Thread: Does Good or Evil Exist?

I mostly agree with Tia, mainly because at least her arguments are coherent.

Anyway, I don't believe that there is such thing as a good person or an evil person, but I think it is fair to say that some acts are more good than others. Kant was such a stickler that he thought lying was always evil, no matter what the circumstances. The cliched example is that even if the Gestapo were at your door, and you were hiding a jew in your basement, it was wrong to lie to the Gestap and say that you weren't hiding a jew, despite your certain knowledge that the jew would be taken to a concentration camp if you tell the truth.

Kant frightens me. Mill says that the good act is the one which most benefits the group as a whole. That can get crazy because you never really know what the outcomes of your actions will be.

I think the answer is that there are no good acts and no evil acts, but that every act contains some good and some evil. If an act contains some evil, that means that evil exists. Tia, you yourself said that nobody is all evil or all good... that may be true, but in order for people to be partially good, the concept of goodness must exist. There must be some idea of what good is. The same goes for evil.

I think most evil in this world comes from a misunderstanding of what is good. Yes, to sin another person isn't necessarily evil. For instance, when an animal sins against a human, no one thinks that animal is evil. It's probably an assumption defined by the laws of nature.

I dont think good and evil really should be such complicated concepts. I mean after all, we make decisions on good or evil in a heartbeat, it is almost like an involuntary response. And of course we all know that we always try to make it seem that whatever we do is good. To every man it seems that he is unsinful for he is jusitfied in his actions. We should have a little faith in nature. She has given these concpets in order to aid our survival as a species. Good and evil are properties of man not of the universe.

"People are hell,"Anonymous.

yes, I am very coherent.

mav, you completely ignored some points in my posts.

NUMBER ONE.
why is the god in the old testement more 'mean' than the one in the new?
NUMBER TWO.
prophecies!? what prophecies!?
NUMBER THREE.
I honestly wouldn't mind if my creations worshiped another god, because i know that when they die, they'll know that im the One. Besides, I don't need people to worship me. All I would want is friendship, and I already got that, so who needs worship? What kind of god would I be if I needed puny little humans to bow down to me just to make me feel good? Their friendship is all I want, and I have that. What else is there?
NUMBER FOUR.
a 2000 year old book has more credibility than a 13 year old?

all I can say is this: when we die, if I happen to be right about all of this, I am SO gonna rub it in your face.
NUMBER FIVE.
yes, weather you choose to believe it or not, I AM fufilled by what I believe. That's why I believe it, stoopid.
NUMBER SIX.
'god can do anything but make mistakes. he is limited by that one point'

but, mav, I though god could do a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g! ::sarcastic:: if he can't do everything, doesn't that make him... oh, say, IMPERFECT?

NUMBER SEVEN.
uh huh. did it ever occur to you that maybe god caused the chemicles to mix into life, and after that he left it alone? no, of course not, you never think beyond what you say.

in closeing, yes, I am trying to fathom why god did things, unlike you, who just goes by what someone else says.

we can argue about thins all day, but the fact will remain that I believe too deeply in my beliefs to let someone like you try to shatter them, and you remain to simple-minded to try to consider that OH MY GOD! a thirteen year old just might be right.

YOU DON'T KNOW. maybe I am right! but you won't even consider the possibility! you'd rather comfort yourself by saying that i'm too young to know what I'm talking about.
maybe I am. MAYBE I'M NOT. maybe I'm wrong. MAYBE IM RIGHT. age has absolutely NOTHING to do with it. but if you want to kid yourself into thinking it does, then that's your problem, not mine.

whenever you're ready to come up with a beliefe worth believing, maybe then I'll listen to you. But I've gone to a catholic school for 9 years of my life, and I still dont believe jesus was the son of god.

why dont you stop to consider that maybe i have a possibility of being right. maybe then you're head will shrink back down to normal size.

Tia, the bible is not 2000 years old. It is a collection of books that were written over the space of about 1200 years and then it was pieced together to form the bible that we have today.

Back in say 300 AD there was no bible, the gospels were around but no bible. Back in 900AD there was no bible the gospels were there but no bible.

You provide and interesting argument with "You could be following a 2000 year old hoax?" This is true but in turn it is also true that you could be believing the biggest deception that Satan has ever pulled off "There is no God, there is no devil, there is no heaven, there is no hell, there are no concquences." Just something to think about.

First of all, the first official Catholic Bible was decided upon in 390AD.
Laodicia Council

But anyway... the whole argument of God can't make mistakes, therefore he can't do everything because he can't make a mistake. The argument isn't that he can do everything, it's that he is perfect. He can't lift an unliftable rock, he can't create a squared circle. Those are semantic arguments that aren't relevant to the nature of God. They exist because they are logical impossibilities created solely by our language. Also, it may be that he can create a squared circle, but that our minds are what's too imperfect to conceive of it.

