There Is No Good Or Evil, Only Choices And Consequences.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

Is circumcision evil?

No.

How is child sexual mutilation not evil, if evil is real?

 

If you define evil as something that is wrong, then certainly child sexual mutilation is evil.

 

Is circumcision evil?

No.

Even if the infant has no way to reject or accept it? Is that not exploitation?

Based on your questions, I assume you agree there is an objective good and evil.

 

1) If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist

2) Objective moral values do exist

3) Therefore, God exists

Your logic is highly flawed and fallacious. It's fallacious becuase it assumes that only objective morals can exist, and that morality is proof of the existence of god. Neither of which are necessarily true, at least not unless such is established as such by credible means.

 

I personally have high moral standards, but they are both atheistic and subjective. They are a set of rules for myself based on my 2 highest values:

1) Doing what causes the least harm to others (included under others, is everything in existence, not just humans), or preferably no harm at all.

2) Live and let live, as long as it doesn't affect the above #1

3) Strive to do what benefits myself and others

 

From that, I get all the morals and ethical codes I need. No God necessary.

 

would the israelities not have known these were wrong. why the need to reinforce the obvious?

They have nothing better to offer than laws that are obvious to begin with, or laws that are new but pointless or useless as is possible.

 

Objective moral values would have no where to exist with out God. After all they are objective.

That isn't true. Just look at biological morality, the morals we have from instincts such as compassion, doing onto others as we would have done onto us, empathy, etc...

Morality evolved because it was beneficial to our survival to have it, those who had it had a higher survival rate, becuase when they were in danger, fellows with those genes would help them, and as a result, the compassion and empathy genes survived.

 

I will freely admit there have been times where I have got it completely wrong with God, but I also admit that was way back when I was still a new christian. I feel that I have certainly grown more mature since then, and I know now what is my own delusional thoughts and Gods still small voice in me. What about all the times the christian gets it right?

 

I think its a journey of growing in your relationship with God.

Just tweek the words around a little, and you'd be saying exactly what I said before. I completely know where you are coming from when you say this. Though I think its just our natural maturation and personal growth, learning and what not.

 

 

I don't believe in objective morality, nor objective evil, nor objective good. It's entirely subjective. An example I'll give is, is it immoral to kill a cow and eat it? Not to me. Why? Because I want to eat it for my survival. Could I do the same to a human? No, becuase it seems just wrong. Why? While before I didn't have an answer, we learn from biology that we need to fight for our species survival, not by eating our own kind. So it inhibits our survival. So we've made cannibalism immoral, and more importantly, killing other humans immoral except in the cases when we have no other choice (such as in war).

 

If a cow could form morality, it's views would probably be the exact opposite. It would see cow killing as immoral, but human killing as okay, because the less humans there are would mean that less cows would be being killed. Thereby aiding their survival. At least in the short term.

 

So we see from this that morality is subjective. There is no objective morality. Our morals are just how minds that think know what to or not to do to aid their survival, and make things as pleasant as possible within their group. Don't like it? Well you can always live with a lizard and wait for objective morality to drop from the sky.

 

So I don't go on and on, as I very well easily could, I'll just say that morality is in my opinion common in intelligent mammals. What that morality is, and what it prioritizes, usually circles around survival, but in more social primates, it also circles around group conformity. Hence, social deviance to religion tends to be seen as immoral more often than not.

[sumluvlifilth]

I don't believe in believing in things.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

I don't believe in believing in things.

Other than my using 'believe' as a synonym for 'think', I don't "beliefs/believe in/ believe in believing in" either.

[RipVanWinkle]

Hitler and his deeds were evil. Besides, what's wrong with us humans defining what's evil? We define everything in our universe. Who else could do so. However, I don't think there is a devil or any other supernatural being that is the essence of evil.   bill

[Ravenstar]

hmmm... good and evil. Loaded terms. It seems to me that they mean different things to different people. This would point to a level of subjectivity. By loaded I also see that they are extremely emotion provoking terms as well.

 

I am wary of any terms that provoke strong emotions - as I am aware, in myself at least, that means I am making reaction-based connections mentally when that happens. This occurs when a thought evokes either a sense of fear (does this threaten me or my self-image?) or a sense of 'righteousness'. By righteousness I mean does it align with the things I have identified my self-worth with.. my pride. (ie: I pride myself on being honest - therefore I judge honesty is a 'good' trait because otherwise I would be in a position of viewing myself as bad - this is usually an untenable psychological state, it is cognitive dissonance - except in psychopathy.).

 

Judgment is a big factor with the terms 'good' and 'evil'.

 

I don't think there are too many humans who have not rationalized and justified their positions or actions to be 'evil'. I suspect even the worst of humans found psychological positions to justify themselves - in other words even Hitler, or Stalin probably honestly believed that what they did was right, on some level - that it was 'good'. Of course that doesn't automatically make their actions positive, at least not from the view of those they affected.

