When a child reaches for a toy and spills their milk, is that evil?

If the milk glass breaks and the baby sister steps on it and bleeds to death... is the child now evil for having reached for a toy?

What if a grown woman must feed her children, and slaughters the fatted calf for winter food? She caused the bull to mate the cow and create the calf so she could raise it for slaughter. Is the woman evil for killing the baby cow?

If wild dogs gather to a pack and hunt the jackrabbit, chasing it until its eyes bleed and its muscles twitch and spasm from exhaustion while the dogs strip the skin and eat - are the dogs evil?

If a people's tribe is driven from its failing land by hunger and need, and the people of a more bountiful land kill them as invaders to protect their food - which is evil? If a third tribe comes from a land never heard of before, with guns and women to settle - are they more evil than the starving invaders before them?

Such is life from time beginning. Dinasours ruled the planet for longer than than it took man to arise from a mouse, and then they gave up the world and gained feathers and flight.

Man has taken nature by force and taught himself to fly to the planets. By such actions nature itself will gain the stars long after the sun has engulfed the planets themselves.

Is the sun evil for killing a planet? What about a failed nature, one with too little strife and competition to grow 
and mature - a nature that never gained the stars and thus committed it's own suicide - would that be evil?

Well, I believe evil exists.

However, my reasons for this are based on my religious beliefs.

This thread is a bit dangerous, as evil is a concept defined by your personal beliefs, mainly your religious beliefs or lack thereof, and if we start an actual debate, it would be breaking the "No religious debates" rule. On my part, at least.

Ok - you think evil is a function of personal belief and you don't wish to debate any logical foundation - that's fine. I think you can say that you believe in evil for a religious reason withou
 actually debating religion.

But I would rather treat this in a secular fashion as that is how I posted my questions. I think we can discuss the existance of morality without reducing it to an argument about whose religious sect is better.

There is a problem with that statement, though. Without a religious foundation, morality has no logical reason and cannot exist. If you don't believe that a divine power has handed down specific rules, or some form of morality, then morality has no meaning.

I take it you are an agnostic or atheist? Since you don't believe in God, then who's to say murder is bad? I believe it is wrong because God said so. However, if God never said so, then who's to say murder is wrong?

If I believed murder was perfectly fine, my point of view would be just as valid as yours, as there is no basis for the belief that murder is wrong if you don't believe that a god has said it is.

Sorry for the repetitious and disjointed nature of that post, btw.

"Good" and "evil" are two very strange word; they have multiple meanings depending on the point of view. For one, chopping down a tree for fire wood might be "good" so that person doesn't freeze at night. For someone else, that might be "evil" because it's killing the tree.
However, in my experience, generally "good" is anything that furthers human existence and "evil" is anything that slows or halts human existence. murder is "evil" because then that person can't have children who then can't have children who also can't have children, etc. Killing a cow is "good" because then someone can eat therefore living another day, another day which might possibly lead to reproduction which will birth a child who can then grow up to have more children.

If religion never existed, murder would still be considered "evil," not because some almighty said so, but because it hampers human existence.
Also, this might be quite controvercial, but many could consider religion as the greatest "evil" of all because when you put together all the deaths from disease, murder, alcohol, accidents, non-religious wars, they are nowhere near the number of deaths caused by religion. So, in a sense, religion is the greatest detriment to human existence.
On a different note, many people consider religion as the greatest "good" because it has prevented deaths with it's Word of God against killing (excluding the afore mentioned deaths).
That said, Buddhism and Hinduism could be considered the greatest "good" in religion. Those who follow either live only to be reborn. There's no possible way to further human existence any more than that.


(Note: I am not saying religion is "evil." I'm saying that it could be considered on one hand "evil" and the on the other hand "good." I'm saying it's a mix of both.)

I agree with what you say Ninja, for the most part anyway. However, I do not believe murder would be considered evil merely because it "hampers human existence". If that were the case, then why do so many people believe abortion is not evil? Even if you believe abortion is not killing, for various reason, it still hampers human existence. And yet, many people, if not the majority, believe there's nothing wrong with abortion.


