God-The Dark Side.

Many debates on the origin of evil have the "absence" theory within them.


That is;darkness is the absence of light therefore evil is the absence of good.


But the book of Genesis tells it differently.

Genesis 1:1-5/14-18

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.2 And the earth was without form,and void;and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.3 And God said,Let there be light:and there was light.4 And God saw the light that it was good:and God divided the light from the darkness.5 And God called the light Day,and the darkness he called Night.And the evening and the morning were the first day....
14 And God said,Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night;and let them be for signs,and for seasons,and for days,and years:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day,and the lesser light to rule the night:he made the stars also.17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness:and God saw that it was good.

Here it clearly shows that darkness existed before light and,as the sun wasn't created until the 4th day,cold existed before heat.

How is it possible then for darkness and cold to be absences of heat and light when they didn't exist until after??


And,following that logic,evil cannot just be the absence of good can it?








[edit on 25-8-2008 by jakyll]

genesis account is relative to earth. there is every reason to believe that the universe itself existed for a long time before god put attention to earth.

light was around for awhile.

as for absence theory, consider this. if you have a container, lets say that this container is a special infinite container. no matter how much you fill it, you can put in more. but now there is an opposite too. if you take out what you put in, you can have an absolute 0. it can be absolutely empty

look at heat, you can raise the temperature to seemingly limitless levels, but there is an absolute 0 temperature with no activity.

light like temperature can get brighter and brighter, but there is an absolute darkness.

both heat and light scientifically are not opposites of cold and darkness respectively. scientifically they are the lack of.



[edit on 25-8-2008 by miriam0566]

reply to post by miriam0566

genesis account is relative to earth. there is every reason to believe that the universe itself existed for a long time before god put attention to earth.

light was around for awhile.

But did it exist before darkness or after?

If,before the universe was created there was only a void,then that means no light,no heat etc.If it had the slightest bit of anything then it wouldn't be a void.(many creation legends talk of a void in the beginning)

light like temperature can get brighter and brighter, but there is an absolute darkness.

Which means its possible that there is an absolute light,mankind just hasn't discovered it yet.

both heat and light scientifically are not opposites of cold and darkness respectively. scientifically they are the lack of.

Science says they are not opposites because there is not limit to heat but there is to cold.Isn't this down to knowledge?
Scientists are getting closer and closer to reaching absolute zero,what happens in the future if they get passed that,even by a millimetre?
What happens if a place is discovered in the universes that has a temperature more than absolute zero?


We assume so much but know so little.

The angels that fell from heaven were banished to earth ...the bible says they satan and his minions) go to and fro throughout the earth seeking whom they can devour (Hmm spiritual cannibals eh ..sounds similar to the Giants who were literal cannibals doesnt it ) .....
They live in darkness ...and darkness was what covered the land (think spiritual darkness here too)


Jer mentions it again
And in context (reading the passages above this and below this) it sounds to me like it is spiritually speaking in these verses ..possibly was spiritually speaking in Gen too ..What do you think ?

Jer 4:23¶ I beheld the earth, and, lo, [it was] without form, and void; and the heavens, and they [had] no light.

Jer 4:24 I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.

Jer 4:25 I beheld, and, lo, [there was] no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.

Jer 4:26 I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place [was] a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the LORD, [and] by his fierce anger.

(as you can see in Jer 4 he is talking about thats what God is seeing this as he looks down now ..at the end of things just like he saw at the beginning of things in Gen )


Hope that makes sense ..I am really just thinking out loud here ...

Originally posted by jakyll
But did it exist before darkness or after?

If,before the universe was created there was only a void,then that means no light,no heat etc.If it had the slightest bit of anything then it wouldn't be a void.(many creation legends talk of a void in the beginning)

thats a good question, fact is, i dont know if darkness existed before light, or if darkness was created by proxy when god created light.

i guessing its the latter, just from what i understand of light and dark it just makes more sense to me.

Which means its possible that there is an absolute light,mankind just hasn't discovered it yet.

possible, but unlikely. absolute like would be infinite light, chances are we would have noticed it.

