The Root of All Evil

Agree. I think another way to put it would be to say that judgement is insanity.

 

Give me an example of a judgement that is insane.

 

Even perceiving reality as other than it is is not a threat to it . . . I'm guessing.

 

If we define insanity as faulty perception, and define "faulty" as incomplete, then all judgements are insane.

In order to judge something you have to isolate it and compare it to other isolated aspects of reality, which means you're not looking at the big picture or how the thing you're judging fits into it.

IMO the dichotomy isn't between Good and Evil, it's between Judgement and Understanding.

 

Ok, let's say you have a serial-killer like Captain Crunch or the Trix Rabbit, or Jeffrey Dahmer. You can understand him, but before you can keep society safe from him, you have to judge him, don't you?

 

Not necessarily: I mean, if you look at people like that in the same way you would look at a rabid dog---ie., the only immediate consideration is how to stop it---then judgement is unnecessary.

Assessment is still necessary (you need to assess that the dog has rabies in the first place) but judgement, that is moral judgement, isn't. In fact it would slow you down and get in the way.

 

I agree.

But just for the sake of agrument, let's say that locking him up for killing someone is to judge that causing someone's death is wrong. Death is a natural part of existence. And if you consider that there are no accidents . . .

 

Even then you could still base the solution on purely practical considerations rather than moral ones: having someone running around arbitrarily killing members of your society is going to have a negative impact on that society.

If we substitute death by disease for death by violence, you could say that's it's no more necessary to judge a human killer good or evil than it would be to make a moral judgement about a deadly virus.

Death is a natural part of existence, but so is any living creatures urge to avoid it for as long as possible.

 

Sure, but what if the killer happened to kill another serial killer or someone who was about to become one? The Lord works in mysterious ways, you know. I'm just sayin'. Alright I'm just kidding there.

But if the serial killer is diseased in his mind, then is it fair to lock him up or kill him? You know, like not throwing the baby out with the bath water. Shouldn't he be healed instead?

 

But seriously--kind of--it's true that there is no such thing as evil. There is only that which we want, and what we will do to get it. There is only that which we do, and the reasons why we do it. Our wants and reasons are based on our values. Our values are based on what we deem important. And what with each individual experience being as different as snowflakes are from each other, one's values could differ from the "norm" in ways that are not seen as abnormal by one who is imbalanced. In some ways, we are all responding to one illusion or another--probably both! And to judge one is to judge them all, including your own.

 

Come to think of it, if evil had its way and got rid of all the good things and all of the good people to its satisfaction, how then would it express its nature? I mean, if after ridding the realm of all the good people, I would assume that all of the evil ones would treat each other with kindness or respect. But that would make them what they had previously despised, thus defeating their purpose.

Further, if the stronger of the evil ones expressed their vile nature on the weaker members of the evil community, that would necessarily make the weaker ones the opposite of the stronger ones; they will have created their opposite--the thing they despised. The yin and the yang survive regardless of any acts committed by either. Evil is a flawed concept from the git-go. Absent any good, it will eat itself up. And the same goes for good. It's insane!

 

And always remember to never forget that evil spelled backwards is "live." That's got to mean something . . .

 

Getting back to the video and Dawkins, I think it's a good documentary in some respects, but it does give a distorted picture of religion. Note that all of the examples he deals with are from Abrahamic religion: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. One might expect that a good scientist like Dawkins would present a more representative sample. Otherwise, all he can generalize about are Abrahamic religions--not "religion" in general. If he started with Buddhism, Taoism or Bah'ai, the impression people would draw of religion as something potentially violent and intolerant would be completely different. Of the Christian religions he deals with, he considers only Catholic and fundamentalist Protestant examples. No Quakers, Methodists, UCC members, Episcopalians, etc. The viewer might conclude that mainline Protestants like me are non-existent, unimportant, or non-religious. Probably most of my church would agree with everything he says about Catholics and evangelical fundamentalists, but would not generalize to all Christians. For example, most of us believe in science and evolution (as do Catholics), are pro-choice (unlike Catholics), and support separation of church and state. If Dawkins paid us a visit, the effect would be far less dramatic, and his point would be lost.