Please note, I am not trying to argue the topic of abortion itself, I am merely using it as an example.

Hypothetical metaphysical entities are not a prerequisite for the existence of good or of evil. Humans are perfectly capable of creating both on their own.

Survival is not the only imperative. If the survival of the species comes at the cost of everything we believe to be right and good, is it worth it?

All of the examples you gave are accidental, natural, or needed. If say the baby wanted to kill the babysitter and PURPOSEFULY dropped the glass, he would be evil. If the dogs attacked the rabbit because they like to kill things, and then leave it, that is evil.

Evil is real, but someone taht does some thing accidentally or naturaly, it isn't evil at all.

But is it evil to "...through inaction, allow a living thing to experience undue suffering", when such action could come at no cost to the actor?

Perhaps, but without the Bible, Torah, Qu'uran, etc, where would we get a unified system of morals? Every person's morality is different, but we mostly agree that murder is bad, fighting is bad, love is good, etc. We only believe those things because of our upbringing. Even if you are brought u a secular humanist, your parents probably impress Judeo-Christian morals onto you. Every set of morals that we have is based on a religious belief. Show me a society that has been brought up without religious beliefs, and still remained moral and "good".



No, I don't believe it is.

[quote name='Abramul' date='Feb 9 2008, 06:48 PM' post='376294']
But is it evil to "...through inaction, allow a living thing to experience undue suffering", when such action could come at no cost to the actor?/[quote]

Yes, in my opinion inaction that causes harm is just as bad as action that does. Isaac Asimov, anyone?

First Rule of Robotics: A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

What about the example I left in above? I was actually thinking of American settlers when I wrote it - they displaced "savages" to claim the land, and then killed the ones that didn't want to leave. Was that evil?

Let me ask from the other perspective - what if all animals (before people evolved) were "good" to each other - would people exist today or would earth be inhabited by a bunch of noncompetitive vegetarian mice? Would that original "good" still be considered good in that case?

That's a common misconception. You don't have to be carnivorous to be "evil." If you have say two deer but only enough food for one, the deer will fight over that food, and, ultimately, one will kill the other.
There's also the fact that plants are living things, too! In fact, one could say a herbivore is even more "evil" than a carnivore. A carnivore will kill an animal, then eat it, while a herbivore will just start eating a living plant, and, most of the time, will leave it alive. That would be like a lion taking down a gazelle, eating it's legs, then just let it sit there alive and legless. Personally, I think that's worse.

Oh boy! Here we are, in the deepest parts of philosophy and morality. Such debates never end, because every mind considers every facet of the issue separately. Humanity is not united and as such, will always ‘fall’ (metaphorically).

Now, having said that I will share my own views (which to be redundant, are simply my own).

I consider that humanity distinguishes the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ aspect in the situations you describe (about animals and slaughter) based on the principle of “is the creature sentient”. If the answer is “yes”, then the concept of murder means that creature knows it’s terminating the life of another, and if the “other” life it’s killing is also sentient, then it is morally ‘wrong’.

Your tribe examples are “in the eye of the beholder”. Invaders are usually ‘malevolent’ if they attempt to take what you consider to be your own, or are ‘benevolent’ if they wish to live side by side your own tribe, aid your people and ultimately help your own survival.

We don’t consider killing live stalk or trees ‘evil’ because we have evolved to believe that they, even as living things, do not have the concept of “I am”. As for the infant and the glass example, we wouldn’t consider it ‘evil’ because the child had no concept of the repercussions of the actions, and as such those actions were out of ignorance. For the dog killing the rabbit – we consider that to be “survival of the most fit”, and as that’s the law of nature (to struggle to survive and to ultimately reproduce), it’s not evil although it means everything is ‘out for themselves’.

Being selfish isn’t evil in itself, because life is selfish. In order for something to live, something else has to die.

We then say “Ignorance is bliss”. A state of pure innocence also means you have no concept of ‘good’ or ‘evil’, or even the concept of ‘death’, because you have no concept that you really exist. Your mind at that stage hasn’t formed the idea of “I am here”.

