Good and Evil?

[AngelicWitch]

Does Good and Evil truly exist?

Think about it a little and question people's beliefs. Look at the world as a whole and see if good and evil truly exist. When you think about it the only good and evil is what we create in our minds. To us evil is everything against the majority of society and the good is everything for the majority of society. But if society is different from each other does that make one society evil over the other. Know we do have universal laws stating that murder is evil. But murder is such a vague term. When you think about it the United States commits several acts of murder for legal reasons either through death penalty or war. In other countries people kill for their own religious purposes.

So I ask you what is evil and good? Does exist or does it only exist in our mind? Can there be the ultimate evil and the ultimate good?

Think about it.

[thefirstman]

The way i think of it is:say someone believes in something,the evil to that believing person will be the opposite of their beliefs,and vice versa.So why seperate them into different coloumns when they are such useless concepts.

[AngelicWitch]

Yes true. I don't know. To me good and evil is nothing more then indiffrence. We live in a world surrounded by diffrent culture and diffrent beliefs. If there is a good and evil out there it is crowded by many opinions on the subject.

[moe eubleck]

To have a concept of good one must also have a concept of evil. But something evil to one may be good to another and visa versa. This is what causes confrontation.

Weather or not it is just in the mind is irrelevant. Every human ideal, starts in the mind and everyone has an idea of what is good and evil. The proof of the reality of good and evil can be found in its physical manifestations.

[thefirstman]

Thats what i said,one thing might be evil to one person of a belief,and to another person to a different belief,the same thing might be good to them.Therefore they are the same.It all goes to religions.

[AngelicWitch]

True and I agree with that. It is so confussing yet so true.

[Great Big Sea]

I don't think evil and good is in our heads I don't believe that your born evil or good it's the path you take. But there are (were) people who did awful things just think about those who hurt and murder people. Do you think they are evil? So if someone really hurt a poor child do you call them a murder a person or evil?

[Kaj]

Good or evil is a human state...nothing to do with survival or basic needs...it is our intelligence that gives room for such things.

And religions sucks many times becouse they are the reason for so many wars in the past and today.

[Naveed]

I look at good and evil this way: The world is colorful, but people make it black and white (good and evil). In other words, nothing is overly good or evil, but people make it that way. There are exceptions, as in actual murderers, people like Hitler, etc..., but over all it's just something people label things as.

[Universal Absurdity]

there is up , and there is down

there is positive and negative

right and wrong

if you took up and applied it to down you'd be left with a standstill

apply a positive charge to a negative charge and they go boom

one man's right is another man's wrong

what it all boils down to is that everything cancells itself out

there really is no up or down, positive or negative, right or wrong

its all your perception

there is no spoon

[Xenojjin]

GOOD

helpfull , brings joy to the mass in the end

EVIL

Not helpfull , screws the mass over in the end

-Just because evil often diguises itself as good and vice versa , doesn't mean they dont exist . If neither good or evil existed our universe would be an emotionless ball of mud without any humour hapiness , sadness , sorrow , joy , peace , torment or darkness .

[bathory]

bah

good and evil are both subjective terms created by the human mind to try and give meaning to things that happen...

[Xenojjin]

Doesn't change fact it exists

[bathory]

they are purely subjective terms...

there is no definitive meaning for evil, there is no definitive meaning for good...

just because you believe something to be good doesn't not mean it is, just as something may or may not be evil, its all subjective.

[Xenojjin]

Read what my point was .

GOOD

helpfull , brings joy to the mass in the end

EVIL

Not helpfull , screws the mass over in the end

it sums it up right their , evil and good exist . Sure ... their will always be some idiot who thinks good is evil and evil is good , but in the end whether or not something was helpfull will always come clear .

Lets take cocaine for example , while on it people think it to be the greatest thing in the world . In the end it screws their life over and they curse the drug , the time they thought it was a good thing was nothing but mere dillusions .

Now for a more massive scale . The holocaust . Germany thought it was an excellent idea that would bring prosperity and eternal rule to them all , in the end everyone came to realize it was just some evil killing spree started by some seriously psychotic individual . Did the holocaust screw the mass over in end ? Yes .

Sure , their may be som people who still think its a good thing , that doesn't mean good and evil don't exist . It means they are screwed up in the head and highly dillusional .

But what you say about good and evil being subjective does make sense in some circumstances , but those are mainly silly little disputes were the object in question i ussually nor good nor evil . Therefore a nutural version of good and evil exist , but they still exist .

[bathory]

Now for a more massive scale . The holocaust . Germany thought it was an excellent idea that would bring prosperity and eternal rule to them all , in the end everyone came to realize it was just some evil killing spree started by some seriously psychotic individual . Did the holocaust screw the mass over in end ? Yes .

actually, it was Hitler's military strategy of invading Russia poorly prepared that screwed them over, so really, the Holocaust could have been considered good (it is still considered good by some people), I disagree with that, but it doesn't make me any more right about what is good or evil.

Do you think its good to execute women who get raped because they 'asked' for it? fundamentalist muslim law says so, in a community of fundamentalists it is deemed a good thing, who's to say it isn't?

GOOD

helpfull , brings joy to the mass in the end

EVIL

Not helpfull , screws the mass over in the end

is making up definitions in the rulebook?

i see your point, even then, define being screwed over? something negative occuring? negativity (in this context) is merely a perception which from person to person will change. Majority vs Minority has nothing to do with it. By your logic, Genocide in which the offending country gets away with is a good thing..

