WARNING! This is a long post. A lot of people will disagree with what I have to say. This is not a problem as people are different and believes in different things. However there is more than one way of looking at the world and understanding what is happening.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')color=red]Part 1======[/color] The Problem of Evil
In article <dx_ac.154807$_w.1738482@attbi_s53>, John Berg wrote:
> Every Muslim knows that a Muslim must oppose evil, contribute resources to
> combat, or support the opposition to evil. Every Muslim is complicit who
> stands mute when he knows about terrorism. The Muslims who danced,
> celebrated, and dragged the Americans are Islamists.
PeakOil is You
The problem of Evil
The problem of Evil
by ohanian » Mon 06 Dec 2004, 09:51:42
Yes but the BIG question is who define what evil is. Even the Islamic Terrorist believes that "Every Muslim knows that a Muslim must oppose evil"
You are targeting the wrong enemy. The problem is the intepretation of the meaning of the word "evil".
The problem is that you have groups of humans, each defining the meaning of
the word "evil" to fit their own agenda. After all, the Islamic Terrorist
are fighting evil too!
drnobody
In article <Lmgbc.159293$1p.2041534@attbi_s54>, John Berg wrote:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '&')gt; drnobody's arguement is that evil is relative. He thinks the suicide bomber
> and the sending of missionary doctors are equivalent depending on your own
> beliefs. The trouble is that Muslims can read both meanings into the Qur'an
> because they think it is revelation. Yet the Qur'an is inconsistent,
> self-contradictory, and difficult to read.
It took me a while to decide how to answer you properly. Here is my answer. I do not believe that "evil" is relative, I do not believe in the word "evil". The word "evil" is a human construct. It has no basis in the physical world. If humans do not exists then the word "evil" has no meaning.
Example: You eat fried chicken at KFC. Does that mean that you are "evil"? After all it's nothing but chicken genocide. What I do care about is what some humans do to other humans. Words like "good" or "evil" are just excuses for humans to do the things they do to other humans.
drnobody
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')color=red]Part 2======[/color]Source of evil
The desire for scarce resources is the source of all evil. This is the fundamental truth which explains why evil exists within all human society.
Before I proceed any further, I should make clear to the readers the fact that I do not believe in the meaning of the word "evil". I hold the view that "evil" is a social construct, in that "evil" has no meaning if humans do not exists in this universe (or creatures intellectually similar to humans).
However for this article, I shall use the everyday meaning of the word "evil" as defined in the Oxford Advanced Learners English dictionary.
Evil (noun)
1. A force that causes wicked or bad things to happen; Wicked behaviour;
2. Plural: wicked or harmful things; Bad effects of someone;
Evil (adjective)
1. (of people) enjoying harming others; wicked and cruel;
2. having a harmful effect on people; morally bad;
3. connected with the Devil and with what is bad in the world;
4. extremely unpleasant;
It seems paradoxical for me to talk about something which its existence I do not even believe in. In fact, its downright difficult for many people to comprehend. So before I talk about "evil", let me talk about something that also does not exists in this world but (almost) all people can see. This will make it clearer to the readers when I actually talk about the subject "evil".
One of my greatest astonishment in life is when I learned that colour does not exists. By colour I mean red, orange, blue, green, yellow, purple. I do not however mean black or white. I'm refering to hue.
hue (noun)
1. Particular shade of colour.
Now, why do I say colour does not exists? For one, you cannot measure colour. Colour has no mass. Colour has no volume. Colour has no gravitational force. No electrical force. (Almost) no attributes at all. In fact the only attribute that colour has is hue. I know what you will say now. "Bulls***!" you said. "Are you denying the reality of photons?" You argued.
Photons are not colour. Of course not. Colour is an attribute. What about blue photons? Well my readers. THERE IS NO SUCH THING! There is no such thing as blue photons or red photons or even white photons. Technically speaking there is white photon. There are only white photons. Of course since photon has only one colour, we can drop the word white and say "There are only photons (or the absence of photons)"
So what is colour? Colour is one of the end result of the human eye. The human eye has four type of photoreceptors in the retina. What is retina? Retina is a layer of tissue at the back of the eye which is sensitive to light.
