On Erathoniel's blog is an article On Evil, and in the comments, cscoles mentions that "Evil is not working together to make the world a better place." to which Erathoniel responds that that is exactly what *he* believes. But Erathoniel also states in his article that "Evil is any time man walks away from God, the Creator." Can those two statements exist peacefully side by side?
There are many belief systems in our world. The problem is that many advocates of these belief systems are intolerant of other belief systems, and the most fundamental of them refuse to work with others who believe something different. Some belief systems suggest that anyone not of their belief system should die. Some would have governments run based on the principles of their belief system knowing full well that it would be at the expense of groups of people of other belief systems. I propose that this is neither tolerant nor is it "working together."
So if you are one who agrees that we all need to work together, what is required? It seems to me that tolerance of beliefs that are different from our own is necessary for this to occur. The only other solution I see would be to eradicate anyone that doesn't believe what you believe from the world entirely. Well...mankind has been trying that last idea since the beginning, hasn't it? Doesn't seem to be working too well.
So here's the problem in a nutshell. You have a set of beliefs that you think the world should operate by. Next door to you is someone who has an entirely different set of beliefs that he thinks the world should operate by. How can you resolve this and "work together?" In order to work together, common ground must be found. It's safe to say that you will not find that common ground in the entirety of your respective belief systems. So the first thing that has to go in order for "all to work together" is the belief systems. I do not mean stop believing what you believe - I mean suspend it for the purpose of group progress. I mean be tolerant of other beliefs long enough to make some headway into reducing suffering for all.
How do you do that? Well, in my opinion, it is by placing "objectivity" in a governing place. Belief is subjective and it's personal. If either of you holds to your subjective belief as a governing factor for what actions should be taken and what decisions should be made for progress, there will be conflict, and "working together" will be hampered or impossible. The common ground, therefore, is the set of testable and verifiable things also known as the "objective."
This, contrary to religious spin doctors, is the goal of science. Science wants you to put down your beliefs long enough to make some actual progress. It doesn't want you to stop believing what you believe. Science doesn't want anything to do with the "Belief Business." It just wants us all to find a common objective ground on which we can all agree regardless of belief so that we can "work together to make the world a better place." I do NOT mean that science asks you to believe a particular set of facts that it discovers. It wants you to agree to a method for TESTING facts that isn't subjectively based, and if a proposed "fact" isn't testable, then it belongs in the subjective realm - the belief realm - and should not be considered for any actions or decisions that affect everybody.
So if you believe that it is "evil" to not work together to make the world a better place, then I ask you, what experiment have you done today? What evidence, testable and verifiable, on ANY subject have you produced? What goal do you have in this regard to lessen the suffering of all?
Or do you spend all your time listing things that should not be tolerated and pointing at your doctrine for proof of it? If you do, then by the above definition, you're "evil."
Actually, Jay, Jesus is just fine with me. I think I could reason with him. Is he the son of god? Is there a god for him to be the son of? In my opinion, the only honest answer is "I don't know for sure." If having faith means pretending to know for sure something that I absolutely do not, I consider that to be a dishonesty. That dishonesty is what I reject.
And the ONLY motivation I have for suspending uncertainty (aka being intellectually dishonest) and just taking the plunge and believing/accepting anyway is desire for heaven or fear of hell. Should I die and the pronouncement of my damnation be made and should I be given an opportunity to say a last few words, they'd be "You know, on Earth, it wasn't all about me. Your adherants said it was all about you, but when asked why it should be all about you, they would talk about your will and your heavenly kingdom and that they were getting to go. It was all about worshipping you, but they never failed to tack on how the reward was "eternal salvation" for them. And they'd talk about the awaiting hell fire for those that didn't fall in line. Again, they did this because they felt they were supposed to according to your word, and once again, that made chances better for eternal salvation for them. The clear message from them, your messengers, was that I should choose to believe something I couldn't sense with the senses you gave me in order to get something for me. They all said it was all about you, but their observable words and actions said it was really all about them. To make this more complex, there were MANY groups with similar ideas, all that had the same weight of "evidence" as their reasoning, and all with promises of a good afterlife or a bad afterlife according to what decisions the people made. It seemed to be the only method to get anyone to believe anything - motivate them with a bottomless pocket full of gold, or threaten their safety. My crime? I sacrificed the gold and the fear until I could substantiate these differing claims with something I could objectively experience. Like this conversation. I repeat - it wasn't all about me in life, and it isn't all about me now. Do what you have to do."
