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The problem of why there is evil.

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Why does God allow evil to occur?

Well the answer is straightforward.
There cannot be up without down.
There cannot be warmth without cold.
Nor, can there be life without death,
or good without evil.

The higher you fly, the further there is to fall.
The darker the night, the brighter the stars seem.

Take the role of God.
If you were to write a novel (create your own universe)
from the perpective of the characters in your novel,
you would be omnipotent - and if its a 'good' novel - you would be good.

It would be impossible to write a novel without
an antagonist. Anyone who has written a novel
(or even a short story)
will realise this quite quickly.

In fact, the best novels always have the most hateful antagonists.
Think of Shakespeares tragedies.
Even the comedies would not work without an antagonist.
(The fool about whome we laugh)

If you believe you have managed to write a story without an antagonist,
please post it here.

Why this very basic question is considered in other threads to
be 'unanswered', just shows the extent to which the answer is true.

Such notions as such a question being unanswered,
are themselves the antagonist of which I am speaking.

Now - who is going to be the antagonist who disagrees with me?

:shifty:

@Poseidon,

God has nothing to do with evil. The good/evil dichotomy exists because of the ability to perceive an action as good or evil. This is often based upon societal norms, and because different societies find different things to be either good or evil, but also claim to believe in the same God (actual existence of God is irrelevant to this case) shows that the existence of evil is independent of God.

Your author/God thing is a disanalogy. When an author write a novel, they are not really writing from the perspective of their characters, but rather the perspective of what they want to convey. An author is limited by their thoughts, thus, they cannot be omnipotent.

@Theaetetus,

To me, the thoery that there cannot be good without evil has more flaws in it than answers and I agree with Theaetetus that good and evil has more do with you own point of view than God. Because it implies that there is a static relationship, a balance if you will, between the two. In my experience that's just not the case. I find that there is often a lot of overlap in the perception of good and evil, which could not happen if good and evil are dependent upon each other.

In other words, if to know what good is there has to be evil then any given act is either good or evil it could not be perceived as both.

@Poseidon,

Good is not the opposite of evil, certainly not the way of cold/hot or big/small. Consequently, it's absurd to think of them as necessarily counterbalancing one another.

Good and evil are both the opposite of nothing.

We have a moral baseline of non-judgement. If we witness someone tying his shoe, our moral barometer is not even triggered. We don't care; we forget about it.

If we witness someone holding a door for someone, it triggers a very mild judgement of good. If we witness someone absentmindedly letting a door slam in someone's face, it triggers a mild judgement of bad. These are in contrast to the absence of judgement.

And if we witness someone saving a life, or if we witness someone committing a cold-blooded act of murder, we have much more extreme moral judgements.

One need not have ever known evil to understand good. And one need not have ever experienced good to understand evil. All we need to understand is how divergent such extremes are from normal, neutral experience.

@Poseidon,

Eating animals is not evil MJA. Many primates--including humans--have evolve in order to eat a vast array of foods. To think that evolution has led to evil is beyond ridiculous. You may define the act of eating meat as evil, but that does not mean that it is actually evil. Evil to you--or people that think like you--is not necessarily evil to everyone else.

Aedes wrote:

Good is not the opposite of evil, certainly not the way of cold/hot or big/small. Consequently, it's absurd to think of them as necessarily counterbalancing one another.

Good and evil are both the opposite of nothing.

There are different uses of the term good. Good is opposite of evil in certain terms, and bad is the opposite of terms in another. Good is an ambiguous term that has numerous opposites. They do not necessarily couterbalance one another due to the different meanings of good. But in one sense good and evil do counterbalance. A better term for good that does counterbalance evil is benevolent, although most people do not make that distinction, because the word benevolent does not enter their vocabulary, much less their understanding. Thus, good has a meaning that better educated people do not necessarily hold.

