Deceiver of the whole world

@kellyjay said
I would disagree stupid exists; it is no different than cold being the absence of heat. There is a limit to cold, the removal of all heat at some point it can get no colder, while it can always get hotter. Evil and badness require goodness to be real if there isn't anything good than what is it that is lacking for there to be evil? The only reason we know evil is part of our ...[text shortened]... ot the same thing, stupid can get information and get it wrong while information can cure ignorance.

Heaven (in a Christian context) is a state of being in the presence of God. Hell, therefore, is a state of being in the absence of God.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Okay. Let us first start by taking the word 'evil' off the table. The opposite of 'good' is 'bad', not evil. (I view the word 'evil' as an emotive religious word, in the same deck of cards as 'sin' ).

Murder, for example, is indeed 'bad' but only because it is 'not good' and as a result of thought processes and actions that are 'not good' or that lack goodness. Th ...[text shortened]... ings destruction due to a lack of water).

Bad things happen when good people do nothing. etc etc.

Bad is not a direct result of a lack of action. When you qute "bad things happen etc" what is being said is that there already has been a decision to do bad things, and those bad things are happening because they are not being opposed (when good do nothing).

To commit bad or evil, I don't care about the label, it is a positive action not neutral default one.

If you are sitting at home not doing a lot, but defintitely not doing anything that cant be ascrobed as "good" that doesn't make you bad. Bad is a choice not a default.

@kellyjay said
I beg to differ, why would opposite of good not be evil? Bad can be a amoral term, I can have a bad apple, that does not address a good moral action! I cannot have an evil apple that would require a morality given to apples.

Friedrich Nietzsche, in a rejection of the Judeo-Christian morality, addresses this in two works, Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morals, where he essentially says that the natural functional non-good has been socially transformed into the religious concept of evil by the slave mentality of the weak and oppressed masses who resent their masters (the strong).

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Heaven (in a Christian context) is a state of being in the presence of God. Hell, therefore, is a state of being in the absence of God.

Neither is true.

Heaven is not acredited in the bible as a state of mind.

Hell is not an absence of God although that would happen. Depending on belief system Hell would be either seen as a place of torment or the common grave.

@divegeester said
I don't think one follows the other, a non-sequitur perhaps.

Light is photons which are a type of energy even if they have no mass; goodness is a subjective observation of another person's nature as reflected in their actions. The absence of actions does not mean the absence of goodness and the absence of goodness is simply a perception. It could be argued that evil is an intent, but the absence of an intent to do good does not mean there is an intent to do evil.

I don't much care for that analogy, either. It leaves no place for morally neutral actions. Also, there is a difference between "sins of omission" (failing to act when one knows one should) and deliberate, malicious actions. "Absence of good" seems to fit the former better than the latter.

@medullah said

If you are sitting at home not doing a lot, but defintitely not doing anything that cant be ascrobed as "good" that doesn't make you bad. Bad is a choice not a default.

If I am indeed sitting at home and void of goodness, then nothing I did would be perceived by me as bad. 'Badness' would only exist as a reality to me when the notion of goodness was reintroduced.

Currently, as I sit at home, my head knows what goodness is, even if I am not actively motivated by it.

@medullah said
Neither is true.

Heaven is not acredited in the bible as a state of mind.

Hell is not an absence of God although that would happen. Depending on belief system Hell would be either seen as a place of torment or the common grave.

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God." (Rev 21:3).

And non-existence/annihilation is a state of being in the absence of God. (Hell).


Edit: Please note that I said state of being, not state of mind, as you wrote.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Heaven (in a Christian context) is a state of being in the presence of God. Hell, therefore, is a state of being in the absence of God.

No, Hell was created for a purpose.

Matthew 25:41
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

@kellyjay said
No, Hell was created for a purpose.

Matthew 25:41
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

Why is that important to you?

@secondson said
Seems natural for you then, that if God doesn't exist, then of course evil doesn't either, as well as anything eternal.

Well, I don't know if "God" exists ~ although I can say I don't believe in your God figure ~ but I haven't said "evil doesn't exist". Indeed, in the very post of mine you are responding to above, I said: "I have been in the presence of people who'd done ~ or were capable of doing ~ evil things." I see evil deeds and evil people all the time. Where did you get the idea that I think "evil doesn't exist"?

@bigdoggproblem said
I don't much care for that analogy, either. It leaves no place for morally neutral actions. Also, there is a difference between "sins of omission" (failing to act when one knows one should) and deliberate, malicious actions. "Absence of good" seems to fit the former better than the latter.

Void of what it means to be good, malicious actions are just actions. It takes an awareness of goodness to differentiate.

When I view my cat toying with a mouse, I may judge her actions as bad or malicious, she doesn't.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God." (Rev 21:3).

And non-existence/annihilation is a state of being in the absence of God. (Hell).


Edit: Please note that I said state of being, not state of mind, as you wrote.

Sorry my error (state of being).

Hell is indeed a state of being, but it is bring in a place either a grave (my preferred translation) or a place of fiery torment.

On a side issue if God is god of love, there would be nothing loving about torturing a strayed part of creation for all off eternity becasue they had screweed up.

@secondson said
Or possibly through people.

No, I don't think so. It "comes from" people. The only beings that can do evil things are people.

@medullah said
Sorry my error (state of being).

Hell is indeed a state of being, but it is bring in a place either a grave (my preferred translation) or a place of fiery torment.

On a side issue if God is god of love, there would be nothing loving about torturing a strayed part of creation for all off eternity becasue they had screweed up.

Yes, being in a grave would qualify as being in a place absent of God.

@ghost-of-a-duke said
Friedrich Nietzsche, in a rejection of the Judeo-Christian morality, addresses this in two works, Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morals, where he essentially says that the natural functional non-good has been socially transformed into the religious concept of evil by the slave mentality of the weak and oppressed masses who resent their masters (the strong).

You said darkness is the absence of light, and that analogy holds for a lot of things like heat and cold and so on. Being blind to the light doesn't change the truth of it so failing to recognize what is good, will not change the reality of good and evil behavior either. Instead, what actually occurs if good is not recognized or known than what is evil in all the variety of it's varying degrees becomes seen as normal! It is only when we only get a glimpse of how bad and evil are as we get to realize that there is a good and proper way to behave, a 'should'.