DescentBB

What're your thoughts?

Everyone is evil. I would say conservatism is basically about keeping that evil in check in various areas. Can conservatism be bad? I think so--when it's hypocritical.

No, and I think that trying to see the world through binary good versus evil lenses is what is responsible for some of conservatives' worst policy.

Am I evil? Yes, I am
What is it man?
Am I evil? Yes, I am

Jeff250 wrote:No, and I think that trying to see the world through binary good versus evil lenses is what is responsible for some of conservatives' worst policy.

wow, perfectly put, Jeff.

Jeff250 wrote:No, and I think that trying to see the world through binary good versus evil lenses is what is responsible for some of conservatives' worst policy.

I think that's a gross oversimplification of a legitimate problem. Good versus evil is a legitimate discrimination with regard to moral issues, but anyone who doesn't understand a thing, and then tries to fit it into a good versus evil mold, ignoring the contradictions, is going to end up out in left field. It's important to be brutally honest with regard to moral issues, as well as with regard to what we know versus what we don't know.

All humans are capable of evil. Some just have more of it than others. It also knows no party line or nationality.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote:If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

tunnelcat wrote:...And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Women.
Men too often raped the psyche of women, so the heart of a woman does not feel anything else. The most cynical, heartless and merciless creature - a woman whose heart is broken.

Another question:

Are people [in their essence] evil, or do they simply do evil things?

snoopy wrote:Another question:

Are people [in their essence] evil, or do they simply do evil things?

now, snoopy, you are asking the central question to determine if one is a liberal or conservative, according to textbook Political Science. If one views man as evil, and plans governance accordingly, one is Conservative. If one views man as inherently good, one is Liberal. Now, that's just the classroom version....anyone can see things in common usage have gotten a bit more complicated.

That's a ★■◆● title and a ★■◆● post. Be more specific. Is anything self-serving evil? Or is anything that doesn't abide by the bible evil? Or are you just referencing something you heard on the news or a post elsewhere in the forum?

sigma wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:...And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

Women.
Men too often raped the psyche of women, so the heart of a woman does not feel anything else. The most cynical, heartless and merciless creature - a woman whose heart is broken.

Generally, women are not physically strong sigma. Males have the ability to force physical rape on a female and women can just as easily resort to psychological rape against a male. Either method is cruel and should never be used by either gender.

Here's a better question everyone. When you distill it down to it's bare essence, what IS evil?

In my opinion, the greatest evil - a fanaticism. It does not matter, ideological or religious.

tunnelcat wrote:Here's a better question everyone. When you distill it down to it's bare essence, what IS evil?

Evil is a concept…it is that which opposes good…one cannot exist without the other.

Logically Spidey is right, although that explanation is largely counter-intuitive, IMO. I've heard it suggested before that evil behavior is acceptable on a certain level because evil must exist to balance good--which is a retarded way to look at life.

You really can't understand evil without understanding who God is. God is good, and everything/everyone that does not share in or is not motivated/animated by that good is evil--that is where it comes from, at the most basic level.

No, I think the concept of God was created to define good. The concept of Satan was created to define evil. But both concepts are just facades to hide that dirty little human condition that we all contain within ourselves. I believe true evil is when a person deliberately does an action or deed that adversely affects another without conscience, empathy or remorse.

If that were true God certainly would have been created to conform and cater to our nature. Like the God the Catholics worship. Many Gods have been created... In my experience the God of the Bible cannot be confined to a flawed concept, and he certainly doesn't cater to our nature.

Do you know to whom I feel great pity? To people who want to live in peace with all, and believe in God, but ideology of their government is doing their soldiers and sends to war to die after a long brutal tortures. If you study chronicling World War II, you'll learn that a large number of German soldiers literally went crazy when they were forced to do with the atrocities of peaceful people, they do not want to do

When any country of people follows it's leaders into any war of conquest, they are being manipulated for that leader's purposes, purposes driven by the lust for power and prestige. They are deliberately being fed a constant diet of resentment and anger to override their conscience and empathy.