 

Like the word 'god', I think these terms are too loaded to be really useful. I think they are too broad, subjective, provoking and ambiguous to base any kind of real ethics on.

 

(Knowing what I do about psychopathy I also realize that those who have no conscience are probably what would be thought of as truly evil - though the banality of it is really the most terrifying part, and the sad part is they seem to be missing that element, or ability for empathy to a point where it's almost as if they are 'other' than actually human. The jury is out on whether it's an illness, a genetic anomaly or a combination. The garden variety are the most chilling.)

 

At the end I have to say that I think ethics are a more realistic way to structure any kind of useful and productive social order... the labels of good and evil are, in my estimation, far too primitive to be applied in a way that corresponds to what we now know and what we may discover about our species, it's place in the universe and the ultimate direction we collectively need to choose.

 

Natural laws of cause and effect have their place as limiting factors but because of our complexity, and ability to shape and manipulate our environment may not be sufficient for deterrence of destructive tendencies of humanity in the modern world.

 

That's all I've got off the top of my head on that subject 

[RipVanWinkle]

Clay: It seems that your belief in evil even if the entire human race thinks otherwise is just another way of saying there is a god who cares about earthlings. If someone killed all humans in the world but one family, would that be evil? bill

[Guest OldSeer]

 

 

 

Judge Not...

 

 

 

There is nothing wrong with mankind any more than there is anything wrong with nature. I believe man is no more good or evil than a dog or horse or tree. Man is a creature of this earth, blessed with astonishing intelligence that allows him to choose to behave well or badly. There is no good or evil, only choices and consequences.

Understood--but. We are all products/children of the big bang are we not. Evil and good exist naturally in the universe, and all things in it are a matter of "universal construction", and operate with-in the confines of that construction,even one's self.. One can look at evil as that which is harmful, and good as that which is helpful. From that standpoint it's a matter of help or harm. Let's go back 30000 years-you and your buddies arrive at the village from a hunting foray  and---woah, what da hey. there's a big tree down across your hut. Bummer huh! Whilst you were gone a strong wind came up and did an evil on you in the form of wrecking one of your possessions that you worked so hard to acquire. Now you have to sleep at Aunt Tillies until you can build a new one---which can be an evil upon her, right.. Hard ship can also be evil. But now---look at a the "wind-fall profits". You can now use the tree for fire wood which is a good upon you. You don't have to take time to chop it down for fire wood, nifty huh. If your hut wouldn't have been there ,what's the harm except a few big dents in the ground. So what do we have here. The universe constructed the tree via an evolutionary proceess and all the forces involved caused the tree to grow where it did, but the universe didn't know you where going to put your hut there. So all the forces in the works got your house smashed. Very hypocritical isn't it. Here the universe goes right ahead and makes you just as well as everything else and doesn't know enough to allow for you. It creates everything you need and then smashes your house. It's enough to make a person scream, right.

 

There's nothing you can do to step outside the evil and good realm of the universe. We're stuck with it. Today is a swell cool fall day, good for any to be outside and work in the garden to harvest the summers toil. But----that's not tomorrow.The next day you jump out of your birch bark hammock ready to hit the chores.But hold it--by mid morning the sun isn't just baking the top of you head, it's cooking your butt to. The humidity is so high the sweat runs in your eyes (or eye if you oly have one left) and ---IT"S MISERABLE. Hot damit. The sun and humidity is doing all manner of evil all over your bod. So, what's the good of all this.  Turn your attention to the ---garden. Yesseree--perfect growing weather to finish off those cukes that ain't quite ready for pickling. The weather did a good and a harm today didn't it. It's good for the garden but no for you. But---there's those natural profits again also, right.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

There's nothing you can do to step outside the evil and good realm of the universe. We're stuck with it. 

 

This completely contradicts your animal mind versus human mind "philosophy".

[Guest OldSeer]

 

There's nothing you can do to step outside the evil and good realm of the universe. We're stuck with it. 

 

This completely contradicts your animal mind versus human mind "philosophy".

 

The mind is also a construction of the universe. Everything in the universe is of universal construction. The brain is material, within the brain is the person. The person is a product of the universe. 

[Guest OldSeer]

 

 

 

 

Judge Not...

 

 

 

There is nothing wrong with mankind any more than there is anything wrong with nature. I believe man is no more good or evil than a dog or horse or tree. Man is a creature of this earth, blessed with astonishing intelligence that allows him to choose to behave well or badly. There is no good or evil, only choices and consequences.