All we must do is take away conscience thought and reasoning – take away the element of our minds that allow us to plan out each day or action, to use logic and solve complex problems using complex means (and I don’t necessarily mean ‘tools’, as some animals also use tools instinctively).

To suggest, as an earlier poster did, that morality derives from religious belief is erroneous. The logical conclusion would have to be that non-believers have no morality which is patently nonsense. Each religion defines its own morality, although few cover every issue that faces the world today. These moralities are not always compatible and may even conflict. What is registered as 'good' (or perhaps the better word is 'right') by one creed is not necessarily the same in another.

Assessing anything as good or evil involves making value judgements. In a nutshell these are pretty basic. If it's something I agree with/my religion tells me is right it is 'good', if it is something I disagree with/is proscribed by my beliefs it is 'evil'. Simplistic perhaps but that's how it works.

Because of the chaos that would ensue if this were left unstructured most societies establish rules, whether secular or otherwise, that state - no matter what your personal value judgements may be, this is what this society considers wrong. Your views will not be changed but you are made aware that if you ignore the rules there will be repercussions and probably punishment. A major problem arises when civil laws and religious laws conflict but that should not be a debate in these forums.

Then there is 'ignorance' as has also been raised. Some people are born with brain imperfections that prevent them from understanding the concepts of right and wrong. They can commit 'evil' acts without being evil themselves. But you can be sure that different people are going to see that person at all levels of the innocent-evil spectrum.

What I am saying, I suppose, is that there are so many interpretations of good and evil that they cannot be debated in general terms. Specific instances - some of which have been raised in earlier posts - can.

For what it is worth my vague definition of evil is 'anything done knowingly and maliciously that is intended to harm another'. But there are many things in that short expression that could be debated too.

All right Malchik, I can respect your opinion, just as you have respected mine.

Because of my religious beliefs, however, I am forced to disagree that good and evil are undefinable. According to my religion, anything that works for God is good, and anything that works against Him is evil. Now, however, we have the opposite of the problem we just did away with. I am able to define good and evil in general terms, but I cannot know if specific instances are bad. For example, murder is wrong, correct? However, according to my religion, if it is God's will, it is good. I cannot know what God's will is in this instance unless He chooses to reveal it to me. Therefore, I do not judge good and evil, since what seems evil to me may be a part of God's greater plan, and is therefore good.



I suppose you could be right, but you see, my religion says that we were created in God's image, so ( in my belief, anyway) we only have a sense of right and wrong because He has one.

Also, just to clarify, I meant that without religious beliefs, morality has no true justification. Therefore, non-believers have no morality that is justified. Think about it. If you are an atheist or agnostic, then where do right and wrong come from? I know, I know you said:


But, where does the disagreement come from? Why do you believe what you believe? Without religious beliefs, even our laws would not be justified! What is morally wrong with getting drunk 6 days a week, unless God said it is? What is morally wrong with murder, for that case? Unless you believe God said murder is evil, then why is it bad? Of course, murder is obviously bad because if we were freely allowed to murder people, well, our society would never have gotten to where it is. But saying murder is wrong because it hampers human progress or is unproductive is not morality. It's cold, hard logic. Saying something is wrong because you disagree with it, for no other reason than that it seems wrong to you, that's the morality inherent in us because of how God created us.

Please note, I may edit this post to make sure my arguments make sense.

Ah well, I will stop here, as I am dangerously close to a religious debate. Moderators, please note that I am not trying to impress my religion upon anyone, it is merely that my religious beliefs play a key role in my definitions of good and evil.

I usually make in depth posts that involve a lot of thinking and organization in order to elaborate clearly, but freddy I must ask in a very simple and short post:

Why are you bringing in ‘God’ into this discussion?

No where in many posts do we even mention that. I know I didn’t, and others state it’s in your own set of values where ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ reside.

You cannot state that those who are atheist have no –justifiable- morals of right or wrong. As a whole, our culture and society in general factor in laws to keep a structure in tact, and this structure is rather well defined as to what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. You may argue it arises from those religious influences and in some cases you would be right, but as laws evolve to match the place and time (the ‘here’ and ‘now’), religion can be factored out without destroying our “just” values.


