posted
Is good still good if it is in the abesnce of evil or is it nothing more than the norm?
Is goodness being good in the presence of evil?
And can is a good act that later causes a bad act make the good act an evil one? Or does it still count as a good act?
Here are some examples of what I mean:
"A whole civilization lives its life without the presence of any kind of evil, they do not have the knowledge of what evil is" Is this civilization still good?
"A man lives his life in the presence of great evil, yet he still chooses to do good acts in spite of the evil that surrounds him" Does this make him a better man than the people who do not know evil?
"If a man gives a homeless man a dollar, what if that same homeless man is beaten up by another homeless person for that dollar" Has the richer man helped or made things worse. Is his kind act still a good one? Would he have done more good by doing nothing?
Please try not to bring God vs the Devil , into this discussion if possible.
posted
You know, I'm not sure it's even possible for a religious person to talk about good and evil without bringing the religion into it.
Posts: 1069 | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
Acting consistently by ones principles. Of course, if an entire society that lacks evil as a characteristic and yet still doesn't have the right morals still falls apart, that's probably proof that their morals weren't evil (the society doesn't have ecil after all), but weren't good enough.
Happy? Huh!? Huh!? Are ya!? ARE YA!? Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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The example was of a civilization were everyone could be considered goo if they had an opposite by which to compare themselves to. But seeing as how they do not does that make their actions still good?
And calm down, I just wanted to see what your impression of goodness was. I meant no harm.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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Oh I'm calm. You mustn't take anyone on hatrack too seriously.
So now what we're talking about a Zion, no? According to my beliefs, of course I don't think they're evil. Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Sorry, I've just been yelled at before on Hatrack. But you have an interesting point of view. Why do you think they are good? And what is Zion, I do not know this term?
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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I yelled at you because I'm immature and proud of it.
The building of Zion is the goal of every Mormon. Sadly, I couldnt google the topic. The results I got were all either anti-Mormon proselytising (sp?) or else LDS information but not relevant to Zion. But do not fear, for I am searching the official church pages right now. Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Actually, since you were pretty explicit about us not bringing our own religous ideas into this thread, at least at first, I'll give you a choice whether to learn more about Zion now that you know it's a religious thing.
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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posted
Zion's basically another word for utopia, and it's not unique to Mormons.
I don't know that I even believe in evil. I think most people try to be decent enough. Everybody is sometimes incredibly noble and sometimes incredibly cruel and selfish. If I had to define good in some objective sense, I'd say it is considering the consequences of your actions and trying to minimize harm as much as possible.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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Humans in general are neither. They fall across the entire line of good and evil, and can often slide one way or the other.
Posts: 413 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Zion is the pure in heart, a place of refuge and safety, a nation, a people, and ultimately the Kingdom of God
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
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No offense taken Amanecer. I agree it is a utopian ideal, just took friendly issue with it as "just another word for . . . " when there are very specific meanings behind the word.
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to wether the person who does good deed when among evil compared to those who know none
the man who sees the evil is tempted to take the evil way of his couterparts and purposely go out of his way to do good deed is a whole lot gooder (is that even a word) than that entire city.
Posts: 250 | Registered: Jun 2005
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As for the questions that started this thread, I agree that it would be impossible for me to engage in this debate without invoking religion. Especially when I feel my religion speaks very specifically about the nature of good and evil in the very questions that are asked.
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I don't mind religion but if you if you can do it without doing so I would prefer it that way. But if you need to use it to make your point then go ahead.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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Because I am an athiest. But that does not mean that I do not follow many of Jesus's words. I just choose to believe that it is not Hell that motivates me, but rather that my actions are motivated by my own values.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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I'm not sure how, as an atheist, you could wonder whether or not humans are inherently evil/ original sin exists. If there's no God, then how could either of those concepts make any sense? Further, how are you defining good and evil?
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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quote:Originally posted by Swampjedi: You know, I'm not sure it's even possible for a religious person to talk about good and evil without bringing the religion into it.
Nor is it possible to talk about such 'good' or 'bad' without God or Satan.
Guys, lets talk about peanutbutter, but you can't talk about peanuts or milk products.
“Good” is a concept. So is “Evil”. There is no definition of one without the other, they are almost perfect opposites. It’s not as simple as light/darkness, but it is related. It’s more a white/grey/black - thing. And the difficulty arises from the fact that there isn’t an absolute definition of “good”. What is good for one person isn’t that good for another person. (There is a thing called egoism…)
There can’t be good without evil. It’s impossible to separate them. And it wouldn’t be too good if it were possible:
A society that is “good by nature” and doesn’t “know” evil, can’t understand the concept of “good” (nor “morality”, nor any related concepts, for that matter). Actually, you couldn’t even ask their opinion about any of it, nor explain anything on the subject to them. They will only know “normal state”. They would have a lot of explanations for everything that happened, but not in terms of “this should be like this because it is good” or “this shouldn’t be like this because it is evil”. And at this level, that isn’t neither good, nor evil.
But then there are two (inherent) human “qualities”: boredom and curiosity. When someone gets bored with acting “normally”, that someone will be curious to see “what happens” when they act contrary to “normality”. So, if we supposed that the society was “good by nature” the “new” behavior would be “evil” to us, but not so to the society. And it will be praised as “normal”, too (and they would have a perfectly acceptable explanation for it). Starting that point, the society won’t be “perfectly good” anymore. And they wouldn’t even know it, nor understand it if you wanted to explain it to them. --> “evil society”
Of course, such a society is impossible, meaning that every existing society has at least an infinite ( ) number of examples of “evil” in history. Plus, just think that most of the time, unknown = evil.
If we don’t know good and evil, we can’t choose to do good. Yet, we can choose to do good, knowing evil. So I’d say evil is good, in this context
quote:"A whole civilization lives its life without the presence of any kind of evil, they do not have the knowledge of what evil is" Is this civilization still good?