The first type of photoreceptor is called "rod". Rods are only sensitive to low levels of light and can only delivers black and white images/signals (monochrome images/signals) to the human brain.
The second type of photoreceptor is called red cone.
The third type of photoreceptor is called blue cone.
The fourth type of photoreceptor is called green cone.
All the above three types of cones have the following properties. They are all sensitive to high levels of light (bright light).
The red cones is sensitive to a range of wavelengths of light BUT the sensitivity is not uniform. It has a shape of a bell curve. It is most sensitive to 564 nanometer.
The blue cones and green cones are similar to the red cones. The blue cones are most sensitive at 420 nanometer and the green at 534 nanometer. There is a picture of this on the WWW http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cone_cell
So back to the existence of colour. Colour is what our brain perceive based on the signals from the four types of photoreceptors in our retina. It is a fantasy that our brains produced. Colour has no physical reality in that there are no red , blue or green photons. Red/Blue/Green photons have never existed and will never exists.
And yet I see colour. I see the fantasy of colour which is constructed by my brain based on the signals from my eyes.
Now let's talk about evil. Evil is like colour. Everyone sees it and assume that it is real. But evil has no physical existence. It is a consequence of the desire to obtain scarce resources.
It is silly to talk about "desire for scarce resources" because by definition "resources" are desirable. If something is NOT desirable then it is not a resource. If something cannot be obtained then it is not a resource. If something cannot be obtained, it is merely unobtainable material.
Oil is not a resource for the cavemen because it is not desirable. In fact for the cavemen, it is an undesirable toxic material.
Now back to evil. Because scarce resources are scarce, there will be a "battle" for the resources among humans or groups of humans. Because scarce resources cannot be shared (otherwise it will not be scarce resources) there will always be winners and losers.
The losers will say that "evil" has been commited upon them.
Case 1. The scarce resource is land.
The Palestinians says that Israel has commited a great evil upon them.
Case 2. The scarce resource is political power.
The democrates in USA says George Bush has "stolen" the election results in Florida.
Case 3. The scarce resource is legal decision.
The family of the defendent in the court case has claimed that a great injustice had occured because that their son was innocent of the crime.
Case 4. The scarce resource is willingness.
The battered wife claims that she was unjustly treated by her husband when she refuses to have sex with him on demand.
Case 5. The scarce resource is the usage of human body.
When the black death came, it was as if a great evil had visited the place. (hint: virus/baterial vs the humans)
Case 6. The scarce resource is religious beliefs.
The prophet Mohammad killed his enemies because they are evil and thus will not submit to Allah.
Part 3
======
Other views of evil
If I can see so far, it is because I stood on top of the shoulders of Newton.
This following extract of an article is not from me
but from the following Author:
COJO 4050 - Communication and Conflict
Frank Millar; Fall, 2005
Office Hours 10:00 -12:00 and 1:00 – 2:00 MWF
Others by appointment
Phone: 766-2154
Email: FMILLAR@UWYO.EDU
----------
Unequal distributions of privileges and rights may lead to sentiments of hostility, but they do not necessarily lead to conflict. A distinction between conflict and hostile sentiments is essential. Conflict, as distinct from hostile attitudes or sentiments, always takes place in interaction between two or more persons. Hostile attitudes are predispositions to engage in conflict behavior; conflict, on the contrary, is always a transaction. (Coser)
Frequent erroneous beliefs about conflict:
(1) Individuals are naturally in harmony because of their humanity; conflicts represent adisruption of this and are therefore dysfunctional.
(2) Conflicts most frequently occur because individuals do not understand each other.
(3) Conflicts can always be resolved.
(4) Conflicts represent breakdowns in and deterioration of the social fabric.
(5) Conflicts represent breakdowns in communication. (Doolittle)
People can exert control over others because they have something-- either rewards or punishments--the others don't have. Power is thus based on control of resources, and on their defense; in down-to-earth terms, we know that people in power have the goods and/or the guns that force people to do their bidding.
While brute force is seldom used (by most of us) in daily life, it is nevertheless the ultimate source of power, whether between the state and an individual, or between a man and a woman.
