Good and Evil Are Nonexistent.

[virtualinsanity]

Imagine a world in which man lived by the universal truth.

 

[Pionart]

...and what is the universal truth?

 

[Mole]

Imagine a world in which man lived by the universal truth.

We perceive by making distinctions, and a fundamental distinction we make is between good and evil.

If we didn't make this distinction, we would be blind.

And usually those who say good and evil are non existent wish to blind us to their evil.

 

[Zangetshumody]

Imagine a world in which man lived by the universal truth.

The Borg only live by universal truth...

Cool aspiration I guess, I hope you don't try to assimilate me though, cause I won't resist, I'll just find a way to overcome the "you" of that monstrous ideology.

The presence of imperfect sets of ideology, are themselves wells of human resources, that wait to be excavated or forgotten, and the decisions to do so are as vital to the truth as the challenge they pose to being victorious.

 

[Empyrean]

Good and evil are ultimately unreal, which entails that they are conventionally real.

Anything that is conventionally real is not really 'real' in the sense of having an absolute foundation, ground, or essence to them.

There is good and evil, but they are empty of anything inherent, in-and-of-themselves.

And it gets stranger, for if what's conventionally real is not really real, then nothing is really conventionally real. And thus, anything that is conventionally real is then, necessarily conventionally unreal by virtue of 'conventional' to mean things that are not really real, which is itself is self-defeating contradiction.

If we ignore this contradiction, and accept things that are conventionally real as such--entailing that they are simultaneously conventionally unreal--which further entails that they must be ultimately real.

Note that we can also start from the opposite case: what is conventionally unreal is ultimately real, and derive a synonymous logical contradiction going the other direction, that whatever is ultimately real is, in fact, ultimately unreal (because nothing is ultimately real), and thus absurd.

With two cases of contradictions going in opposing directions, we have ourselves a paradox.

And if good and evil are ultimately real, they must be conventionally unreal. And it's, well, as philosophers like to say, turtles all the way down from here...

This is, at least, the general view from the tradition of Mahāyāna Buddhism (to the best of my current level of understanding).

 

[Mole]

This is, at least, the general view from the tradition of Mahāyāna Buddhism (to the best of my current level of understanding).

Sure, we remember the Buddhists.

After they had made their sneak attack and devastated Pearl Harbour, and even bigger Buddhist force attacked Darwin, Australia.

Darwin sticks up into the soft underbelly of Asia and was named after the great original thinker of the Western Enlightenment, Charles Darwin.

So Darwin, base on the Western Enlightenment was a provocation to unenlightened Buddhism. So the Buddhists launched and even bigger attack on Darwin than they did on Pearl Harbour.

 

[Empyrean]

You lost me, Mole.

 

[tkae.]

Imagine a world in which man lived by the universal truth.

But this gets to the philosophical question of "What is Truth?", which has no answer. The fact that two people will have a different answer means there is no answer. It also makes it really convenient for people like me who say there is no Truth

 

[Pionart]

The only thing ultimately real is ultimate reality.

If I imagine a world without good in it, I can't say that it is any better or worse than this world, because there's no idea of good to measure it by.*

edit:

*I guess I could say, from the perspective of this world, that it is both less good and less evil, just as I could say a world without the colour red is less red than this world, but I could not saying from a world which never knew red that it is less red than another world, because I would have no conception of what red even is

 

[Polaris]

Sure, good and evil are imaginary, but that doesn't mean they're useless or unimportant.

In general, I'm not fond of discarding terms and distinctions, because the fact that people can conceive of them is, in my eyes, enough to validate them as ways of apprehending reality.

EDIT: Oh, and by the way, truth is unreal, too. It's imaginary.

 

[Typh0n]

You can argue, with respect to truth, on two levels of reality: one being the abstract/absolute level, which is closely tied to questions like the existence of God, Absolute Reality; the other being on a practical/everyday level which concerns itself with navigating one's way through life. The practical level itself can be broken down into two types of knowledge; effects, which are phenomena we see and observe directly, and causes which we don't see directly.

An example of an effect would be syphillis, the illness and its symptoms. The cause would be the bacteria causing it, but we can't see that without a microscope, so it's much easier to believe in the former than in the latter.

 

[Mole]

You can argue, with respect to truth, on two levels of reality: one being the abstract/absolute level, which is closely tied to questions like the existence of God, Absolute Reality; the other being on a practical/everyday level which concerns itself with navigating one's way through life. The practical level itself can be broken down into two types of knowledge; effects, which are phenomena we see and observe directly, and causes which we don't see directly.