Sergeant Thorne wrote:If that were true God certainly would have been created to conform and cater to our nature. Like the God the Catholics worship. Many Gods have been created... In my experience the God of the Bible cannot be confined to a flawed concept, and he certainly doesn't cater to our nature.

I didn't say God was a flawed concept. I said He was created by man as a way to promote GOOD. Even that is a stretch because some ancient Gods were worshiped and used to promulgate evil deeds upon others. Even our present day God has been used that way. But if you want a more concrete reason for the existence of a God, He must exist because most people have in their brains a small section that has a function called "religiosity". Why put it there if there in the first place if there is no need for worshiping a God? There's little reason why evolution would allow it to develop either, unless I'm missing something.

However, creating a Satan to explain away evil is a cop out. We ALL have some inborn evil thus we were all created with it, which doesn't explain WHY God would allow such a thing if He created us in the first place. Maybe that's why He gave us empathy and a conscience and only those who use those traits during their lives are the ones worthy of God and His Kingdom.

tunnelcat wrote:We ALL have some inborn evil thus we were all created with it, which doesn't explain WHY God would allow such a thing if He created us in the first place.

Or, we inherit it from our ancestors.....

Your point is still valid: why would an all-knowing and all-powerful God allow evil - both to come into His creation, and to continue to exist in His creation once it's there?

snoopy wrote:

tunnelcat wrote:We ALL have some inborn evil thus we were all created with it, which doesn't explain WHY God would allow such a thing if He created us in the first place.

Or, we inherit it from our ancestors.....

Your point is still valid: why would an all-knowing and all-powerful God allow evil - both to come into His creation, and to continue to exist in His creation once it's there?

he doesn't "ALLOW" evil per say. you are a creation of free will, and "evil" as it was is an ABSENCE of God.

you cannot have darkness if there is light, darkness does not exist, it but the absence of light.
Just as Cold does not exist, Cold is the absence of heat.

Who can explain to me what is God? Or an abstract creation of the human brain to protect from reality, or as dependence on the pleasure of addiction? Or you taught to believe in God, like a dog trained to fetch a stick? Who are some of the faithful generally has an inverse relationship with God? If you write a message to me, I will answer you. In contrast to God. I do not understand who you are talking to, when you pray to God. God can give you money or cure of the disease? If you can convince an atheist for the existence of so-called "God," I will be very surprised.

Don't need to convince you. don't care if you believe in him or not.

CUDA wrote:Don't need to convince you. don't care if you believe in him or not.

You could not convince me. Try again. (And at this time, God looks at CUDA and shakes his head. "He can not even explain who I am and why I need it?")

I don't need to explain him to you. you wouldn't care anyways. so why waste my time?

your just being a troll anyways. no point in entertaining a troll

Okay. Continue to believe in what you can not understand and explain. You would not be able to enter public service, if you do not believe in God, is not it?

I think TB posting when he's BORED is evil.

Apparently, CUDA has what is valuable knowledge, but he does not want to share it. Apparently he fills the price for the sale of its information

Duper wrote:I think TB posting when he's BORED is evil.

+1

CUDA wrote:he doesn't "ALLOW" evil per say. you are a creation of free will, and "evil" as it was is an ABSENCE of God.

you cannot have darkness if there is light, darkness does not exist, it but the absence of light.
Just as Cold does not exist, Cold is the absence of heat.

I disagree. There has been so much evil perpetrated in the name of God, even the Christian God, that God can't be the reason for people to be good. No, evil is beget from our own hearts and minds just as good is. Evil is part of our psyche, leftover survival traits that are unchecked by our conscience. Only if we have compassion and empathy, or display remorse for our bad actions, can we be good. We are all responsible for our actions.

in the name of God,

there's your Key statement. Man doing something in the name of God, does not change the nature of God.

