"good" and "evil" do not exist. there is no such act as "to do evil" or "to do good". what is "good" for anyone is whatever means accomplishes a desired outcome. what is "evil" for anyone are the acts of others that hinder or destroy our desired outcome. if i am outside in the cold and i start a camp fire, for me, the starting of the fire is "good". for the forest service ranger whose job it is to enforce forestry laws the starting of the fire is "bad" or "evil".
anyone can decide at any time in their mind what is good or what is evil. hence, what we call "morality" is also a matter of personal opinion. the only real issue is whether or not we see ourselves as real. when you know you are truly real, the other person is also real. and so you cannot harm them any more than you can harm yourself. it hurts to not be real. the deadness of it, the disconnection, the isolation, is truly horrible. and so we enjoy hurting ourselves and each other because within these stressful, intoxicating moments of conflict and/or self-harm we are reminded of our realness. the common mind of our times is "i am not real. you are not real. it's all a dream, anything goes." this is psychopathic mind. yes, the whole human world is nearly 100% psychopaths. (newborn babies, some old guy on a mountain in tibet, a few indigenous peoples, these are probably okay.) some of us are more far gone than others, of course, but no one is untouched by the crippling and destructive mental illness we call "modern civilized society".
in fact, the whole concept "good vs. evil", is delusional and serves quite well to keep all the madness going.
perfectly illustrates my point, both of you. reality = good vs. evil = perpetual, needless conflict? we choose to dream up this "good vs. evil" nonsense and so of course it can't help but puke back violence into our faces. forever.
what you are calling "reality" DtW, is the result of human delusion, sadly. what can one do about delusion within the mind of another but ignore it in the interest of maintaining ones' own sanity?
lots of people believing/sharing the same delusion(s) does not make them real. subs like this, and most of the people who read them, are like the neighborhood dog we all know that is always hair-triggered, easily upset and barks about every little thing feeling they are being selflessly vigilant, acting as everyone else's ever-watchful sentinel.
find peace, if you can. this is what the world needs in shit times likes these, not more barking and howling to make ourselves feel more righteous, more perfect than those people "over there". we all suck. we all have sweetness. we are all lovers and killers, we just don't want to accept the "killer" part, and so we have no choice but to keep fighting against what is true about ourselves and so on and on and on it goes.....
you want to "fight evil"? look in the mirror. there it is.
You are a certifiable idiot/moron and spiritually blind. You will reap what you sow. Garbage in garbage out. A trash heap and a sorry excuse for a NPC.
Perhaps We need to clarify "evil" and "good." As I said in My comment here:
I don’t see “evil” and “good;” I see unEthical (“evil”) - the breaking of the three Laws of Ethics, Ethical (everything that does not break the three Laws), with “good” being the upholding of the Betterment Ethic - looking for ways to make things better for Those around You and around the globe and creating them.
When taken this way, yes, there IS such thing as "evil" and "good."
In our current iteration of the world, the concepts of "sin," and "evil" are subjective. Plus... what is "good" for one person can be "evil" for another, and that is accepted.
What can you expect from a society that believes that a man dressed like a woman is really a woman?
Morality and the concept of good/evil are gone in this weird, postmodern world we inhabit, and we are paying the price.
Correct. The Marx quote lays it all out....eternal Truth has been replaced by Communism. Morality is gone and everything is now relative. Up is down. Evil is good.
Again, here, I will clarify what I would say are"evil" and "good:"
I don’t see “evil” and “good;” I see unEthical (“evil”) - the breaking of the three Laws of Ethics, Ethical (everything that does not break the three Laws), with “good” being the upholding of the Betterment Ethic - looking for ways to make things better for Those around You and around the globe and creating them.
Everything depends on your level and which Law you are measuring with. Lower levels have different Law. What looks bad from high levels, looks good from low levels. Example: Hell's Angels are the police in Hell. When you see then enforcing laws, what level is society at? That's the concept and by the way, all understandings are correct at their levels.
I don’t see “evil” and “good;” I see unEthical (“evil”) - the breaking of the three Laws of Ethics, Ethical (everything that does not break the three Laws), with “good” being the upholding of the Betterment Ethic - looking for ways to make things better for Those around You and around the globe and creating them.