Without an opposite to compare it to, I don't think you could use the definition of "good" most people use. Good is often thought of as the opposite of evil, so therefore for most people if there were no evil there would be no good. Personally however, I think good encompasses a lot more than that base definition. Compassion, empathy, honesty, respect, these things among many other qualities make for good in my opinion. Let's use charitable acts as an example: Would a rich man's contribution to charity still not be a charitable act? My point is that if in this society, good is the status quo, then to people within that society good deeds aren't so much considered good deeds as they're considered "the way things are" and they come to be expected. People wil not praise good people there any more than we'd praise someone for wearing clothes when they step outside: It's expected.
That being said, if an outsider to their society were to enter it with a differing viewpoint and expectations, he'd definitely praise it as good. So based on all that I'd say that the society is still good, they just won't make as big a deal about it as a society that has evil in it would :-P
quote:"A man lives his life in the presence of great evil, yet he still chooses to do good acts in spite of the evil that surrounds him" Does this make him a better man than the people who do not know evil?
It makes him a better man for trying harder. Anyone can accept the status quo, standing out from among the crowd often takes thought and premeditation whereas following what's normal only takes going with the flow. This can be tied in with my response to the last question. The society sees evil as the status quo and is therefore ok with it. Assuming that this society is evil only because "they can't help themselves" and see the good man as being good, I think the society in this example would certainly view the man as better than most and would praise him as such. In the society seen in the last example, the good man is seen as just one of the masses and no attention is called to him, but the good qualities still prevail.
quote:"If a man gives a homeless man a dollar, what if that same homeless man is beaten up by another homeless person for that dollar" Has the richer man helped or made things worse. Is his kind act still a good one? Would he have done more good by doing nothing?
Can you predict the future? Can any of us? If you save the life of the person who will grow up to kill millions of innocents for pleasure in the future, are you evil? In my opinion the answer is no, of course not. This is one example in which the intent of the action carries more weight for me than the consequences. Think of the following example:
A man goes up on the rooftop of a building with a high-powered sniper rifle. His target is Goodguy McGooderson who is accepting an award on the streets below. The man readies his gun and takes aim and places the crosshair directly on Mr. McGooderson and he fires! At the same time, there is an axe murderer running at full speed towards Mr. McGooderson with his axe readied for an overhead swing and a maniacal grin on his face. Right as he's about to swing his axe and end poor Goodguy's life he falls to the ground dead. Cause of death: The man on top of the building. Our assasin it seems, forgot to take wind direction and speed into consideration when aiming his shot and shot the wrong man! He didn't even realize the axe maniac was down below and the killing was purely accidental. As the crowds spot him atop the building, the crowds run up there and hail him as a hero! He saved Goodguy's life, how could he not be a hero?
So the man in this example was attemting to commit an evil act, but accidentally ended up commiting a good one. Does that make him a good man or simply a victim of unpredictable weather? This is where intent comes into the picture. If your intent is good, then the action is good. The consequences don't matter because they are out of your control. For every man that gets beat up for that dollar there could be a man that uses that dollar to become a millionaire who spends his fortune helping the poor.
Posts: 459 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote: The society sees evil as the status quo and is therefore ok with it. Assuming that this society is evil only because "they can't help themselves" and see the good man as being good, I think the society in this example would certainly view the man as better than most and would praise him as such.
I don't think I agree with this. This assumes that there are unquestionable definitions for "good" and "evil". I don't think this is the case. Everybody has a set of values and what many consider good, others consider evil. In the scenario of an "evil society", the "evil" is coming from our values, not theirs. Their values would undoubtedly be different and I doubt that they would consider the man that by my values might be good, to truly be good. He would be going against the values of their society, and would most likely be considered evil by them.
Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
I'm sorry if I made it sound like I believed otherwise. I too believe there is no certain definition for either term and I realize that what one person may see as good, someone else may see as evil. That being said however, I don't agree with the assumption that because someone goes against the values he/she would be automatically labeled as evil. I agree this is a possibility, but I think there are certainly enough examples of people out there who go against the grain of society and are considered really good people to make the generalization untrue. Posts: 459 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I think there is a difference between going against the grain of society and going against the values of society. But yes, I think you are right. The values that we might consider "good", could to an "evil" society society be either evil, good, or neutral. Posts: 1947 | Registered: Aug 2002
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posted
Wow. This thread has turned out great. I am loving these responces everyone. Keep them coming. Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
People don't know what "good" is if they don't experience "evil". Like they don't know what darkness is if they've never seen light. People who have never seen evil, and have never made a choice to do good, are not good - they're not evil either - they're just innocent. They're only doing what they know.
It's only when we have the opportunity to choose between the two that our choices become either good or evil. So yes, in order to have "good" in that sense, you have to know its opposite.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Advent, what about your views, your thoughts? You ask questions, yet give none of your own thoughts on it, or even discuss others views on it.
Is good still good in the absence of evil? Yes. Is it the norm? Yes. Apples and oranges. If you take away all the apples, the oranges are still oranges, because the apples could be added at any point. Likewise, you find a civilization that is all good, no bad. It's still a civilization that is good, because free will dictates the possibility of evil. With that possibility there, good is defined and exists as the norm.
Is goodness being good in the presence of evil? Goodness is being good regardless of what you're in the presence of.
And can a good act that later causes a bad act make the good act an evil one? Or does it still count as a good act?
It still counts as good. The ends do not justify the means. If you do evil and a good work comes of it, you still did evil- and vice versa.
Goodness is a lifestyle of being good.
There is no set definition of good and evil. It is subjective, no matter what the situation. No matter what view you have on good and evil, my answers remain, IMO, truthful and intact.
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