The person with these resources has less to gain from a relationship and is consequently freer to move within it. This is the Principle of Least Interest, articulated by Waller in 1938 as follows: "That person is able to dictate the conditions of association whose interest in the continuation of the affair is least." (Henley)
Evil is caused by...man's hunger for righteous self-expansion and perpetuation...The greatest cause of evil includes all human motives in one giant paradox...The paradox is that evil comes from man's urge to heroic victory over evil.
The evil that troubles man most is his vulnerability: he seems impotent to guarantee the absolute meaning of his life, its significance in
the cosmos. He assures a plentitude of evil, then, by trying to make closure on his cosmic heroism in this life and this world.
All the intolerable sufferings of mankind result from man's attempt to make the whole of nature reflect his reality, his heroic victory; he thus tries to achieve a perfection on earth, a visible testimonial to his cosmic importance (Becker). [Fortunately, ‘perfection’ cannot be a descriptor of events, states, actions because "perfection" entails the absence of growth, change, evolution, development, progress since the ultimate performance, conditions, acts has already occurred.]
Since there is no secular way to resolve the primal mystery of life and death, all secular societies are lies. And since there is no sure human answer to such a mystery, all religious integrations are mystifications. This is the sober conclusion to which we seem to be led.
Each society is a hero system which promises victory over evil and death. For secular societies this is ridiculous; what can "victory" mean secularly? And for religious societies victory is part of a blind and trusting belief in another dimension of reality.
Each historical society, then, is a hopeful mystification or a determined lie...If each historical society is in some ways a lie or a mystification, the study of society becomes the revelation of a lie.
The comparative study of society becomes the assessment of how high are the costs of this lie. Or, looked at from another way, cultures are fundamentally and basically styles of heroic death denial. We can ask empirically then.... what are the costs of such denials of death...These costs can be tallied in roughly two ways:
(1) in terms of the tyranny practiced within the society, and
(2) in terms of the victimage practiced against aliens or "enemies" outside it. (Becker)
Last words. Evil may not be real but Human suffering is 100% real.
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ohanian - Heavy Crude
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by Specop_007 » Mon 06 Dec 2004, 10:16:29
Chechnya mean anything?
Islamic terrorists hold SCHOOLCHILDREN hostage. Some 500 are killed.
CHILDREN.
You can say "Evil is open to definition" but I say bullshit. Name one other time a school was taken over by extremists and hundreds of schoolchildren murdered in the name of a "God". I have a very low opinion os the Islamic religion at this point. We dont send our women and children with bombs strapped to their chests to blow up airplanes, bus stops and intentionally murder innocents. I see Islam as the Religion of ChickenShits. I wouldnt send my wife or children to do my dirty work.
Let me put it simply for you.
Islam wants you dead. Plan accordingly.
Islamic terrorists hold SCHOOLCHILDREN hostage. Some 500 are killed.
CHILDREN.
You can say "Evil is open to definition" but I say bullshit. Name one other time a school was taken over by extremists and hundreds of schoolchildren murdered in the name of a "God". I have a very low opinion os the Islamic religion at this point. We dont send our women and children with bombs strapped to their chests to blow up airplanes, bus stops and intentionally murder innocents. I see Islam as the Religion of ChickenShits. I wouldnt send my wife or children to do my dirty work.
Let me put it simply for you.
Islam wants you dead. Plan accordingly.
"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the
Abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you."
Ammo at a gunfight is like bubblegum in grade school: If you havent brought enough for everyone, you're in trouble
Abyss, the Abyss gazes also into you."
Ammo at a gunfight is like bubblegum in grade school: If you havent brought enough for everyone, you're in trouble
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Specop_007 - Expert
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by Annatar » Mon 06 Dec 2004, 10:20:57
Interesting post. I'm going to throw in my two cents. Even if all societies are either based on lies or mystifications, their principal role is to maintain order. Many mammal (and probably bird) species are also organised into socieites (a tribe of chimpanzees, a pride of lions, a pod of whales, etc).
I have my own definition of evil. To me, evil is the absence of empathy. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary (1995), empathy is "the power of identifying oneself mentally with (and so fully comprehending) a person or object fo contemplation." Without empathy, any behaviour can be justified.
