Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Philosophy, in all its guises. => Topic started by: Sriram on July 17, 2018, 06:52:06 AM
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Hi everyone,
What is 'evil'? Is it the Devil's work or is it a natural impulse we have as part of our survival and parental processes? Is there any absolute evil or absolute good?
If interested, you could check out .....
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/evil/
Any views?
Sriram
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I am of the opinion evil is just another term for extreme bad behaviour. I don't believe an entity is responsible for it, human nature has many characteristics of which good and bad are a part.
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I am of the opinion evil is just another term for extreme bad behaviour. I don't believe an entity is responsible for it, human nature has many characteristics of which good and bad are a part.
What is "extreme bad behaviour"?
By what standard to you define 'bad'?
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Hi everyone,
What is 'evil'? Is it the Devil's work or is it a natural impulse we have as part of our survival and parental processes? Is there any absolute evil or absolute good?
If interested, you could check out .....
https://tsriramrao.wordpress.com/2017/02/19/evil/
Any views?
Sriram
For Good and evil to work as an idea there has to be an absolute in there somewhere otherwise it just becomes a question of taste.
Well we have taste and that doesn't work in the same way as morality.
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For Good and evil to work as an idea there has to be an absolute in there somewhere otherwise it just becomes a question of taste.
As far as I can see that's all there is to it.
Well we have taste and that doesn't work in the same way as morality.
Why not?
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As far as I can see that's all there is to it.
Why not?
because we as people and a society do taste and we do morality and the exercises are different in both case.
I can see how you can confuse the two:
Years of virtuoso antitheistic turd polishing.
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What is "extreme bad behaviour"?
By what standard to you define 'bad'?
Hitler is an example of an person exhibiting extreme bad behaviour.
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because we as people and a society do taste and we do morality and the exercises are different in both case.
This is repetition, not explanation. If you can't demonstrate your perceived difference between the two, just say so.
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This is repetition, not explanation. If you can't demonstrate your perceived difference between the two, just say so.
Repetition of an explanation.
people and society do morality and taste differently.
If you operate morality in the same way as taste then you are, IMV, a monster.
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Repetition of an explanation.
people and society do morality and taste differently.
How?
If you operate morality in the same way as taste then you are, IMV, a monster.
Show your working.
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Hitler is an example of an person exhibiting extreme bad behaviour.
That's not really an answer to the question. That would be an answer to the question 'Name a person who exhibited 'extreme bad behaviour'?'
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How?
Show your working.
I think we're waiting for yours on taste is the same as morality.
Any one who expects workings out while not providing any is a big brown stripey humbug.
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I think were waiting for yours on Taste is the same as morality.
Funnily enough I was waiting for yours on "For good and evil to work as an idea there has to be an absolute in there somewhere", which came first.
The floor is yours.
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Funnily enough I was waiting for yours on "For good and evil to work as an idea there has to be an absolute in there somewhere", which came first.
The floor is yours.
Makes no sense without an absolute. It doesn't work and to do something because you describe it as Good when the terms really for you have no meaning is contradictory.
Can't be taste because we do taste and morality and they work and operate differently in a person and in society.
Now, Shaker, How is morality the same as taste?
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Makes no sense without an absolute.
And the assertion train pulls into the station ahead of schedule.
It doesn't work
Why not?
and to do something because you describe it as Good when the terms really for you have no meaning is contradictory.
Why would the terms have no meaning? You seem to be arguing that there has to be an absolute standard because if there wasn't, the terms good and evil would be meaningless (needless to say, bald assertion and an appeal to consequences for the price of one), therefore there is an absolute standard. That's so circular it's a wonder you didn't feel dizzy just typing it.
Can't be taste because we do taste and morality and they work and operate differently in a person and in society.
So you keep repeating ad borethebollocksoffmeum without scrupling to explain how.
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And the assertion train pulls into the station ahead of schedule.Why not?Why would the terms have no meaning? You seem to be arguing that there has to be an absolute standard because if there wasn't, the terms good and evil would be meaningless (needless to say, bald assertion and an appeal to consequences for the price of one), therefore there is an absolute standard. That's so circular it's a wonder you didn't feel dizzy just typing it. So you keep repeating ad borethebollocksoffmeum without scrupling to explain how.