@Theaetetus,

Beauty requires no explanation as they say. Nature is beauty to the naturalist. If there is no reason required it is considered in many cases to be good, but this is only because there is no reason which challenges the ego. If reason becomes complicated and not felt to be in control of then it is assumed to be evil, as one does not have the chance to defend their ego. Good and evil is shrouded until one doubts the ego. After that, the vice of prejudice goes away. If one can doubt the ego then one can doubt all monistic conclusions building up inside like frenzies.

@Poseidon,

MJA wrote:

As for this thread, I don't agree with your "good and evil are both the opposite of nothing" point of view. I think they are something of concern to us All.

=
MJA

The use and example of concern is something you should not use to bring about good MJA. I would think you'd know better then that. Concern implies fear of something. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to the evil of the dark side! lol. I know you want good over evil, but expression of resent and anger towards what you consider evil acts and mind sets is not the "inherently good" steps to that path. I think Ego is something you should be aware of as much as possible. Then you'll truly change some minds.

@Poseidon,

Is good the absence of evil?
Or is evil the absence of good?

@Jose phil,

Jose wrote:

Is good the absence of evil?
Or is evil the absence of good?

Neither can exist winhout the other, nor can we, emotional beings. Is it good, neutral or bad to not exist? Neutral I think, though it doesnt really matters since we will never be able to not exist Smile

MJA: again, this thread is nor for your opinions about the morality of eating animals or the "Oneness".

Zetherin: Dont let him pull you off-topic too.

@Poseidon,

I was wondering what manifested first - good or evil?

@Poseidon,

This thread has been reopened as a courtesy the the original thread starter. If your post is off topic, please find a thread that is on topic. Thank you!

@Poseidon,

All things together are what some would call "good". All things are one but we seem to be stuck in this chaotic argument. Acceptance has been lost to fear.

@Caleb,

Caleb wrote:

All things together are what some would call "good".

And others wouldn't call that good. Others would just call that "all things", whereas "good" is something different.

Caleb wrote:

All things are one

How does this idea illuminate the idea of good and evil?

@Poseidon,

Poseidon wrote:

Why does God allow evil to occur?

Because he can't waste time on intervein on each and every feud we have.

He gave us brains which to think
- to reason
- to invent
- to judge
- to negotiate
- to plan

We are highly intelligent humans who can help ourselfs, why should god do what we can do ourselfs in the firstplace?

@HexHammer,

HexHammer wrote:

Because he can't waste time on intervein on each and every feud we have.

Is time a problem for him? Is he busy working on his taxes?

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Is time a problem for him? Is he busy working on his taxes?

Maybe he got bored with playing the Sims on earth, and has gone to other worlds to start them up.

@HexHammer,

Quote:

Why does God allow evil to occur?

Because god Doesn't Exist. That's Why.

Moreover, if evil didn't exist, there wouldn't be a need for god.

@Jose phil,

Jose wrote:

I was wondering what manifested first - good or evil?

Probally neither, they are necessary to describe each other, so if one came first, it wouldnt be seen as such.

ddancom wrote:

Because god Doesn't Exist. That's Why.

Moreover, if evil didn't exist, there wouldn't be a need for god.

Or, he may simply want to let it happen, on wich case it is safier to say that if god exists it is not good.

Aedes wrote:

Is time a problem for him? Is he busy working on his taxes?

Maybe, god may not be onipotent or oniscient, he may be but refuse to use from all his resources to make things more interesting, etc.

@Poseidon,

Quote:

Probally neither, they are necessary to describe each other, so if one came first, it wouldnt be seen as such.

Haha, you thanked Aedes' post and then stated the exact opposite of what he said.

Let me ask you this: Would you need to have experienced sadness to describe happiness? Does your body only *feel* happy because it has experienced sadness prior? Of course not.

"Good" and "Evil" is perception, it's very strange to me how we're approaching these notions as if they're actual things. Then again, I guess it isn't strange - it's a moral objectivist stance.

I'd recommend anyone reading my post right now to click Page "1" and read Aedes' post.

---

"There is no good or evil but thinking makes it so."

@Poseidon,

I'm hard pressed to believe there's actually something concrete called evil at all.

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