Is there an evil which is absolute?

reply to post by randomname


I think you guys are all wrong. Evil is an act of attempting to conceal the truth from the public and the view from the all mighty God. Adam and Eve attempted to hide their beautifully created body from the God and they were condemned.

People are condemned on sexual sins not by the act itself but by the act of attempting "concealment".

evil is an analog to destruction

then nuclear bombs are total absolute destruction at the impact point radius of 1500 meters...
souls are converted into evil energy and cannot ever regain its cosmic / universal / eternal characteristic.

complete & utter erasing from the universe during the chain-reaction event...

just look at the final judgement itself...G0d is said to throw the world's evil forces into the
Lake-of-Fire...now go look at visuals of the Sun's surface... is that not a 'Lake' of Fire ?

like every other star in the universe, all are composed of 'Lakes of Fire'

reply to post by Echtelior


***OPINION ALERT***

Anything born of hate (including self-loathing that spawns acts on self or others) is pure Evil.

Hate = Evil

I've thought about this. Here's what I think.

There is no such thing as evil. Only ignorance and selfishness. Now, if you want to define "evil" as ignorance and selfishness, fine, but you'd be tossing a big blanket. But anyway, if you think about it, most acts which many of us would classify as "evil" are simply the result of selfishness and a lack of empathy, i.e. an inability to look at things from someone else's perspective. Very few people have a specific agenda to hurt the world around them, and those that do will do so only because they think the world around them is evil. Here are some examples.

1) Child molesters are obsessed with sexual pleasure, which is generally a selfish pursuit. Moreover, they are either incapable of or unwilling to see a child as a human being with a future and a life of their own, rather than just another object in their quest for self-gratification. However, most child molesters will not be found laughing evilly in the corner: "Muhuhahahaha!" On the contrary, they see themselves as more or less normal and can even seem friendly to those that don't know the truth about them.

2) Murderers will kill for many reasons, ranging from vengeance to insanity to plain old anger, so it's impossible to analyze them all at once. As most people do not consider killing to be an inherently evil act, we enter a gray area of when it is OK to kill and when it is not. But those killings which most people do consider evil share a common trait: A lack of a good excuse. In fact, the word "murder" already implies that the killing was done for no good reason, regardless of what the reason may have been. Generally, any selfish reason for killing is not seen as a good reason and is classified as "murder," a.k.a. "evil." (I don't know if you can say there is a "selfless" reason to kill, but that's another debate)

3) Smaller, run-of-the-mill acts of "evil" are generally just the result of ignorance, or a lack of empathy. Bullies will tease because they want to look intimidating (selfish) and they aren't considering the situation from the victim's perspective (ignorance). Lawyers who defend a rotten case will do so for money (selfish) and because they don't particularly care about the outcome (ignorance). Cheaters, mobsters, thugs, you name it, they all come down to selfishness and ignorance.

So, if there are acts which can be universally classified as "selfish" and / or "ignorant," are there things which are universally "good?" You bet! Just as anybody can be selfish, no matter what culture or background they are coming from, anybody can also be selfless.

Selfless acts which are not specific to a culture are the closest thing to a universal "good." Now, the world's numerous cultural traditions and norms dramatically limit the number of acts which are universal, but I think that some still exist. For example, if I offer food to you and walk away, or if I build you a shelter without demanding anything in return, you wouldn't accuse me of being evil, no matter who you are or where you come from. These are selfless acts no matter how you look at them.

Originally posted by andy1033
Na not really.

I seriously doubt you will find any evil that is absolute, as peopel rationalise.

Just look at the police, probably the biggest killers in society in civilian life. No qualms what so ever about destroying innocent people.

I never see any police prosecuted for locking up or targeting innocent people. Why is this?

Evil is not absolute in man, as evil runs society, like police and gov. Evil must go through police and gov, like no where else, and they rationalise it totally as being good while laughing there socks off at destroying some innocent persons life.

If your evil, just join the police or gov agencies, that is a fact.

edit on 11/6/2010 by andy1033 because: (no reason given)

The above quote (clearly a true statement) is about as close to ARGUING good and evil as any true wise man should want to get.