An example of an effect would be syphillis, the illness and its symptoms. The cause would be the bacteria causing it, but we can't see that without a microscope, so it's much easier to believe in the former than in the latter.

We have vast amounts of evidence from a wide variety of sources that show bacteria exist, while on the other hand, there is no evidence that Ganesh, the God with the head of an elephant, or the Trinity, a God with three heads, exist.

So it is rational to believe in bacteria and irrational to believe in Ganesh or the Trinity.

Of course by faith we mean believing something which isn't true, but it makes us feel good, and gosh, if we feel good, we must be good too.

 

[Thalassa]

That anyone can continue to believe this in a world of natural law and human consequences baffles me, but then I remember some people have been given an incomplete education or have been intentionally persuaded to believe this.

I implore you to contemplate the simple concept of cause and effect before you speak on this subject again.

 

[Thalassa]

You can argue, with respect to truth, on two levels of reality: one being the abstract/absolute level, which is closely tied to questions like the existence of God, Absolute Reality; the other being on a practical/everyday level which concerns itself with navigating one's way through life. The practical level itself can be broken down into two types of knowledge; effects, which are phenomena we see and observe directly, and causes which we don't see directly.

An example of an effect would be syphillis, the illness and its symptoms. The cause would be the bacteria causing it, but we can't see that without a microscope, so it's much easier to believe in the former than in the latter.

The thing is though, we live in a time of science, globalization and the Internet, where people can see first hand the consequences of greed, gluttony, war, etc and yet...there appears to be more denial than ever before. People won't accept that global warming is man made, and equally they deny responsibility that their greed is what causes poverty, that their gluttony leads to starvation, that their selfishness funds and supports war. It's ironic that now, seemingly more than ever before, people want to believe in this Nietszchean narcissistic delusion of no good and evil, this consumeristic fantasy of "no consequences." It's not just the unchurched, either. The right wing "Christian right" is full of people persecuting gays, while never minding their own gluttony, greed, disregard for creation, and cruelty to the poor. Science may have strengthened the idolatry of man, but it also made the consequences of breaking God's law plainer than ever before. I think this was probably foretold though. It reminds me of Christ saying what is apparent to a child will elude wise men.

 

[Mole]

It reminds me of Christ saying what is apparent to a child will elude wise men.

A child has a long way to go before their brain is full grown. In fact the brain is not fully grown until we are about 22 years of age.

And Jesus did lots of silly things:

he believed physical and mental illness were caused by demons, so he cast out demons;

he believed the world was coming to an end in his own lifetime or that of his followers, and told us to take no thought for tomorrow;

and although he lived in a Judaic culture based on marriage, he never married and lived at home with his parents;

and his death at the hands of the Romans was used to persecute Jews for 2,000 years. Jews were called Christ killers, culminating in their holocaust.

 

[Typh0n]

Jews were called Christ killers, culminating in their holocaust.

It wasn't the Christians who commited the holocaust though.

I know you didn't say it was, but it's important to point out, because you describe events happening in a way that makes it seem like it was. In fact, Hitler hated Christianity because Jesus was Jew.

 

[Forever]

I'm just going to throw a cheap shot here.

Your mother. (To OP)

This post was also for Typh0n to give him the visual aesthetic of not giving a double post.

 

[Typh0n]

The thing is though, we live in a time of science, globalization and the Internet, where people can see first hand the consequences of greed, gluttony, war, etc and yet...there appears to be more denial than ever before. People won't accept that global warming is man made, and equally they deny responsibility that their greed is what causes poverty, that their gluttony leads to starvation, that their selfishness funds and supports war. It's ironic that now, seemingly more than ever before, people want to believe in this Nietszchean narcissistic delusion of no good and evil, this consumeristic fantasy of "no consequences." It's not just the unchurched, either. The right wing "Christian right" is full of people persecuting gays, while never minding their own gluttony, greed, disregard for creation, and cruelty to the poor. Science may have strengthened the idolatry of man, but it also made the consequences of breaking God's law plainer than ever before. I think this was probably foretold though. It reminds me of Christ saying what is apparent to a child will elude wise men.

What is appearant to the masses of people is sketchy to the skeptics. The relationship between human activity and gobal warming is (mostly) there. "Greed" is a simplitsic explanation for poverty. The only way for poor countries and poor people to get out of their situation is through the market. Through "greed" in other words. As a lower-wage earning person, I know this. This is why I value the market. It's the only way out. The only other way is through military conquest, like the Romans, but is that really more ethical? And does conquest produce more wealth or simply steal?

