The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

I think the evil comes from society. Babies were not evil when they were first born. However, after they mature and gain knowledge, they develop the capacity to be evil. I mean, were Neanderthals evil in their simplistic society and with their under-developed brain? I don't think so...and we might never find out. Anyways, what I'm trying to say is that our society today has become so complicated that it forces out the evil, bad side of humans as their only way of survival in a cruel world. I think evil may sometimes just be a reflex like self-defense, a way of surviving and living only for one's own survival. I don't think evil comes from God. According to the Bible, evil starts from Adam and Eve when they ate the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. So, people did not start out evil.

Are you sure God is good.

The snake that told Adam and Eve about the fruit may have been god himself.
Throughout the bible, God has killed more creatures/monsters than Satan, under his excuse that they were Evil though he himself created it.

think about it this way, why would god try to destroy evil when he created it and not by mistake.

Are you sure God is the good one or is Lucifer the righteous?

I forgive you guys for being busy last night paying respects to(/dropping tears for) the graduates :') (and great job to the emcees!) Just a quick reminder to address my post from yesterday (also copied below) in your discussion today!

Here it is:

Let's shift the discussion to address the other side of the spectrum of unlimited potential. What if we had a person who has achieved enlightenment, or "oneness" with the Being. If he or she were to transcend any more in either mind or being, would the acheived unity and balance of mind & Being be upset? So is unlimited human potential really accessible to human beings?

& thanks for all the great answers and insights thus far.

the discussion to address the other side of the spectrum of unlimited potential. What if we had a person who has achieved enlightenment, or "oneness" with the Being. If he or she were to transcend any more in either mind or being, would the acheived unity and balance of mind & Being be upset? So is unlimited human potential really accessible to human beings?

Hmm…well, I think that when we achieve enlightenment, we are unlimited potential. Rather, attaining “oneness” is what allows us become aware of our unlimited potential, and possibility, to utilize it. However, perhaps one way that we can transcend even more under the realization of the interconnectivity between all objects, is to learn how exactly to attract “better” energies to use – how to use this unlimited potential. So no, I don’t think that a person who’s transcended anymore in their being will upset their unity between the mind and Being. This is because I don’t think the Being can be transcended. If it is already everything and anything – if it already knows all the truth in this world, then it wouldn’t need to transcend anymore. It job is to let the individual realize and, hopefully, manifest this truth. However, if one transcends within one’s mind, then I believe the achieve equilibrium might get thrown off the trail. If the person becomes tainted, once again, by the materialistic values or the immortal values of the ego mind, then yes, the unity is disrupted. Yet, in a sense, a person who is swayed to go back to the egocentric acts of the mind hasn’t really attained enlightenment, have they?

Finally, I think unlimited potential is accessible to human beings. The amount of this potential that we get depends on us. We choose whether or not we want to slow down and listen to the Being and feel the “oneness.”

However, does knowing that we have unlimited potential fuel the ego mind? Does it become dominant again, once the individual realizes that they have unlimited potential, and can summon what they want?

Also with what we have discussed so far in mind, is there a limit to a person's irrationality/immorality? Think about with yourself or someone you know well, when you have done something irrational, do you just forget about it or do you stop and correct it? What goes through your/a person's mind if you/they do come around?
Is it possible to never come off irrational morals?

hey so this was from like your last last post hehe sorry its a bit late, but anyhooooooo, this question popped into my head while i was watching the news while eating dinner last night and i could like picture your forum discussion in my head .. i know im cool, ok anyways, the news..WTF i couldnt believe it at all...there was a guy and he killed his mom and then ran off with his girlfriend on some vacation and all the pictures were of him smiling and having fun..and the news right after that was someone who killed BOTH his parents..THAT is something i dont get..and in relation to your question, after seeing that news, i really don't see any boundaries to how irrational or evil a person can be..i couldn't even believe someone could kill his MOM and not only that, be smiling right afterwards...i really dont know whats going on in his head. I was trying to think of WHY or HOW he could do that...and it also reported that he did not grow up with his father and only with his mother...so maybe it could explain how he had no father figure to learn from. Maybe he always felt alone and abandoned by his father so he developed into someone independent and felt like he didnt need his mother anymore..The worst part is, i dont think he even felt bad about it..because he didnt confess, the police had to take him in. So i think it is possiblle to never come off the irrational morals. Maybe because of the environment he grew up in, his ego-mind developed into something that he always felt -- which was lonliness and independence. i hope that was the reason why he would kill his mom..if not, it makes trusting people so much harder because after hearing about that, you could think that any evil is possible --> unlimited potential.

