Good and Evil

grip said:

The dilemma with running around judging everyone as 'good' or 'bad' is that YOU must set those, inflexible, uncompromising standards. And since we're all flawed, eventually even the previously judged 'good' person will eventually do something 'bad'. Then you're miserable because nobody has lived up to those impossible standards YOU set. Only you are left as 'good' until you finally judge yourself. That's why our guilt has so much power over us because we see ourselves as 'bad' and unforgiven sometimes, not ignorant and imperfect.

It's much easier to realize that 'good' just means being smart or knowing better, while 'bad' is ignorance or not knowing better. That way you can easily forgive yourself and other people for not being born full of perfect knowledge and focus on their positive traits, rather than lay your judgment on yourself and them. We're all doing the best we know how and learn more from our mistakes than our successes. Life is a learning and maturing process that requires fairness, forgiveness, and compassion.

Now, this doesn't mean that there are no consequences for our actions. We need laws, rules, and correction, otherwise, we don't learn and grow. But their purpose is primarily to discipline someone out of love, for their own good, like you would your own child. Punishment without mercy is unjust and pure cruelty for the sake of ignorant meanness and revenge. That kind of judgment will come back on you and darken your mind.

Judge not, lest thee be judged. He that is without sin (error) among you, let him first cast a stone at her. Father forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

The problem with searching for evil is that when you find it, it finds you.

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trblmkr said:

I really like this post. Even as an atheist, this works for for me. How and why can we find ourselves in judgement of our fellow man? We really don't know how to judge ourselves and what are we judging ourselves against? It's not like there is a standard ruler we can just hold up against our lives and say, I followed all the rules. All of our lives are different. All of our challenges are different. If you abandon a child because she is gay have you followed the rule? If you abandon a son and grand daughter because he has had child out of wedlock have you followed the rule?
I am an atheist. I have no care but for the children who fall under similar conditions. They are children. No more, no less. Your gay son didn't choose to be gay and your gay daughter didn't choose to be lesbian. They are what they are and it is what it is.
Love them, cherish them and hope that they live long and happy lives.

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grip said:

The dilemma with running around judging everyone as 'good' or 'bad' is that YOU must set those, inflexible, uncompromising standards. And since we're all flawed, eventually even the previously judged 'good' person will eventually do something 'bad'. Then you're miserable because nobody has lived up to those impossible standards YOU set. Only you are left as 'good' until you finally judge yourself. That's why our guilt has so much power over us because we see ourselves as 'bad' and unforgiven sometimes, not ignorant and imperfect.

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Omniscient said:

judging comes from belief in two things that dont actually exist:

1- a separate self with free-will

in truth there is only one seemless causal reality. a flowing oneness. there is no doers.

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2- good and bad

in truth there is only pain and pleasure. and one often causes the other

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punishment is nothing but someone giving pain to someone who gave them pain in order to enact a change. which is part of the causality

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grip said:

Good and evil are human concepts in the mind, not some external forces of pure energy, with substance, and intent.

We may not have free will but as far as we're concerned, it sure seems that way. 'Good' is basically a positive result from a certain thought or action. Whereas 'evil' is a negative result. And choosing 'good' for the best overall outcome is only our best-educated guess and choice. The problem is we're not born with perfect knowledge, just basic instincts. And what seems like a personally advantageous choice may turn out bad eventually, so we mature.

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grip said:

Good and evil are human concepts in the mind, not some external forces of pure energy, with substance, and intent.

We may not have free will but as far as we're concerned, it sure seems that way. 'Good' is basically a positive result from a certain thought or action. Whereas 'evil' is a negative result. And choosing 'good' for the best overall outcome is only our best-educated guess and choice. The problem is we're not born with perfect knowledge, just basic instincts. And what seems like a personally advantageous choice may turn out bad eventually, so we mature.

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Omniscient said:

yes

but good and bad is different the good and evil

good and bad are basically labels for things we associate to pleasure or pain

good and evil pertains to behavior. good is basically coequal cooperation, and evil is seeking power over others at their expense

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NWO_Spook said:

Agreed, for 'evil' denotes an intent to cause harm, and many negative occurrences have been caused by positive intentions. Are they inherently evil?

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Omniscient said:

yes

but good and bad is different the good and evil

good and bad are basically labels for things we associate to pleasure or pain

good and evil pertains to behavior. good is basically coequal cooperation, and evil is seeking power over others at their expense

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watsup said:

What this thread is describing are the basic tenets of Humanism. Good is when people realize the best way to live in a society with others. Evils works against societal cohesion. No source outside of humans themselves are needed.

