The reason for evil

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Sand
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23 Feb 2010, 4:52 am

Read this and learn something about evil.

http://www.counterpunch.org/neville02222010.html

ruveyn
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23 Feb 2010, 10:37 am

Sand wrote:

Read this and learn something about evil.

http://www.counterpunch.org/neville02222010.html

Ho hum. Humans are an evil bunch. This has been obvious for 150,000 years at least.

So what else is new, Mr. Sand?

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sartresue
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24 Feb 2010, 12:18 pm

The problem with evil topic

Embedding yourself in evil as a way of understanding is not always seen by others in the same way you see it.

Donna Mulhearn no doubt is aware of this.

And trying to fathom evil by getting into the mindset of those who practice it seems to only reveal its banality. I know. I am still trying to understand what rabid nazis saw when they unleashed the Final Solution. Perhaps there is another aspect to Theory of Mind I have not yet fathomed.

So how can we understand evil? For some it means coming to understand a supreme being known commonly as God, and the counterpart Satan.

To me the argument becomes circular, strange, frustrating. Nothing new, perhaps, but I will continue to study it in the Holocaust.

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Sand
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24 Feb 2010, 12:29 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Sand wrote:

Read this and learn something about evil.

http://www.counterpunch.org/neville02222010.html

Ho hum. Humans are an evil bunch. This has been obvious for 150,000 years at least.

So what else is new, Mr. Sand?

ruveyn

Ho hum, ruveyn, adolescent generalities are not befitting in someone who is continually crying his overwhelming intellect. Human evil exclusively was not the subject of the thread.

ruveyn
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24 Feb 2010, 1:23 pm

Sand wrote:

Ho hum, ruveyn, adolescent generalities are not befitting in someone who is continually crying his overwhelming intellect. Human evil exclusively was not the subject of the thread.

Evil is a human concept. It does not exist objectively in nature. Neither does good. Good and Evil are opinions, not facts.

I prefer facts to opinions, and the objective to the subjective.

ruveyn

Maranatha
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24 Feb 2010, 1:41 pm

Well, in my opinion the Holocaust was "objectively" pure evil.

PLA
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24 Feb 2010, 2:54 pm

Maranatha wrote:

Well, in my opinion the Holocaust was "objectively" pure evil.

Hmm, weasel there.

But if "opinion" is stretched to include the in-case-accepted metaphysical model, I suppose it could be technically correct on the semantic level.

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ruveyn
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24 Feb 2010, 4:26 pm

Maranatha wrote:

Well, in my opinion the Holocaust was "objectively" pure evil.

You mean you disapproved of it?

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Sand
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24 Feb 2010, 10:43 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Sand wrote:

Ho hum, ruveyn, adolescent generalities are not befitting in someone who is continually crying his overwhelming intellect. Human evil exclusively was not the subject of the thread.

Evil is a human concept. It does not exist objectively in nature. Neither does good. Good and Evil are opinions, not facts.

I prefer facts to opinions, and the objective to the subjective.

ruveyn

That, of course, is the opinion of an atheist. As an atheist I can only enthusiastically agree. But this thread is my attempt to think along the lines of religious people who pray to God to stop earthquakes, floods, avalanches, and other natural disasters as operations of Godly origin since they view God in total control. Whatever they might think about humans being endowed with "free will" I assume they do not extend this propensity to natural phenomena and God, the guy in charge, therefore reveals his intent in using them to direct human opinion and activity. On that basis the natural events that regularly massacre millions of totally innocent people are assumed intentional and therefor some form of evil.

I figured that if you're going to have a God you might as well have one with brains, not the wild tempered idiot with the dumbest morals imaginable and no concept whatsoever of basic human psychology and needs. God as portrayed in the Bible is obviously a jerk, an egomaniac with a nasty turn of mind as well and anybody that worships this nonsensical conception deserves all the misery obtained by doing so. There are better ideas.

Last edited by Sand on 25 Feb 2010, 6:42 am, edited 2 times in total.

Maranatha
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24 Feb 2010, 10:58 pm

"Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them."

-- Ecclesiastes

Sand
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25 Feb 2010, 12:05 am

Maranatha wrote:

"Like fish that are taken in an evil net, and like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them."

-- Ecclesiastes

The world, perverse
With great talents
To make things worse
Is only setting up a balance,
Not manufacturing a curse.
Oblivious to human cares,
The world is mere mechanical.
It merchandises wares
With no intents Satanical.

LiendaBalla
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25 Feb 2010, 11:34 am

Not everything has a reason, but human kind wants there to be one.

NobelCynic
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25 Feb 2010, 3:47 pm

Sand wrote:

But this thread is my attempt to think along the lines of religious people who pray to God to stop earthquakes, floods, avalanches, and other natural disasters as operations of Godly origin since they view God in total control. Whatever they might think about humans being endowed with "free will" I assume they do not extend this propensity to natural phenomena and God, the guy in charge, therefore reveals his intent in using them to direct human opinion and activity.

If you leave free will out of this, "evil" becomes nothing more than a synomyn for "bad".

In the opinion of many religious people God is the only one who has (or should have) free will, in the opinion of most atheists no one does but every thing that happens is in accordance with nature. In the later case there would be no evil, only good and bad depending on your point of view; in the former case it would depend upon God's purpose, but even that would be subject to ones point of view.

Then again, there are thoes who believe that there is more than one power at work. Then it becomes complecated

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