b.finton
Active Member
If "good" is at one end of a continuum and "evil" is at the other, where would one plot "wickedness" in that array?
b.
b.
good vs. evil
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urbandekay
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Below mischievousness and above malevolence?
At issue is what one society or group deems evil...another my feel as good....
And there are times when we love a little wickedness... did I say that outloud?
And there are times when we love a little wickedness... did I say that outloud?
Gordian Knot
Being Deviant IS My Art.
It is a rather odd question. Can you explain a bit further what point you are trying to achieve, or solve?
if there are different levels of a continuum it is all evil.
pasqualie1980
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You are looking at it from a perspective the two are separate, and in a way they are and also connected. This world exists in polarity or duality as they say. So you have in human beings a left brain with ego, and a right brain.
In some religions they refer to the ego as satan, and that is why satan or the ego rules the world, because it is inside of us all.
And we live in a left brain ego dominated world. The analytical mind which is the source off all fears, negativity, judgement and separation. Its why its human nature to separate things and categorize them from things, data, to people, to ideology and beliefs, from gender, us and them.
As far as degrees of evil, it really depends on how polarized or ego centered a person is. It can stem from insecurity which appears as arrogance to someone who is sadistic and commits murder. So its the degree they are separated from themselves in reality and how much they hate themselves and their lives, because you cant create attrocities unless on some level you hate yourself. So I guess its the degree that one loves oneself, because it all flows from the inner to the outer like a mirror. You cannot be loved until you love yourself first, you cannot be comfortable around others until you are comfortable with who you are. What it stems from is a separation from self, and a lack of love and acceptance of oneself. And so the individual seeks things in the external world either materially, or through control, because they didnt fill the hole inside themselves first with self love.
In some religions they refer to the ego as satan, and that is why satan or the ego rules the world, because it is inside of us all.
And we live in a left brain ego dominated world. The analytical mind which is the source off all fears, negativity, judgement and separation. Its why its human nature to separate things and categorize them from things, data, to people, to ideology and beliefs, from gender, us and them.
As far as degrees of evil, it really depends on how polarized or ego centered a person is. It can stem from insecurity which appears as arrogance to someone who is sadistic and commits murder. So its the degree they are separated from themselves in reality and how much they hate themselves and their lives, because you cant create attrocities unless on some level you hate yourself. So I guess its the degree that one loves oneself, because it all flows from the inner to the outer like a mirror. You cannot be loved until you love yourself first, you cannot be comfortable around others until you are comfortable with who you are. What it stems from is a separation from self, and a lack of love and acceptance of oneself. And so the individual seeks things in the external world either materially, or through control, because they didnt fill the hole inside themselves first with self love.
b.finton
Active Member
I'm intrigued by the suggestion of levels of continua in this context, but my question was intended to be planer (sorry ;-).
When I first read the teaching, "If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children," I imagined that it was directed to a group of "bad" people, with "good" people sitting by and knowingly nodding their heads. I've encountered many wonderful people, but none were truly good: they were blemished, every one of them, just like me.
I reason, therefore, that evil is not the opposite of good, but that wickedness is. That understanding puts us all in the same tipsy boat, looking for oars we can manage without capsizing.
Makes sense?
b.
When I first read the teaching, "If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children," I imagined that it was directed to a group of "bad" people, with "good" people sitting by and knowingly nodding their heads. I've encountered many wonderful people, but none were truly good: they were blemished, every one of them, just like me.
I reason, therefore, that evil is not the opposite of good, but that wickedness is. That understanding puts us all in the same tipsy boat, looking for oars we can manage without capsizing.
Makes sense?
b.
b.finton
Active Member
Robin Hood's "good" deeds undoubtedly goosed need to covetous greed in some: "it's good we got theirs, when do we get more?"
The fight against the third Reich morphed into W's wars, so far as USA is concerned. When we looked into the abyss of the forties, it looked back: big time. Does American exceptionalism differ categorically from other concepts of master races, chosen peoples? To argue so would be to draw some very fine lines in the sand.
Goodness and wickedness are magnets. At some point, humanity must agree to choose the good. As it is, we naturally want to have our cake and eat it too: this is a pervasive evil throughout the world, but it isn't wickedness. Wickedness puts oil above people and the environment, for example. No good there; only expedience for an unsustainable present.
b.
Hi b.finton –
We (pre-R C) tend to see evil as the absence of good. Therefore no-one is intrinsically evil. Rather, they do less well than they could.
So to take your initial analogy, the way I read it, you see one end of the continuum as 100% good, the other as 100% evil, and ask where wickedness fits in. I would say then that it would have to be at 99% ... which puts us all in a very tipsy boat indeed!
