Good vs Evil
Offline I've recently had this going through my head quite a bit. There are many other explanations for evil I am sure. Right now I'm going to address one and let's see if people can post comments about it or post other explanations or definitions. I'd also like to note that the definition I am presenting is not the definition I accept. I'm pointing it out because it is a definition I have encountered in debates and so one that many theists accept, but which is fatally flawed.
Evil is a necessary opposite of good, like darkness is a necessary opposite of light.
There is the definition. Almost seems reasonable. I can understand that it can be poetically or even metaphorically useful to compare good and evil to light and dark. The comparison, however, fails if one is trying to make the two sets analogous to one another. The most obvious reason which I will address first is that light and dark is boolean, darkness really is an absence of light. This is due to the fact that light itself is the actual presence of photons. But evil is not the absence of good because good and evil are not boolean
good and evil exist in degrees. Then there is also neutral. The absence of goodness is not necessarily evil, since it could be neutral, but the absence of light is necessarily darkness.
Ignoring all of this though and accepting for the sake of argument that good and evil are necessary opposites (a technique known as reductio ad absurdum) we can reason thus:
Good and evil are necessary opposites, which means that anywhere there is good there is necessarily evil.
God is eternal, so God has always existed.
The universe is not eternal it was created by God, so there was a time when God existed alone in the universe.
If God existed alone in the universe and was purely good that would mean that God was not at all evil.
However Good and Evil are necessary opposites, so if good exists evil must also somewhere.
But God is the only thing in the universe and god is pure goodness. Thus we arrive at a contradiction.
I can see ways out of this esspecially by arguing that evil is the absence of good which my hypothetical framework allows. But then here we come to either the flaw in the definition of evil or a flaw in the assumptions about the nature of god. For example one could argue that evil is the absence of goodness, god would be the source of all goodness being himself the only purely good thing in existence and the source of everything else in existence. But God is omnipresent. If god is everywhere, where is evil that god is not? You also can't argue that God is omnipresent but chooses not to be in specific places, that's like trying to have your cake and eat it too. As long as god is not absolutely everywhere simultaneously god is by definition not omnipresent. And if god has to always not be where evil is then god has not been omnipresent since Satan's rebellion. In fact in order for evil to grow in Satan's heart God would have to have not been omnipresent even before satan's rebellion. So we come to a place where either Evil is not the absence or necessary opposite of good, or God is not omnipresent. And thus we come to another problem. From here it's really a regression of problems pertaining to other aspects of omnipresence, or the consequences of god not being omnipresent, that we won't get into here.
So far all I've seen are explanations that lead to further problems with this definition. That doesn't, however, mean that there aren't explanations that make this definition work. Right now I can't think of anything further to add here, so I will await comment.
I'm also thinking that it might be a good idea to end this thread with the definition of evil that I accept so that people don't propose it and think I might try to find fault with it...which actually I might anyway me and the whole devils advocate thing and all. I can't be sure I'm right about anything unless I've tried and failed to prove it wrong.
Evil is a set of behaviors or actions which benefit in some way one person, or a small subset of people, while harming in some way everyone else affected.
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Evil exists because god he-self wants evil to exist in our world. Can I hear an amen from the congregation??
(Choir) Amen!
GOD alone; by his holey word (waves a bible) needs eeeeevil in this world, just ask IamGodAsYou an can I hear another amen for evil???
(Choir) Amen!!
GOD must have his eeeeeeeeevill, or there is no point to worship GOD; ask any theist, can I hear another amen??
(Choir) Amen!!!
God loves you, that is why he/she/it invented out of thin air (waves bible) eeeeeevil; another amen brothhers and sisters,
(choir) Amen!!!!
Without GOD there could be no eeeevil, just right and wrong; with GOD we have (waves bible) eeeevil--in abundence; Now praise the lord and say aaah-meeeeen.
(Choir) Aaah-meeeeen!!!!!
GOD in the old testiment alone killed offf three plus million persons all be he-self, Satan killed he-self NOT ONE!!! Satan is LAZY; only God knows eeeevill the way eeevil should be known. Now can I hear a real loud amen for the GO-OD of eeeevil!!!!!
(Choir) Aaah-meeeennn for eeevil!!!!!!!!! Praise Go-----ODDD!!!
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
AMEN!!!!