I sometimes feel like socialists such as yourself and the pope want everyone to be equal...in poverty! Like you want to destroy the world's wealth. Believe it or not, the idea that there is just not enough to go around for everyone is a fallacy. The only way to have everyone get out of poverty is through production. Production of new wealth. Bono, who has been working with the poor for generations, realizes this. I don't know why the pope just doesn't.

Added: So yeah, cause and effect. The problem is when people have the wrong causes to explain an effect. "Greed" is too simplistic an explanation for societal problems. By having laws against "greed", government passing edicts against "greed" suddenly this is going to make everyone better off. Like suddenly passing laws against "gravity" is suddenly going to allow people to fly. What you don't understand is that wealth, prosperity, and markets follow their own laws, and that government or union intervention to "better" things will only make them worse, especially for the poor. For example, contrary to popular belief, it wasn't minimum wages and anti-child labor laws that ended low wages and child labor. Minimum wages and anti-child labor laws were passed at the same time as many improvements in technology were discovered, the latter being the real reasons why these things ceased. And everyone said it was the government, but government action only coincided with the real cause: technology, improved machinery. In many countries today where child labor and low wages are still a thing government edicts against these things have not ended them. Only improvements in technology can do that.

In the past, in antiquity, there was military conquest and this is how wealth of a nation was built up (sometimes this still kind of is the case today, but not always so bear with me). Today we have the market which is what allows people to change their lot in life in modern times. The only reason the market is seen as evil, is due to false cause and effect. Confusion, in other words.

 

[erg]

Good and Evil certainly exist. Good and bad intentions can be held, good and bad consequences of actions occur. Another thing is that someone in particular is not attuned to perceive these aspects of reality. To this person, surely Good and Evil would not exist.

 

[Thalassa]

What is appearant to the masses of people is sketchy to the skeptics. The relationship between human activity and gobal warming is (mostly) there. "Greed" is a simplitsic explanation for poverty. The only way for poor countries and poor people to get out of their situation is through the market. Through "greed" in other words. As a lower-wage earning person, I know this. This is why I value the market. It's the only way out. The only other way is through military conquest, like the Romans, but is that really more ethical? And does conquest produce more wealth or simply steal?

I sometimes feel like socialists such as yourself and the pope want everyone to be equal...in poverty! Like you want to destroy the world's wealth. Believe it or not, the idea that there is just not enough to go around for everyone is a fallacy. The only way to have everyone get out of poverty is through production. Production of new wealth. Bono, who has been working with the poor for generations, realizes this. I don't know why the pope just doesn't.

Added: So yeah, cause and effect. The problem is when people have the wrong causes to explain an effect. "Greed" is too simplistic an explanation for societal problems. By having laws against "greed", government passing edicts against "greed" suddenly this is going to make everyone better off. Like suddenly passing laws against "gravity" is suddenly going to allow people to fly. What you don't understand is that wealth, prosperity, and markets follow their own laws, and that government or union intervention to "better" things will only make them worse, especially for the poor. For example, contrary to popular belief, it wasn't minimum wages and anti-child labor laws that ended low wages and child labor. Minimum wages and anti-child labor laws were passed at the same time as many improvements in technology were discovered, the latter being the real reasons why these things ceased. And everyone said it was the government, but government action only coincided with the real cause: technology, improved machinery. In many countries today where child labor and low wages are still a thing government edicts against these things have not ended them. Only improvements in technology can do that.

In the past, in antiquity, there was military conquest and this is how wealth of a nation was built up (sometimes this still kind of is the case today, but not always so bear with me). Today we have the market which is what allows people to change their lot in life in modern times. The only reason the market is seen as evil, is due to false cause and effect. Confusion, in other words.

Actually no...animal agriculture is literally using land and grain that could be used to feed the poor. Meat overconsumption literally contributes to a lack of plant-based food for the poor.

Also, greedy use of fossil fuels lead to global warming which caused massive drought in equatorial regions as early as the 1980s (the subject of several 80s pop songs, though people did not connect it by and by large to global warming at that time) and is now causing flooding in island nations since the early 00s.

Your economic views are outdated, on the basis of primary wealth. I'm principally an environmental economy supporting or stable state economy supporter rather than a socialist. I've gotten into vicious arguments with socialists about feeding the poor meat and junk food.

The problem with free market capitalists and modern day Western socialists is that they erroneously imagine some Earth which doesn't exist, of infinite or near infinite primary wealth, a delusion brought on by classical and neoclassical economics, and fiat currency, which operates in an insular box that doesn't factor in land and natural resources.

If it wasn't for top down command and control, we would have run out of resources faster than we already have. You have no idea what you're talking about and your views on wealth aren't compatible with real Christianity.

I think you should spend more time reading your Bible