If one says something is Good or bad and has no reference they are just busking the definition. If they do not believe there can be a definition but offering one then it's all just arse pull and they are not being honest.
If they are convicted that they are morally right then they have introduced an absolute by default and that goes even if they consider their moral decision to just be better. Because they have introduced two poles.
Now Shaker, please justify your statement that morality is just a question of taste.
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If one says something is Good or bad and has no reference they are just busking the definition.
Who has said that there's no reference? Name someone.
If they do not believe there can be a definition but offering one then it's all just arse pull and they are not being honest.
Same question applies. Who - in the world generally or here specifically - has said there can be no definition?
If they are convicted that they are morally right then they have introduced an absolute by default and that goes even if they consider their moral decision to just be better. Because they have introduced two poles.
As non sequiturs go, that must be one of the most flagrant examples I've ever seen.
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Who has said that there's no reference? Name someone.
Same question applies. Who - in the world generally or here specifically - has said there can be no definition?
As non sequiturs go, that must be one of the most flagrant examples I've ever seen.
Dodging the question again I see.
I see your tactic, you have put yourself into the position of interlocutor.
You either realise a dishonesty here or are so blinded by a false sense of intellectual entitlement.
The sensible on this board of which there are few will see your tactics for what they are.
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Who has said that there's no reference? Name someone.
Then it will be easy for you to define what is good and bad or state the reference then.
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Dodging the question again I see.
I see your tactic, you have put yourself into the position of interlocutor.
You either realise a dishonesty here or are so blinded by a false sense of intellectual entitlement.
The sensible on this board of which there are few will see your tactics for what they are.
Trying to get you to mount a reasoned argument for once without the straw, the assertions and the fallacies? Yeah, we all know I'm a hiding to nothing there.
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Trying to get you to mount a reasoned argument for once without the straw, the assertions and the fallacies? Yeah, we all know I'm a hiding to nothing there.
All you have to do is to justify the assertions you have made here or even attempt to.
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All you have to do is to justify the assertions you have made here or even attempt to.
After you.
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After you.
No, after you.
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No, after you.
You kicked off with the bald assertions in #3 so it would be tidy to do things in order.
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You kicked off with the bald assertions in #3 so it would be tidy to do things in order.
I'm afraid I've given a rationale behind all my assertions. Not liking them is no defence for you. It's now your turn either to refute them or justify your own.
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I'm afraid I've given a rationale behind all my assertions.
You keep using that word: I do not think it means etc.
For example, you've asserted no fewer than four times (#3; #5; #8; #13) that taste and morality are different but have offered no 'rationale' for this assertion.
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You keep using that word: I do not think it means etc.
Put up or shut up.
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Put up or shut up.
I'll take the first if you take the second.
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As far as I can see that's all there is to it.
Why not?
If you say I like Marmite that might be true.
If you say ''This or that are Good'' there is no way of telling whether that is true or not in your philosophy Shaker since good and bad are ultimately not defined.
That is one difference between Morality and taste Shaker and where there is a difference there cannot be equation.
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I'll take the first if you take the second.
With mouth shut, I'm all ears.
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Well, if there is an absolute by which good and bad are defined, how do we discover it? After all, moral injunctions seem highly contextual, e.g. killing people is wrong, except when it isn't. In fact, sometimes, (as in war), it can be seen as valorous, and you might get a medal for it. So where is the absolute here?
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Hitler behaved very badly. Right...
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Hitler behaved very badly. Right...
The more I hear about the chap ...
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Hitler behaved very badly. Right...
Never off the naughty (goose)step
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Well, if there is an absolute by which good and bad are defined, how do we discover it? After all, moral injunctions seem highly contextual, e.g. killing people is wrong, except when it isn't. In fact, sometimes, (as in war), it can be seen as valorous, and you might get a medal for it. So where is the absolute here?
Well certainly not in anyway which equates morality with reason, science, maths, taste etc.
Crikey we work on stuff like absolute zero, Dark matter etc, and we are still only on the ''on paper'' stage and yet somehow that's an OK.
