What's With The Growing Concern Lately Over Good & Evil....?

Is it just me, or has anyone else felt something strange in our atmosphere? I sense all around me, both on the forums here at ATS, and out at the store, everywhere, a sense of almost desperation.

I don't really know how to explain it, but it seems that although we all know how unstable the world has been ever since our, well lets just say, President Bush took over, but just this past week, I have been feeling something different, people seem to be more eager to figure out who is really "good" and who is really "evil".

There seems to be more general mistrust, even between people who have knows each other for years. People don't seem to be so aggressive, but more....subdued, resigned. It seems very imortant now, more than ever that I have ever noticed for people to make sure that when they "choose up sides", that they pick the right side.

Something like that. Like I say, the mood I've been picking up all around me, especially in the past week or so is very complicated and hard to explain. But, if anyone else has been feeling anything similar, I'm sure that they would understand what I'm trying to convey.

Is it just me? Or has anyone else been feeling the ....difference. Like maybe the earth is literally starting to spin out of control. Maybe that's a possibility. How many more neuclear test bombs, and whatever other tests that the defense department must be conductiong on a daily basis, can this planet take? Or the people who must be catching at least a lettle bit of the fall out, even if it is being absorbed so slowly that it is imperceptable? What about us?

I even went to track down a calender, to find out if we are having a full moon, or are near one. Or are approaching any sort of oddity about to hapen in our neighborhood. I found nothing out of the ordinary. We're right in the middle of a lunar phase. Nothing there to explain the wierd, almost eerie vibes I have been picking up. I don't know, it's kind of creepy.



[edit on 3/6/2005 by CyberKat]

[edit on 3/6/2005 by CyberKat]

For the last year, I've found more dirty tactics being used and less morals.
Maybe people see the stuff the media pumps out and think the end is near and feel the need to do whats right for them or seek friends/enemys.

The world is more evil than good. My concern is that people are just too damn comfortable these days and selfish.

This sums it up perfectly;
"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsel or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands, which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."

- Samuel Adams, debates of 1776

There is no good and evil. There is just varying degrees of yin an yang in every state of existence.

Are you sure your not chi master? Inherent badness runs more rampant due to the degraded level of global society. Morals taken the back seat, then shoved out the door when not looking....

Originally posted by CyberKat


I don't really know how to explain it, but it seems that although we all know how unstable the world has been ever since our, well lets just say, President Bush took over...

Well, your post started out on a reasonable plane, until you had to throw politics into the mix.

If we're able to separate the bias and emotion from the equation we'll see that the world is probably more stable now than it has ever been. There's A LOT less suffering, death, and destruction globally than in any time in history. Throughout the ages people have always thought that the world was "out of control" and we were in the "last days". Recognize all the incredible progress that's been made in so many areas of human life. Medicine, the environment, human rights, equality, animal rights, etc, etc...the list is longer than at any point in history. Do we have a long way to go?...ABSOLUTELY. But to imply that the world has somehow fallen off a cliff simply because Bush was elected is just hogwash.

It's called "negative group-think". Too bad soooo many are onboard.

There is no good and evil. There is a different perspective of good and evil for every body, so there cannot be good and evil.

Originally posted by Kushi_Master
There is no good and evil. There is a different perspective of good and evil for every body, so there cannot be good and evil.

Ok..got your point the first time

You're right, in a spiritual, transcendental, individual sense. However, with the birth of civilization and the formation of societies, people have had to come together to decide on common definitions, to estabish general "order". These common definitions are what we use to communicate verbally and behaviorally to "make sense" of the world around us, and our place in it. In this respect, we've created what we collectively term to be good and evil. And for the most part, it works.

After all of the EVIL we have confronted in this past century alone, it still amazes me that some people refuse to call a spade a spade. Sadly, there IS evil in this world. The only thing more evil than evil itself is those who refuse to do nothing about it while others suffer at the hands of evil.

Here's a great quote:

"Someone who does not know the difference between good and evil is worth nothing." -- Miecyslaw Kasprzyk, Polish rescuer of Jews during the Holocaust, New York Times, Jan. 30, 2005

And here's a great column about the subject. Don't lead the title scare you off! It's a short and interesting read as well.
Link

whatever. You seem pretty convinced that there is evil and good. And I don't know how to voice my opinion better

Rasputin....wait till your young article writer has been around long enough to see some things for himself.....

I recall the Left being for civil rights when the Right was not.....and I recall the Left being against the wrong of the Vietnam war when the Right was not......

CyberKat, I was reading your post and thinking about the world around me.
There's something to what you say.
People seem to be either evil and greedy or isolationist. It's almost scary to be good these days. Those evil sociopaths ar everywhere.