[Xenojjin]

you forget to take into account that I put " in the end " in my definitions . And they are not exact definitions , just what is ussually so . Its seems that their are some things that are pretty open to suggestion on whether or not they are evil . But I believe their are definately some things that will never be right no matter what some imbecile says . Murder will never be right , selfishness will never be right , hatred will never be right ect.

Calling good and evil nonexistant because they are subjective in some cases is nothing more then a way to prevent yourself from feeling bad about everything you have done in your life you do not feel was right . Its nothing but merely placing yourself in moral bliss so you can tell yourself you are perfect since their is no such thing as good and evil , right and wrong , perfection and imperfection . You know what ? logic and illogical , nah ! we dont need that either ! How about opinions ? Bah ! people's opinions meen nothing ! Or how about the ability to think as we know it ? Apperantly , it can't exist .

Everything is open to suggestion . it still exists . The people who think the holocaust was a good thing have serious psychological problems . get over it

[crosswarrior]

are we the one s who get to choose what is good and what is evil. I hope not. For I know that left to myself, the line between both will be always moving. But perhapes I am moving off topic.

[bathory]

Calling good and evil nonexistant because they are subjective in some cases is nothing more then a way to prevent yourself from feeling bad about everything you have done in your life you do not feel was right .

tsk tsk, you assume things about me which you cannot possibly know.

Why is Murder wrong?

Why is being selfish wrong?

I'm not saying that i agree with the above, but i'm open enough to understand that such concepts are ultimately flawed.

[Xenojjin]

Ah , I understand you now .

I just remembered you have no religion , and therefore no honor code that defines good and evil . Since existance is meaningless in your world good and evil in essence do not make sense to you .

When you are in this condition it is best to just simply treat others how you would like to be treated and nothing more . Beyond that , this simply becomes another god is or not debate with a gauranteed no end .

[Seraphina]

I just remembered you have no religion , and therefore no honor code that defines good and evil . Since existance is meaningless in your world good and evil in essence do not make sense to you.

Makes you wonder if some people think us athiests are running around, without any concept of morals, randomly killing each other just for the sake of it...bit silly given how many wars have been started for the sake of religion

*can't remember a single war fought, or person murdered, for the sake of athiesm *

You see? Our way is the way of peace my friends

[crosswarrior]

I don't believe that a person is without honor merely because their religion is that there is no God. Every person has a knowledge deep in their heart of what is right and what is wrong. And it is from this inborn code that honor springs forth. The only problem is that manytimes this conscience is killed because it stands in our way.

[Fluffybunny]

I just remembered you have no religion , and therefore no honor code that defines good and evil .

That is a pretty big assumption. Many people around the world do not follow an organized religion, but still are able to define good and evil just fine.

Since existence is meaningless in your world good and evil in essence do not make sense to you

I am not completely sure I follow your meaning on this but let me take a stab at it...

How can someone not understand good and evil? How can it not make sense? I don't understand exactly how or why you would say something like that. If a person has a frontal lobe and a room temperature IQ, the understanding of good/evil is pretty straightforward. People outside of organized religion have been able to make sense of the concept of good and evil for millennia. Being a christian/muslim/jew/buddhist/etc. does not give one the corner market on understanding good or evil. Those definitions are made at a societal level, and very often change over time anyway.

As Seraphina just said, christianity/islam/judaism which have the strictest guidelines of good and evil are also responsible for untold millions of deaths over the millennia. It is one of the reasons in my mind that organized religion has such a problem with credibility; the hypocrisy is tough to look past.

are we the one s who get to choose what is good and what is evil. I hope not. For I know that left to myself, the line between both will be always moving. But perhaps I am moving off topic.

Of course we are the ones that choose what is good and what is evil. It has been that way since the beginning of mankind, and still goes that way today. We do things today in our society that would have had us burned at the stake in the middle ages. The society we live in decides what is considered good or evil and as I said before, that changes over time...

[Seraphina]

Ah, FluffyBunny...you truly are a man of great wisdom Couldn't have said it better myself...

It does seem to be a rather...strange misconception that athiests somehow have no morale code I do actually find myself wondering where the belief comes from...

Does the church spend much of its time and energy lecturing on the evils of athiesm, and that we are all hellish sinners who will and should burn in hell for eternity for our lawless ways?

Or is it just pig ignorance, and a flat refusal to actually look at historical fact?

[Xenojjin]

Explain how someone with no belief in good and evil can have a moral code that truly defines it . You can have a moral code but it changes over time and is subjective , so it doesn't truly define it . I am in no way saying you are all sinners who should burn in hell .

*can't remember a single war fought, or person murdered, for the sake of athiesm  *

of course not , why argue over athieism ? But then again , wars have been fought many times before without religous influence . Since athieism is no religion you could say it has had its parts .

Blaming religions for wars can sometimes be based on ignorance . Although certain things have been started over religion like the crusades , no where in the christian text does it say anything about us doing that . The bible actually says the opposite of the crusades and tells us to ignore those who refuse to listen rather then kill them .

In other words , its not neccesarily religion that is responsible for the war ... but stupid people who start the war in the first place . Kind of like every other war .

Does the church spend much of its time and energy lecturing on the evils of athiesm, and that we are all hellish sinners who will and should burn in hell for eternity for our lawless ways?

No .

christianity/islam/judaism which have the strictest guidelines of good and evil are also responsible for untold millions of deaths over the millennia.

none of which were acts that their religion actually supported , just some idiot making up their own twisted ideas and calling it that religion . well ... except for islam , sorry if their are muslims out their but I provide no back up for them .