Christianity proposes a general malfunction in moral guidance systems somewhat linked to relationship to God.
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Well certainly not in anyway which equates morality with reason, science, maths, taste etc.
Crikey we work on stuff like absolute zero, Dark matter etc, and we are still only on the ''on paper'' stage and yet somehow that's an OK.
Christianity proposes a general malfunction in moral guidance systems somewhat linked to relationship to God.
So your god chose to make humans malfunctioning? This of course means that when you were avoiding your god's responsibility for the skin cancer that killed my friend at 28, but saying the Nazis were to do with humans, you didn't actually believe that either. And you think that there is a malfunction that your god being omnipotent and omniscient chose so all human evil is down to him as well. You really do worship a thug.
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Well certainly not in anyway which equates morality with reason, science, maths, taste etc.
Crikey we work on stuff like absolute zero, Dark matter etc, and we are still only on the ''on paper'' stage and yet somehow that's an OK.
Christianity proposes a general malfunction in moral guidance systems somewhat linked to relationship to God.
Well, Christians burned people for centuries. Was this morally good then, but not now?
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So your god chose to make humans malfunctioning? This of course means that when you were avoiding your god's responsibility for the skin cancer that killed my friend at 28, but saying the Nazis were to do with humans, you didn't actually believe that either. And you think that there is a malfunction that your god being omnipotent and omniscient chose so all human evil is down to him as well. You really do worship a thug.
Veer from God and mayhem results.
All I can say is there are natural processes which have unavoidably led to human success, some atheists think nature is getting better and better...Pinker, Dawkins etc but nature does produce tragedies for which it seems we have progressive mastery over.
As a Christian I believe there is the prospect of God making all things well and to bring resolution.
You worship though something you think is better than what there is here and now.I wonder what grounds do you have for that commitment and really have you got anything more virtuous than I have?
You see a world with no death and justice post dated and life for the dead. So do I.
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Well, Christians burned people for centuries. Was this morally good then, but not now?
No. I understand politics might have been involved too.
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Veer from God and mayhem results.
All I can say is there are natural processes which have unavoidably led to human success, some atheists think nature is getting better and better...Pinker, Dawkins etc but nature does produce tragedies for which it seems we have progressive mastery over.
As a Christian I believe there is the prospect of God making all things well and to bring resolution.
You worship though something you think is better than what there is here and now.I wonder what grounds do you have for that commitment and really have you got anything more virtuous than I have?
You see a world with no death and justice post dated and life for the dead. So do I.
Nope I neither worship anything, nor do I 'see a world with no death and justice post dated and life for the dead'
You do hwever worship your god, you do think it is omnipotent and omniscient therefore you worship the creator of skin cancer and your god's choice to kill my friend at 28, and you do worship its creation of malfunctioning humans that it must by your logic know and choose that they will kill. You worship something that by your logic created anything you regard as evil
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Nope I neither worship anything, nor do I 'see a world with no death and justice post dated and life for the dead'
You do hwever worship your god, you do think it is omnipotent and omniscient therefore you worship the creator of skin cancer and your god's choice to kill my friend at 28, and you do worship its creation of malfunctioning humans that it must by your logic know and choose that they will kill. You worship something that by your logic created anything you regard as evil
I thought Leukemia killed your friend?
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I thought Leukemia killed your friend?
It might help if you read posts. I have made it clear on several posts that the friend I have been talking about died of skin cancer. There were previous posts on the problem of suffering where the concept of childhood leukaemia was raised. You were obviously to busy evading the issue that your god by your logic is a thug, to even care about what happened to my friend.
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Hitler behaved very badly. Right...
He, and others, didn't think so.
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He, and others, didn't think so.
I think that's better addressed to Littleroses, who I think Rhiannon was picking up here.
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It might help if you read posts. I have made it clear on several posts that the friend I have been talking about died of skin cancer. There were previous posts on the problem of suffering where the concept of childhood leukaemia was raised. You were obviously to busy evading the issue that your god by your logic is a thug, to even care about what happened to my friend.
Apologies for getting the cause of your friends death wrong.