In response to Kathy's post about those evil deeds...her words made me think of something that I recently read and heard on the news.

First of all, a couple of you know about the movie I watched with the girl getting killed by being stuffed into a laundry machine. Pretty gory, yeah. Well I found out that that was actually real...except worse. A MOTHER stuffed her own baby son into a laundry machine and killed him that way. I think just last year or two yoears ago, there was news about this french couple that killed their own son/daughter (can't remember) by stuffing him/her into the freezer. They found the corpse to be quite old.

Secondly, a piece of news report came from England. A 36-year old woman abandoned six children to be with her lover (and here's the thing) an 18-year old. Double that, her teenage lover is her first son (stepson)'s best friend. Ugh. Apparently two of the six children are stepchildren so they have their own guardian but apparently the last four are her biological children that do not have a father (not absolutely sure what happened here) and were sent to social services. Apparently the 18-year old and 36-year old couple want to claim the children but their economic stance isn't good enough to take the children in.

This made me think about Freud's ideas that were mentioned in one of the two packets we had to read for English homework a few days ago. Didn't he say something like how humans have some sort of Oedipus complex and those things are labeled as immoral etc. but through correct counseling and analysis those impulses may become suppressed? Unless I interpreted the packet wrong, I think that is right.

So if it comes to this, doesn't this mean that the correct cousneling and analysis to be all artificial -- as in made my humans? Then all this whole ordeal with good and evil, morality, are they all based upon the human MIND? I mean take a look at those crazy deeds people did in my two examples. Personally speaking they transcended (good lord I don't like using this word for this) whatever love they have and did whatever they wanted to do.

Hey guys!

@VICKY'S: hey Vick!! so you believe that the Being knows everything and IS everything and IS truth? So are you saying that the Being is the same for everyone? We just have something called the Being? (respectfully, I'm asking a question, not questioning you:) ) If so, hmm... i think that the Being is one's genuine Self, and thus everyone is different. I think it's the mind that is more or less the same. I know that everyone's minds are used differently and produce different thoughts according to past experiences/ social conditioning. BUT the mind, generally, produces thoughts from the past and (sometimes falsely) anticipates the future, leading to worry, anxiety, paranoia, and all other kinds of EMOTIONS. SO, i think that our Being IS OUR GENUINE SELF, IT IS US FROM OUR ORIGIN, IT IS THE MOST PURE LEVEL OF OURSELVES, IT IS WHAT WE REALLY ARE. YOUR BEING IS 100% ALL OF WHAT YOU ARE, spritually, and it is correlated with our happiness and our contentment and our life-long goals. Thus our Being is in touch with the universe--energies and forces of spirits and souls on earth/ nature. But our Being doesn't KNOW EVERYTHING. it can't know. IT IS JUST A CONNECTION BETWEEN THE BEING AND THE UNIVERSE. But is the universe reality? we don't know what reality is. reality is basically different for everyone depending on our perspectives, our being doesn't know the whole truth does it? Our being is truly the most genuine thing we contain. But does our Being know everything? or is our being simply connected in one way or another connected to all other beings/energies of the universe, but not know everything? I'm having a bit of trouble articulating myself. let me know if you don't understand!! sorry!

So unlimited human potential. I think our human ablity/potential can go very far and we can use our potential, if unlimited to a great extend depending on how much of the Being is in control of the mind or depending how strong our WE are to break hindrances/barriers/ obstacles we encounter. Although we can use this potential to a great extent, i don't think that we are able to fully utilize this unlimited potential to an extent that WE WANT it to be used. In other words, we have the potential stored in us, but it's more like it has the power to stop more than we have the power to control how much it is used.