That's not really how the conversation would go, of course. Bound for hell or not, I'd be too excited to find out a lot of things about science and how it all worked. They'd throw me into hell asking questions.
No, not a fan of cigars. I just put the quote here to direct a comment to your post. It was outstanding - every word. I want those quotes on t-shirts and bumper stickers.
Zoo:
Jay:
To me this is (and always has been) a vote of no confidence in what humans tell me. My problem with reading the bible (or any other book for any other doctrine) for clarification is that I have no evidence to suggest it isn't just more humans telling me something. If I am to truly believe anything, I therefore must come to that belief without outside influence. If Eve had followed that line of thinking, maybe she wouldn't have eaten that apple, no? Notice she didn't just say "Aw fuck it. He said don't eat it, I'm eating it anyway." Someone had to talk her into it, and instead of using her own rational mind to decide, she fell to persuasion of another (in what seemed to be some really irrational reasoning on the part of the Satan character, in my opinion.) Yet no one takes that as a the lesson of the story, but is it not a valid lesson?
Thanks and yes, I want those quotes on a tshirt. Except I think I'd probably get tired of explaining to some;
a. what the quotes really mean and,
b. these were actually said by a Jesuit Christian.
I'm not trying to argue with you here, Jythier, but I get the impression EoIC (please correct me if I'm wrong) hasn't actually gone after Jesus but more after some of his believers i.e. the overtly one-eyed, narrow-minded types.
One of the major reasons the U.S. has been able to maintain a free society is the Founding Fathers recognized that everyone won't see eye to eye, and people of like minds usually cluster together. That was the basis of "community standards" and the U.S. Constitution's 10th Amendment ("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.).
Community standards holds that, no matter how you want to live, there's a place for you. If you want God central in your community, then there are places where the people choose that for themselves. If you want a community where God is rarely mentioned in public, there is a place for you too. There are even places where you don't have to have a community at all.
That still goes, but it has beem muddled a bit. People who move from one place to another all to often do all they can to bring where they were to the new place... often without regard to those who have always lived there. Federal incursion into local and state matters has further eroded the original intent.
So, what we are left with is communities of people who don't talk to each other, or band with people from other communities to force change.
Some call that "segregation", but if it is done voluntarily, it's really "Freedom of movement" and "association". Like "censorship", true "segregation" only occurs when the government forces it on the people.
As for what is "evil" and what is "good". Good is what provides the most individual freedom possible in a community, evil is what impedes it. Individual freedom is only maintained with the right balance of power between individuals (the people), community (family, neighborhood etc), and government. If either exert too much "evil" on the others, it is personal freedom that suffers... and the freedom to worship according to the dictates of our conscience (including not worshipping at all) is among the most important parts of personal freedom.
A very inconvenient lesson.
Well for starters, this shows that Eve was not, in fact, "perfectly smart" as I have seen her and her betrothed described. Given objective experience of THE creator, who would make the same choice, atheist or Christian or otherwise? Not one person I know. Eve had objective experience of God. He was there. So she never had to have faith. To choose the word of a snake over a God you had objective evidence of was anything but rational. It was insane.
For exactly the same reason he'd let an angel corrupt his entire creation with an apple tree.
Hahaha. I am honored and flattered, J
Can't remember which singing comic sang this song, but it always gave me a chuckle. This is paraphrased - it's been a while.
So the man said to God, "What's a million years to you?"
And God said..."A second."
So the man said to God "What's a million dollars to you?"
And God said..."A penny."
So the man said to God "Would you give me a penny?"
And God said "Sure...just a second."
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