He interviews televangelist Ted Haggard, a man who makes my stomach turn, at a time when he was riding high and had the ear of G.W. Bush. Besides being ignorant and anti-science, Ted, we now know, is a hypocrite. Gay bashing was a prominent part of his ministry until news of his own gay affair with a young man surfaced. It's useful to know that there are charlatans like that in the ministry, but would a good scientist draw the conclusion that somehow all pastors are like that? Likewise, he interviewed a fanatical young Muslim who advocates violence to promote Islam. I know several good Muslims he could have interviewed who would have told him there is no support in the Quran for violent jihad where innocent people are victims. So for a man supposedly dedicated to reason, evidence and logical inference in supporting claims, Dawkins case against religion seems weak and essentially propaganda. I agree with him completely that the forms of religion he considers are dangerous and threaten world peace as well as reason. He hasn't convinced me that because of these problems religion in general does more harm than good and should be given up.

 

Getting back to the video and Dawkins, I think it's a good documentary in some respects, but it does give a distorted picture of religion. Note that all of the examples he deals with are from Abrahamic religion: Christianity, Judaism and Islam. One might expect that a good scientist like Dawkins would present a more representative sample. Otherwise, all he can generalize about are Abrahamic religions--not "religion" in general. If he started with Buddhism, Taoism or Bah'ai, the impression people would draw of religion as something potentially violent and intolerant would be completely different. Of the Christian religions he deals with, he considers only Catholic and fundamentalist Protestant examples. No Quakers, Methodists, UCC members, Episcopalians, etc. The viewer might conclude that mainline Protestants like me are non-existent, unimportant, or non-religious. Probably most of my church would agree with everything he says about Catholics and evangelical fundamentalists, but would not generalize to all Christians. For example, most of us believe in science and evolution (as do Catholics), are pro-choice (unlike Catholics), and support separation of church and state. If Dawkins paid us a visit, the effect would be far less dramatic, and his point would be lost.

He interviews televangelist Ted Haggard, a man who makes my stomach turn, at a time when he was riding high and had the ear of G.W. Bush. Besides being ignorant and anti-science, Ted, we now know, is a hypocrite. Gay bashing was a prominent part of his ministry until news of his own gay affair with a young man surfaced. It's useful to know that there are charlatans like that in the ministry, but would a good scientist draw the conclusion that somehow all pastors are like that? Likewise, he interviewed a fanatical young Muslim who advocates violence to promote Islam. I know several good Muslims he could have interviewed who would have told him there is no support in the Quran for violent jihad where innocent people are victims. So for a man supposedly dedicated to reason, evidence and logical inference, Dawkins' case against religion seems weak and essentially propaganda. I agree with him completely that the forms of religion he considers are dangerous and threaten world peace as well as reason. He hasn't convinced me that because of these problems religion in general does more harm than good and should be given up.

 

Yep.

 

Religion in the wrong hands creates division. When you designate different physical buildings for differing sets of beliefs, how can that not create imagined differences? And how can one remain neutral regarding those differences?

 

Where is the harm in a space time continuum? I think the idea that any real thing is in jeopardy is a misapprehension of phenomenal nature. I think the idea that there are good and bad forms of religion misses the point, that is if the point is to determine what ails us.

Capt._Obvious frames the debate as being between moral judgement and understanding, not good and evil. I agree. I add the word moral to distinguish from the very real necessity of making distinctions, to be able to tell one thing from another.

 

Moral judgement conceives reality as being of two different diametrically opposed aspects or having, "multiple personalities".

 

I thought Captain Obvious was pointing out the difference between assessment and judgement. I could be wrong; after all, there's a first time for everything.

If the idea of any real thing being in jeopardy is a misapprehension of phenomenal nature, what did you mean when you said, "What possible threat to reality could there be besides perceiving it other than it is?"

 

What is an example of a good form of religion?