Thursday, June 18, 2009

Good and Evil

Very Simplified - Good is more of what is desired, bad is a loss. This applies equally to the animal part of people as well as the intellect. Evil is the intentional taking from one person or being by another and has two forms. The first evil is the taking from another for personal gain, the evil doer winds up with more and the evil doer has a good experience. There is much evil done by those that don’t understand the meaning of evil. The second evil is the taking from another and destroying it, not for personal gain but to deny the possession from the other. A possession can be physical objects, knowledge, beliefs even freedom to act.
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Bad is loss, evil is something taken, it has to have a perpetrator and intent. Then even if the looser doesn’t miss that which was taken the evil doer knows, so it is still evil
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The taking from another without permission is evil regardless of the excuse. Since you opened the “what if box”, what if taking the food from the one man now means that his family starves? 
I will allow you that there are different levels of evil, the thief that steals to feed his family is not as evil as the one that steals so he (or she) can buy a new iPod. Both are evil, one more than the other. The thief is less evil than the rapist, the rapist less evil than the murderer (or perhaps not, the rape victim may suffer for the rest of their life, but the murder victim’s suffering is over, it is the family and friends the dead that suffer). 
But to go to your earlier assertion that if no one notices is it still evil, is the rapist that drugs his victims so they have no recollection of it evil, I maintain that he is. Is the murderer that kills the unknown homeless person less evil than the murderer that kills a pregnant mother of 2 with a loving husband? 
I don’t like evil and prefer goodness and Holiness; can you guess what my view is? Knowing my view on evil?
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Bad is loss, good is gain. These are through natural occurrences (nature) or consequences of your own actions and do not involve others (the exception being if someone accidentally causes a loss, then it is just bad and not evil). 
Evil is intentional taking from one “being” by another “being,” nature doesn’t qualify as a being or evil, (let us please not get into a debate about whether nature is a being or not, the nature (no pun intended) of beings is another part of my philosophy that we could spend a lot of time on but we should focus on the topic of this post). 
One type of evil (selfish evil) provides a gain for the evil doer (the taking from another, whether it be material - stealing, freedom - kidnapping, assault – control and or function (thru damage or force) of another’s body, I hope you get the idea). This gain is the insidious part of evil because by my earlier definition gain is good. Evil provides the evil doer gain and feels good, many people and nations have taken from others and fought wars against others in order to gain things for themselves, families and their countries…all are evil. We can split hairs about motivation, justification, rationalization etc. but that is a huge complicated topic not suited for a volley ball like posting on a web site. 
Another type of evil is evil for deprivation or evil for destruction, some people I’ve described it too think it is a purer evil because no good comes from it to the evil doer (except perhaps a feeling of power, yet another interesting subject). This gets into your desire to look into different kinds of evil which I’m reluctant to get in to because it gets into the expanded revision of my book (Relativity Theory of Beings) that I’m in the process of writing. 
Regarding good; good is gain, better than good is giving to or sharing with others. I like to call it holy by merit; it is the opposite of evil in our discussion above. Those holy by merit are the generous that give and share with others; they can give material things, actions, or knowledge, like teachers. When couples get together to share their lives they both gain and this too is a cooperative kind of mutual gain and is holy.
There is also sanctified Holiness which is Holiness based on religious doctrine. 
Forgiveness is the making a gift to the evil doer of that which was taken. 
Forgiveness can also be sacrificing to God (for those that believe in God) that which was taken by the evil doer. 
As for the man wanting to be killed and eaten, (without getting into a lot of explanation) as long as he killed himself and made it known that being eaten was what he wanted to happen to his body, it’s okay. Of course I don’t know the laws of Germany, or safe food preparation practices but from a short and sweet philosophical point of view I’m okay with it. 
I like the sounds of Diogenes (and many others, like some monks) that disavow material possessions, this is one path towards holiness (there are at least 4 or 5 paths to holiness). But I’m quite convinced that if someone took Diogenes' life he would notice (at least until his last breath left him). I haven’t studied Diogenes but I know of a way (not Christian) that he could live beyond his physical body, I wonder if he knew? What did Diogenes have to say about death?
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I don’t speak only materialistically; emotions, ideas, knowledge (even emotions, ideas and knowledge that can be proven to be false, misunderstandings, delusions or ignorant). These are possessions of a person that can be augured to be more real than material things. For a being to go around without permission and kill tooth fairies, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, God, Jesus, Mohamed, Allah, Buddha…the list could go on and on, would be evil. That person would be conducting a campaign of destructive evil, destroying things in people’s lives that make them happy, give them peace, and many other intangible benefits, the evil doers perhaps replacing (or attempting to), that which was destroyed with their own version of reality.