Good and Evil... how do you define them?

[Ardsgaine]

* Vox populi, vox dei. The voice of the people is the voice of God. Good and evil are social conventions designed to make society run smoothly. The majority of the people get to decide what is good and what is evil. The minority must conform, or suffer the consequences.

* In the beginning was the Word. Good and evil are defined by the Word of God, as expounded by His prophet(s) and set forth in His Holy Text.

* I am the Ubermensch! Good and evil are mere social conventions. Human evolution has reached its culmination in me. I am beyond good and evil. Look upon me and tremble.

* Good for who, and for what purpose? Good, for an individual, is that which supports his life; evil is that which tends to destroy it. Reason, being man's only means of survival, is therefore his most basic value. All of his other virtues derive from his fundamental commitment to rationality.

* Zieg Heil! The Leader is the chosen representative of his People. He is put forth by Them as the ultimate representative of Their virtues. He has an almost mystical connection with Them: his will is bound to Theirs, his moral compass is directed by Them and he speaks with Their voice.

* Upon this Rock I shall build my Church. Good and evil is defined by God's holy representative(s) here on Earth. He (or they) have a mystical communion with God and are able to interpret His Divine Will in all matters.

* Evil shmeevil. People just do whatever they want to do, and then rationalize about it later. As long as you're not hurting anyone else, just do whatever you feel like doing.

* People bad, nature good. Mankind is a plague upon Mother Earth and should be eradicated as soon as humanly possible.

* That's not all, you git! I've discovered another possibility that you overlooked, you moron. Let me try to explain it to you. I'll type real slow and use small words so that you can understand....
[/i]

 

[Shadowfax]

Good and evil...well...

I think that good and evil is defined by the individual. Of course there must be a law to define crimes, but I don't think that equals the definition of good and evil itself.

In my point of view good represents people who can respect others. Respect their opinions, their way of life.
Keep other people in their value. Don't judge them for their race, their skincolor or their bankaccount.


It a lot harder for me to define evil.
Some people will give examples. Let's say Hitler, or Stalin. They would call them evil.
A lot of people are going to disagree, but I think a person can't say that they truely are evil.
Of course, they have done horrible things. They have caused millions of people to die.
But they had a goal. They had a vision. And they did everything to achieve their goals.
Take Hitler for instance; he was the leader of a regime that caused millions to die. But before that regime, he helped millions of Germans to get out of their economical resession. He gave them jobs, money, a car.

Think about that. Can a person who does that be truely evil?
It was just a matter of collective belief. Same thing happend centuries ago with the Christians. They killed millions of people too, because they believed in something.

No, I can't define evil. Some might say it would be the exactly what good isn't, but I don't think you can put it that way.

Nope, no clear answer ready for that, alas!
Somebody help me out here


Oh, and it is 'Sieg'

[edit: AAAAAAAAAAAAH! Now everybody can see what I've voted because I'm the first one!!

]

 

[flavio]

Do unto others as you would have them unto you.

Leave everyplace a little better off than when you found it.

Let other people make their own choices as long as they aren't hurting anything.


....I guess there's probably some more but those will go a long way towards keeping you on the the "Good" end of the spectrum.

 

[Nixy]

I said "People bad, nature good" because I thinkt that mankind overall (not necessarily every individual) is evil!

 

[Ardsgaine]

In my point of view good represents people who can respect others. Respect their opinions, their way of life.
Keep other people in their value. Don't judge them for their race, their skincolor or their bankaccount.

So you would say that a person living alone on a deserted island would have no need for morality?

Oh, and it is 'Sieg'

Danke.

[edit: AAAAAAAAAAAAH! Now everybody can see what I've voted because I'm the first one!!

Darn... I missed it. Which one did you pick?

 

[Ardsgaine]

Ardsgaine thinks that Nixy's too young to be so cynical

I said "People bad, nature good" because I thinkt that mankind overall (not necessarily every individual) is evil!

In what way are they evil? I intended that one to express the opinion that mankind is evil because we are parasitic on the Earth. I can't tell, but you seem to be saying that we are evil for reasons that don't necessarily have to do with the Earth.

 

[Gonz]

This is unaswerable. Todays evil is tomorrows "sign of the times".

Mankind is a part of nature so how can they be seperated? Ants or bison or flowers are no more inherently good than man. They are just different. We, humans, take a place & transform it to suit our needs. Don't the animals do the same? Ever seen a lush prarie after migration? It ain't pretty.

Evil is that which sets out to do harm, for harms sake, with wanton disregard. It isn't any worse now than it ever has been. As populations grow, along come more evildoers. It seems more due to the speed in which we recieve information. During Pearl Harbor, it was something like an hour before word got to the contiguous states. On 9/11, we watched the second plane. What?, less than 8 minutes later. It was on the web immediately.