Hi Steph! In light of all the responses, I thought I'd present my original answer to your first question before I started reading all the responses, so here goes:

Can a person transcend being evil? I think I saw on one of the posts when I was scrolling down that evil was subjective. Some people can't tell the difference between good and evil, right and wrong - in a sense, do they not have an ego-mind? Without this ego-mind, they are functioning as a child. A child may hit another child, it may play with another child, but whether an action is right or wrong is influenced by the parents, who teach the child the rules of acceptable conduct.

Take war for instance. Personally, I see only mass destruction in war - the families that are broken apart, the loves separated are so much more devastating than surrendering the war and dying without honor. Like the movie we're watching in USH (something-jima...-_-") the baker doesn't want to die because he still has his wife. And deep inside, I guess we all don't want to die until we're old and wrinkly.

Back to my answer, war is subjective - one country may think that they're fighting to defend their land, their families, their lives, but the other side may view them as demons sent from the other world to destroy their society, their world. Is war bad, then? Is it even needed? A bugler may kill an innocent man to obtain the money needed to help his child go to college. Is he evil?

Then take the Holocaust. That, I would think, is an universally accept deed of evil - or at least, an extreme case of superiority complex. But obviously, the leaders of the event didn't think so.

So where does evil come from? As a child we are exempt from the rules and when we hit another kid, it's not a bad deed - they view it as natural. So is this natural? Is being evil as natural to us as being good?

Just a few thoughts.

Hi Joan

So where does evil come from? As a child we are exempt from the rules and when we hit another kid, it's not a bad deed - they view it as natural. So is this natural? Is being evil as natural to us as being good?

What we call evil IMO is just the expression of our hypocrisy. We say one thing and do another which is normal for our level of "being." This is what it means to live by external morality. Is it possible we could become capable of awakening to inner morality? I don't know. All I do know is if there those that have awakened to the experience of inner morality, they are few and far between. Here is an old post of mine that describes the difference between inner and external morality:

***************************

"May the outward and inward man be at one." Socrates

We've discussed morality and what it is. It is easy to come to believe that morality is something we learn and is subjectively defined. But as we all know, hypocrisy is the norm for humanity which is why we can preach one thing while doing another. In fact I believe that Simone's caution is quite accurate.

"To set up as a standard of public morality a notion which can neither be defined nor conceived is to open the door to every kind of tyranny." Simone Weil

This is the norm. External morality becomes an issue of control in secular society including secularized religion.

But if there is an "objective good" it means that it contains an objective morality in relation to it. This is not a conditioned morality but rather soul knowledge.

http://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Anci/AnciBhan.htm

At this juncture the new point of view is stated by Glaucon and he put Forward a form of what was later to be known as a social contract theory, arguing we are only moral because, it pays us or we have to be. Glaucon describes the historical evolution of the society where justice as a necessity had become the shield of the weaker. In the primitive stage of society without law and government, man was free to do whatever he likes. So the stronger few enjoyed the life at the sufferance of the weaker many. The weaker, however, realized that they suffered more injustice. Faced with this situation they came to an agreement and instituted law and government through a sort of social contract and preached the philosophy of just. Therefore, justice in this way something artificial and unnatural. It is the "product of convention". It is through this artificial rule of justice and law that the natural selfishness of man is chained. A dictate of the weaker many, for the interest of the weaker many, as against the natural and superior power of the stronger few.

Plato realizes that all theories propounded by Cephalus, Thrasymachus and Glaucon, contained one common element. That one common element was that all the them treated justice as something external "an accomplishment, an importation, or a convention, they have, none of them carried it into the soul or considered it in the place of its habitation." Plato prove that justice does not depend upon a chance, convention or upon external force. It is the right condition of the human soul by the very nature of man when seen in the fullness of his environment. It is in this way that Plato condemned the position taken by Glaucon that justice is something which is external. According to Plato, it is internal as it resides in the human soul. "It is now regarded as an inward grace and its understanding is shown to involve a study of the inner man." It is, therefore, natural and no artificial. It is therefore, not born of fear of the weak but of the longing of the human soul to do a duty according to its nature.