The three Laws of Ethics (Natural Law expressed as the three things not to do):
1. Do not willfully and without fully informed consent hurt or kill the flesh of anOther
2. Do not willfully and without fully informed consent take or damage anything that does not belong to You alone
3. Do not willfully defraud anOther (which can only happen without fully informed consent)
We Ethical Ones had best stand against the unEthical Ones...
This message is incredibly important and so true. It echoes the words of the prophet Isaiah (5:20) when he proclaimed, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
The collective consciousness of humanity must wake from its slumber, regecting all forms of darkness and turning to the loving embrace of the light of Christ, living daily by the two greatest Biblical commandments. Matthew 22 declares, "37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Because we have failed to do this, the world is headed for the Apocalypse (lifting of the veil), culminating in God's Eternal Truth being revealed when Jesus Christ returns to judge the living and the dead during The Final Judgment (Matthew 25):
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,[a] you did it to me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Amen.
I read an average of three articles a day coming from Lebanon and Syria, or the perspective of Palestine or Iran or Russia. What they show is that they're not doing evil in order to do good. They're very careful about avoiding civilian casualties, warning those living around military installations to move away before their drone strikes. Unlike Israel that blew off the hands, eyes or kidneys of 4000 administrative civilians of Hezbollah, since their soldiers don't use pagers. They've dropped either enriched uranium or depleted uranium on Lebanon to kill Nasrallah. They wear tee-shirts that say, "One shot, two kills" with a bullseye on a pregnant Muslim woman. They lure out children where snipers shoot them between the eyes or in the heart, making a game of it.
So your dear friend may be thinking that way, and I'm glad you're clarifying it for him, but don't project it onto both sides, please.
Not at all projecting anything, it's a fact that good and evil exist everywhere. Both sides have good people, I know that for a fact. Many outstanding people in Palestine, for sure. But they both also have evil people as well. The friend is a "her", but that doesn't matter. They believe that a book written 2500 years ago gives them the right to murder people. That's evil and btw there are believers in that same book who don't believe they have the right to murder anyone (but it seems to be a small minority).
I've traveled extensively in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. I had a room mate whose father was Palestinian...they were forced to leave at gunpoint at 2am in 1947 from the orchard in Palestine their family had owned for over 100 years by Israelis. They were given ten minutes to pack up everything they could carry with them and leave. You can imagine how many people went through that and of course having your land stolen at gunpoint is not exactly going to make friends. There is a reason it's called Nakba. It was ethnic cleansing and a disaster for Palestinians. 15,000 Palestinians were murdered at the hands of the Jews and it looks like the present campaigns have already exceeded that number by multiples.
As for governments, how many of them truly represent the people of their country? Very few. Our guide in Syria pointed this out when I asked about the political situation in his country. Anyone living in that situation knows first hand that individual people are not the same as the government.
What's interesting to me is the response....no one seems to believe in "The Law of the Cosmos". aka The Great Law that governs everything...it's not left in their heart at all. People seem to only care about revenge and retribution. That's on both sides...and no one is using these events to "look inside themselves". That's what is most sad.
Hi, DtW. I see good and evil as adverbs, not adjectives. They're qualities of actions, not inherent qualities of people. I believe that people are all inherently good, which is the only belief I have that I won't raise to question. If I believed otherwise, I'd believe in my moral superiority, and I refuse that belief. When people behave badly, therefore, flawed systems and stories are to blame.
The book your friend believes is, I think, the OG flawed story that's led to all the rest. It's the seduction of superiority that, combined with the power of coinage/ taxation and intermarriage with royals, empowered the authors of that myth to be the power behind the thrones.
I define doing good as alleviating suffering and doing better as enabling others to alleviate their own and others' suffering. To do bad is to inflict suffering but to do evil is to cause others to inflict suffering. Without systems of obedience and the stories that justify them, there couldn't be the mass infliction of suffering there is. Being coerced into committing acts that go against our nature creates a cognitive dissonance that kills the conscience. They can't think about it clearly without believing they're a bad person.