The way I see it is as a continuum from 100% good at one end, to 0% good at the other. Wickedness, which I interpret as a subjective view of evil – the objective view being simply the absence of good – is then the measure of how wilfully 'not-good' a given action is. The more the knowing one is doing a 'bad' thing, and the scale of the thing done, then determines the degree of wickedness.
We're all human – nobody's perfect!
That's very close to the pre-Reformation Christian view of things.
We (pre-R C) tend to see evil as the absence of good. Therefore no-one is intrinsically evil. Rather, they do less well than they could.
So to take your initial analogy, the way I read it, you see one end of the continuum as 100% good, the other as 100% evil, and ask where wickedness fits in. I would say then that it would have to be at 99% ... which puts us all in a very tipsy boat indeed!
The way I see it is as a continuum from 100% good at one end, to 0% good at the other. Wickedness, which I interpret as a subjective view of evil – the objective view being simply the absence of good – is then the measure of how wilfully 'not-good' a given action is. The more the knowing one is doing a 'bad' thing, and the scale of the thing done, then determines the degree of wickedness.
We've been choosing the good....repeatedly...consistently....over the course of time...
From the beginning of recorded history we see the evolution of man becoming more humane, more concern for the environment, the land, our fellow man....whether it has to do with scarcity, or self preservation...it is happening...
From the beginning of recorded history we see the evolution of man becoming more humane, more concern for the environment, the land, our fellow man....whether it has to do with scarcity, or self preservation...it is happening...
Gordian Knot
Being Deviant IS My Art.
You are a far more optimistic person than I Wil.
I see no increase of goodness in the human species over the last 3,000 years. (I should point out that I don't see any less goodness either). There is less concern for the environment than there is for the corporate bottom line. The butchering of our species continues unabated, raising and falling, but never stopping. And often to the point of virtual genocide. Just look at the past 50 years! How many millions have died because they are the wrong race, or the wrong color, or the wrong religion.
203 Million in the 20th century alone.
The planet can no longer sustain the number of people on it. Yet we continue to grow the population. Worse more and more of those people want the same access to resources that we in the U.S. have had for the last century.
Up till now the United States, with less than 5 % of the global population, uses about a quarter of the world’s fossil fuel resources. 25% for the benefit of 5%. And the rest of the world is catching up and saying they now want the same.
And on that note, a pleasant good evening to all!
I see no increase of goodness in the human species over the last 3,000 years. (I should point out that I don't see any less goodness either). There is less concern for the environment than there is for the corporate bottom line. The butchering of our species continues unabated, raising and falling, but never stopping. And often to the point of virtual genocide. Just look at the past 50 years! How many millions have died because they are the wrong race, or the wrong color, or the wrong religion.
203 Million in the 20th century alone.
The planet can no longer sustain the number of people on it. Yet we continue to grow the population. Worse more and more of those people want the same access to resources that we in the U.S. have had for the last century.
Up till now the United States, with less than 5 % of the global population, uses about a quarter of the world’s fossil fuel resources. 25% for the benefit of 5%. And the rest of the world is catching up and saying they now want the same.
And on that note, a pleasant good evening to all!
b.finton
Active Member
If evil is the opposite of good, not wickedness, then why does the prophet Ezekiel lament the people's inability to distinguish between good and evil, the people putting one for the other and the other for the one? Nobody mistakes wickedness for good, nor is it anywhere in scripture suggested that they do.
Why is it written, "If there is evil in a city, I (HaShem) have done it (brought it about)? No prophet ever said that an act of HaShem was wickedness.
An "evil fig" may no longer be good for eating, but it's still good for something. Extraction of the seed for planting? Adding the fig's pulp to the compost pile? Nothing wicked about a fig of any sort.
Equating evil with wickedness is a false equivalency.
b.
Why is it written, "If there is evil in a city, I (HaShem) have done it (brought it about)? No prophet ever said that an act of HaShem was wickedness.
An "evil fig" may no longer be good for eating, but it's still good for something. Extraction of the seed for planting? Adding the fig's pulp to the compost pile? Nothing wicked about a fig of any sort.
Equating evil with wickedness is a false equivalency.
b.
I think the declaration right at the start "namely, the fact that the world has become much more peaceful in recent decades and is getting more peaceful all the time" says two things:
1: 'recent decades' is far too short a timescale to make any such pronouncements.
2: 'getting more peaceful all the time' is an optimistic projection, we'll have to wait and see what happens.
The world had become 'much more peaceful in recent decades' right up until 28 June 1914 ...
The article was addressing the American reaction to such things as 9-11, etc. This was another huge blow to the American psyche and yes, from a Euro perspective, you guys do tend to over-react, but then it's never happened to you before.
In Europe, wars, invasions ... it's been going on forever.
But how can it be more peaceful when you guys have declared 'war on terror'?