Now without an objective good or universal purpose, there can be no soul knowledge simply because there is nothing to know since we make it up ourselves. Yet if soul knowledge exists the question becomes how to open to it for those willing?

Normally we think that without modern psychology everyone would be hitting each other over the head. Now with modern psychology, instead of rocks, we hit each other over the head with peace signs. Either way it is the same result.

How do we open to soul knowledge? That is a big question but I believe if people were willing to do what Simone Weil suggests, we could experience it and the real meaning and purpose of "conscience." She wrote:


There Comes

If you do not fight it---if you look, just
look, steadily,
upon it,

there come
a moment when you cannot do it,
if it is evil;

if good, a moment
when you cannot
not.

This requires a willingness to be open that is very difficult to do. Living in our normal patterns is much safer and secure. Yet this inability is why Socrates knew that the outer man being a reflection of the inner man and soul knowledge is only a potential so we continue as conditioned beings enduring the hypocrisy of external morality and oblivious of the objective good.

This is one reason that the influence of those like Simone Weil is so important. It influences people to think and feel outside of the box and their normal psychological conditioning. It is why some even write books concerning these questions most are completely unaware of. Yet it is this influence that stirs something I believe needs stirring. Such books IMO are very politically incorrect but also very necessary

http://www.amazon.com/Simone-Weil-CompassionTwentieth-Century-Political/dp/0847690806

Product Description
Richard H. Bell analyzes the social and political thought of Simone Weil, paying particular attention to Weil's concept of justice as compassion. Bell describes the ways in which Weil's concept of justice stands in contrast with liberal "rights-based" views of justice, and focuses upon central aspects of Weil's thought, including "attention," human suffering and "affliction," and the importance of "a spiritual way of life" in reshaping the individual's role in civic life. "Simone Weil: The Way of Justice as Compassion" is a valuable addition to the scholarship on this important thinker and a necessary book for students and scholars of political theory and philosophical moral thought.

About the Author
Richard H. Bell is Frank Halliday Ferris Professor of Philosophy at The College of Wooster. He is the editor of "Simone Weil's Philosophy of Culture" (Cambridge), and the co-editor of many books, including "Seeds of the Spirit: Wisdom of the Twentieth Century" and "The Grammar of the Heart: New Essays in Moral Philosophy and Theology".

heyhey

I think evil and the good and bad is a classification of the lower mind, the one that is not connected with the universal soul and not enlightened. Because what goes on in the society around us often has two sides to the situation. If we were never there, we would technically never know which side of the truth is being presented and which is the side that contains biases. Though both sides of the one story may have personal biases from each individual, it is often difficult to know for sure which is the real truth. So basically it comes down to perspectives once again and the good and bad is just another classification of the ego mind according to the social conditioning, personal experiences, and what we each perceive as being true or valid.

It is liek with many many situations in our daily lives, there isnt always a yes or a no to situations, nor is there a right or wrong. Like with that car door key question Mr. Swan gave us in guidance. Some people thought that the key turned clockwise while others thought that it turned anticlockwise. Some say that it is more logical for it to turn anticlockwise because of the motion of the hand. While others believe that turning the key clockwise allows the arm to exert more force. Some use the argument of the fact that there are more right handers in the world than left handers, hence the key turns clockwise/anticlockwise etc.etc.etc. These reasonings are logical and valid to some point, but there is no real definite answer to the question. It is a matter of perspective and how each of us views the situation or problem presented.

As Nick mentioned, there is such thing as objective good. What I think that means is liek the traditional moral values. Most people believe this because they have been taught this correct set of perspectives as a young child. And as they journey through life, they may find that these teachings are valid and may help them in their life, thus, they adhere and stick to these principles. And as it achieves a mass awareness/ most people in the society are taught and believe this, it becomes something like a traditional moral value in which most people follow. Such as the example of "thou shall not murder." Basically everyone knows that killing/harming another person is not the right thing to do. However, as we have discussed in class today, certain personal experiences can greatly alter ones perspectives and beliefs and may twist certain basic principles within that person in order for them to rebel against the society or what is being presented to them. For example, if a child constantly witnesses violence within his family from a very young age, and it seems to him that hitting one another and using inappropriate verbal assult is the solution to every problem/conflict, it is likely that he will go out and hit another child or use inappropriate language against him/her if ever there was a conflict. This twists what seems to be the traditional moral values but is the child to be blamed for what he has had to endure all through his childhood, which has then left a shadow and imprint into his character and life? Is it his fault? It is as if he was taught to be that way, but is he wrong to do these things?