Again I appologise for my rather brief exchange. Something just felt 'wrong' about your post. (no pun intended, though I have to admit it felt 'right' to say that *chuckles* )

Well, I understand where you are coming from, and please note, I am not trying to convert you or anything. I merely think that if you have morals that are not supported by religious beliefs, they are not justifiable. If you say murder is wrong, but don't believe God has said so, then why is it wrong? I have already addressed this, but I'll do it again. If you have no faith behind your morals, then if I said I thought it was morally okay to kill you if you looked at me wrong, my morals would be just as justified as yours.

If we followed the god motivation for morals, we would quickly devolve into a choice between either circular reasoning (It's good because God said so, and God said so because it's good...) or into the nature of omnipotence. That's not where I wanted to go with this  debate - but I had forgotten how frequently these kinds of debates devolve  into religion. I apologize for that.

The problem you're running into is religious brainwashing. Your religion states that anyone who doesn't follow your religion is an evil pagan under the influence of Satan, therefore having no knowledge of "good." While that makes sense....sort of, it is completely unfounded and ignorant. If someone says, "I do not believe in God." then how, exactly, could (s)he 'worship Satan'? Wouldn't non-belief in God also mean non-belief in Satan? Therefore, an atheist is not under the influence of Satan, not evil, and can have morals.
Actually, by your logic, religious people actually have less morals than anyone else. How can you have morals if you're simply basing your actions off of someone else? That not morals, that just command and follow. If God says don't murder, you don't murder, not because you think it's wrong, but because He does. The same relationship exists between a robot and it's master. A master tells the robot what to do, and the robot does it without question. So, you Christians are nothing more than robots of God, organic robots of God, at that. Even you would agree that robots don't express morals, correct?

The thing about being atheist, is I don't need to pretend to have morals, I actually can develop my own. I think murder is wrong. You may think I have no reason for thinking so, but that's just what God wants you to think. He wants you to believe that everyone is as lost without Him as you would be.

The simplest non-divine source of morality is the Golden Rule. If you would object to someone else doing something to you, it's reasonable to assume the reverse is true. Of course, this can lose effectiveness when two different value-systems collide. It can also encounter problems when someone doesn't acknowledge the existence or equivalence of other people.

We are evolved beings. Whether that evolution took place in Biblical time or Geological time is, I think, immaterial except to those who have their various axes to grind. As we evolved we had, imposed on us, strategies for survival. At some point one of the strategic impositions would have been whether 'right action' was a better route to follow than 'wrong action' in relation to our survival as a species. 'Right' and 'Wrong' is hard wired into our genetic make up. Codes of morality have developed within the multiplicity of cultures which began to come into existence since we first became mobile. Most of those codes have turned into the world's religions. Now, 'Good' and 'Evil' are convenient terms for modern use, whether in controlling an unruly infant or in the attempt to attain geo-political hegemony. I agree with Xen., that only a sentient being, ie. man, is capable of distinguishing between the two. But there will always be disagreement as to how to categorize any given event.

What a frighteningly dense paragraph. But then I'm a frighteningly dense person.

Umm, Ninja? Did you read my post carefully? I said that man does have morals. I said that since man was created in God's image, we have an innate sense of right and wrong. I am not arguing whether it is possible for man to have morals without religion, merely that the morals are unjustified without religion.

Also, I'm going to ignore the blatant trolling evident in your posts. I'm not an idiot, and I know that I will probably never be able to convince you of God's existence unless He appears directly to you.


Edit: I am going to stop my part in this debate. It is obvious that I will not be able to convince you no matter what I say. I am not saying you are right, though. I also don't want this thread to turn into a debate between Creation and Evolution.

Yeah, I see now why religious debates are banned. I wasn't even trying, and I almost flew off the handle. I'm going to leave this one now before things get bad.

Unfortunately, I AM an idiot. I probably wouldn't even believe in god if she told me to personally, but I would definitely stop drinking. On the other hand, can you possibly enlighten me as to how an athiest proves to a believer that they are being hoodwinked?

'Unjustified'? Is your meaning that it's difficult or impossible to demonstrate that one set of non-divine morals is more or less valid than another?

