point that I think should have been mentioned in the text. I don't believe that 'evil' exists in itself. I see evil as a 'lack of good' just as dark is a lack of light. Evil is simply a label that can be interpreted in many ways...some say the devil is evil, but according to many religious scriptures, the devil(Lucifer) was once good and is now simply living in respite, cut off from the Creator's Grace, until his appointed term is complete. This conjecture is coming not from a religious bias(as it may apppear) but from a true belief in the goodness of our Creator, Exalted in Power, Wise.

Lots of Love and Light.........aissy[]