The bible is a very flawed book. One of the things I've always found so funny is that Protestants complain about Catholic interpretations of the Bible all the time. Well, Catholics were the ones who decided which writings were sacred in the first place, I think their interpretation is probably more solid than anybody else's. that's irrelevant, though, because the Bible in itself has mistakes in it. Which books made it into the bible? which ones didn't? Decisions made by men.

Eh, who cares about the Bible, this is about good and evil!

Absolute good exists, absolute evil exists. It is always wrong to kill. On the whole, it could be a good act to kill somebody who wants to kill your child despite the evil inherent in such an action, but most everybody would agree that there is an element of evil in that act. Therefore absolute evil exists. It's a small piece of almost everyone of our actions... most of our actions are good, on the whole... but they all contain a bit of evil.

Originally posted by Tia@Jun 25 2003, 11:56 AM
yes, I am very coherent.*

mav, you completely ignored some points in my posts.

NUMBER ONE.
why is the god in the old testement more 'mean' than the one in the new?
NUMBER TWO.
prophecies!? what prophecies!?
NUMBER THREE.
I honestly wouldn't mind if my creations worshiped another god, because i know that when they die, they'll know that im the One. Besides, I don't need people to worship me. All I would want is friendship, and I already got that, so who needs worship? What kind of god would I be if I needed puny little humans to bow down to me just to make me feel good? Their friendship is all I want, and I have that. What else is there?
NUMBER FOUR.
a 2000 year old book has more credibility than a 13 year old?

all I can say is this: when we die, if I happen to be right about all of this, I am SO gonna rub it in your face.
NUMBER FIVE.
yes, weather you choose to believe it or not, I AM fufilled by what I believe. That's why I believe it, stoopid.
NUMBER SIX.
'god can do anything but make mistakes. he is limited by that one point'

but, mav, I though god could do a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g! ::sarcastic:: if he can't do everything, doesn't that make him... oh, say, IMPERFECT?

NUMBER SEVEN.
uh huh. did it ever occur to you that maybe god caused the chemicles to mix into life, and after that he left it alone? no, of course not, you never think beyond what you say.

in closeing, yes, I am trying to fathom why god did things, unlike you, who just goes by what someone else says.

we can argue about thins all day, but the fact will remain that I believe too deeply in my beliefs to let someone like you try to shatter them, and you remain to simple-minded to try to consider that OH MY GOD! a thirteen year old just might be right.

YOU DON'T KNOW. maybe I am right! but you won't even consider the possibility! you'd rather comfort yourself by saying that i'm too young to know what I'm talking about.
maybe I am. MAYBE I'M NOT. maybe I'm wrong. MAYBE IM RIGHT.* age has absolutely NOTHING to do with it. but if you want to kid yourself into thinking it does, then that's your problem, not mine.

whenever you're ready to come up with a beliefe worth believing, maybe then I'll listen to you. But I've gone to a catholic school for 9 years of my life, and I still dont believe jesus was the son of god.*

why dont you stop to consider that maybe i have a possibility of being right. maybe then you're head will shrink back down to normal size.

NUMBER ONE
Have you ever read the Bible? You seem to be taking specific events and generalizing for the entire book.

NUMBER TWO
The old testament predicts of Jesus' coming and thousands of other things. The Old testament was also many MANY years before Jesus' birth and life.Which can actually be proved from the manuscripts that were found by carbon dating.

NUMBER THREE
How could God have friendship from beings that wouldn't worship Him? That's like buying a pet hamster and letting your sister play with it. We dont' "bow down" to him. The whole purpose of my religion IS to have a PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP with God. When I pray I'm not like "ye are so mighty" I'm more like "hey God, how's it going?" The whole idea of religion is to become closer to God and I find myself closer to him (or fulfilled) through my beliefs.
Oh we're God's friends now are we? lmao. Sure, God wants us to have premarital sex and murder, that's what he wants. NOPE. God wants us to follow HIS WORD, not what Satan wants, but we do it anyways because WE HAVE FREE WILL.

NUMBER FOUR
Dk explained that one to you. You're beliefs are uneducated (as well as your spelling/grammar I might add..."whether" and not "weather" in number 5)

NUMBER FIVE
No comment lol

NUMBER SIX
Image this. You make up a board game, you have pieces and rules and all of that. So you start playing but things aren't working out for you, but guess what? You can't break the rules. Why? Well in God's case, bending the rules would infringe on Free will.
God is limited by one thing, he can't make mistakes, that's the responsibilty of a God.