Debating good & evil has been around since the dawn of time and is as useless as attempting to drain the ocean with a teaspoon. Debating it, discussing it, theorizing it, pondering it, intellectualizing it, theologizing it, arguing it, defending your stance, stroking your beard and presenting yourself to be "an intellect" is just another
ego inflated attempt to be seen and recognized by others as something or someone who "is smart". (which is all you really want and love anyway) Most "intellectuals" LOVE to argue and debate. It accomplishes nothing accept to temporarily scratch a cerebral itch and flaunt the plumage of the debater. Yet after eons and eons of time WHAT HAS DEBATING GOOD AND EVIL ACCOMPLISHED???? Don't you see the utter futility in "debating" or "defending" these things other than to fill your dreary day with the idea that you know something and want to "prove it" to others in order to fill you own sick ego desires???? And with all the eons of "intelectualizing and debating the horror STILL CONTINUES and all the so-called "intellectuals" accomplish absolutely nothing !
Arguing, debating or defending almost ANYTHING is proof that we are still in the infancy of any true Spiritual growth.
And if you don't like what I've stated and wish to argue and debate me on it that simply proves my point. A true wise man would take it (and agree or not) would simply leave it alone.

Here's a sample from one of the TRUE masters of wisdom:

Part 1: www.youtube.com...
Part2: www.youtube.com...
Part 3: www.youtube.com...

I doubt this is possible, but...
Instead of arguing about the different degrees of "bad", which of course is all subjective.
See if you all can find common ground on examples of hate and love and the different degrees of each.

I still see people posting using the terms; "good and evil". One is subjective and the other objective.
Try a separate (Good v Bad) and (Love v evil) or even (Love v Not Love)

I am curious to see if people from every walk of life can find any universals regarding Love and not Love.

Someone used the example of a Pedophile. Some cultures have no problem with this. The majority agree it is "bad". The Peds (according to the poster) don't think it is "bad" (for the sake of argument, lets say that is true for now) Ok. But that doesn't address the issue of "evil" Frame the question this way...Is it ok in any culture to cause permanent mental or physical damage to a child or innocent person? (different cultures who find mutilating women parts and peds, would argue that they are not hurting anyone.) Now before you respond with the, "well, they are just sick for thinking that way" It is the same rational that acceptable society uses for "collateral damage" during war. We wipe out a family eating dinner, an innocent family, and we just say, "damn, that is sad, but war is bad, and it is just a necessary "evil" of war. It is the Taliban's fault, they made us do it. It is the..fill in the villian of the moment.

I wish I could be more sysynch with my point.

Turn this thread around and turn it into an intelligent discovery of if we have universal understandings of what love and not love is.

(Test).......................................

Would any culture, for example, believe that dropping a baby off of a 10 story building to see if it bounced, an act of Love, of any sort? Now, if one person believes it is a great idea because God is with the baby and the soul of the baby is brought to Heaven before baby hits the ground, does it still make the act "evil" even if the person truly believes with all of his heart, that this is the only way for God to take souls to heaven?

If you answered no....or it isn't evil to that person.....then you have missed the point and still don't understand the difference between "good and evil" and "bad and love"....its "love v evil" and "good v bad"

The act of dropping the baby was "evil" it was not an act of love. The act was "good" to that one person because they "believed" it was good. Most of us, believe it was very bad.

Whom ever thought the 10 commandments were evil....I hope you were joking or you really are going to have a hard time understanding this concept.

So instead of throwing in our ex-wives (I will add mine to the personified evil list) or what other bile we can think off. Come up with objective examples of "not love" and "love" and see where they fit on the sliding scale.

So far you haven't attracted the "God Squads" that will throw scripture all over the place. That won't help in the discovery, because it isn't a result of independent thought. Its like arguing with some partisan political person who just throws out Rush scripture all over the place, once again, no independent thought.
All of this is subjective anyway............I GOT IT.

Come up with examples of Evil that the greatest percentage of people in the world would agree is Evil.
And of course examples of Love. Once you have the end points of each, see how close you can get to the middle. Why? Because we all live our lives in the middle, well, members of civil society do. The world will never be very much better if we aren't able to recognize this middle and once we can, we can choose to push the balance towards more "love" choices.

We will get no where if we continue to argue about what is "good" and "bad" since there is no common ground with all cultures when it comes to subjective view points.

Nothing is so bad it isn't good for something

Edit: Isaiah 45:7 for the Abrahamic religious inclined