Hello there fat_turkey !
Do you think there was such a thing as "good and evil" before humankind ?
I agree with you that good and evil exists today - but only as a human concept.
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I agree with you that good and evil exists today - but only as a human concept.
This is it! Or,
Voila! Whatever. Anyway, point is, personally, I don't think there is good and evil, therefore there isn't any. You, on the other hand, see things as good and evil. And no, I'm not talking "the bigger picture" here, because, as you stated, I've never seen it. I just believe that evil is only in the mind, just as good is. There just is! IS! IS! IS!!! Or is there? Uhm, carry on.
quote:
Originally posted by ImmuredSoul
quote:
I agree with you that good and evil exists today - but only as a human concept.
This is it! Or, Voila! Whatever. Anyway, point is, personally, I don't think there is good and evil, therefore there isn't any. You, on the other hand, see things as good and evil. And no, I'm not talking "the bigger picture" here, because, as you stated, I've never seen it. I just believe that evil is only in the mind, just as good is. There just is! IS! IS! IS!!! Or is there? Uhm, carry on.
edit:
Oops, forgot to mentions: What do you think is wrong and what is right? This is anything concept of the mind. Otherwise, we wouldn't have sociopaths [;)]
I don't think there's any such thing as good and evil, only a difference of opinion.
most people in my circle of friends are indifferent to the issue.
I just read Ouspensky's "In search of the miraculous" and it greatly assisted me in my views of such concepts.
For example, evil occurs by mechanical means rather than conscious intentions. No one acts in favour of evil, they act in favour of their subjective intent(s). When you take a mass of people with subjective perspectives, they are bound to clash and therefore one thing is evil to one person through his eyes while it may be good for someone else through their eyes. A peculiar example would be easily portrayed by perhaps contrasting an Aboriginal with a Cardinal Bishop. Surely they will find evils in one another.
Furthermore general 'evil' occurs through lack of self-consciousness in the moment. When one is mechanically walking, acting, and thinking under a routine, they are generally not responsible for what they "do" since their behaving like machines rather than sentient-beings.
And in regards to scale, evil is "evil" when magnified. If one begins to visualize and think in bigger and bigger scales (ie. the "bigger picture"), the concept of evil successively loses its substance. In most cases it may just be classified as a subjective opinion...a form of manicheanism (: the urge to rule the world) in which case a person believes they have the right to judge nature, the environment, the earth, the Universe, and so forth.
Beware, unorthodox views follow:
I have seen the big picture, Fat Turkey. And I'm not joking. It was, sardonically, a life-changing experience - I say "sardonically" because it was a moment of ultimate clarity, but what usefulness is clarity if it's of something you'd rather not have been made clear. And I should have lost my life or my sanity but survived with both marginally intact.
In the realm of pure white silver light, what Bruce would call the Buddhic dimension, I saw the design and sensed the intent of the physical universe. The design was pain and the intent was evil. What we consider good is actually under the bondage of evil - it serves to create uncertainty, preventing reasonable expectation, thus amplifying the impact of suffering. Evil is actually more pure when it has chained and conquered the good.
Notice, this does not quite work in reverse. Good neither chains nor oppresses, for those are acts of evil - so Good cannot chain evil. Likewise, Evil does not serve, for that is an act of Good - so Evil cannot serve Good. Good is only pure good when it serves. The only possible relationship is this: Evil oppresses Good while Good serves Evil -> Evil is served. Good is oppressed. -> Evil runs the show.
I honestly do not think of this as a belief, but as an observation. I have tried to reconcile it as a wispy belief, but I cannot deny my experience. The clarity was real. It was maddening. The creation of the universe was an act of pure evil.
Of course, this is still only a view, hinging on the experience of one man and interpretations on the definitions of good and evil. You are lucky if you can ignore it.
Ware, nor of good nor ill, what aim hath act?
Without its climax, death, what savour hath
Life? an impeccable machine, exact
He paces an inane and pointless path
To glut brute appetites, his sole content
How tedious were he fit to comprehend
Himself! More, this our noble element
Of fire in nature, love in spirit, unkenned
Life hath no spring, no axle, and no end.
His body a blood-ruby radiant
With noble passion, sun-souled Lucifer
Swept through the dawn colossal, swift aslant
On Eden's imbecile perimeter.
He blessed nonentity with every curse
And spiced with sorrow the dull soul of sense,
Breath life into the sterile universe,
With Love and Knowledge drove out innocence
The Key of Joy is disobedience.
In my opinion there is no such thing as evil/good.
There is only energy.
You need stability in the world. If everyone did anything they wanted with no regards to how it affected others, then everyone, including our own selves, would be negatively effected by it. I think that there are certain fundamentals ingrained in all of us, such as the desire to live our own lives and be free to do so, and when another person forcefully takes away such fundamentals then that could be considered evil. Negative actions, which some would call evil actions, bring with them like consequences. For instance, humans are cutting down rainforests for prophet, but in doing so we are discovering diseases that were being contained by the forest itself. Evil can mean many different things to different people. After all, Hitler thought he was saving the world. I guess I think that evil is really anything that hurts, whether our planet, others, or ourselves, rather then heals. Some would say that a drug user is evil, but in their own mind they simply can't stop, or don't want to. It's the result of the drug use (ie-spreading of disease, self destructive behavior) that makes it evil, not the person being evil. Hope that makes some kind of sense.
