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evil

14:19 / 20.02.02

A hypothesis I've been chewing on lately:

The source of evil is in putting one's self before others.

This as well seems to fit the definition of "sin". This all unsuprisingly extrapolates to prety much everything we do to advance ourselves and society as being "evil" in root, and the only way to escape it is basicly to become a monk.

And of course, if you consider God in the equation, the very act of existing as a separate entity is a sin. I am very annoyed to find a logical support for the Catholic idea of "original sin".

14:44 / 20.02.02

every act is, at its root, a selfish one

*wanders off to self-gratify*

Morlock - groupie for hire

16:19 / 20.02.02

Nah, root of all evil is to put yourself *above* others, to decide that you are somehow better, more significant than those around you.

A starving man stealing a loaf of bread is not evil, even though he is putting his own interests before others.

You're right though, you can't exist without being a little bit selfish sometimes, if only in the space you occupy. Don't think that has anything to do with original sin though, I thought that was a throwback to the whole Adam and Eve thing, having knowledge of Good and Evil.

16:20 / 20.02.02

I think a more usefull definition (though not as widely held by our dear fundi Christian brethren) is that evil is putting one's self above others TO THE DETRIMENT of others.
Otherwise, what is the point of having a self, of gratification, of healthy simple pleasure?
I'm a big fan of "hey- if no one's getting hurt... then..."

but I suppose that logic is somewhat flawed or unimpressive, because it never stops the Catholic ministers yelling at me for masterbating in the confessional.

16:27 / 20.02.02

well, someone has to clean that booth up, dude. Have a little consideration.

01:43 / 21.02.02

I’m writing this separately and will post later.

I have a conception of sin, but I don’t know how many people think of it in a similar way. It may be so far from the Christian idea of what sin is that I should not even give it the same name, but I do have some justification. The word sin was originally an archery term, being a unit of distance from the bull’s-eye.

This combined with my somewhat liberal notion of God led me to define sin as an injury to one’s soul. Equivalently, sin is that which moves the state of your soul further from the “best” state. Keep in mind that I use this definition primarily for myself, so the meaning of “best” is a bit ambiguous. One sin is “worse” than another if it causes the soul more damage.

Strictly speaking, it is impossible to tell if anyone else is sinning at any given moment or with any given action, and it is often difficult to tell if you yourself are sinning. One who commits the same sin every day will certainly find his soul desensitized to the problems he causes himself. One example (probably a bad example, but it is simple) might be the acts of a serial killer. If I have already murdered twenty or thirty people, I probably cannot feel the effects of the next one on my soul.

“Evil.” I tell people I have no concept of evil people; I see broken people. I wish we would throw the whole word into the trash. It breeds judgment and hatred.

02:43 / 21.02.02

My current definition of 'evil' is the desire for immediate non-existence. To extend non-existence, shorten existence. Gratification of selfish desire wears out desire for existence. The more gratification (at the expense of other, at the expense of even yourself) the shorter the timespan spent in existence. Shorten others experience of existence. Foster ignorance that deprives existence of meaning, that encourages hate, fear, self loathing.

Bring all things to their end,
so that they may never be again.

04:06 / 21.02.02

That sounds reasonable. Could you specify a bit on what this existence is? If nothing else, examples work.

13:56 / 21.02.02

quote:Originally posted by the Fool:
My current definition of 'evil' is the desire for immediate non-existence.

There's already a word for that: Nhilism.

Back to evil, there seems to be a different view of the word, when it is applied to the cause of the action or the result of it. As well, when the action is judged it is given another form of the word. To take the best example of a starving man stealing bread:

Cause: The man puts his own needs over those of another. When he steals the bread, it is only to fill his tummy, he is not thinking any further than himself. That is selfishness by its most pure definition, and it is selfishness that is considered the root of evil for this hypothesis.

Effect: The merchant has lost profit by the loss of his bread. Damage has fallen upon him. Evil has been caused to him, as he suffers, albeit in a small and insignifigant way.

Judgement: We look at this, weigh the suffering of the starving man against the suffering of the merchant's loss of profits, and find the suffering of the starving man to be far greater. Thus, we do not consider his action to be evil.

Now, lets look at this situation again from an ideal perspective, where neither man nor merchant acts with evil in their hearts:

The starving man asks the merchent "please, give me some of your surplus, I have nothing and will starve". The merchant weighs the loss of his profit vs the loss of the man's life through starvation, and finds the suffering of the man to be far greater than any he would suffer through loss of a loaf of bread, and gives it to him.

Unfortunately, in the real world most people are selfish. So, the starving man asks, the merchant refuses, the starving man steals it anyway, and both are evil, each in their small way.

14:49 / 21.02.02

quote:The source of evil is in putting one's self before others.

Evil: anyone who, for reasons of their own, refuses to see the world my way...

But more seriously, evil is the illusion of separation.

15:14 / 21.02.02

But more seriously, evil is the illusion of separation.

I like that, alot.

19:52 / 21.02.02

1) A man who has plenty of money consistently steals bread from a local grocer.

First Effect: In order to make his actions consistent with his thinking, he begins to think that he resents the grocer for some reason. If the grocer is poor, he may look upon him with contempt for being such a filthy, poor, ignorant man. If the grocer is rich, he may look upon him with envy

Second Effect: May now feel more comfortable acting to the detriment of the grocer, and may also act against other poor/rich people.

Third Effect: The contempt grows
.
.
.
and so on. My "evil" deals with the odd numbered effects.