What's fundamentally different about the Torah and the Quran is that the latter doesn't have the right to murder civilians, whereas the former says it's an obligation down to the suckling babe. So your other friends aren't really believers in that book if they don't believe that. I've written about this in https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/hot-and-cold-hatred.
There are strong prohibitions in Islam against killing civilians, against rape, against torture. All of these are systematic weapons of war in Judeo-Christian militarism, as I've been finding out.
Very well made points, thanks for sharing those. Many religious texts were corrupted, some from the start, leading adherents down a wicked path. I'd say this is true of all the major religions without exception. It's been applied to many things, turning them wicked.
You correctly refuse to fall into the trap of moral superiority. In my understanding, good and evil are judged with Truth, Compassion and Tolerance. This discernment is a matter of level and the Law is different at different levels. What seems good down here is reversed and considered evil when measured with the Law "up there". Everyone has their own understandings and they are all correct for the level they are at. It's the difference in level that causes difference in understanding. But that's only my understanding at my level. LOL
I know I have posted this here a number of times, but...
I don’t see “evil” and “good;” I see unEthical (“evil”) - the breaking of the three Laws of Ethics, Ethical (everything that does not break the three Laws), with “good” being the upholding of the Betterment Ethic - looking for ways to make things better for Those around You and around the globe and creating them.
Interesting distinction between morality and ethics. I'll need to think about that but it seems useful, like my distinction between money and wealth. I look at the law of reciprocity and posit rules for an ethical statement--can't contain proper nouns, must be reversible, any specific in that category can be swapped in for the variable. So it's much like algebra, which makes sense, since algebra is all about the equals sign and what logically works for it. Here's one of mine:
"good" and "evil" do not exist. there is no such act as "to do evil" or "to do good". what is "good" for anyone is whatever means accomplishes a desired outcome. what is "evil" for anyone are the acts of others that hinder or destroy our desired outcome. if i am outside in the cold and i start a camp fire, for me, the starting of the fire is "good". for the forest service ranger whose job it is to enforce forestry laws the starting of the fire is "bad" or "evil".
anyone can decide at any time in their mind what is good or what is evil. hence, what we call "morality" is also a matter of personal opinion. the only real issue is whether or not we see ourselves as real. when you know you are truly real, the other person is also real. and so you cannot harm them any more than you can harm yourself. it hurts to not be real. the deadness of it, the disconnection, the isolation, is truly horrible. and so we enjoy hurting ourselves and each other because within these stressful, intoxicating moments of conflict and/or self-harm we are reminded of our realness. the common mind of our times is "i am not real. you are not real. it's all a dream, anything goes." this is psychopathic mind. yes, the whole human world is nearly 100% psychopaths. (newborn babies, some old guy on a mountain in tibet, a few indigenous peoples, these are probably okay.) some of us are more far gone than others, of course, but no one is untouched by the crippling and destructive mental illness we call "modern civilized society".
in fact, the whole concept "good vs. evil", is delusional and serves quite well to keep all the madness going.
So just ignore reality. OK, up to you.
perfectly illustrates my point, both of you. reality = good vs. evil = perpetual, needless conflict? we choose to dream up this "good vs. evil" nonsense and so of course it can't help but puke back violence into our faces. forever.
what you are calling "reality" DtW, is the result of human delusion, sadly. what can one do about delusion within the mind of another but ignore it in the interest of maintaining ones' own sanity?
lots of people believing/sharing the same delusion(s) does not make them real. subs like this, and most of the people who read them, are like the neighborhood dog we all know that is always hair-triggered, easily upset and barks about every little thing feeling they are being selflessly vigilant, acting as everyone else's ever-watchful sentinel.
find peace, if you can. this is what the world needs in shit times likes these, not more barking and howling to make ourselves feel more righteous, more perfect than those people "over there". we all suck. we all have sweetness. we are all lovers and killers, we just don't want to accept the "killer" part, and so we have no choice but to keep fighting against what is true about ourselves and so on and on and on it goes.....
you want to "fight evil"? look in the mirror. there it is.
Nope
You are a certifiable idiot/moron and spiritually blind. You will reap what you sow. Garbage in garbage out. A trash heap and a sorry excuse for a NPC.
