oh no, not about God, about good and evil, it is a figment, imagination, perception, considtioning, many things, figment just seemed to wrap them all up and present them in one word

WOM: ever been to China?

Over there, pirating software, movies, music is REALLY nothing. You buy DVDs for 1$ there, pirated DVDs of course. We find it wrong here. But we can't do anything about it. In China, it's no more wrong than picking your nose.

Is it to say that all Chinese are criminals? Of course not, since to them it's not a crime.

paxx has a friend who just came back from China with 100 DVDs
Of course, HE's from here and he knows better, so he doesn't have the excuse the Chinese have. He definatly knows it's illegal and deliberatly commited a crime.

Ms Doreen you are not weird in the least, take it from as weird as it can get if your willing

hehe IPlural...
soooo Paxxy are you living in the grey w/ those DVD's or what? if you are you need to toss me those DVD's right now!
(and are they good copies?) evil hehe

uh oh me goes to see how Angela exiled herself that day cuz I think I'm heading there soon too hehe

Any form of fundamentalism is dangerous I think. It leads to practicing masspsychology with the implementing of fear to each follower. If you don't follow..etc...If there is any solution to be on the better half of the good side of yourself I see only one option, and that is that you should govern yourself. Not by made laws of your governmeent, but a genuine, honest, objective and sometimes painful process of what is good; and I have to add it can even be against your own inerest. We have the capacity to do that, to me that is God. The guidance to the true decision.

mmm, I'll pass on religions I do not want to offend anyone...

but will say this, I find it rather sad that people feel a driven need to lower themselves to such a level that they need someone to be the middle man ( a human being) between them and their chosen higher power....

If peole would just understand, that whatever path they may take, their destination is the same...

If they start thinking that others are just travellers like themselves, perhaps...

im evil

A serious note, if I may.

In the town of Bangolo, Ivory Coast, Africa there are over 200 corpses. Please see http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/africa/03/09/ivorycoast.reut/index.html for the news item. There are more bodies in the bush around the town.

The fighting in Ivory Coast and the potential for mass slaughter is so bad, that France sent in 3,000 troops to try to impose order. The people killed in Bangolo included men, women and children. They were killed by rebels (so we believe) whose contempt for human life is so great that France felt the need to act unilaterally.

Please read any of the books on the genocide in Rwanda, the rape camps in Bosnia or any of the books on the World War II genocide of Jews, Gypsies and others before trivializing this topic. There is good in this world and there is evil. The difference is readily discernible to human beings. Death camps are evil. Hacking thousands of people with machetes is evil. Setting off a nail bomb on a bus crowded with children is evil. No doubts, no ambiguities.

Helping the needy is good. Feeding the hungry is good. Mother Teresa. Being kind to your fellow man, making people smile, is good. Again pretty clear cut. Good is also opposing evil. Preventing murders. Oskar Schindler.

If you are confused about the differences, then I am truly sorry for you. Being able to tell the difference is a precious part of my humanity.

Peace.

If you can

Larry, I am so glad your the only with a grasp that genocide is evil... wow where would the world be, chastise people somewhere else ok?

Oh and leave your high horse outside next time...

Now if you wanted to discuss instead of stuff your post down peoples throats, in the nature of the thread, that is one thing. But sell pious self somewhere else otherwise....

sorry...

just how I read it...

What you are referring to Mr. Larry Kuperman, are definites. We know that killings in Rwanda, Bosnia and now Zimbabwe are evil. We know that the killing of the Kurds, the Jews and other ethnic minorities was evil.

And we all know that Mother Teresa was good and so was Gandhi and Schindler.

But we are discussing here is if everything can be classified in the slot of 'Good' and 'Evil'? Was the Roman Empire 'Good' because it was a stabilizing and uniting force in the world, because it gave us the arts and science, or was it 'Evil' because it crushed many an ancient civilisation in the wake of its conquests?

There are, but a few definites in Life Mr. Kuperman. I am all of 21 years and I know that...

Hell, I can't even decide if picking up a fight to defend's one's viewpont is 'Good' or 'Evil'?

I agree with paxx when he says that history is written by winners and thats how people slot things and incidents into 'Good' and 'Evil'. If Hitler had (God forbid) won WWII, I doubt that you would ever have known about the concentration camps. Then, the Allied Powers would have been the 'Evil' ones for trying to colonise the so-called Third World countries without letting Germany its 'Fair' share. They would've been termed as the instigators of WWII.