And is people are inherently good, then how do we take these negative teachings out of our lives if they were all that has been taught to us as children? Is it possible to neglect and leave these false values behind and start off as a new person? Or would that violate against who we are and who we are developing to be?

about the question of unlimited potential, I think unlimited potential exists. EVen when you are enlightened, maybe you can discover new things everyday since the world is constantly changing...so everyday is like a new enlightenment, therefore we can have unlimited potential. And this also gives us unlimited potential to be good or bad.
regarding your question about evil, it is really hard to answer because all our definitions of evil are different. I may think one act is really evil while another may think that it doesn't qualify...

I do believe in unlimited potential, yet at the same time, i do not. I believe that humans are unlimited, yet it is hard to believe that there isnt a limit on something. we live in a very structured world, structured facilaties, structured society, structured world. Thus, leading to people believing in this whole set up, structured, constructed atmosphere. We know that there are only numbers 0-9 on a phone, we know that there are only 26 alphabets in the english language, we know that there are only the right click and the left click and sometimes the middle click when using the mouse.

My point isnt to emphasize on what we see, its to enforce what is beneath the surface. There are more than 0-9 numbers on the phone if we take each in combination with the other, forming from 0-infinite digits of combinations, there are 26 alphabets in the english language yet combining themselves into more that thousands of words that have meaning, we only have 3 clicks on the mouse yet we can do so many things with them.

This is my stance on unlimited Human potential. We are living on the surface due to the framework of society, our buildup and growth in life, our environment surrounding us. Figurtively, we only see the 0-9 on the phone, the 26 alphabets in the english language, and the 3 clicks on the mouse yet we should dig deep to harvest the different combinations that bring about infinite possiblities.

hihi

the thunder and lightening is kinda scary right now... i may not finish this post due to the great risk of being in this situation...

haha. i like what jt is saying about how society and what we have been taught as children limits and puts boundaries on what we perceive and accept to be true. as we have been conditioned this way, it is difficult for us to break, or transcend, this common belief and to establish ourselves in the realm of the unlimited. Once we are able to do that, we will surely have transcended the physical, mental, whatever else boundaries that bind us to a certain way of thinking and perceiving.

Thank you all for your participation this past week.
Conclusion coming up soon.

Moderator Conclusion: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
It has been quite a week with the forum, and all the things in life I have noticed because of the forum and the questions that I’ve come up with and developed potential answers to. Firstly, probably the root of all my subsequent questions is how the particles of God, as Emerson termed them, turn evil? I think that while we all start out as God’s particles, we have our whole lives ahead of us to do who knows what. While we are all interconnected, we do not have the power to control another individual. Evil can be produced though negative stimulus on the ego-mind, though the family, society, or media, seeing as each can potentially heavily influence a person. When “immoral” behaviors are reinforced, an evil deed may occur, and this is possible because of the ego-mind’s strength in its volume advantage over the being. However, a lot of my replies reminded me of the individuality that is prevalent in each of our beings. Different motivations will produced different actions (or no action) in people, and the difference depends on our moral compasses. However, the discussion also addressed the other side of society. Things might be like they are in The Lord of the Flies—society in fact suppresses the innate evil and savage inside of us. I’ve come to the conclusion that both are possible. Because of the aforementioned individuality, society can bring out the worst in one person and the best in another.

As for the Universal Being being tainted by intense evil, I don’t think generally happens, thank god. Again, despite our interconnectedness, our Beings are essentially different, and our ego minds go off and create minds of their own based on the molding and bangings of the environment we are nourished in. Fermin said it very eloquently when he said that it should not be possible to contaminate something that is infinite in possibilities. The main source of actual contamination, I would assume, is through ego-mind and modeling (someone picking up another’s bad deed through observation), which would explain my feeling a tinge of guilt when my brother does something dishonest or something.