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grip said:

Doing 'good' are the positive results of someone's enlightened knowledge. Doing 'evil' are the negative results of someone's unenlightened knowledge. It's really that simple that 'good' is productive wisdom and 'evil' is destructive ignorance.

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grip said:

The dilemma with running around judging everyone as 'good' or 'bad' is that YOU must set those, inflexible, uncompromising standards. And since we're all flawed, eventually even the previously judged 'good' person will eventually do something 'bad'. Then you're miserable because nobody has lived up to those impossible standards YOU set. Only you are left as 'good' until you finally judge yourself. That's why our guilt has so much power over us because we see ourselves as 'bad' and unforgiven sometimes, not ignorant and imperfect.

It's much easier to realize that 'good' just means being smart or knowing better, while 'bad' is ignorance or not knowing better. That way you can easily forgive yourself and other people for not being born full of perfect knowledge and focus on their positive traits, rather than lay your judgment on yourself and them. We're all doing the best we know how and learn more from our mistakes than our successes. Life is a learning and maturing process that requires fairness, forgiveness, and compassion.

Now, this doesn't mean that there are no consequences for our actions. We need laws, rules, and correction, otherwise, we don't learn and grow. But their purpose is primarily to discipline someone out of love, for their own good, like you would your own child. Punishment without mercy is unjust and pure cruelty for the sake of ignorant meanness and revenge. That kind of judgment will come back on you and darken your mind.

Judge not, lest thee be judged. He that is without sin (error) among you, let him first cast a stone at her. Father forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

The problem with searching for evil is that when you find it, it finds you.

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Omniscient said:

knowledge and wisdom have nothing to do with good and evil

a child can be good or evil

to re-iterate what i wrote before:

good and evil pertains to behavior. good is basically coequal-cooperation, and evil is seeking power over others

its natural to seek power over others. its part of who we are. comes from the lizard brain

its the next level of evolution, the social brain, that calls the lower lizard brain "evil"

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tacomancer said:

If we are looking objectively, Then this video applies and the first three minutes is very insightful.

Basically two crowds, each with their perspective, both got it wrong.

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grip said:

A child is generally regarded as innocent until they begin to mature and reach puberty. Animals act on instinct, which basically makes them innocent. Not undangerous but without malice.

Good and evil pertains to thought before behavior. Doing good for one's self is what you're supposed to do, doing good for yourself at the cost of everyone else is evil. Competitive capitalism allows people to healthily compete for resources and money. But when it goes too far, it's greedy evil and ignorant. People stubbornly seek short term profits over long term results out of personal avarice, laziness, which is a form of ignorance that ultimately costs them more.

This 'power over others' you refer to is merely one aspect of an individual going down the wrong path. If they knew better, they wouldn't do it. They may know that everyone says not to do it but they *believe* they know better, which they don't. It's stubborn and a little crazy to do the same wrong thing over and over and expect different results.

Doing wrong things requires consequences, so we can learn not to be ignorant, and is not excused by ignorance. But temporal ignorance also does not require permanent judgment or punishment.

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grip said:

The dilemma with running around judging everyone as 'good' or 'bad' is that YOU must set those, inflexible, uncompromising standards. And since we're all flawed, eventually even the previously judged 'good' person will eventually do something 'bad'. Then you're miserable because nobody has lived up to those impossible standards YOU set. Only you are left as 'good' until you finally judge yourself. That's why our guilt has so much power over us because we see ourselves as 'bad' and unforgiven sometimes, not ignorant and imperfect.

It's much easier to realize that 'good' just means being smart or knowing better, while 'bad' is ignorance or not knowing better. That way you can easily forgive yourself and other people for not being born full of perfect knowledge and focus on their positive traits, rather than lay your judgment on yourself and them. We're all doing the best we know how and learn more from our mistakes than our successes. Life is a learning and maturing process that requires fairness, forgiveness, and compassion.

Now, this doesn't mean that there are no consequences for our actions. We need laws, rules, and correction, otherwise, we don't learn and grow. But their purpose is primarily to discipline someone out of love, for their own good, like you would your own child. Punishment without mercy is unjust and pure cruelty for the sake of ignorant meanness and revenge. That kind of judgment will come back on you and darken your mind.

Judge not, lest thee be judged. He that is without sin (error) among you, let him first cast a stone at her. Father forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

The problem with searching for evil is that when you find it, it finds you.

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Good4Nothin said:

I agree. Most of what we call "evil" is just things we don't understand or for whatever reason don't approve of.

When I try to convince someone of this, they always say what about Hitler, or serial killers. You can say that killing other humans is evil, but we are all very capable of killing, depending on the situation. Hitler killed because of his beliefs (which were very common at that time), and because he had the power to kill, as a dictator. Most dictators kill.

Serial killers are driven by overwhelming desires they can't control. No one knows why some people are born that way, with their wires crossed.

If you define evil as lack of concern for others, we are all guilty of evil acts and thoughts every day. Some more extreme than others, of course. And most of the time when we hurt someone, we don't even know it. Simply forgetting to return someone's phone call could cause profound grief.

We can't take care of the whole world, and we're lucky if we can take good care of ourselves and our pets and children.

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grip said:

The whole ontology of the terms 'good & evil' revolves around the ancient concepts of moral right and wrong. It gives them an independent external force beyond human thought that doesn't exist. Nature is neither good nor evil, it simply is. We have laws, rules, regulations, social codes of conduct, etc to govern our actions, along with the physical and mental consequences. Good and evil imply moral judgment by others that aren't qualified or pure enough to impugn such indignant outrage. As you say, we're all flawed people just trying to survive.

Hitler didn't exterminate all those Jews by himself, he had his country's military support. Wanting a superior human race is not bad in itself, it's how you go about accomplishing it that matters. Serial killers are just that usually, wired incorrectly. They have compulsions and urges that are almost impossible to suppress due to messed up thought patterns. You can call them evil, in the sense that they did horrifically inhumane deeds, but the cause isn't some invisible dark force, it's because they're ignorant, damaged, and blind to the truth.

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Good4Nothin said:

Yes. Nature is a complex network of organisms all trying to survive. When one animal kills another there is nothing evil about it. That is how nature works. And we are part of nature.

When a person kills another, or does some supposedly evil act, they are not thinking "I am doing this just because I want to be evil." No one wants to be evil, and no one sees their self as evil. We are always reacting to the situation.

If a criminal is defying the society's laws, they don't think they are being evil. They don't like the society, and don't care what its laws are. They are trying to fill their own needs.

I am NOT saying criminals shouldn't be punished. The society must defend itself and enforce its laws.

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grip said:

I agree that few if any say in their heads, I want to commit harm (evil) for the fun of it. They're trying to achieve a positive outcome with bad information. Most people want to be happy but we don't have the perfect answers for every situation. Many of the things necessary for a productive life seem evil at first, like dieting or correcting a child, but we learn thru experience.

It's amazing how much we must try and balance between personal well being and what is best for the greater good of all. This is what has civilization at odds.

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grip said:

The dilemma with running around judging everyone as 'good' or 'bad' is that YOU must set those, inflexible, uncompromising standards. And since we're all flawed, eventually even the previously judged 'good' person will eventually do something 'bad'. Then you're miserable because nobody has lived up to those impossible standards YOU set. Only you are left as 'good' until you finally judge yourself. That's why our guilt has so much power over us because we see ourselves as 'bad' and unforgiven sometimes, not ignorant and imperfect.

It's much easier to realize that 'good' just means being smart or knowing better, while 'bad' is ignorance or not knowing better. That way you can easily forgive yourself and other people for not being born full of perfect knowledge and focus on their positive traits, rather than lay your judgment on yourself and them. We're all doing the best we know how and learn more from our mistakes than our successes. Life is a learning and maturing process that requires fairness, forgiveness, and compassion.

Now, this doesn't mean that there are no consequences for our actions. We need laws, rules, and correction, otherwise, we don't learn and grow. But their purpose is primarily to discipline someone out of love, for their own good, like you would your own child. Punishment without mercy is unjust and pure cruelty for the sake of ignorant meanness and revenge. That kind of judgment will come back on you and darken your mind.

Judge not, lest thee be judged. He that is without sin (error) among you, let him first cast a stone at her. Father forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

The problem with searching for evil is that when you find it, it finds you.

Click to expand...

Good4Nothin said:

Yes, we are constantly balancing between our "selfish" needs and desires, and what other people expect from us. But doing what other people want is selfish also, because it helps us fill our desire to be loved and respected, and to belong to a group.

We are also constantly balancing between various "selfish" needs and desires. Should I buy that pair of shoes, or go to a restaurant? And we're constantly balancing between competing "unselfish" acts. Should I give Jane a ride to the store, or help Joe do his taxes?

How can we know if a person is "good" or not? If they spend most of their time helping others, does that mean they are better than the person who spends most of their time alone? Maybe the person who spends their time alone is working on a great invention that will help the world some day. Or writing a book that people will love to read.

And how about the person who constantly helps others but always feels stressed and exhausted? Maybe they are good to others, but they are not good to their self.

So I think it's impossible to say one person is good and another person is bad. It's so subjective and complex.

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grip said:

It is impossible to judge people with a permanent label because we ALL make mistakes and are always learning and growing.

I think when someone called Jesus good, he said, why do you call me good when the father alone is good. I am fairly sure he meant "all knowing" as good.

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