Science says they are not opposites because there is not limit to heat but there is to cold.Isn't this down to knowledge?
Scientists are getting closer and closer to reaching absolute zero,what happens in the future if they get passed that,even by a millimetre?
What happens if a place is discovered in the universes that has a temperature more than absolute zero?

not really possible

absolute zero is when something is in a state of cold because there is no activity. heat is just a vibration of sorts. its energy being given off from active molecules. when there is no activity, it then gets as cold as it can get.

en.wikipedia.org...

so yes, quite definitively, cold is the absence of heat

reply to post by jakyll

...evil cannot just be the absence of good can it?

No.
Evil is a virus. Some people have a better immune system, to fight its spread, than others.
People can have normal thoughts, like, "My neighbor bought a new car that is really nice."
If you were good, your response might be, "I should go to the dealer and look into possibly buying a similar car."
If you were infested with evil and it was in an advanced state, you might say to yourself, "I wish I could murder my neighbor and steal his car."
I wish my parents had taught me more about evil when I was young because I had neighbors who were evil and I did not understand their mentality and got taken advantage of.
Maybe I was better off being a little oblivious and kept my thoughts on good things.
Adam and Eve would have been better off if they went on not realizing how evil the snake was that offered them forbidden knowledge.
Maybe the question should be, can someone who is totally good see the evil intentions in another, who is evil?
Eve saw the serpent as the most beautiful creature in the garden and did not see through its outside appearance to see the evil inside it.
Would she have been better prepared if she had eaten some fruit of the knowledge of good and evil Lite?
Or is even a little knowledge of evil just too dangerous and could cause a serious infection of evil?
Could they have been inoculated against evil?
Were they the inoculation, for the human race?
Could this planet be the inoculation for the entire universe?
Is this the only place where evil has taken hold and the rest of the universe looks on to see how it works out?
To get back to the original question, evil is not the absence of good.
I do not have an argument to support that.
I think you could take a very evil person and a very good person and edit their lives down to where you show them as being the opposite of what you would perceive them as.
So, it can not be as simple as one or the other being absent in a person.
You can take a superficial look at the Bible and conclude that Pharisees were bad people.
Some were and some went on to be converted to Christianity.

Lamentations 3:38 "Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that both evil and good things come?"

When God is angry or regrets he can do some quite wicked things. The Flood for instance. Or what about the killing of the firstborns in Egypt. Didn't God command it all? And what about the scenarios from Revelation? And allowing Jesus and millions others being tortured etc. Famines, destruction of cities and so on. God isn't exactly the usual kind uncle who doesn't know evil. God is a good-evil composite being, just like everything else alive. Even Satan has a good side. After all he is only doing his job, being the atteurney in the court of God

Originally posted by jakyll

Here it clearly shows that darkness existed before light and,as the sun wasn't created until the 4th day,cold existed before heat.

How is it possible then for darkness and cold to be absences of heat and light when they didn't exist until after??
And,following that logic,evil cannot just be the absence of good can it?

[edit on 25-8-2008 by jakyll]

And the Tao Te Ching came before the Bible. There is a divine reason for this. Any questions about good and evil can be easily figured out with the obvious logic of the tao, as well as the OP question.

reply to post by jmdewey60

Hi JMD.. Star for that response. Virus not a good thing. Maybe St Jude or someone will come up with a cure for cancer one day. I have hope that they will. My father is dying of cancer which breaks my heart. God have mercy.

reply to post by psychedeliack

Have you checked the Oracle on that one? I have not done a great deal of research in that area, but you may have a point. Thanks for insight.

Originally posted by Simplynoone
...Hmm spiritual cannibals eh ..sounds similar to the Giants who were literal cannibals doesnt it ...

Excellent, excellent point. I'd never thought of it that way before.

Cold is only a measure of moving atoms. Once they stop moving, you've reached absolute zero and can not go any farther since the atoms have stopped.
There have been experiments that have got so close to 0 that there is no use to try any more. I think it was something like 99.99997% to create metastable atoms that somehow defy the laws of physics as they all occupy the same space at the same time and have no friction.
Anyways I got off on another one of my nerd kicks but to sum it up, light and heat are only "Adding" things to what was already there so you can't really classify darkness/cold as opposites.

When I was a kid I wanted to create a water-ice powerplant. Through using the energy in ice becoming bigger than water, I could use pneumatics and stuff like that to use the extra energy. A tension power plant. I also made a couple of solutions to how to open jars. Now I only use a knife.