Perhaps We need to clarify "evil" and "good." As I said in My comment here:
I don’t see “evil” and “good;” I see unEthical (“evil”) - the breaking of the three Laws of Ethics, Ethical (everything that does not break the three Laws), with “good” being the upholding of the Betterment Ethic - looking for ways to make things better for Those around You and around the globe and creating them.
When taken this way, yes, there IS such thing as "evil" and "good."
Morality and Ethics: The Difference (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/morality-and-ethics-the-difference
In our current iteration of the world, the concepts of "sin," and "evil" are subjective. Plus... what is "good" for one person can be "evil" for another, and that is accepted.
What can you expect from a society that believes that a man dressed like a woman is really a woman?
Morality and the concept of good/evil are gone in this weird, postmodern world we inhabit, and we are paying the price.
Correct. The Marx quote lays it all out....eternal Truth has been replaced by Communism. Morality is gone and everything is now relative. Up is down. Evil is good.
Again, here, I will clarify what I would say are"evil" and "good:"
I don’t see “evil” and “good;” I see unEthical (“evil”) - the breaking of the three Laws of Ethics, Ethical (everything that does not break the three Laws), with “good” being the upholding of the Betterment Ethic - looking for ways to make things better for Those around You and around the globe and creating them.
Morality and Ethics: The Difference (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/morality-and-ethics-the-difference
Everything depends on your level and which Law you are measuring with. Lower levels have different Law. What looks bad from high levels, looks good from low levels. Example: Hell's Angels are the police in Hell. When you see then enforcing laws, what level is society at? That's the concept and by the way, all understandings are correct at their levels.
I propose that to "legitimize" the legal/governmental system, They who were imposing it called it "law..." There are only three Laws.
Calling a Legalate a Law (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/calling-a-legalate-a-law
I don’t see “evil” and “good;” I see unEthical (“evil”) - the breaking of the three Laws of Ethics, Ethical (everything that does not break the three Laws), with “good” being the upholding of the Betterment Ethic - looking for ways to make things better for Those around You and around the globe and creating them.
The three Laws of Ethics (Natural Law expressed as the three things not to do):
1. Do not willfully and without fully informed consent hurt or kill the flesh of anOther
2. Do not willfully and without fully informed consent take or damage anything that does not belong to You alone
3. Do not willfully defraud anOther (which can only happen without fully informed consent)
We Ethical Ones had best stand against the unEthical Ones...
Morality and Ethics: The Difference (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/morality-and-ethics-the-difference
The GentleOne’s Solution (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/the-gentleones-solution
The Betterment Ethic vs. the Slave’s Creed (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/the-betterment-ethic-vs-the-slaves
This message is incredibly important and so true. It echoes the words of the prophet Isaiah (5:20) when he proclaimed, "Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!"
The collective consciousness of humanity must wake from its slumber, regecting all forms of darkness and turning to the loving embrace of the light of Christ, living daily by the two greatest Biblical commandments. Matthew 22 declares, "37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”
Because we have failed to do this, the world is headed for the Apocalypse (lifting of the veil), culminating in God's Eternal Truth being revealed when Jesus Christ returns to judge the living and the dead during The Final Judgment (Matthew 25):
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,[a] you did it to me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Amen.
I read an average of three articles a day coming from Lebanon and Syria, or the perspective of Palestine or Iran or Russia. What they show is that they're not doing evil in order to do good. They're very careful about avoiding civilian casualties, warning those living around military installations to move away before their drone strikes. Unlike Israel that blew off the hands, eyes or kidneys of 4000 administrative civilians of Hezbollah, since their soldiers don't use pagers. They've dropped either enriched uranium or depleted uranium on Lebanon to kill Nasrallah. They wear tee-shirts that say, "One shot, two kills" with a bullseye on a pregnant Muslim woman. They lure out children where snipers shoot them between the eyes or in the heart, making a game of it.
So your dear friend may be thinking that way, and I'm glad you're clarifying it for him, but don't project it onto both sides, please.
Not at all projecting anything, it's a fact that good and evil exist everywhere. Both sides have good people, I know that for a fact. Many outstanding people in Palestine, for sure. But they both also have evil people as well. The friend is a "her", but that doesn't matter. They believe that a book written 2500 years ago gives them the right to murder people. That's evil and btw there are believers in that same book who don't believe they have the right to murder anyone (but it seems to be a small minority).
I've traveled extensively in Israel, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria. I had a room mate whose father was Palestinian...they were forced to leave at gunpoint at 2am in 1947 from the orchard in Palestine their family had owned for over 100 years by Israelis. They were given ten minutes to pack up everything they could carry with them and leave. You can imagine how many people went through that and of course having your land stolen at gunpoint is not exactly going to make friends. There is a reason it's called Nakba. It was ethnic cleansing and a disaster for Palestinians. 15,000 Palestinians were murdered at the hands of the Jews and it looks like the present campaigns have already exceeded that number by multiples.
As for governments, how many of them truly represent the people of their country? Very few. Our guide in Syria pointed this out when I asked about the political situation in his country. Anyone living in that situation knows first hand that individual people are not the same as the government.
What's interesting to me is the response....no one seems to believe in "The Law of the Cosmos". aka The Great Law that governs everything...it's not left in their heart at all. People seem to only care about revenge and retribution. That's on both sides...and no one is using these events to "look inside themselves". That's what is most sad.
Hi, DtW. I see good and evil as adverbs, not adjectives. They're qualities of actions, not inherent qualities of people. I believe that people are all inherently good, which is the only belief I have that I won't raise to question. If I believed otherwise, I'd believe in my moral superiority, and I refuse that belief. When people behave badly, therefore, flawed systems and stories are to blame.
The book your friend believes is, I think, the OG flawed story that's led to all the rest. It's the seduction of superiority that, combined with the power of coinage/ taxation and intermarriage with royals, empowered the authors of that myth to be the power behind the thrones.
I define doing good as alleviating suffering and doing better as enabling others to alleviate their own and others' suffering. To do bad is to inflict suffering but to do evil is to cause others to inflict suffering. Without systems of obedience and the stories that justify them, there couldn't be the mass infliction of suffering there is. Being coerced into committing acts that go against our nature creates a cognitive dissonance that kills the conscience. They can't think about it clearly without believing they're a bad person.
What's fundamentally different about the Torah and the Quran is that the latter doesn't have the right to murder civilians, whereas the former says it's an obligation down to the suckling babe. So your other friends aren't really believers in that book if they don't believe that. I've written about this in https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/hot-and-cold-hatred.
There are strong prohibitions in Islam against killing civilians, against rape, against torture. All of these are systematic weapons of war in Judeo-Christian militarism, as I've been finding out.
Very well made points, thanks for sharing those. Many religious texts were corrupted, some from the start, leading adherents down a wicked path. I'd say this is true of all the major religions without exception. It's been applied to many things, turning them wicked.
You correctly refuse to fall into the trap of moral superiority. In my understanding, good and evil are judged with Truth, Compassion and Tolerance. This discernment is a matter of level and the Law is different at different levels. What seems good down here is reversed and considered evil when measured with the Law "up there". Everyone has their own understandings and they are all correct for the level they are at. It's the difference in level that causes difference in understanding. But that's only my understanding at my level. LOL
I know I have posted this here a number of times, but...
I don’t see “evil” and “good;” I see unEthical (“evil”) - the breaking of the three Laws of Ethics, Ethical (everything that does not break the three Laws), with “good” being the upholding of the Betterment Ethic - looking for ways to make things better for Those around You and around the globe and creating them.
Morality and Ethics: The Difference (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/morality-and-ethics-the-difference
Interesting distinction between morality and ethics. I'll need to think about that but it seems useful, like my distinction between money and wealth. I look at the law of reciprocity and posit rules for an ethical statement--can't contain proper nouns, must be reversible, any specific in that category can be swapped in for the variable. So it's much like algebra, which makes sense, since algebra is all about the equals sign and what logically works for it. Here's one of mine:
https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/golden-rule-rant.
Indeed, We don't need money to have wealth.
Quantifying Wealth (article): https://amaterasusolar.substack.com/p/quantifying-wealth
I'll check out Your piece there! Thanks!