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Yeah, it's a great (read mediocre) work of fiction. Think about it. Anyone who believes in talking snakes should see a mental health professional.
Your post does not actually touch, at all, on the substance of what I wrote. Were you so excited to try to get a jab in that you didn't bother to actually read the rest of the post?
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Originally Posted by mordant
One thing I see missing from this thread are definitions of "good" and "evil", which means many people are probably just talking past each other.
It's been my observation that whenever you decide what is best for someone else you end up controlling them. On the other hand if you become sensitive to human suffering and seek in all humility to ease it where and when you can, you make positive changes in the world. Therefore our focus should not be on good and evil but on the amelioration or elimination of human suffering. If we work with that goal in mind we will find ourselves doing good and fighting evil as a side effect. We don't have to agree on definitions, or whether morality is objective and externally given or subjective and an emergent property of society. It doesn't matter because we are guided by actual outcomes.
It's nearly impossible for us to agree on what's good or evil but most of us will agree when we see or don't see human suffering.
I think that touches on that very old definition of evil, the triumph of personal desire over empathy - To know that an objective will cause others to suffer but to pursue it anyway, or at worst, to pursue an objective for the sake of causing suffering.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ATTC
How do you define evil if you believe that morals are relative?
Your definition of evil becomes just a personal opinion.
On what basis does the atheist object to genocide? Their own feelings.
What if that dictator has a different set of feelings? Why should he be punished because of your personal feelings?
I object to genocide because it's a violation of the rights of a vast number of other people and causes suffering among people who have provoked no reaction. It comes back to the definition from above - that of pursuing a personal desire in spite of, or to cause, suffering by others.
The dictator in the example, regardless of his feelings, is causing a large number of people to suffer to satisfy his own desires.
Yeah, it's a great (read mediocre) work of fiction. Think about it. Anyone who believes in talking snakes should see a mental health professional.
Whether it's fictitious or not, I can't say; I wasn't there to see what happened. But I've always believed that the value of a story is in what you can learn from it, not whether it's literally true.
I do have a profound belief in a Creator, but a somewhat atheistic philosophy. I don't worry about literal truth in the Bible, or other holy book, but I look for the lessons that can be taken from them. In the Bible, Jesus taught using parables, stories everyone knew weren't true, but that, in spite of that fact, taught lessons.
Whether the book is fictitious or not, why not look for the insight in it? Many works of fiction are meant to be instructive. Maybe there wasn't a literal talking snake, but maybe the symbolism means something. Maybe there weren't a literal Adam and Eve, but maybe the story about them can teach us about human nature.
My philosophy is not dictated by a preacher. I've listened to preachers, and learned from them, but have never been inclined to follow blindly. Something that amuses me about atheism is how atheists are more influenced by preachers than I, a believer, am. So many of them look at the literal meanings of teachings and reject them, without regard for anything that might be learned.
If you read the books left out of the scripture such as "the book of enoch", you will see that the nephillim had a free will, capable of choosing the good or evil.
The problem of this argument is that in order to choose good or evil, god would have first have had to create evil.
If god in fact created evil, and knew in advance man would succumb to evil, then what was the point?
This line of reasoning leads to the conclusion that the entire process of creation was a futile exercise, that god knew would fail from the beginning.
The second paradox is that it is virtually impossible for good to exist without evil, and that both good and evil are completely subjective depending on the perspective and the conflicting interests of all involved.
Heavens, no. Intelligence is like a measure of how fast a computer's CPU is. It says nothing about the quality of the software running on it. An intelligent person who is evil will just be faster at generating buggery in the world.
What's need is good data, clear vision and the ability to effectively use them, more commonly known as "wisdom". I would rather deal with a wise simpleton than an unwise genius.
Heavens, no. Intelligence is like a measure of how fast a computer's CPU is. It says nothing about the quality of the software running on it. An intelligent person who is evil will just be faster at generating buggery in the world.
What's need is good data, clear vision and the ability to effectively use them, more commonly known as "wisdom". I would rather deal with a wise simpleton than an unwise genius.
I think it's pointless to engage in a religious debate over what's 'good' and what's 'evil'. Humans -- regardless of religion or creed -- are suffering all over the world, and in my opinion it's much more productive to do something about that than it is to fight over 'who deserves it more'.
That is a very good point
I think too often, people mistake the adherence to a certain belief system as good, when in fact, good should be identified by deeds.
Is hijacking a jetliner and killing innocent people good? I think not. But some religious fanatic may think so.
I adhere to the belief that good is represented by good deeds. Charity, loving each other, helping those who need it, are good deeds.
Science offers something good, with it's attempts to cure the sick and the lame. (I heard one person point out that religion, on the other hand, preys on the sick and lame)
BUT Consider that positive thoughts may in fact inspire positive deeds. We have plenty of psychological theory and data which supports that. Yes, Psychology is a science. But we can see a clear absence of ego control in those who are evil, who have anti-social personality disorder for example. And oddly, it was from Buddhist philosophy that we see this idea, and find it workable. Which means perhaps Buddhism is perhaps the "most good" religion (not to sound grammatically incorrect)
As has been mentioned, Evil is a human construct. It does not come from a "devil" or any other boogeyman, and psychology and science has shown this. Which makes Neuroscience not only a more useful tool than the Genesis myth, but far more accurate and interesting as well. At least for those of us who understand it.
The flaw with the Genesis story is that it characterizes good and evil as being somehow outside of the human experience. When in fact, they are products OF the human experience. hey are. like gods. products and inventions of the human experience. They are not the cause of evil, the Human ego is. Human greed, selfishness, leads to all evil.
No devil, or god, involved. Or needed.
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