1: 'recent decades' is far too short a timescale to make any such pronouncements.
2: 'getting more peaceful all the time' is an optimistic projection, we'll have to wait and see what happens.
The world had become 'much more peaceful in recent decades' right up until 28 June 1914 ...
The article was addressing the American reaction to such things as 9-11, etc. This was another huge blow to the American psyche and yes, from a Euro perspective, you guys do tend to over-react, but then it's never happened to you before.
In Europe, wars, invasions ... it's been going on forever.
But how can it be more peaceful when you guys have declared 'war on terror'?
That's an unresolved 'If'.
False analogy. 'evil' and 'wickedness' are both moral determinations. Rotten fruit is not evil.
Why? They both speak of the morality of the matter.
b.finton
Active Member
We're dealing with English words, here. To analyze and explain the reason for the usage of the many distinct Hebrew word forms translated as evil or wicked in their scriptural contexts would require a major treatise. This same difficulty applies to a great number of scriptural concepts, most important among them being words applying to deity. It's no wonder there's confusion through translation.
At some point, humanity will need to agree upon definitions. Without agreement on how the Paleo-Hebrew word forms translate into the vernacular languages of mankind (including modern Hebrew), the path to peace will remain obscured. The three major divisions of the Abrahamic religions are actually in disagreement because of hearsay. As it is written, "women" (those who ought to be receiving spiritual instruction, according to the natural parable of the flesh) "rule over you, and you love to have it so." A reset is desperately needed.
Although the Webster's Unabridged Dictionary does cite evil and wicked as synonyms, it's apparent that evil has milder connotations than wicked. The equivocation is through usage. "Abusage," is how I characterize these traps of translation.
I've been studying Sinatic Hebrew for over thirty years and am willing to undertake definition of the original words for this forum, but only if I'm granted permission to take advantage of html. Scriptural context for usages can only be undertaken after the parameters of definition are established.
I'm seventy years old. I ascribe to no organized religion, belong to no religious fellowship. I raise no funds, seek no followers, and incite no rabble on purpose; and the only drum I beat is a cry for clarity. If I'm not granted the ability to use the tools the web provides in this forum, there's no reason for me to continue here.
b.
At some point, humanity will need to agree upon definitions. Without agreement on how the Paleo-Hebrew word forms translate into the vernacular languages of mankind (including modern Hebrew), the path to peace will remain obscured. The three major divisions of the Abrahamic religions are actually in disagreement because of hearsay. As it is written, "women" (those who ought to be receiving spiritual instruction, according to the natural parable of the flesh) "rule over you, and you love to have it so." A reset is desperately needed.
Although the Webster's Unabridged Dictionary does cite evil and wicked as synonyms, it's apparent that evil has milder connotations than wicked. The equivocation is through usage. "Abusage," is how I characterize these traps of translation.
I've been studying Sinatic Hebrew for over thirty years and am willing to undertake definition of the original words for this forum, but only if I'm granted permission to take advantage of html. Scriptural context for usages can only be undertaken after the parameters of definition are established.
I'm seventy years old. I ascribe to no organized religion, belong to no religious fellowship. I raise no funds, seek no followers, and incite no rabble on purpose; and the only drum I beat is a cry for clarity. If I'm not granted the ability to use the tools the web provides in this forum, there's no reason for me to continue here.
b.
past 50 years...most peaceful, least violent time in all of recorded history...
WW! WW2, communism in Russia/China tens of millions dead...
a definite hiccup... but overall graph....we are still on the right direction...
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
We have a long way to go.... but YES we as humans are constantly headed toward the good!!
And yes...pre-emptive war....war on terror.... Cheney/Bush/Haliburton/Blackwater are another black eye.... but a minor hiccup... in the big scheme of things....
Nick the Pilot
Well-Known Member
Communist China is definitely not an example of modern-day humanity, it is merely an aberration. Believe me, I know, I live in Communist China.
I agree that the majority of humanity is moving foreword, and things are much better than they were 500 years ago, 1000 years ago, etc. We ARE making progress, however slowly it seems to be.
I agree that the majority of humanity is moving foreword, and things are much better than they were 500 years ago, 1000 years ago, etc. We ARE making progress, however slowly it seems to be.
A Cup Of Tea
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I'm fine with your optimistic view, but you seem to think it's built on facts and not your optimistic attitude (which I think is the root to your views). But if we want to compare factual evidence we need to define 'Peaceful' in something measurable and you seem to have chosen people killed. That's fine I think, somewhat limiting but we'll go with that. Unfortunately such statistics aren't very reliable. Documented cases of deaths isn't the same as all the documented deaths. And where are we talking about? The world? I doubt a lot of places kept such statistics 50 years a go.
So I don't see how it's provable one way or another, but is it necessary to try? Don't you already have your answer?