Please, though, let's keep Bush out of this. What is happening in the current administration is simply a morphing of past administrations.
What can we say about a society who pays 24/7 attention to the likes of Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, Paris Hilton and Kobe Bryant..not to mention those "reality" shows EEEEEK
*runs from the room*

[edit on 7-3-2005 by DontTreadOnMe]

Rasputin....wait till your young article writer has been around long enough to see some things for himself.....

I recall the Left being for civil rights when the Right was not.....and I recall the Left being against the wrong of the Vietnam war when the Right was not......

Uhh actually the guy is easily in his 50's. It's a shame that you're so brainwashed to believe the propaganda of the left. It was a Republican, Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves. It was a Republican congress that passed the civil rights legislation. It was a Democratic President who first sent our troops to Vietnam, John F. Kennedy, and another Democratic President who escalated the war, Lyndon B. Johnson. It took a Republican to finally END the war, Richard M. Nixon.

I could go on and on, but it's not my job to give you the history lesson you obviously never got. Or maybe you were actually there to see it, but being a liberal you were probably too busy eating the brown acid at the time, so your views are a little distorted.

Next time you want to talk about Liberals and Civil Rights, why don't you ask the most senior Democratic Senator about that. His name is Robert Byrd and he's a former member of the Klu Klux Klan.

It really pains my heart that people like you are so easily fooled.

Good and evil have never ever been more well defined than they are now. I personally believe that if there was an apocalypse than WW2 was it. If there was ever an Anti-Christ he was Adolf Hitler. The world has never seen before and never seen since such a hell on earth bloodbath such as WW2. Sure you had Stalin, not the antichrist just very paranoid. You also had Pol Pot. May he burn in hell for eternity. Good takes many different forms the same as evil.

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And Evil never dies. I have gone out of my way to seem agnostic but the Catholic in me wont die either. To make a diety out of oneself for ones own personal gain at the expense and lives of others no matter what faith they are is truly evil. So now its Bin Laden. Bin Laden is pure evil. We must first differentiate cruel insanity such as sadism from those who preach and perpetuate it for that is true evil.

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True good is way to often mistaken for just doing things for other people without asking for anything in return. Doing something for somebody when no matter how good it is they will just turn around and kill you anyways isnt good at all. Its stupid. And feeds their evil. There is always a religious tie between the great perpetuators of evil and their reasonong for their evil acts. The US has done a great disservice to the world by being to nice. Evil people all over the world the US included have thrived on misguided US aid. The US has blindly fed evil since 1900.

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We have cut back quite a bit but still feed evil all around the world. From our own borders to the wastelands of Persia and beyond an evil person with truly evil intent will find a way to take advantage of good US aid.

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We have been way to tolerant and way to nice. At home and abroad. At home evil people from crack dealers to ceos take advantage of a system set up by truly good people, despite their faults. Its got to change or evil people will start WW4. Bush is # greedy but I dont believe hes evil. Grandad Prescott Bush fed the early Nazi war machine with money and guns. He wasnt there to see what was actually going on he just saw a good profit return. Greedy but not evil. This is how we need to draw the line.

This really is a cut and dry topic, to me any ways.

Light can not exist with out darkness, and visa versa, good cannot exist with out evil. If there were never any darkness who would know what it is, if it was always light the absence of, would not exist.

Good can not exist with out evil, so on and so forth, is any one seeing what I'm getting at? I hope so because I don't think a thesis is required, just common sence.

Rasputin,.....50's aint young huh? Might be from my perspective

Since I'm the evil left why were you the one slinging the insults?....my post contained none.

Lincoln freed the slaves, but not from the goodness of his heart toward them.....the bottom line had something to do with it (that's what the history prof said...and he was not a southerner)

The civil rights passing congress might have been Republicans....forced into it by public pressure....but the everyday right wingers were not behind it...
(the ones I knew personally were convinced the communists were behind the push for civil rights.)

Just like everyday rightwingers were pro war ( Goldwater was labeled a hawk ) and the anti war side considered leftist. (once again the war protesters were called communists )
I believe the commitment to Vietnam was pre-JFK and Nixon was called a sell-out by the right wing folks that I knew.

As for the KKK....I doubt that many of their members are left wing.....probably more are from the far right.

I was there....I know what I saw and heard.....I was surrounded by Republicans and right wing true believers....there were no liberals there to brainwash me....

Originally posted by Kushi_Master
There is no good and evil. There is a different perspective of good and evil for every body, so there cannot be good and evil.

We all have to agree for something to exist?