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Apologies for getting the cause of your friends death wrong.
Accepted, thank you. Now your thug god???
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Accepted, thank you. Now your thug god???
Ah, on that we will have to agree to differ.
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I think that's better addressed to Littleroses, who I think Rhiannon was picking up here.
Maybe. It wasn't a direct response to anything more a general addition to the conversation.
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Ah, on that we will have to agree to differ.
It's you disagreeing with the logic of your position.
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Maybe. It wasn't a direct response to anything more a general addition to the conversation.
Ah ok. Then I think it's an interesting contribution. I think there is a tendency for us to think that those who carry out what society deem as evil are either aware that is evil but choose to do it anyway, or are some how mentally ill in not thinking it as evil. Hence the Nazis that were tried were deemed to be evil and aware of it. To relate back to sriram's blog, I think many of the circumstances that he has talked about 'evil' in such as adultery would not be deemed by most non affected as evil, whereas the Holocaust would be. There seems to me in the use of the term something that is about an extreme but that extreme is derived in society by the zeitgeist.
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It's you disagreeing with the logic of your position.
The trouble is you've tried to blend emotionally incontinent wank, such as God orgasming as he slays people, with what you might like to portray as logic and reason.
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Ah ok. Then I think it's an interesting contribution. I think there is a tendency for us to think that those who carry out what society deem as evil are either aware that is evil but choose to do it anyway, or are some how mentally ill in not thinking it as evil. Hence the Nazis that were tried were deemed to be evil and aware of it. To relate back to sriram's blog, I think many of the circumstances that he has talked about 'evil' in such as adultery would not be deemed by most non affected as evil, whereas the Holocaust would be. There seems to me in the use of the term something that is about an extreme but that extreme is derived in society by the zeitgeist.
Thanks. Someone like Hitler would not have considered themselves evil, nor was he mentally ill. He was extreme in his views but a product of his time and the politics of the day. To consider him evil is dangerous since the bad things can be blamed on that rather than on the real reasons which led to the Holocaust. There are others who do terrible things, such as serial killers, who often know that what they are doing is considered wrong but don't feel it is wrong, because they lack empathy for others. Others do enjoy inflicting pain and suffering on others and know what they are doing. How do these different types of people fit with the idea of some absolute morality beyond which things,are considered evil?
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Thanks. Someone like Hitler would not have considered themselves evil, nor was he mentally ill. He was extreme in his views but a product of his time and the politics of the day. To consider him evil is dangerous since the bad things can be blamed on that rather than on the real reasons which led to the Holocaust. There are others who do terrible things, such as serial killers, who often know that what they are doing is considered wrong but don't feel it is wrong, because they lack empathy for others. Others do enjoy inflicting pain and suffering on others and know what they are doing. How do these different types of people fit with the idea of some absolute morality beyond which things,are considered evil?
Can't help on the question of an absolute morality since I don't believe in it, though I think here we are talking more about objective morality. I'm not sure that 'evil' as an idea is dangerous. I don't think there are many people that regard evil as some unavoidable thing that isn't affected by other inputs. Rather I see it as an expression of disgust of a greater level than bad. It is harder for the majority to understand.
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No. I understand politics might have been involved too.
Yes, but I'm asking if the Christians who burned people were aware of a moral absolute? Or were they confused?
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Can't help on the question of an absolute morality since I don't believe in it, though I think here we are talking more about objective morality. I'm not sure that 'evil' as an idea is dangerous. I don't think there are many people that regard evil as some unavoidable thing that isn't affected by other inputs. Rather I see it as an expression of disgust of a greater level than bad. It is harder for the majority to understand.
Yes, I often see people described as 'evil' when I know they have no conception of themselves as such. But that in itself could be seen as a form of evil, that inability to empathise. It's different from hurting but knowing that you are doing so. Maybe it is about intent, whether you think your intent is wrong or not. And now I'm wondering whether we can separate out people from their deeds. Is it the deed that is evil and not the person?
'Bad behaviour' covers everything from the stuff kids get put on report for at school to serial adultery. It strikes me as a weak term. 'Hitler wasn't a vicious Nazi dictator, he was a very naughty boy.'