Understood--but. We are all products/children of the big bang are we not. Evil and good exist naturally in the universe, and all things in it are a matter of "universal construction", and operate with-in the confines of that construction,even one's self.. One can look at evil as that which is harmful, and good as that which is helpful. From that standpoint it's a matter of help or harm. Let's go back 30000 years-you and your buddies arrive at the village from a hunting foray  and---woah, what da hey. there's a big tree down across your hut. Bummer huh! Whilst you were gone a strong wind came up and did an evil on you in the form of wrecking one of your possessions that you worked so hard to acquire. Now you have to sleep at Aunt Tillies until you can build a new one---which can be an evil upon her, right.. Hard ship can also be evil. But now---look at a the "wind-fall profits". You can now use the tree for fire wood which is a good upon you. You don't have to take time to chop it down for fire wood, nifty huh. If your hut wouldn't have been there ,what's the harm except a few big dents in the ground. So what do we have here. The universe constructed the tree via an evolutionary proceess and all the forces involved caused the tree to grow where it did, but the universe didn't know you where going to put your hut there. So all the forces in the works got your house smashed. Very hypocritical isn't it. Here the universe goes right ahead and makes you just as well as everything else and doesn't know enough to allow for you. It creates everything you need and then smashes your house. It's enough to make a person scream, right.

 

There's nothing you can do to step outside the evil and good realm of the universe. We're stuck with it. Today is a swell cool fall day, good for any to be outside and work in the garden to harvest the summers toil. But----that's not tomorrow.The next day you jump out of your birch bark hammock ready to hit the chores.But hold it--by mid morning the sun isn't just baking the top of you head, it's cooking your butt to. The humidity is so high the sweat runs in your eyes (or eye if you oly have one left) and ---IT"S MISERABLE. Hot damit. The sun and humidity is doing all manner of evil all over your bod. So, what's the good of all this.  Turn your attention to the ---garden. Yesseree--perfect growing weather to finish off those cukes that ain't quite ready for pickling. The weather did a good and a harm today didn't it. It's good for the garden but no for you. But---there's those natural profits again also, right.

 

The other evil, Some dude from the next village comes over and burns your hut down,(no need to state the reason particularly). What's the difference in this situation. The evil remains the same. But this evil is perpetrated via a pre-plan. Can a person cause an evil---definitely. One can also cause an evil unintentionally, but it is still evil/harm. So,one can also cause purposeful evil to bring about a good because from an evil can come a good. But also, a good can bring about an evil. What this amounts to is every act can bring about a good or an evil. But if one does a purposeful evil to bring about a good,and the good is realized but also an evil happens---two evils happened to bring about one good. There are consequences for living in this universe, and the consequences. Evil or good cannot exist alone, it must have the other, that,s universal construction. What one needed to comprehend is the evil that one does upon anothe,in addition to the natural goods and evils of the universal system. Civilizations create their own good and evil in :"addition" to the natural,and is a matter of "perpetrated" evils to bring about good. Civilization is a concept of doing good and evil to, and,  on behalf of people.

[TheRedneckProfessor]

 

 

There's nothing you can do to step outside the evil and good realm of the universe. We're stuck with it. 

 

This completely contradicts your animal mind versus human mind "philosophy".

 

The mind is also a construction of the universe. Everything in the universe is of universal construction. The brain is material, within the brain is the person. The person is a product of the universe. 

 

Precisely.  And since you say "We're stuck with" the good and evil of the universe, we therefore have no choice between choosing to be humane or inhumane (human vs. animal mind).

[Guest OldSeer]

 

 

 

There's nothing you can do to step outside the evil and good realm of the universe. We're stuck with it. 

 

This completely contradicts your animal mind versus human mind "philosophy".

 

The mind is also a construction of the universe. Everything in the universe is of universal construction. The brain is material, within the brain is the person. The person is a product of the universe. 

 

Precisely.  And since you say "We're stuck with" the good and evil of the universe, we therefore have no choice between choosing to be humane or inhumane (human vs. animal mind).

 

Yes you do.No one can avoid good and evil, but one can make a conscious choice by which of these two one want's to regard others. The humane and inhumane are social perimeters. Although there will result good and evil from both--one doesn't have to do deliberate and planned harm.upon another. A deliberate evil results in two evils to bring about one good. One as to be careful in their relations with others. From the humane the consequences are less sever and tolerable, That's what morals are, to refrain from an evil upon another when one can see the evil in advance. Morals is that which regulates one's relationship with others. One must also suffer the consequences for avoiding the doing of harm upon another. Willful harm is immoral, natural harm is not. the universe cannot be immoral. Morals is strictly  for "beings".A rock cannot be immoral,it has no spiritual entity, (person)  It is a person that can be immoral not material. . It;s the person that can be immoral not the body--the body follows the mind or will of the person. Without "person"in the universe there can be no, humane or inhumane.

[Ravenstar]

Your writing is very hard to follow, maybe some editing before posting would be helpful? Just a suggestion.