In the discussion, regarding my day two question extentions, we’ve discussed the chilling reality that OUR irrationality can so easily be another’s rationality/reality. Edgar Allan Poe was cited a lot at this point, showing what happens as a person turns crazy or evil: nothing (to them) We think their realities are grossly distorted, while they may not have noticed the change at all. Kathy and Rosa brought in real life examples from the news of this. Because of this, it IS possible, in some (rare?) cases, to become more and more immersed in irrationality (no limit), and sometimes, tragically, to never come around. However, I/we like to believe that the majority of us are not like that, and possess somewhat decent moral compasses. With the “normal” person, there is usually a point where the pendulum will tip back and flip everything over.

On the other hand, with a person who has achieved enlightenment, can he or she still transcend without tipping the balance of oneness? Logically, I would say the answer is no, but I’m leaning towards “yes.” I think it was stephsquared or Vicky who said that the Being, in whatever amount, as long as present and acknowledged, will allow the peace of enlightenment. The thing is maintaining that extremely level of ego-mind discipline that’s the tricky part. “when we achieve enlightenment, we ARE unlimited potential” –Vicky. Emily also said that perhaps when we are enlightened, every new day is unlimited potential; we are in no way limited and WITH this already attained oneness we are free to transcend even MORE. Enlightenment is no limit, it is the beginning of a whole new kind of life.

With the feedback I got from the discussees, I came to wondering whether unlimited potential is really attainable. A bit of a tangent off my original topic, but I found it exciting to discuss. I like to think that we are potentially unlimited, yet there is so much telling us that we are not. Rosa brought up communism—it sounds really nice, but it doesn’t work because somewhere along the way a human is bound to slip up for being…HUMAN. Lazy greedy egocentric whatever you name it. But is unlimited potential really about that. Maybe people were foolish to try to direct all this potential to one man’s vision of communism, and this potential is actually meant for each of us to go and live out of. Yet, most of us do believe in unlimited potential. Maybe we just haven’t seen enough of the world lol. This last question I do not have a definitive answer to, but I don’t think I should in light of what you said in class today. Which 16 year old knows the answer to the universe? I’m all right with living this life out and just seeing where it gets me.

Thanks again to the participants.

rosAA wrote:

So if it comes to this, doesn't this mean that the correct cousneling and analysis to be all artificial -- as in made my humans? Then all this whole ordeal with good and evil, morality, are they all based upon the human MIND? I mean take a look at those crazy deeds people did in my two examples. Personally speaking they transcended (good lord I don't like using this word for this) whatever love they have and did whatever they wanted to do.

You bring up a very good point. Much of what we see as good vs less than desireable is a perception. Does that or could that extend to include expressions of evil. Could the expression of dysfunction be part of a process for expanding the wishes of Essence.

You also mentioned some things earlier in this thread that are similar thoughts.

Then again, there are other books that talk about inherent good within humans. Like Confucius. His beliefs was that there is inherent good within all humans but through society's conditioning and beliefs, people become more afflicted with evil. Then, just like as discussed, the inherent good within all of us will take over and grow through unlimited potential and create even more good in this world.

HOWEVER.

I have a question here then -- the definition of evil and good, are they from the ego-mind or from the essence? The definition of evil and good is heavily connected to religion and people's moral grounds, but didn't evil come to be because humans began to commit them? Okay I'm going in circles but I would like to see what people think about this :]

I would say that the ego-mind is constructed by Essence for the purpose of bringing seperation into focus. We as a culture have a lot to learn about the nature of our reality. We are connected to each other and all things. The most evil intent of what we see as another is an aspect of the Self. When we choose to see this idea as valid, we can start to appreciate many things. We can start to ask Our Self why we need to express that evil intent in the way that we do? The answer we get may well be to expand All That Is.

What Is All That Is in a word. Some say everything comes down to energetic essence or Love. If that is truly something our heart can embrace, then we can see that there is no evil. Evil is a thought construct from the ego-mind that serves a great purpose.

I must say rosAA, that in my mind, you have identified the essence of understanding with these questions. You have no idea how impressed I am with your thinking.

John