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Yes, but I'm asking if the Christians who burned people were aware of a moral absolute? Or were they confused?
I don't know how to approach an answer for you. Is your historical view derived from bona fide sources or are you taking your cue from Splodgekins ''The complete and arseclenching history of Utter Christian Bastardy''?
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I don't know how to approach an answer for you. Is your historical view derived from bona fide sources or are you taking your cue from Splodgekins ''The complete and arseclenching history of Utter Christian Bastardy''?
Your first sentence was correct
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How about:
A bad person is someone who only cares about self-gratification (of some kind) but does not care if others are harmed in his pursuit of self-gratification.
An evil person is someone will deliberately set out to harm other people for self-gratification and then take pleasure in observing the damage he has caused.
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How about:
A bad person is someone who only cares about self-gratification (of some kind) but does not care if others are harmed in his pursuit of self-gratification.
An evil person is someone will deliberately set out to harm other people for self-gratification and then take pleasure in observing the damage he has caused.
Well there's a funny thing.
I've always considered evil to be sadism - not just causing pain per se, because over the course of a fairly long life (to date) sundry and divers medical professionals have done that incidentally, with a greater good in mind. I have never dislocated a limb. I have heard and would imagine that resetting such is perhaps briefly but intensely painful. But there is a greater goal in mind, so it can't be evil.
No, I think evil is sadism; the glorification of shame and humiliation and above all else pain purely for the sake of being a spectator of the preceding.
I am sorry to say that I have (have had) visual evidence of the uttermost worst of this by humans to other humans and also to non-humans, in ways that I refuse to describe in detail. According to my own personal definition, some humans are simply evil. Evil as far as I understand it; the delight in suffering of another for the sake of that delight in its own right.
There are reasons I'm not and refuse point blank to call myself a humanist, and I flatter myself that I've seen most of them. Some humans are just evil.
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But there is a greater goal in mind, so it can't be evil.
Telling remark. Why aren't you prepared to allow this possibility for God?
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Telling remark. Why aren't you prepared to allow this possibility for God?
Because I have zero reason(s) to take seriously such a silly and ridiculous thing.
Human beings actually exist.
Gods? Best of luck with that one.
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Because I have zero reason(s) to take seriously such a silly and ridiculous thing.
Human beings actually exist.
Gods? Best of luck with that one.
Small steps Shaker, small steps....I'm just pleased to see you propose ''a greater good.''
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Small steps Shaker, small steps....I'm just pleased to see you propose ''a greater good.''
Amongst beings who actually exist, sure. Is this news?
What was the greater good of NS's friend dying of skin cancer at 28, or my mate Ricky being turned into raspberry jam by an inattentive driver of a car coming out of the rugby club on his bike c. 1990 aged 17-18?
Do tell, as I'd love to know. Genuinely.
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Amongst beings who actually exist, sure. Is this news?
What was the greater good of NS's friend dying of skin cancer at 28, or my mate Ricky being turned into raspberry jam by an inattentive driver of a car coming out of the rugby club on his bike c. 1990 aged 17-18?
Do tell, as I'd love to know. Genuinely.
You are free to default to a no God position however accepting that bad stuff may happen on the way to a greater good undermines the rationale that God is necessarily a thug because of bad stuff.
I am sorry for your friend and it reminds me to be a better, more attentive driver today.
Part of being is played out in a world of flesh and forces and your friend's story, I suppose, can either lead us to search for meaning to life or announce straight away that there isn't one.
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I'm not sure that 'evil' as an idea is dangerous.
I think it can be. I think it can be used to avoid confronting unpalatable facts. Calling something evil isn't wrong unless you use that as an excuse not to dig deeper and find out why people do bad things.
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I think it can be. I think it can be used to avoid confronting unpalatable facts. Calling something evil isn't wrong unless you use that as an excuse not to dig deeper and find out why people do bad things.
Is it because someone has been bad to them?
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Is it because someone has been bad to them?
In some cases. It's quite common to find that child abusers were, themselves, abused as children. You can either label child abusers as evil and lock them away out of sight and out of mind or you can confront the fact that there is quite a big problem and no clear solution.