You might be wrong!
"May be wrong". Certainly a valid possibility, but having no valid reason why.
My wife told me something a little while back, possibly one of those urban legend things, about a university student who was the only one to recieve top marks in a philosophy exam once.
The story goes that the examiner had given them their test with just one word on it:
why?
The student who got top marks was the first one finished by a long way, and in what could be described as one of the ballsiest moves in his time in uni, he answered the test, also with just one word:
because!
[:)]
James.
Lighten up man!
It was a joke, using the word "wrong".
Dont take everything too seriously, you ruin the fun.
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Originally posted by The AlphaOmega
You need stability in the world. If everyone did anything they wanted with no regards to how it affected others, then everyone, including our own selves, would be negatively effected by it. I think that there are certain fundamentals ingrained in all of us, such as the desire to live our own lives and be free to do so, and when another person forcefully takes away such fundamentals then that could be considered evil. Negative actions, which some would call evil actions, bring with them like consequences. For instance, humans are cutting down rainforests for prophet, but in doing so we are discovering diseases that were being contained by the forest itself. Evil can mean many different things to different people. After all, Hitler thought he was saving the world. I guess I think that evil is really anything that hurts, whether our planet, others, or ourselves, rather then heals. Some would say that a drug user is evil, but in their own mind they simply can't stop, or don't want to. It's the result of the drug use (ie-spreading of disease, self destructive behavior) that makes it evil, not the person being evil. Hope that makes some kind of sense.
Perhaps your perception of evil is what makes the, and I quote "the result of the drug use (ie-spreading of disease, self destructive behavior), evil to you. Taken from a different, and I emphasize,
point of view, the destruction of this other's life could be a necessary good in the world (ie, makes room for other persons, etc.).
I just found the Wikipedia article on the Problem of Evil (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil) and it's very thorough. It may help in our discussion.
With what James s said about the philosophy I know some one how was supposed to write a paper explaining why a chair was there, and he wrote what chair and was the only one that passed the assignment.
so murderers are ok cuz killin isnt wrong? is that right? oh but it cant be right cuz right doesnt exist... so its wrong, but oh... wrong doesnt exist either.... so if im right and there is no wrong, im wrong because thats right. correct me if Im wrong.
depending on a lot of things, murderers can be depicted as both good and evil. Depends on who YOU are and what exactly your viewpoint on the murder is. If some animal was to just jump out of a forest and attack a human for no apparent reason, would that be wrong? If you answer yes, what if it was for self defense, or some other more-than-equally worthy question? One person may say that this "murderer" had great intentions for killer the person (i.e. the government killing somebody on death row), and another may see it as just plane wrong.
So, in a sense, you're both right and wrong. And yet, neither. :)
You're absolutely right... sort of...
Hello all. I just recently confronted what I think is an important issue: people acting like there is no such thing as "evil" or such thing as "wrong."
First off, evil is existant. In it's purest form, evil is good which is tortured by it's own greed. Every purely evil person wanted something good to happen, but became corrupted.
As for wrongs, and maybe this applies for evil too, the very fact we exist here on the physical plane has some evil involved. We need resources to be consumed, things are used and stomped on by us, creating an imbalance. We also need to gain personal identity, and thus pride and other things come into play. Of course, like everything else, it needs balance, but even then it can be a negative effect on someone else.
Any other discussions about this? I'm not talking about the "big picture," because that would be being a fluff bunny. Saying there are no wrongs in "the big picture" is silly because you've never been there, and even in the Astral things can be cryptic.
Peace
~FT
I dont think that there is good or evil that all energy is neutral untill a being takes it in and gives it intention towards how that energy is to be used.
Well, I'm kind of torn on this issue. I mean, philosophically, the view that there is an absolute right and wrong is very shaky ground, but on the other hand, I feel there may just yet be some things which are right and wrong absolutely, in ever culture and time. I mean look at Hitler. Almost everyone would agree that what he did was wrong, no matter the time or culture. So, I don't know.
I like the idea of the creative/destructive duality over the good/evil duality. As far as evil conquering and enslaving good. I don't think this is the case because of the nature of those two concepts. I remember a dream I had recently. I was in a hellish prison-like area. One of the people in this "jail" told me, "We hold the keys to our own locks in this prison." I see evil as a self-conquering/self-enslaving principle. Good is a liberating concept, as I see it.
-Z
The AlphaOmega,
You pretty well share my philosophy. The energy in our world is there for our use, for either good or evil. In itself, it is neither.
However, when you make a choice in the use of that energy, at that point you create good or evil.
A friend is not big on the words "good" and "evil." She believes we are here in the physical to learn and evolve, and if we fail, then we regress and, basically, have to repeat the course. She says if we make choices that help us evolve, then we are choosing "good." If we choose something that impedes us, that is "evil."
For myself, call it "high or low road", or "light or dark path," if you choose actions that cause unnecessary harm, then you have chosen evil.
A good example is a news story I read not too long back about a guy who caught a cat, tied it up, and put it on a charcoal grill. Neither good nor evil?
Jaclyn, you are priceless!!!!! :lol: