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The Nature of Good & Evil

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Felecia
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« Reply #15 on: December 16, 2007, 11:21:53 pm »

quantum_nut
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Rate Member   posted 02-12-2005 05:58 AM                       
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There is no good nor evil, just the perception of good and evil. my definition of good is this:
if something/one is a benefit to another
Evil is:
Whether or not something causes harm.
(to individuality, or to well being and so forth)

But to define things as 'good vs evil' takes things to a spiritual level. It is this fact that people use to their advantage when controlling someone. To define something spiritualy gives it a lot more weight. This motivates people to go to war (as in "Saddam is evil" vs "Saddam isnt nice")
This means that the perception of good and evil is purely a human sense and nothing more.


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« Reply #16 on: December 16, 2007, 11:22:21 pm »

Anteros

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   posted 02-12-2005 08:05 AM                       
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Dawn said:

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Our friends Calvin and Anteros seem to know a great deal about the Bible...
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OK, I'll play into that role...

Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.

ROMANS 2:14-16


It's pretty much what Trent said: You know it when you see it, because God has given you the capacity to see it.
 
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« Reply #17 on: December 16, 2007, 11:23:01 pm »

Smiley4554

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  posted 02-12-2005 04:57 PM                       
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Anyone who cannot tell the difference beis truly blind.
A "gray area" is an idea thought up by those who know the difference between right & wrong, but who want to change right to wrong for their own purposes.



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« Reply #18 on: December 16, 2007, 11:23:22 pm »

bluducky

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Okay ms. Kim, Im going to rescue your dog from being run over, and then i'm going to sell it on Ebay.
I did good, right? I saved it.

--

To reiterate a little common fact:

The ACTIONS of a person make them either good or bad.

Intentions always have a subconcious selfishness to them.

"No one is good, no, not one"

Our intentions attest to this fact.

Even the most 'holy' of us does good for people -- in order for THEMSELVES to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Maybe with the reward of going to Heaven, correct?

Don't you agree?

People are selfish, and their actions for the most part attest to this.

Hardly any good deed is done for free. There's always a catch.

(and now to watch the counter attacks)


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« Reply #19 on: December 16, 2007, 11:23:45 pm »

Aristotle

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   posted 02-12-2005 09:11 PM                       
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I would like to suggest that there really is no good and there is no evil. These are terms society uses to label bad behavior, but the standards for "bad behavior" seem to change throughout the ages. Two hundred years ago, the French used the guillotine to execute prisoners, ghastly by today's standards, perfectly acceptable back then.
No doubt the ancient caveman, when he ran out of meat, resorted to killing whoever he could find and practing cannibalism. Was he evil? Perhaps "hungry" is a better term.

As society becomes more "civilized", we seem to move the bars further back on what is good and bad behavior.

I'd also like to add that, if we had no religion in the world, no one would probably be using these terms at all.


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« Reply #20 on: December 16, 2007, 11:24:07 pm »

Michelle Sandberg

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   posted 02-12-2005 09:53 PM                       
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In another thread we are studying the Aztecs (and their patterns of behavior). Some of their acts regarding human sacrifice include (from the article):

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Victims had their hearts cut out or were decapitated, shot full of arrows, clawed, sliced to death, stoned, crushed, skinned, buried alive or tossed from the tops of temples.
Children were said to be frequent victims, in part because they were considered pure and unspoiled.

"The sacrifice involved burning or partially burning victims," Velez Saldana said. "We found a burial pit with the skeletal remains of four children who were partially burned, and the remains of four other children that were completely carbonized."

The dig turned up other clues to support descriptions of sacrifices in the Magliabecchi codex, a pictorial account painted between 1600 and 1650 that includes human body parts stuffed into cooking dishes, and people sitting around eating, as the god of death looks on.


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Does that make them evil? Most of their "victims" thought they were dying for a higher cause and were otherwise treated honorably (if that makes any sense).



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« Reply #21 on: December 16, 2007, 11:24:31 pm »

Andrew Waters

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  posted 02-13-2005 12:31 AM                       
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Well Michelle,

I can't help but wonder if the sacrificials you were talking about were all that hot about a ''higher cause'' as they were being prepared for the slaughter. While I admit I haven't read any of what you were talking about, but speaking from a purely subjective point of view I find it very difficult to accept they all went gloriously to harpland singing and shouting hallelujah.They were human beings and therefore governed by the same emotions as you and I. Now this doesn't mean that some cultures won't willingly sacrifice themselves for their cause. All one has to do is recall the Kamikaze pilots for Japan in WWII. However, with the Kamikaze, he knew death was instantaneous. There was no suffering; only the mental anguish as he plummeted to his death.

With this in mind, after reading your post as it regards what seems to be torture of these individuals I can't help but think if they had a choice they would much, much rather be somewhere else in time.


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« Reply #22 on: December 16, 2007, 11:25:11 pm »

Anteros

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   posted 02-13-2005 11:37 AM                       
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Okay ms. Kim, Im going to rescue your dog from being run over, and then i'm going to sell it on Ebay.
I did good, right? I saved it.
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That is not a gray area and you know it.

"White" - You save the dog and give it back to her.

"Black" - You let the dog die.
"Black" - You save the dog and steal it.

Simplistic? Perhaps. Give me a better example.





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« Reply #23 on: December 16, 2007, 11:25:36 pm »

Michelle Sandberg

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   posted 02-13-2005 09:54 PM                       
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Andrew, what we know about any ancient culture is no doubt a lot of conjecture. No doubt there were also some Kamikazee pilots that also performed their missions reluctantly, only "kicking and screaming," but here is another quote from the article:

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Pre-Hispanic cultures believed the world would end if the sacrifices were not performed. Sacrificial victims, meanwhile, were often treated as gods themselves before being killed.
"It is really very difficult for us to conceive," Pijoan said of the sacrifices. "It was almost an honor for them."


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http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/americas/01/22/human.sacrifice.ap/

Very interesting, very grisly reading.



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« Reply #24 on: December 16, 2007, 11:25:58 pm »

Andrew Waters

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  posted 02-13-2005 11:02 PM                       
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You are right Michelle, it (the link) is interesting and grisly.

I think I'll just faint.   Smiley


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« Reply #25 on: December 16, 2007, 11:26:25 pm »

Michelle Sandberg

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   posted 02-14-2005 09:24 PM                       
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Well, gee, Andrew, I didn't mean to make you faint. Here, let me get you a glass of water...better now? Hope so!  Smiley
While you were out, the Aztecs came by and wanted to use you for a human sacrifice, but I told them that you couldn't accept the honor.



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« Reply #26 on: December 16, 2007, 11:26:57 pm »

Dawn Moline

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   posted 02-14-2005 10:10 PM                       
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Who really cares what I think is good, and what evil? My views aren't going to inspire everybody's hearts to conform.
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Bluducky

It need not be that we are defining good and evil for each other in this thread (let us not travel down that path again), it might actually be how we define good and evil for ourselves. In that sense, there is no right and wrong to any of this, no need to quibble about petty details, simply one long stream of consciousness wherein each one of us comes up with our own definition of good and evil. In that sense, each person's beliefs, yours, mine, whoever's, all garner merit and are each given given the same regard.


quote:
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A "gray area" is an idea thought up by those who know the difference between right & wrong, but who want to change right to wrong for their own purposes.
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Smiley, of course, I beg to differ. There is both good and evil in everyone, you, me, everyone. To deny that essential fact is to deny our basic humanity. We are not angels, nor are we demons either.

Some very terrible examples of evil have been offered. And yet, it is that gray area that most interests me, at least. At what point, can one, with absolute certainty, be judged evil, and at which point can they be judged good?



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« Reply #27 on: December 16, 2007, 11:27:48 pm »

Melissa MacQuarrie

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   posted 02-14-2005 10:34 PM                       
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I would like to suggest that I don't think that people are either good and evil in themselves, but rather evil is a force that travels from one person to another, like an illness of some kind. It is easier for me to explain the actions of others who might otherwise be termed "sane."


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« Reply #28 on: December 16, 2007, 11:28:12 pm »

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   posted 02-14-2005 11:37 PM                       
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Thank you as well for the kind words, Dawn, but I assure you that I am also quite unworthy of them. Since none of is actually even knows one another here except for what we post in this forum, each of us is probably unfit to even judge the other.
Oddly enough, I happen to see evil the most in those who try and pose as the most "pious." The more certain someone is that they are on the right course while others are wrong, there I think lies the greatest evil. For isn't humility the single greatest human virtue?  Smiley If not, perhaps it should be...



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« Reply #29 on: December 16, 2007, 11:28:52 pm »

Andrew Waters

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  posted 02-15-2005 12:00 AM                       
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While you were out, the Aztecs came by and wanted to use you for a human sacrifice, but I told them that you couldn't accept the honor.
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Yup,they saw me still on the floor and said ''What the heck, he's out of it. No need in wasting a good sacrifice on this one.''

Actually the glass of water did work...until I saw them.  Smiley

Relax Dawn, I'm not going to hijack the thread.  Wink



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