Good and Evil...

Brigid

Greetings Fellow Sojourners,

I was wondering if I could elicit your input on a certain matter that I am struggling with right now.

My question, simply put, is "Does good and evil exist"? If so, what is their nature? How do we measure and determine what is good, what is evil? Societal constructs? Innate compasses?

If they do not exist, (as I am beginning to suspect), input please....

This is posted with the utmost sincerity. I am learning much in my journies and need input from fellow searchers. Christians are most welcome to place input, but I have studied thier philosophies and that of the Jewish perspective as well, from which they spring (extensively, so much will be reiteration for me) but feel free to respond (most especially if you have perhaps some fresh insight to said subject matter). I welcome all opinions and knowledge, but I am especially seeking input from those that have explored this question inwardly moreso than outwardly.

Thank you kindly in advance,

~Brigid

BlackSwan of Memphis

Hi Brigid,

To me... they coexist. One defines the other. Without evil would we understand good? Without good would we discern evil?

Just an idea.

meagan

skyman

I never would of thought this way a few years ago. Now I wonder the same thing. I did an extensive study on Jehovah and found out that thousands of years ago before the Jewish religions started that Jehovah was a female GOD of Fertility the more I studied about this the more I questioned everything. So I believe that bad is anything that hurts someone else and if we are good people we know what bad is. Also found out that most of what the Bible says about Jesus is not true, only 18% of the scriptures cannot be refuted from earlier text which do not agree with each other. Then I read the Bible Fraud and that was followed by many other books. Jesus lived but not the Jesus we find in today's bible. All the BULL Shyt about Jehovah and Jesus is truly amazing. I believe in GOD but not the made up GOD of the Jews nor the made up Jesus. I wish I could get to know the real Jesus and really be able to know what he really did and really said. It is not in the bible that's for sure.

daystar

Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil has been recommended to me on this topic.

From my perspective, good and evil do not exist outside of the mind. And even there, it is not black and white.

To many religious extremists in other parts of the world, our U.S. secular government is the very manifestation of evil. To others, the extremists are.

The measure of what is "good" and what is "evil" is a purely subjective measurement. In a particular culture, there is usually a general agreement on certain things based upon many variables. But the specifics do not always translate across time and certainly not always across borders.

As an example, it was common in times past in the western culture for girls to be given away in marriage at ages as young as twelve or thirteen, sometimes to men who could have been their fathers. It was common and there was no stigma attached to it. Today, in our culture here in the states, there is a large stigma attached to it. Some people will argue that our evolution as a species went beyond vulgarities such as this. Well, that is certainly debatable.

I would note that in nature, there is no such thing as "good" or "evil" objectively. The volcano is not evil, even when it destroys cities. Are we a part of nature? Or are we somehow detached, seperate, from it?

"Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, Love under Will."

Brigid

Thank you so very much for responding. I'm still confused as ever. My ego vehemently recoils in terror at the thought that evil does not exist--how can I "protect" myself, my children, I ask, if I do not know what evil is? But why do I need "protection"--from what am I sheilding? I still feel that the subjugation/exploitation of another human being is wrong. Yet we do it all the time. It was posed to me the other night in a philosophic circle of about 12 people that there is a region in India where it is the father's religious/cultural duty to deflower his daughters at the onset of menses (sounds like a man-made rule)--no offense to males. This "feels" evil to me. However, if the girl was of age (how do we define that), master of her own soul, was asked and conceded and no possible harm came to anyone (how do we quantify that?), I would have to say it is not evil FOR THEM. I'm terrified at that allowance in my brain for that!

Daystar,

"Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, Love under Will." Aah yes, Crowley's Book of the Law. I believe he delved extensively and quite fearlessly into this question. Perhaps the student is ready to read the Master's teachings? Is it going to blow my mind more than it already has?

~Brigid

katiekitten

I honestly think good and evil exist.

I think they can co-exist in the same person, and a person does not have to be defined by one overriding event or thing they did.

I have done both good and evil things.

I think some people manage to personify good or evil more than most

- Hitler, Pol Pot, Abu Hamsa, Jack the Ripper - can you really deny they did a lot of evil, although im willing to bet their mothers loved them!

- Florence Nightingale, the Suffragettes, Mother Teresa - cmon- these gals were good.

Ive just noticed another thing. All my bad examples were men, and all my good examples were women...

daystar

You must define for yourself what is "evil" to you. For me, anything which subjugates my Will might be considered "evil". Anything which threatens to cause harm to those I love, I might consider "evil". Ultimately, I consciously choose what to consider opposed to myself ("evil"). We all choose really, but most do so unconsciously and most often based upon another's, external, alien, assumed authority.

I understand the conflict you are faced with. I was faced with it some time ago myself, although I approached the subject from a slightly different perspective.

Brigid

I still feel as you do, Kitty....I look at the "evil" perpetrated by certain people and say---bad and I breathe a sigh of relief that the "baddies" have always been thwarted. However, what if Hitler had succeeded? First of all, if I had been born at all, I would have studied world history in a far different perspective and probably in German. It may have gone something like this: There were once an evil group of people who preyed and fed economically and religiously upon the entire human species and colored the world in all sorts of evil ways with their god (the Jews). Then our Fuhror, our saviour, tirelessly and courageously and relentlessly rid the world of these evil people and we now have a new way-a "better" way of evolving. I would have been brought up with an entirely different set of cultural and historical "glasses" through which to view my world. Would I have recognized the "truth" beyond that? Then as cyclically as nature itself, generations and generations later, there would be a reawakening of a Yahweh (or some monotheistic) cult passed (as these things often are) through our eternal human archetypes...they would grow in popularity again (something "new") re-coloring again how humans see themselves in their universe. I'm babbling, I know. But what I'm struggling with is "what is ultimate truth?" Beyond facts, beyond mythos, beyond societal constructs----what is TRUTH? Is it merely perception?

Thanks!
~Brigid

Brigid

"I approached the subject from a slightly different perspective."

Would you care to elaborate, Daystar? **Brigid glances over attempting to see Daystars' answers to his test questions**

~Brigid

daystar

"I approached the subject from a slightly different perspective."
Would you care to elaborate, Daystar?

Well, I began thinking about the conflict set up in the book of Genesis. The serpent promoted guidance from within while God promoted his external authority. Since I already thought that true conversation with the divine was to be obtained from within rather than handed over from an external source, I had an AHA! moment in which I realized that I had been aligning myself with the serpent energy, which had always been demonised by the Christian religion that I knew. "Ohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrapohcrap!"

Much like the early Gnostics, my view of the evil serpent and good God had been turned upside down. What had been the "evil" was now understood as the "good" and vice versa. I had to face that and accept it.

We have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad, becoming as gods ourselves (and evil to the exoteric Yahweh of the bible), just as the serpent suggested. (The esoteric YHVH being another things entirely of course.)

Good and Evil...

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