RE: Christians, Prove Your God Is Good
February 26, 2015 at 5:39 pm
(This post was last modified: February 26, 2015 at 5:47 pm by Ignorant.)
(February 26, 2015 at 4:04 pm)The Reality Salesman Wrote: You're on a valid path with your ultimate form of evil, you should tease that out and see where it goes. It's an equally valid concept worth considering as it seems that in order to feel that something g is good, you kinda need a scale, huh? So without bad, what meaning could good have? I just think the word "evil" muddies up the water because it usually carries a supernatural connotation. Fun talk though, enjoy the link!
Well, could we not also understand "evil" to mean the absence of goodness rather than a positive reality of "evil-ness"? In an imperfectly analogous way: we speak about light and darkness. Darkness isn't a positive reality in itself. The word merely signifies the absence of a positive reality, i.e. light.
The "lowest" "amount" of goodness would actually be nothing, i.e. the absence of being. The highest amount of goodness would be complete/full/fulfilled being. A good person would be, therefore, synonymous with a person who lives the most completely human, i.e. perfect <=> lacking nothing proper to humanity, fullness of humanity, fulfilled humanity, etc. life (which begs further questions about that sort of life). An evil person would therefore be synonymous with a person who lives a life which lacks a significant amount of those things that would fulfill a human's being.
I think it is time to leave the concept of positive evil behind us.
(February 26, 2015 at 1:28 pm)Parkers Tan Wrote:(February 25, 2015 at 3:17 pm)Ignorant Wrote: Does every person agree about how they think other people should act towards them?
I think people of sound mind do. Do you want to be kicked in the face? No? Then don't do it to me.
What if you ask that question to a person and he says "yes, I want to be kicked in the face" instead of "no"? Is he just a statistical outlier . . . or is he wrong about what is good for him?
Do you kick him in the face? Do you let him kick you in the face? How do you resolve the conflicts with the people whose minds you consider "not sound"? I am authentically curious.