@Jumonji: To cover the entire spectrum:
Exit counseling
Religious conversion (I'm inclined to count atheism as a religion, but not agnosticism)
Brainwashing

Personally, I'd say "Leave well enough alone, unless you can demonstrate that their beliefs are both false and detrimental."

Okay this is really my last post.

What I mean by "unjustified' is that without a religious base, someone who says that eating people is morally fine is just as correct as someone who thinks cannibalism is morraly abhorrent.

The sphegetti god appeared to me in a dream and told me cannibalism is ok as long as you eat those who are theists.

Is it immoral to serve a fine chianti with my local priest?

---

Ok, sarcasm is not working... but my point is simply this: you can't debate someone who thinks logic is not relevent to what they believe. That's not a debate, that's just a "my fantasy is prettie/older/more widespread/etc. than your fantasy" squabble.

And that is definitely my last word. Again, I apologize for starting this thread.

I don't think the idea was wrong (though the last post seems unnecessarily inflammatory) but it is a subject which many people cannot consider separately from belief and leads to the kind of issues we do not allow to be debated on this forum. However I do think some people posting here imagine the line between good and evil (or right and wrong if you prefer) is clear cut. It isn't.

Take a simple example. A successful farmer is so efficient he realises there is a glut of his produce. To preserve his income he puts aside a proportion to be detroyed. A man who is extremely poor requests food for his starving children. The successful farmer refuses to assist. The desperate man steals some of the decaying goods but because it involves trespass is arrested for stealing.

In most civil AND religious 'laws' the only CRIMES are committed by the poor man - trespass and theft. Some people would feel that the wealthy man's behaviour was inhumane (and so wrong/immoral/evil). Some might even claim that it was against their religion's code of ethics. And yet this kind of economic price manipulation is routinely carried out by companies and governments who are supposedly upholding or standing for those very codes of ethics. I have to admit to being very cynical on this matter having worked for charities in my time but those who say 'of course people should give to charity' usually mean either - of course (OTHER) people should give to charity; of course I will give to charity (as soon as I have everything I want); of course I give to charity (I need the tax break) or I regularly give to charity (but not enough so I actually notice the loss).

When it comes to establishing the rights and wrongs of being charitable nothing is cut and dried.

A Christian and an atheist are engaged in a discussion about morality. The Christian tells the atheist that his moral code is backed by a system that punishes those who disobey and rewards those who obey it, for all eternity; he goes on to chide the atheist for having a moral code which is “unjustified, and really just made up on the spot.” The atheist follows up by asking the Christian where his morals actually come from, to which he replies, “they were told to me by my parents and priest.”

“And so they deliever your eternal punishment?” the atheist responds.

“No, no. But you see, my morals are still justified because theirs were justified, since each and every Christian's morality ultimately stems from the Bible.

“The Bible delivers your punishment, then? An eternity of vicious papercuts sounds like something I'd like to avoid.

“Well, the Bible was translated into a barbarian tongue from its original Greek version, which was itself a collection of manuscripts chosen by a council. The manuscripts were records of oral history which had been circulating for a few decades, and each discussed some aspect or interpretation of the early Christian church, the end of the world (which was prophesized to happen around 50 AD), and the life of Jesus,” the Christian says before inhaling deeply and pausing for a bit. “And so all of it—okay, well, the plain majority of it at any rate—is inspired by Jesus, who is God, who punishes sinners. All of the revision, translation, and dropping in and out of oral history which happened afterward just concentrated the holy purity of the text. The result is a book which specifies a moral code which is justified, since it has the thumbs-up from Jesus and so we can be pretty sure that we get punished or rewarded based on this.”

“That makes sense, I guess. But in the end, is that moral code really ‘justified’?

“Uh... what do you mean?

“Well, where does God's morality come from?

“He just made it up on the spot, I suppose, like the rules in a game of Mornington Crescent,” the Christian says after a few seconds of thought.

“Ah, so God is an atheist!

When this thread crossed from being a discussion of the existence of evil.....into a debate about religion it crossed the line, and is now closed.

Buddah