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Is free will the root of good and evil Could there be good or bad without free will?
originally posted by: urbanfox
Ok so that title has a pretty big promise to live up to and I am going to do my best to make it live up to it.
I know I will probably get a few haters hating and that's fine as long as their comments are kept on the subject , and they are as open-minded as they are as open-minded as they are able.
Ok so just to clarify and ensure we are on the same page I'm talking about organised evil here, The reasons for a individual's evil actions normally stem from the influence of :
organised evil ( I will go into this in a moment )
Mental health
Greed
Jealousy
Anger
(and sometimes if were honest) -Need
there may be other causes but that probably covers the bases
What is the difference between good and evil?
Good and evil are both very abstract concepts. Most philosophies accept the dualism of good and evil. Good coexists with evil and there can be no thing such as ‘good’ unless there is ‘evil’ and vice versa. From a society’s point of view, whatever is beneficial to general mankind is considered good and whatever is not in the interests of the general mankind is considered evil. Therefore, labeling any action as good or evil is clearly based upon one’s perception and judgment. Society has made laws based on precedents of what it has viewed as good and evil. However, these perceptions keep changing with different generations. For instance, it was once considered sacrilege by most societies and religions to abort a fetus. Yet, now with developments in ultrasound technology that can immediately detect any abnormality in the growth of the fetus, more and more couples are deciding to abort a fetus that is not viable as it spares both the child and the parents a lot of pain and misery. Again, the absence of light cannot be called darkness. Just because the human eye cannot penetrate through the darkness, it does not mean it is ‘dark’. What can be concluded is that the difference between good and evil is not absolute but is relative and of degree. Read more: Difference Between Good and Evil | Difference Between www.differencebetween.net...
Ok so from the above I think most of us would agree that basically Good is what is beneficial to common man and evil is what is not.
Organised evil.
Ok so where here does it come from? ....I'm gonna draw fire here but there's no other way to put it - Religion is at the heart of organised evil.
Don't get me wrong ....I am not saying those that follow a particular religion are evil... its the fact that religion creates a divide among mankind having Faith. I believe Man had a common faith... probably fairly basic, partly because we need/ want to think we are looked after and that there is a reason for life death etc ... maybe its based on a truth of a supreme being or multiple beings or maybe none at all that doesn't matter right now, Imagine a world where we all had a common purpose and had faith that we were being looked after. How do you govern such a diverse world where everyone will help out anyone else because they know when they need help it will be given back.
So along comes a guy who says to his Village, our god is the best god and the vilage on the hill worship another god that wants to rape and pillage us ...now he can manipulate his people into attacking the other village and he can take the horses and the pretty daughter he wants because it is ( his gods) will that he should .
I hope you are all following me so far? ....