My observations of things around us.

All souls are the same age--but soul is an idea more like a family tree rather than an individual plant.

However, there are newer members of the tree--budding branches--and there is an ancient and far reaching root that sustains that tree.

But that's not my idea I wanted to post, just thought about it after reading FordFarmer's post above me. Innocence isn't necessarily naivete, either--it is often purity that is conceived as naivete in a jaded world--but innocence is truly having a clean conscience and a trusting nature (and which is a sign of trustiworthiness).

About good and evil--cause and effect, no doubt.

But it is not the actions--as was mentioned above, the good seems unpredictable.

Well, if viewed as a verb instead of a noun, it is.

But it's all about attitude--attitude is energy.

It is the attitude with which we do things--and also with which we react to things done to us, or affecting us--that determines the outcome as being evil or good.

Negative breeds more of the same. Positive works exactly the same way.

What is positive? Love and generosity.
What is negative? Selfishness and greed.

I think good and evil is relative to the person committing the act, thought, process. etc. For example we will all pretty much agree that the attempt to eradicate the planet of Jews by Hitler could probably be the definition of Evil. Hitler though in his mind thought he was doing good.

Postive and Negative to me seems to be more of a vibe or mood. I produce music, and my music creating process is directly effected by the vibe or mood around me. Don't know though, just my 2 cents, i'm new to ATS anyway.

i dont think there is any such thing as good or evil. i think it is more logical to view things as beneficial or detrimental to one's goal in a given situation. ones' first loyalty is to oneself(even a martyr dies because he thinks he is gonna get the 72 virgins or spoon w Jesus, etc), one's next loyalty is to one's family unit, then to one's tribe, then to one's species, then to other things not covered above. "good" is usually what is best for the first category, then moves to successively distant categories if it doesn't conflict with a higher category. for example: a mother in the Sudan starves so that her child might live and get to the refugee camp. some might say she did a "good" thing; in reality, she is ensuring that her DNA, the only part of her to survive her death, will live on when she is gone, secondarily she is enabling her child to live. so in reality it is a self-centered act. we drape such things in religion and morality, but it all stems from that heirarchy of needs. is it bad for hitler to commit jewish genocide. most say yes, but from whose perspective? he wanted their property, money, and land for himself and his "tribe". he considered it "good." we are killing iraqis(some 700,000 at last count) without concern for good or evil, only concern for securing a strategic chunk of oil reserve for the coming struggle for the last drops of petroleum, so this is "good" for us, the american "tribe" but bad for the iraqi "tribe". good and bad depends on who has the resources and who has the weapon.

Consider an action that you thought of was a good act, donating some money to a charity, you feel good and you feel that money would result in the unfortunate being helped.

Later on you find out that the charity was actually giving money to a fundamentalist group who uses the money for evil deeds.

Do you feel as good as you once did?

The ignorant maybe innocent, had good intentions and were taken advantage of, that doesn't change the fact that they helped to cause great suffering to others.

It can be very difficult to tell between good and evil sometimes, wisdom, intelligentce and taking the neutral path may be the best way (not always inaction). It is all about balance.

Extremes have always created big problems, I am sure there are many examples.

Too much good can lead to arrogance, blind to the suffering cause to others because you think whats best for others attitude.

Too much evil leads to a very self-fish, self-centred attitude, blind to the suffering cause to others by satisfying one's greed or power.

By taking the thin middle line, the extremes are normally avoided.

Originally posted by T0by
I'm starting a thread about what I have observed around me, without the use of religion, using logic. I think it's logic anyway.

- There is no good and evil, only cause and effect.
To me there seems to be no good and evil, only cause and effect. I'll call them positive actions and negative actions for awhile.
You will find that positive actions often lead to positive outcomes, but this is not always the case. For this reason, it gives the universe an even more neutral position in regards to 'good and bad'. The cause (positive) may not always lead to a positive effect, but it will always have an effect regardless. This also seems to strengthen my view of there being no good and bad, as if good were so clearly defined... then a good action would produce more definite results.
But thus far, 'good' actions are often unpredictable, leading one to think that they are not clearly defined by some set of rules in the book of good and bad, but are merely 'positive' or what is good for your or someone elses wellbeing, their effects being goverened by nothing but the cause.
A positive action will have an effect, a negative action will have an effect. Why define them seperately? Lets just say there is cause and effect.
Do we agree that positive actions will often bring positive results, but not always, but there will always be an effect?
Much as if you pick a card from a deck with 80% aces in it ( positive action ), chances are you will pick an ace ( Probable positive reaction ). But you have picked a card.( You have an effect regardless )
And so you place this mode of thinking into the world. You have rich businessmen caring only for themselves, stepping on others for more money. Sometimes their negative actions get them in trouble. Some live without incident.
You have the starving masses in some countries. People try to help them by sending food, which is a positive action. Some are strengthened by the food and are able to carry out work, and provide for their family who were going to die, which is positive. Maybe one of the family members kills someone, which is negative. Maybe the person that died would have destroyed the world if he wasn't killed.


We have now covered the topic of good and bad, or 'every action has a reaction' : )

Tell me i'm stupid, or confusing, or smart.
More to come i guess.

I think your smart, you hit the nail right on the head.