I have my own definition of evil. To me, evil is the absence of empathy. According to the Concise Oxford Dictionary (1995), empathy is "the power of identifying oneself mentally with (and so fully comprehending) a person or object fo contemplation." Without empathy, any behaviour can be justified.
Cheap oil is a RIGHT! Conservation is just letting the terrorists WIN!
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by Annatar » Mon 06 Dec 2004, 10:25:31
Also, without empathy, you can not understand what motivate terrorists to commit atrocities. And so the cycle of violence continues.
Cheap oil is a RIGHT! Conservation is just letting the terrorists WIN!
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Annatar - Wood
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by smiley » Mon 06 Dec 2004, 10:29:24
Interesting post.
However, color does exist. It is defined as light within a certain wavelength interval or alternatively photons with a certain energy. You can absolutely measure color.
The only thing which doesn't exist are white photon's. "White" means "covering all energies". Since one photon can only have one energy a "white" photon is impossible.
On the other hand color is a human definition. We say that something is red, blue, green or yellow. We have defined a certain mixture of colors as white and a certain absence of colors as black.
Perhaps this fittingly demonstrates the problems of black and white thinking. When we say that something is black it means that it doesn't reflect light in the "visible" interval (300-750 nm). We neglect the UV, the IR, and the remainder of the electromagnetic spectrum, since our eyes are not possible to see in that part of the spectrum.
If you are a snake, a cat or a bird, your definition of black and white would be entirely different to that of a human.
Our definition is thus limited by our own visual abilities.
Perhaps good and evil do exist, but we are unable to define them due to the fact that we cannot see the whole spectrum.
However, color does exist. It is defined as light within a certain wavelength interval or alternatively photons with a certain energy. You can absolutely measure color.
The only thing which doesn't exist are white photon's. "White" means "covering all energies". Since one photon can only have one energy a "white" photon is impossible.
On the other hand color is a human definition. We say that something is red, blue, green or yellow. We have defined a certain mixture of colors as white and a certain absence of colors as black.
Perhaps this fittingly demonstrates the problems of black and white thinking. When we say that something is black it means that it doesn't reflect light in the "visible" interval (300-750 nm). We neglect the UV, the IR, and the remainder of the electromagnetic spectrum, since our eyes are not possible to see in that part of the spectrum.
If you are a snake, a cat or a bird, your definition of black and white would be entirely different to that of a human.
Our definition is thus limited by our own visual abilities.
Perhaps good and evil do exist, but we are unable to define them due to the fact that we cannot see the whole spectrum.
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smiley - Intermediate Crude
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by kambei » Mon 06 Dec 2004, 12:13:59
I completely agree.
I think it's dangerous when people believe that such subjective human constructs are actually absolutes. It is, in a way, arrogant and ignorant and can ultimately lead to believing in other things as absolutes which can lead to zealotism and you know what that can lead to...
I think it's dangerous when people believe that such subjective human constructs are actually absolutes. It is, in a way, arrogant and ignorant and can ultimately lead to believing in other things as absolutes which can lead to zealotism and you know what that can lead to...
A king can't swagger, nor drink like a beggar,
Nor be half so happy as I.
Nor be half so happy as I.
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by Guest » Mon 06 Dec 2004, 13:52:55
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', 'C')hechnya mean anything?
Islamic terrorists hold SCHOOLCHILDREN hostage. Some 500 are killed.
CHILDREN.
Islamic terrorists hold SCHOOLCHILDREN hostage. Some 500 are killed.
CHILDREN.
Ohhh, a naked appeal to emotion. The thousands of Iraqi dead childern during the American lead blockade of the 1990's or now during Operation Iraqi Liberation are OK?
Because I don't see you outraged over these corpses.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Specop_007', '
')Let me put it simply for you.
Islam wants you dead. Plan accordingly.
Please show exactly in the words of the Quran where your claim is backed up.
Christians keep talking about the end times and rapture. Sounds like ALOT of death, what with the cars without drivers zipping about. What with me on my bike and all, the Christians talking about and awaiting the Rapture - that can come any time now, are being irresponsible with their driving about.
- Guest