TC.. that's why the creation story is in Genesis. To let us know why we are the way we are. It's not to argue about 6 days 6 billion years. It's about how we are and who we are to God.

We are evil by nature because we are separated from God. Anything apposing God is evil. It's just that simple.

and what Cuda said. And if you mention the Crusades, I'll drive down there and throw snowballs at you until you laugh yourself purple. .. once I find you ...and once we actually get some snow.

CUDA wrote:you are a creation of free will, and "evil" as it was is an ABSENCE of God.

So, God is not omnipresent? From where can something omnipresent be absent?

apparently I didn't clarify myself well enough.
since we were talking about why MAN is evil I assumed you would have put 2+2 together

you are a creation of free will, and "evil" as it was is an ABSENCE of God in your life.

sigma wrote:Who can explain to me what is God? Or an abstract creation of the human brain to protect from reality, or as dependence on the pleasure of addiction? Or you taught to believe in God, like a dog trained to fetch a stick? Who are some of the faithful generally has an inverse relationship with God? If you write a message to me, I will answer you. In contrast to God. I do not understand who you are talking to, when you pray to God. God can give you money or cure of the disease? If you can convince an atheist for the existence of so-called "God," I will be very surprised.

It would be a long conversation, and a topic couldn't hope to stay focused long enough to deal with it, in my opinion.

There are several ways I might begin to approach the subject, but I think the most straight-forward would be to say that all people have a spirit but most people are not really conscious of it or don't allow a place for it in their thinking. They don't develop a sensitivity to it, and basically end up attributing what spiritual awareness they might encounter to other causes (that dream was something you ate, or something in your subconscious...). God most often deals with people on a spiritual level, but...

The second part of this approach is that you need to try to comprehend who God is and what sin or evil is to him. The best way possible would be to read through a Bible, and takes notes every time it says something about God in this way ("God dwells in unapproachable light, which no man has seen nor can see"). I would say you could handily get a picture of God which would be technically superior to that held by most people who sit in a pew every Sunday making bad assumptions about the content of their Bible and the God they purport to serve. God is not like us. We are created in the image of God, but we are creations and he is the source of life--the creator.

These may seem fantastic on a casual observation, or maybe you've heard some of them all of your life and become accustomed to taking them as some sort of poetry that of course couldn't be true... This is what prevents most people from understanding what the Bible says about God and about us, because it's much more than poetry, and it is possible not only to make sense of it, but to make discoveries in it--to connect one part with another--and to use it to gain perspective in order to makes sense of things which are difficult to understand in life. If the Bible were such flawed historical fantasy, this would not be so.

Anyway, between the first point and the second point is this: God deals with us on largely a spiritual level, and if we live in sin God is not obliged to deal with us on any terms but his own. The Bible says that our sins have separated us from our God. Read the Bible through, and tell what you suppose would happen to us if sin did not have the effect of hiding God's face from us? I tend to think we would be consumed if it were no so...

Thorne


If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet.

bear this in mind with Sigma, try not to feed the Trolls

CUDA wrote:you are a creation of free will, and "evil" as it was is an ABSENCE of God in your life.

You haven't answered the question and I don't think I can dumb it down anymore. How can God be absent from anything when he is everywhere?

Sharp as a marble arent ya?

Let me try to explain in terms even someone as obtuse as you can understand.

First you need to have a BASIC grasp of english,
An absence of something does not mean non existence, it can mean a lack of, not void of.

evil as it was is a "lack" of God in your life.

I did give you two examples to help you understand, but you either. didn't choose to read them, chose to ignore them, or didn't understand them.

which was it?

CUDA wrote:evil as it was is a "lack" of God in your life.

Still can't answer the question? God is everywhere. EVERYWHERE. That means he can't be absent ANYWHERE. If he is ompipresent, there is no way for him to be absent from my life. To allow him to be absent either gives me a power greater than God or he is not onmipresent.

Please try to reconcile this. We are all waiting.