Are you...

[Masked Monkey]

Coming into the conversation late, and while I risk sounding like I hold religious beliefs that I do not, I feel a need to point out that (in my always humble (shut up) opinion) the whole discussion is the EXACT point of Moses' parable about Adam and Eve and Eden's demise. It is not an accident that the fateful tree was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. As told, it is the very desire to be arbiters of good and evil that created the break between humans and the God of Moses, a break that Christians believe was fully repaired in that Jesus guy. It is this simple story, way at the beginning of the Jewish and Christian holy books that leads me to believe that ANYONE who tries to tell me what is "good" and what is "evil" is doing so as a human being based on their own biases and not based on some higher authority.

 

Meh ... just pissed myself off ...

 

Time to go vote against Props 8 and 4 here in California.

 

 

Dr. Mr. Snow "Snoopy" Dog

[AFriendlyFace]

Is the attraction between an electron and a proton good or evil?

 

I believe that the terms 'good' and 'evil' have meaning, but not the absolutism most people seem to confer. The actions of a particular individual to another individual at a specific point in time can seem either good or evil (or both) -- in that sense, these words have meaning. Beyond that, it's all rhetoric.

 

Was Hitler evil? If the Nazis had won, most of the world would certainly not think him as evil. If he'd become an artist and stayed completely uninvolved with politics, would he still be evil? Is one's innate nature or one's deeds -- or potential deeds -- the determinate for evil or good? Each one of us is capable, if put in certain unforeseeable circumstances, of great destruction and great creation, of tremendous "good" and "evil." They mean nothing. The electron will still move to the proton, and that's all.

 

 

 

My problem with cardboard cutout "evil" characters is that, in real life, the warlord with the evil Muhahaha laugh and the world domination or destruction plans isn't sitting around cackling about how he's so evil. Us human beings have an endless capacity to rationalize, make excuses, and justify just about anything to ourselves. The fact is, the overwhelming majority of people who do bad things really, truly believe, in their minds, that they are justified. Most of them even believe they are doing good. Good stories get us inside the heads of the so-called villains, and show us why they are not just two-dimensional evil characters, but why they really, truly believe that they are the heroes. Everyone believes, in their own life, that they're the star and everyone else is the supporting cast, anyway.

 

....

 

 

Take, for example, the devoutly religious kid who outs his gay friend to his parents, in hopes he'll be "saved". An evil thing to do, right? But in this kid's mind, not doing it will be even more evil, because he'd be condemning his friend to hell or whatever it is he believes. (Religious fervour isn't something I understand too well, but I get the concept that those who believe it truly do believe it...)

 

....

 

And so on. And so forth. We're masters of rationalization, and just about all of us will claim to be good people, if asked. Even those of us who aren't.

 

....

 

Life isn't about being good or bad. That's just passing the buck, abdicating responsibility. Life is about decisions. Each day, each time we're encountered with a choice, trying to make the right one, the one that will have the best effect on the people who matter. Sometimes getting it wrong. Sometimes fumbling through, making mistakes. But trying to do what we think is right, whatever that means based on our own world views. That's all any of us can do. Inevitably, we'll clash because of it, because there are too many versions of what's right, and none is right for all of us. But that's just part of being human.

 

What phenomenally good points these are!