I don't think people (as a group) are good nor evil. It completely depends upon the situation. Some individuals are more likely to head down path B than path A for myraid reasons. As herding animals, we act out in groups in a way that we wouldn't individually. Therefore, groups are bad & individuals are inherently good. *snicker*

flavio I thought it was Do unto others, then split.

 

[Nixy]

Yes we are evil in every way to do with the earth and many more ways aswell.

 

[outside looking in]

I voted for the fourth option, because it most closely matches my opinions on the matter.

While I do agree that the voice of the people is the voice of God, I think the end of that option gets a little harsh with "the minority must conform." I don't tend to think of it quite like that.

I firmly believe that evolution produced our intellect, and now there is another form of evolution taking place; and evolution of "memes" (I think Dawkins coined that one, not sure). Or, simply put, I believe that language, art, morality, spirtuality, etc. are all evolved and evolving ideas. Good and Evil can be defined as what is now good and evil for the species, not the individual (this is an important step in the evolutionary process... no longer is this effect limited to small roles as it is in other species).

Deciding what is good for the species does imply a majority rule minority comply attitude, but there is plenty of room for both "good for me" and "good for you." We can accomodate both, but the latter is becoming more important, and taking over much of our societal conventions (as opposed to the "good for me" instincts we inherited in our genes).

 

[Ardsgaine]

Deciding what is good for the species does imply a majority rule minority comply attitude, but there is plenty of room for both "good for me" and "good for you." We can accomodate both, but the latter is becoming more important, and taking over much of our societal conventions (as opposed to the "good for me" instincts we inherited in our genes).

Do you believe that there are objective facts upon which we can base our decisions about what is good for the species as a whole? Is it possible to reason with people and explain to them why they should act in certain ways for the good of the species? If there is a conflict between what is good for the species vs what is good for the individual, why should the individual care about the fate of the species as a whole rather than his own well being?

 

[Gonz]

Nixy, put down the propaganda & see the human race forit's acheivements & advancements instead of the eco-terrorists ideal which never was & could never be.

 

[Ardsgaine]

Ards thinks Nixy will contribute to mankind's achievments...

Nixy's going to be an engineer and build beautiful skyscrapers and bridges.

Here's a picture of her as a young girl...

And here's a picture of where she'll be 10-20 years from now...




(Edit: Url fix... doh!)
(2nd Edit: Another URL fix... double doh!)

 

[Shadowfax]

Female engineers rock!
We have way to less of them at College

You reallt should give that engineering stuff a chance, Nixy
And then I'll volunteer for an exchange program in Ontario

 

[Nixy]

Thank you ards!

Shadowfax: I am giving it a chance! I am entering a first year engineering program next year and plan to specialize in civil engineering in 2nd year!

 

[Shadowfax]

Heh! I didn't know that, thought Ards was just kidding around

Nice to see that there are more people interested in Engineering
I did the same first year as you did probably, but I went on to Mechanical engineering after that

 

[Ardsgaine]

Heh! I didn't know that, thought Ards was just kidding around

If you're going to flirt with her, you should pay more attention to her posts.

 

[Shadowfax]

I don't flirt with women who already have a boyfriend......but maybe it's time to make an exception...[/siz]


But what thread are you referring to then? I thought I read almost everything around here

 

[Ardsgaine]

But what thread are you referring to then? I thought I read almost everything around here

It was in the thread LL started about what you do for a living, or what you plan to do for a living, or something like that. Lunatic Lounge... but you would have to go back a page or two.

*bitchslaps himself and Shadowfax for turning a potentially cool philosophical discussion into a dating service* :

 

[Ardsgaine]

Ards tries to steer the discussion away from Nixy...

and back to good and evil.

Out of 12 votes, three have been in favor of "In the Beginning was the Word." I haven't seen anyone argue for that position yet, though. Here's a question for you...

Since the Bible (and other religious texts) is open to various interpretations (see the current list of Christian denominations for examples), how is this option different from personal subjectivism? That is, if you are choosing how to interpret a religious text with no objective facts to appeal to, then how is that different from just making it up based on how you feel about the issues? What is the deciding factor, if it's not just your emotions?

For that matter, how do you choose which religious text to believe in when there are so many out there? It's generally acknowledged that belief in God depends on faith. I've never seen an argument for God's existence that didn't contain a logical fallacy. If reason isn't the arbitrator of whether God exists, then what role could it play in deciding which god exists? For a person to say that he has faith that the Christian God exists, is just to say that it's true because he feels it. That's nothing more than personal subjectivism.

It's true that he's not alone in feeling that way, but if he appeals to the fact that other people agree with him, then he's just stepped up from personal subjectivism to social subjectivism: it's true because lots of people believe it. Vox populi, vox dei.

 

[Luis G]

i'm atheist, so i can't tell, to me all those texts are just......texts, interesting to read, but not to follow.