Regarding Good and Evil

[GiantHouseKey]

Evil is the abscence of good. There is nothing good about murder. So, therefore shouldn't it be considered evil?

I guess the main assumption is that Good is something that can also be catagorised. If you say that Evil is the absence of Good, that's fine, but you have to say what Good is as well Personally I can think of plenty of situations where I would support murder.

Sometimes it is hard to categorize good and evil, and if we choose good we will be rewarded by God, and if we choose evil, God will allow us to be punished.

If it's hard to catagorise good and evil, why would God allow us to be punished for something that is difficult to catagorise? For that matter, why would God punish us at all if he was so omnibenevolent?

As far as "because God says so"...yes i believe wholly in that statement. I mean look around you. All that nature just screams that there is a God that rules over everything. And everything includes us as human beings.

Hey, do you ever notice that a fire is screaming with Aeya? I bet you don't. Why? Because you don't believe in the concept of Aeya, or you don't understand it. In either case, my point is that because you believe in God, you associate things with the concept of God and therefore things seem so obvious to you that it's hard to appreciate that people don't see it the same way. And I don't, so it's a lot different for me.

Well i guess my main question would be, are you a Christian? Because that would change this whole arguement.

No i'm not. It would be much easier to understand this concept (Or rather, simply believe it to be so) if I were. You are right about one thing though: it would change the whole argument.

GhK.

 

[GiantHouseKey]

well then that's definitely evil!

But isn't child raping molester evil? Does the elimination of a child raping molester count as Good?

Out of interest, why would you consider murdering a rapist to be evil, when you are allowed to murder a:
Homosexual: Leviticus 20:13
Adulterers: Leviticus 20:10
Witch: Exodus 22:17
Sinner's Children: Isaiah 14:21, Leviticus 26:21
People who don't believe in God: 2 Chronicles 15:12

Is it because rape and child murder is actually not that bad after all: 2 Samuel 12:11?

GhK.

 

[singing6]

What if you murder a rapist who molests children.

i'm sorry, i misunderstood the question, i read it too fast. I think that a rapist who molests children should be punished under the law, and if that includes killing the person, then yes i agree with that.

 

[singing6]

If it's hard to catagorise good and evil, why would God allow us to be punished for something that is difficult to catagorise? For that matter, why would God punish us at all if he was so omnibenevolent?

Personally, i know when i'm doing something wrong because it says in the Bible that GOd is against whatever i'm doing. But, luckily, God loves us SO INCREDIBLY MUCH that he allows us the opportunity to choose, and when we do mess up, as Christians, we have the amazing ability to confess our sins and the Lord forgives us, and we turn from that sin. Why do parents punish their children? Is it because they don't love them? I don't think so. They punish their kids because they love them and know what is best for them. So it is the same with God and his people.

Hey, do you ever notice that a fire is screaming with Aeya? I bet you don't. Why? Because you don't believe in the concept of Aeya, or you don't understand it. In either case, my point is that because you believe in God, you associate things with the concept of God and therefore things seem so obvious to you that it's hard to appreciate that people don't see it the same way. And I don't, so it's a lot different for me.

I'm sorry you feel that way, honestly I am. When you look at the human body and all its systems, like the eye and how we see, and how the brain works, do you not see how a divine and supernatural being that is above us as humans created all of this?

 

[GiantHouseKey]

i'm sorry, i misunderstood the question, i read it too fast. I think that a rapist who molests children should be punished under the law, and if that includes killing the person, then yes i agree with that.

Ah, ok. Your post makes much more sense now Is it still evil, in your opinion, to kill though? Even if the person is a child molesting rapist, is the act of murder still a sin against God?

I'm sorry you feel that way, honestly I am. When you look at the human body and all its systems, like the eye and how we see, and how the brain works, do you not see how a divine and supernatural being that is above us as humans created all of this?

Don't be sorry. You're not the one who's supposedly going to burn in hell for eternity eh?

I guess not. The human brain and the human eye are 2 excellent parts of the body. They both function beautifully and allow us to experience much that life has to offer us (With the brain, all that life can offer us, in my view). But i'm not on the 'God created everything' train. I guess it would make it much easier, just to accept that God made everything...

I don't really understand your arguement to be honest. I suppose if you believe God created everything, the fact that a brain exists would lead you to assume that God existed (As God had to make the brain). But if I don't believe that God created everything (Or that he exists, at least in the way you're talking about), how can the fact that the brain works the way it does lead me to conclude that God exists?

GhK.