Not being able to do everything doesn't make him imperfect. He does everything He CAN do perfectly. You can't make a perfect mistake.
If He made a mistake that would make him imperfect dumbass.


NUMBER SEVEN
ahh yes, "chemicles"

I go on what I have collobrated together from different sources, not by just what one person has said to me.
You seem to like to listen to your senile grandmother who spews off ramblings of incoherent babble, one day when you're educated enough to understand what I say, then you should come back over and re-read what I have said to you in this topic.

Well if you're right then I'll start calling you 'THE PROPHET TIA' because what you say makes no sense to me.

That's your problem, Catholic School. I went there for 13 years of my life, and I'm a newly baptized Baptist.

I'll give you, a 13 year old, more credit and possibly agree with the possibility of you being correct when you learn how to spell "closing"

spelling, h'mmm? just looking for excuses to argue, aren't you? no one worries about SPELLING online!


um, yes, if i bought a hampster i'd let my brother play with it. what does that have to do with anything?

and if you still think that i'm the only one who believes this, and am getting this from my grandma, then you didn't do what I requested which was to LOOK THROUGH the site I linked you to. go to the forums and actually READ for more than 2 seconds. maybe then you'll get a better idea of how many people you're calling 'uneducated', how many people believe the way I do. get a better idea of the topic before you try to make me seem uneducated. go to the site and READ IT. is that too much to ask?


btw, i do believe in god.

--------on a lighter note---------------

mav, could YOU have friendship from beings that won't worship you!? ::laughs::

you crack me up. Read this Link, Mav! Look through all the topics and posts, look through Great Debates and Other Metaphysical and Leisure lounge, and actually PAY ATTENTION so you'll sound less ignorant.

There is good and there is evil. I'm not even talking about the bible or any inconsistencies it may contain. Some things may be relative, but not everything. Rape for instance. Rape is evil, there's no two ways about it. So is eating babies. It may sound extreme, but there it is. Tell me eating babies is not evil. You can not make certain things "relative". Again, I know I'm going to extremes, but there is evil and there is good.

rape is relative. I's terrible for the person whos raped, butt he rapist feels nothing at all. He doesnt know that he's wrong. He's not evil. It's bad to most of the population but there probably are a few people out there who dont think eating babes is wrong. It IS relative.

hey, mav. where's your big fat returning argument, huh? have i finally convinced you that im right? or have you just given up?

hah.....

I have a strange response.

Yes, good and evil does exist, but it is only with thinking, philosophical beings. So, good and evil exists, but it is subjective and only in existance because we make it so. Good and evil is a human's mental representation of what they feel is ethical, moral, and right or wrong. There is nothing inherently good or inherently evil, because extremes tend both not to exist and not work when strived for.

On the other hand, good and evil does not exist, because it is only in our heads.

Go figure. My theory contradicts itself.

i dont think there is a "good" and "evil" i believe things to be acceptable or unacceptable
if someone was to kill another human, it's not evil, people die everyday, it's wrong but it's not evil.

to do good is to make a positive effect on others. that is acceptable because it helps the community.

there is no good or evil in a war, in the end it's all loss of life and each side is fighting for their ideals. To torture someone is wrong, sickening, punishable but it's not evil.... if someone who "deserved it" was tortured would the torturer be evil?

evil is a way to describe positive from negative, yet is lost because there is no fixed meaning of what is right and wrong.
wrong and right differ from person to person
things that are acceptable or unacceptable constantly change in the mind of a person.
you have to take the good with the bad, thats how life is. it's all about personal perspective.

Beepbeep there is a huge flaw in what you just posted. If there is no good or evil then there can't be positive or negative. You said if you do good it has a positive effect on people, I would argue that is relative to the person who is doing "the good" that you say doesn't exist. There cannot be right and wrong then either, yet if that is the case then our entire math and sciences are pointless because in your eyes there is no way to say that 2+2 is 4 because that would be a right answer. While there are shades of gray in this universe there is also black and white.

ok, this argument has been made before...... but i have a question.

(the following example can be anybody, i just chose a saint because i felt like it)

there is a saint who stands on a bridge overlooking a train (with one person in it) rushing at a man standing in front of a pile of razor sharp rocks, the saint can save one man.

now pretend that a saint cannot make evil descions, and pretend the saint knows all of the givens stated above.

does the saint save the person on the tracks? the person in the train? or neither?

if the train engineer is saved, the man on the tracks will think the saint is evil for not saving his life, if the man on the tracks is saved, the engineer will think the saint is evil. and if neither is saved, both will think him evil.

i propose that goodness and evilness is a subjective state and therefore is different for each person who experiences it.