I don't think it's correct that evil comes from the bible at all. Funny post, though, I think that evil is found in the bible because evil is a characteristic that was observable in people. Namely that there are people who will put their own wants above the needs of others. People who will hurt others for their own pleasure. That's wrong and it's also evil. There are many wrong things which are not evil. To put it into an evolutionary framework, our species survival strategy is cooperation, evil people go against that strategy and take and give nothing back, they reduce the viability of the human species by going against the strategy that allows the species to thrive. Our survival strategy has never been based on acting in our own self interest at the expense of the interests of others. Some species have successfully adopted that strategy, but no primates that I'm aware of and certainly not humans. This is why we build cities and this is why we make laws. When we see others behaving in a way that threatens the viability of the species, we see that behavior as evil. If adopted by everyone such behavior could only result in the end of humanity.
It's hard when the ones who are doing what you would consider evil don't consider it evil, yes?
i.e. Corporations are evil some people would state and I would disagree...
Many things are only evil because you think it is so. I may not necessarily agree that what you think is wrong to you is wrong at all.
It's a tough one.
The last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument: "It came from god."
They would be using a different definition of evil. Which is fine because I haven't yet seen anyone lay out a logically coherent definition, a definition which was clearly supported by facts or which was accepted for its obvious merits by everyone. I like my definition because of its ultimate consequences. Corporations that are evil are those corporations who disregard the broader public well being in order to ensure their and their share holder's net gains. These would be evil activities done by no doubt mostly good people. Another problem with the whole evil as a dual principle thing.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
That works if that's the definition you support, and if you can make a good case for that definition being objective enough to work. But are those laws actually the public morality or are they themselves evil? For instance a case could be made that those laws were not passed with the general public's best interests in mind since corporations cutting corners to turn a quick buck is rarely ever in the publics best interest. The public wouldn't actually see them as good and it's seemed to me for a while that the laws in the country are being less and less made to benefit the majority of people as opposed to the majority of wealth, so my guess is that if the majority of people were made aware of all practices by corporations which are relevant to them that they would not be so quick to consider them good just because they were legal. The laws themselves could then be seen by the majority as bad and the corporations following bad laws would still be seen as evil for not taking morally motivated actions to reduce negative impacts that they may have on the general public. It comes down to definition, but it also depends on what sets the objective standard for good and bad. it's certainly not legal and illegal. Not all laws are supported by the majority and as far as I can tell it's the majority that determines what is good and bad. The most objective standard that I can think of, in reality, is the evolutionary one. It only applies really to us, it's not a universal good or bad, it's a species good or bad. Actions which threaten the species are bad actions which benefit the species are good. Then the subjective in general but objective at the micro level standards of morality apply to individuals, the morals of the communities in which we live. These are imposed upon us in order to help us maintain the necessary stability of our societies. Cooperation, remember, is our survival strategy. Empathy is another source of human morality, it's actually part of the evolutionary source, since our species survival strategy requires that we be able to actually think of other individuals as people like we are with feelings like we have. It's empathy that helps to temper our survival decisions, we're less likely to do to others things we wouldn't want others doing to us.
Also my definition of evil makes the corporations evil no matter what the laws. Your interpretation of evil depends on whether or not the laws themselves are actually believed to be good. I like definitions that are more universally true better than definitions that are variably true depending on other interpretations of facts.
Ah, but in this case, the laws are made to protect the investments made, which at this point include every individual person's savings accounts (invested by banks), retirement funds (invested by fund managers), etc etc. Thus, the laws protecting those investments, and giving the shareholders recourse if the corporations fail to execute their obligations in good faith, do serve the public trust. Without them, corporate officers would be free to use claims of 'public good' projects to rob their own shareholders of their investments, because there would be no recourse available to them through which to recoup their monies.
Ah, but that's all in presentation and spin. Look at the whole 'medicare donut hole' problem. While I agree, if the public actually knew what the laws said, they'd demand change, I don't think that most of them would actually make those demands stick when it came time to vote out their incumbent representatives. After all, the more seniority a legislator has, the more likely they are to be able to shape the legislation through committee chairs and leadership positions, and that means a greater likelihood of being able to deliver the "pork". Remember, all those 'pork projects' that get decried are someone else's attempts to use federal money to benefit their home districts.
Actually, if you'll check the threads on 'atheist morality', you'll find that my general stance on morality is fairly close to yours. All I said here was that such a viewpoint could be supported.
"You've got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know... morons." - The Waco Kid
I'm pretty sure this is what yin and yang state.
When once asked in the library if I believed in Jesus Christ, I pointed out that zombie novels are in the fiction section.