I was dreading reading the things I typed up last year in this thread, thinking 'Oh god I wonder if i sounded like an idiot'.
But actually i'm still really happy with all of that.
I'm surprised at some of the innocent and young etc comments, I'm still trying to work those out. The only explanation is that I might have put the thought processes forth like a child might think step by step when trying to work something out.
That's how I wanted it to work, a step by step logical disection of these topics.

I never superglue anything into my belief system, so that if one day someone pulled me out of this reality and told me 'You're just a blob in a jar and nothing else exists', i'd be able to cope with it
It's all just held together with regular glue. It might be hard to remove some of it, but at least it's removeable.

Anyhow, my posts here are based on the observable things around us and disregard all of my spiritual beliefs. I wonder if i can be bothered tying them all in someday. It'll be fun to see if anything contradicts itself.

no right no wrong --just negative and positive?

rubbish

with that line of reasoning ww2 was negative
child molestation is negative

murder is negative


Got news for you---all the above and even more in this world is wrong
not negative

Originally posted by tom_roberts
Got news for you---all the above and even more in this world is wrong
not negative

i'm pretty sure all of this was meant to be a philosophical discussion, not a bunch of statements. what's your reasoning behind it being wrong?

no right no wrong --just negative and positive

In essence what he is talking about is karma or kamma. Google karma and may it will help you understand that their is no right or wrong but their is cause and effect.

Right and wrong is in your eyes and belief. Fopr example...raping a child...to hear it...your reaction would be "that is wrong." It's bad...but not wrong. It's negative, but not bad.

See...that's where the feeling comes into play. Rape, to most persons is wrong. To some people who rape others...it's neither.
You feel that it is wrong...but does that make it wrong. It makes it wrong to you. That's all. Only wrong to you. Not wrong, but wrong to you.

What makes it wrong to me? Knowing that someone would not like that...and that would alter's one life in a positive and mostly negative way...I will say it is wrong. But it's wrong to me...it's not entirly wrong by the word. the word itself means against societies views. What is accepted as "normal". I agree with Toby 100%. I'm 19 and I've questioned these things all my life. I consider myself wise, because I try to use as much common sense as possible...but I do not consider myself wise...in that...I cannot help with certain things...I know many things...yet I know nothing.

For example...my beliefs on religion...and God, and spirits are very solid. But I also know that what you believe is just a belief. I cannot prove any of these things. I cannot say I will reincarnate when I die. I can say I believe this may happen...but I do not know this. Even if I see something weird...or supernatural...or spiritual...I will question it. Even if I fee it is real. I can never be certain. They say Satan is the greatest trickster...so how hard is it for me to be tricked? Sometimes I would feel like nothing, including myself is real. Is this a neurological disorder...or is this a real feeling...if I feel/think...I must be real. But does everything else exist? Maybe I am programmed to think a certain way?

I hope I'm not confusing anyone. Does anyone understand what I'm saying? There is always doubt with me...even if I know it's real. Because the possibility exists that it's not. Sometimes we have dreams that we feel are real, but then we wake up. Maybe we haven't woken up as yet...but we're dreaming that we're dreaming in a dream. Get my picture? It's sort of like removing all limitations. Everything you think has a line/border...do not cross the line or border...but instead, remove it.
When it comes to thoughts...one tries to think outside of the box...the things is...there is no box there to begin with...we put it there.

My thoughts of good and bad have been voiced...everything else is what it seems to be.

[edit on 19-5-2007 by sdrawkcab]

I can understand what you're saying about finding it hard to take anything for absolute truth.
I am similar, but i don't think about it or stress about it too much.
Just be happy with what you believe and relax abit.
So what if you were wrong about something?

I would rather be the kind of person that can accept he is wrong, learn from it and adjust, thus enabling themselves to evolve and grow, than the kind of person that is blindfolded and holding logic at ransom.

Nature evolves and changes according to what is right for it at that time, so perhaps peoples minds should be the same?

About saying things like rape is 'not wrong', it can be dangerous to word it that way. I prefer to try and leave it quite general, and with softer topics. That way you allow the reader to grasp the concepts, and then think about tougher examples by themselves.
I've never heard of someone being offended by their own thoughts, but it's very easy to be offended by other peoples thoughts..

Don't get me wrong, although I am not certain of everything...or anything for that matter LOL, I do not let it hamper or hinder me. I must live my life
...I may not be certain...but I am certain of what my mind perceives.

If I let such thoughts dictate my life, I won't get very far.

Shall we scrap the concepts of good and evil? Of course we should not! Once good and evil are gone, what's to stop people from making very poor choices? I mean, you may very well be true that cause-and-effect is all there is, but without the helpful categories of good and evil, do you really think cause-and-effect are going to do a better job? I would rather say "such-and-such" acts are good and "such-and-such" acts are evil than to operate off of a system of cause-and-effect. To operate off a system of cause-and-effect can lead to an "ends justifying means" system of thought, wherein holocaust, genocide, etc. can be "justified".

I know what you're saying and I agree with you completely.
This line of thinking could be used in that way, and without proper understanding of other things it could be dangerous.

The previous posts are only a link in the chain and without other things holding it together it can fall apart.
I don't know how to word this right.
The theory itself is great. But it will not mean much without understanding why things are this way in the first place.
If you understand why, you'll have no desire to commit genocide anyway.