by JH 7 Replies latest jw friends
Without the bible, is it possible to define Good from Evil? What may be good for one person may be considered evil for another.
Is good judgement good enough to differentiate Good from Evil? For example fornication is considered evil in the bible, while it may feel good for the people involved.
What do you base yourself on to say this is good or this is evil?
Is good judgement good enough to differentiate Good from Evil?
JH, obviously not everything is as it appears to be, but simple facts remain and I think there are universal evils that can be recognized like racism, , genocide, murder, rape, pedophilia, etc..Things that denigrate the human condition. Fornication is another story altogether...consensual sex is just that...however, you know as well as I do that the bible is chock full of instances that have no bearing on the reality that is our world, not to mention that "demonic forces" are said to be the influence for all the bad that happen. It only takes good judgement to know that there are bad people who do evil things. Not some underlying force that drives people. If there were some 'behind the scenes" forces at play, one assumes that the nastiest people on our planet can't help themselves. This I couldn't swallow ever. Have a good day.
Sincerely,
District Overbeer
I think you pretty much answered your question there already, the "you" is the line that is drawn, and it's not so important what you base yourself on as it is that you base it on something.
What is meaningful to me is the degree to which others are included, otherwise you just have your own standard going. It really goes right back to the simple idea behind the golden rule, love your neighbor as yourself. You don't have to be intentionally evil in some way, all you have to do is sleep walk through life and all kinds of crap will happen simply because you don't pay attention. Frankly, when one's thinking is self centered they just don't see everything else, and they fail to see how everything is interdependent, including what would be considered the 'me'.
Read Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness."
I'm reading some reviews for it Nathan, it sounds kind of interesting.
I certainly don't think that one would abandon their responsibility as an individual when coming from a selfless perspective, and the interest of the individual would certainly be included as part of a nested heirarchy - otherwise you're just going to another extreme. Of course, there is the difference between self interest and a self perspective, and even those who only have their interest in mind would do well for themselves to open their view so they can see how those interests might be served. Anyways, I would be interested in hearing what you and others have to say about it, I'd imagine atleast a few others have read it and it might have been discussed to some extent on the board in a previous thread.
i think for the word evil, we can use "wicked."
We all know that righteousness and unrighteousness is mentioned alot in the Bible. Hopefully we fit into one or the other, ha, because there will be 'a resurection of both the righteous and unrighteous" Acts 24:15
Christ had to die for our sins because "all men have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" Romans 3:23
It is actually the "Wickedness" that we have to worry about. Jehovah hates wickedness, Psalm 45:7 and wickedness is mentioned many times in the six things Jehovah hates Proverbs 6:16.
Wickedness has characteristics of pride and contentions. It being a Prideful heart condition rather than an unrighteous "fleshly." weakness.
Contention is seriously rooted in pride Proverbs 13:10 and wrath. Proverbs 15:18
A contentious person wants to argue to gain victory over one that they consider weaker.
Bring in Matthew 24:48 about the evil slave, (we have the word evil here!) beating their fellow slaves.
Apply that to the power hungry, prideful "glorious" ones at Bethel, and their ya go. Did I just describe evil and wickedness? ooops....hmmm,
"WHEN THE RIGHTEOUS BECOME MANY, THE PEOPLE REJOICE, BUT WHEN ANYONE WICKED BEARS RULE, THE PEOPLE SIGH ." Proverbs 29:2
Good and Evil.
That is simple enough. Right is right.
If your actions are considered ilegal in your society, if they hurt friends or family, or endanger others, don't do it.
People need to quit making excuses for their need to indulge in bad behavior.
Set your bar high, personal integrity is important.
Right is right. Don't let anyone tell you different.
Thunder
JH:
Without the bible, is it possible to define Good from Evil? What may be good for one person may be considered evil for another.
The whole question is on its head in my opinion, as it is presuppositionalist, namely, that the Bible IS a good guide for determining good and evil.
To a Hindu, eating cow is evil. Therefore to a Hindu, the Bible supports something that is evil. Therefore I would advance that the Bible is no more reliable for determining good or evil than any other work of laws produced by a society. It is reliable when applied to the society from which it springs, but in a different time or a different society may be completely unreliable as a guide to good and evil. Remember, to an alien the story of the Virgin Birth would sound, if he had absorbed present day Western Society's values, as though an underage girl had been forced to bear a child.
"Is the Bible a reliable guide for determining good actions from evil actions?", would seem to me a better question, as it is unbiased by any presuppositions. My answer to this question would be, no, it is not reliable as many of the precepts in it are utter alien to the modern society I live in.
Is good judgement good enough to differentiate Good from Evil? For example fornication is considered evil in the bible, while it may feel good for the people involved.
What do you base yourself on to say this is good or this is evil?
Good and evil... errr... what do you mean? If you define good as behaviour compatable with a society's values and evil as the opposite, then most people would be able to analyse their actions against the standards of the society they were enculturated in and determine if it was 'good' or 'evil'. Obviously this could be taken to as saying it is a black and white issue, but it is not.
Taking a pen from work is not the same as stealing a thousand off your employer. Killing in self defence is quite acceptable to most people, killing for fun or profit is not.
Taking a step back and looking at cultures around the world we can perhaps get some form of answer regarding good and evil and line drawing. There are a few things that are held to be bad in most societies.
But, that list has exceptions and is far from complete; some cultures don't have the same concept of personal property we do. Some cultures have marriages, but have lattitude within this arrangement to allow for other sexual partners, normally on an 'out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind', as I'm not talking about polygamy (which some people would add to the above list despite many people being very happy with it). All the main world religions allow for slavery, at least in their traditional books of law. Some advocate harsh physical disciple for children, or regard them as adults when they are at an age where to Westerners they are still children; is a 14 year-old bride in a country where many brides are 14 an abused child?
So good and evil get awfully subjective if you look outside your own society, and are far from objective within a society. For example, drugs are regarded as evil by much of American society, but are taken enthusiastically by many other citizens who are only criminal in that they don't regard recreactional pharmaceuticals as evil. They feel if harm no one else and break no other laws, they have a right to do with their bodies as they see fit, just like a bugee jumper does, or a golfer does, and that restricting their freedom is evil.
For me, taking someone's life is evil unless done in self defence. Nonconsensual sex is evil. Theft is evil, but an order of magnitude behind the first two. After that is funnily comes down to the old rule;
"Do unto others as you would like them to do unto you, unless it risks you and yours equal or greater harm than the harm that may potentially befall the others if you don't do unto them as you would like done unto you, and retain the good sense and alertness to do unto bad guys whatever they have coming before they do whatever they have in mind to unto you."