2) Every evening, a grocer named Fred takes some extra food out to some people who need it but cannot afford it. One of these people, a man named Barney, has never believed in giving charity, but he now finds that charity is the only way he can survive. Rather than changing his mind about whether charity is good, he holds to his previous beliefs. Fred comes home every night with a feeling of love for those less fortunate souls, and wishes he could do more for them. Barney receives his bread with anger and resentment. He feels Fred is weak for giving anything away for free.

It would be wrong for me, an outside observer, to condemn Barney for his feelings of anger toward Fred. But, in a sense, he condemns himself, for his heart is filled with hatred. And who wants that?

Morlock - groupie for hire

11:21 / 22.02.02

Ick. Don't think your scenarios are particularly realistic. Maybe not impossible (nowt so queer as folk, and all that) but rather unlikely. Barney would find it very hard to hold on to his beliefs when he has to compromise them every day just to stay alive. He might spin it round and start to hate people for not giving enough, but he's not likely to think: "Just let me starve you pathetic bastards!".

Similarly, the guy from the first scenario probably doesn't care about the grocer one way or another. He doesn't need to steal, so the only motivation can be pleasure or something like kleptomania. In either case there's no reason to resent the grocer, unless he's caught. But then that's a whole new ballgame.

Sorry, just don't quite see how these scenarios are supposed to help define evil/sin...

14:39 / 22.02.02

What I'm aiming for here, is looking past judgements and objective effects to the subjective cause in the first place. Evil more in the sense of sin than in the sense of suffering. Its origin in the soul.

Here's a tricky one to chew on: following orders. If a man acts not with his own intent but that of another, but his actions are foul, is there evil/sin in his heart? Clearly, the actions ordered are evil, and the cause of them evil in the heart of his masters. So, he carries this evil, though it is not his. Since it would be evil (selfish) of his heart to not obey his master when he has pledged his will to do so, he must follow through on his orders even though he knows what he does is wrong.

I think following oders to this extent is nullifying your own will, and thus your very soul. If you are naught but a tool of another, you are not really sentient. The perfect servant is but an extension of his masters will, and thus in the Taoist perspective is pure, even though the deeds he carries out are evil. It is possible that through love of his master, one may reach this state and be free of the sins of his actions because of his complete devotion. Were this so, the man would have reached a trancendental state of purity, saint- or budda-hood, and be exempt from his actions through total faith in his master. But is he? For he has reached enlightement following the false path of another, rather then in persuit of the unreachable ideal of the Tao. There's a whole digressive thread just in that, I think.

I believe any man always retains his will to some extent, and is not a machine no matter how deeply he pledges his will to another. His is the ability to choose and reason. We are built this way, and though we might strive for an ideal of non-being as exampled by the perfect servent above, it is against our nature to do so and may be unattainable. So one cannot give themselves completely to the will of another, and is always responsible for their own choices to some extent, regardless of how they justify it. So, by that he must share in the evil of his master for following his orders, or choose not to act, even though doing so may cause his own death.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

16:11 / 22.02.02

quote:If a man acts not with his own intent but that of another, but his actions are foul, is there evil/sin in his heart? Clearly, the actions ordered are evil, and the cause of them evil in the heart of his masters. So, he carries this evil, though it is not his.What, 'I was only following orders"? Come on.

[ 22-02-2002: Message edited by: Nick ]

Morlock - groupie for hire

11:30 / 25.02.02

Not sure if I can explain this right. Have a go anyway. The way I see it, any act has an inherent 'rightness'/'evilness', regardless of the justification for doing so. So in your 'perfect servant' example above, I figure the servant has two valid courses of action, assuming the orders are final. He can either refuse to carry out the order (which would mean resigning his post, if necessary) or carry out the order and accept at least partial culpability.

I don't hold with the dissolution of the self as any kind of moral philosopy. And I agree with you, cusm, that the huan will can never be totally suppressed, at least not from the inside. In fact, it's the ability to choose that makes us human, ie more than just an organic machine, following its programming.

Hell, you could always argue that if the servant disagrees with his masters decisions, the servant has made a poor choice of masters...

Anyway, back to the point, are you trying to work out *why* people commit 'evil' acts? Bloody hell, you could write a book about that. Fear and stupidity would pretty much cover it though. Although, can someone be considered as acting evilly if they er not aware of the nature of their actions?

18:32 / 26.02.02

quote:Originally posted by cusm:
...
Here's a tricky one to chew on: following orders. If a man acts not with his own intent but that of another, but his actions are foul, is there evil/sin in his heart? Clearly, the actions ordered are evil, and the cause of them evil in the heart of his masters. So, he carries this evil, though it is not his. Since it would be evil (selfish) of his heart to not obey his master when he has pledged his will to do so, he must follow through on his orders even though he knows what he does is wrong.

I think following oders to this extent is nullifying your own will, and thus your very soul. If you are naught but a tool of another, you are not really sentient. The perfect servant is but an extension of his masters will, and thus in the Taoist perspective is pure, even though the deeds he carries out are evil. ...

One way out of the problem: Because you are an extension of your master, the question should not be whether you yourself are evil, but whether the union of you and your master is evil. A perfect servant-master relationship is a unified soul, and the poisoning of one is the poisoning of the other.

Another way: Loving your master involves more than obeying him. If you help him commit evil, you help him poison his own soul. How can you, in good conscience, do this to your master.