 

[singing6]

Ah, ok. Your post makes much more sense now Is it still evil, in your opinion, to kill though? Even if the person is a child molesting rapist, is the act of murder still a sin against God?

well i'm at a fork here becuase it says in the 10 commandments to not murder, but it also says to follow the law and government. i honestly don't know. if it were up to me i would put the person in jail and talk to them and tell them about Christ and his forgiveness to let them have a chance to repent. but if they were obviously not changing their mind i would probably let God handly their fate. i don't think i could bring myself to end a life.

I guess not. The human brain and the human eye are 2 excellent parts of the body. They both function beautifully and allow us to experience much that life has to offer us (With the brain, all that life can offer us, in my view). But i'm not on the 'God created everything' train. I guess it would make it much easier, just to accept that God made everything..

I don't really understand your arguement to be honest. I suppose if you believe God created everything, the fact that a brain exists would lead you to assume that God existed (As God had to make the brain). But if I don't believe that God created everything (Or that he exists, at least in the way you're talking about), how can the fact that the brain works the way it does lead me to conclude that God exists?

Not only does it make it easier by explaining the reason for why everything exists, but its the truth.

i mean think of the complexity of the brain! and the eye! its just so amazing and nothing except something way above us could of thought it up or created it. Do you get what i'm saying now?

 

[GiantHouseKey]

well i'm at a fork here becuase it says in the 10 commandments to not murder, but it also says to follow the law and government. i honestly don't know. if it were up to me i would put the person in jail and talk to them and tell them about Christ and his forgiveness to let them have a chance to repent. but if they were obviously not changing their mind i would probably let God handly their fate. i don't think i could bring myself to end a life.

You haven't answered regarding my quotes. How can the bible can say these things when it clearly states in Exodus 20:13 that you can't kill? Moreover, why would you find it acceptable to follow laws on execution when God says 'Thou shalt not kill'?

Not only does it make it easier by explaining the reason for why everything exists, but its the truth.

Ok, whatever you say

i mean think of the complexity of the brain! and the eye! its just so amazing and nothing except something way above us could of thought it up or created it. Do you get what i'm saying now?

I got what you were saying before. Your arguement is incredibly easy to accept, but incredibly difficult to prove. If I told you that by shining a torch on a tree leaf it grows, for example. It's easy enough to accept, but it's a little more tricky to fully explain. With God, it's very easy to say that he made everything, it shortcuts having to think about it, but it's much harder to explain without just accepting it. It's also much more difficult for theists to understand an atheistic arguement on this case due to their firm belief in God.

I realise that fundamentally neither of our arguements can be fully proven or disproven

GhK.

 

[Comicaze247]

i mean think of the complexity of the brain! and the eye! its just so amazing and nothing except something way above us could of thought it up or created it. Do you get what i'm saying now?

All living things have one purpose that overrides all others: to continue on the species. It's why we are driven to mate. It's also why we are driven to protect ourselves.
In order to do that, one thing we would have to be able to do is to navigate our surroundings, correct? Hence the development of eyes.
Evolution just holds a lot more water than creation theory.

One question I ask you, if you believe that evolution is wrong: why did God give us an appendix?

 

[PureX]

"Good and evil" are quality assessments, made by us, according to whatever criteria we choose. They are very "real" in the sense that we make these quality assessments all the time, almost viscerally. It's a part of our animal response to the world around us. It's about threat assessment, and because we are humans, it's also about an advantage assessment, as well.

When we become confused is when we forget that the criteria by which we assess something as "good" or as "evil" to us is IN US, and is not in the object or circumstance that we are assessing. When we forget this, we foolishly assume that the "goodness" resides inside the nature of the object that we deem "good", or that the "evil" resides in the object we assess as "evil", when it does not. Both good and evil are labels that we have placed on those objects.

 

[MoonWater]

I see something as "evil" if it has only negative consequences and would see something as "good" if it has only positive consequences. So far I've never come across anything that fits into either of these categories.

Personally I find the use of such labels counter-productive especially when used on people. Labeling someone as evil causes us to think of them as a monster rather than a person and serves only to perpetuate the problem. However I go so far as to avoid labeling actions as "good" or "evil" because those labels tend to migrate remarkably fast to the people who commit acts which have such labels.

Labeling genocide as evil causes people to label hitler as evil and yet we forget that he pulled germany out of a great depression and helped it to thrive as a powerful nation once more. Labeling independance as good we label ghandi as good for helping to liberate India yet we forget that such actions led to the deaths of many people. That isn't to say that ghandi should not have "fought" for india's freedom or that hitler should have been allowed to get away with genocide, it's just to say that labeling tends to put up a road block for us and we don't look around it to see that there is more to that person than simply the label they have been given.