I hope that you agree with this point.. I think that its valid.

discussion, contemplation does not dictate confusion, ignorance, agnostic, atheist, does not in fact mean a lack of caring in the least and it sure as hell does not mean anyone supports such a thing..

I own what I responded with, not you, and I do apologies for it. But, it really bent me to read how if I do not live up to what you deem is correct you feel sorry for me as if I am something below you or cognitive reasoning...

Larry, what of the fact that the USA is invading Iraq, leaving North Korea to diplomatic means and spouting the right to travel the globe doing as we like in the name of protection and interdicting the spread of weapons of mass destruction, when in fact the DOD and Pentagon just release information that they are seeking to built a new type of bunker buster Nuke?

sheesh...

The CIA spent most of its existence stirring the pot in foreign lands causing untold millions to die, we (the US government and CIA) armed, trained and support the damn death squads throughout South America for years...

Modren terrorism was born of those we ( the US government and CIA) trained. armed and funded to do our ( the governments and CIA's) dirty work in the middle east and other nations around the globe.

Larry, is that evil?

It is fact, recorded in history and in the library of congress, and it is also why the CIA had it's hands tied, which is what everyone claims is one of the main reason for 9/11, the CIA had it's hands tied, not the fact that the CIA was a big part of creating the environment which bread terrorism...

Is that evil also?

I am not saying we, the USA or anyone else deserves terrorist attacks or that they are right and good, but what I am saying is this.

You and everyone else need to come to grips with the fact that what you see as evil, is not evil to another because you find it evil.

Cause and affect, it's simple really...

God, Buddha, Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah, and any number of others don't have a damn thing to do with it...

It is a human condition hands down, and until such a time that people get a grip on that fact, it is going to continue....

anyway....

like I said, sorry about allowing myself to be triggered...

and it wasn't correct for me to respond in the manner that I did...

You know in another thread someone asked what was the most exciting moment in a persons life....

I gave some good postive ones, but even they do not come close to some of the really negative ones...

Do I have a grip on what I consider good or evil, I think I do, but let you decide...

one example, which I'll keep it too exactly...
The reason I picked this example is because it is one of the parts of my past that was and is key to the frame work of my understanding of what good and evil are, and also the duplicity of making such a distinction without consideration for cause, affect and intent...

I had a good day at school, I was 13 years old at the time and much of the time a loner. I found school boring to say the least, much of what they were teaching seemed so mundane and inane, beyond what I called a life and what was painted by others and myself as my reality...

In other words, I was happy and in good spirits, met a girl and made a friend all at the same time.

When I walked up to the house I noticed my mothers car in the driveway, this kind of gave me pause about going home or turning around and heading over to Ricks house, which was my second home pretty much. So I shrugged it off because nothing had happend that I knew of to cause any problems for me and my stepfather wasn't home so it should have been safe to enter the house.

We had this huge oak door with crushed orange glazed glass in a pattern of four rectangular windows in two vertical rows of four down each side and one large color glass mosaic in the middle about two feet down from the top. You could not see clearly through it but you could see shadows.

As I reached for the door I thought I noticed a shadow cross from left to right of the door, but didn't think much of it, and as I stepped inside my hair ( which was quit long) was snatched from the right hand side and I was yanked the rest of the way in the door in one swift motion. Thrown back first into the red brick wall knocking my head against it hard enough my eyes crossed and I actually did see little lights popping in a dark cloud, while this happened the door slambed shut and before I could get a grip on my suroundings I was punched in the face and then knee'ed in the groin which doubled me over and then pummled about the head as I tried to cover my self up screaming " what did I do! over and over again" not a word was spoken, then a punch landed on the back of my neck driving me to my knees and then the kicking started, and I slumped to the floor trying to cover myself up. I woke up on the floor after a time, black and blue and in a rage, but also cowering like a small child all at the same time which ended up being the stronger of the two at that moment.

My mother was sitting on the floor holding my head in her lap crying telling me she was sorry and it would never happen again. Over and over... She had just beat and kicked her 13 year old son to sleep for no reason, and she was begging for forgivness fomr him, well it wasn't coming because at that point I was no longer her son...

I hated her, and the eatings continued for various reasons, sometime for no reason at all, other than something bad had happened at work, in traffic, or whatever. My Stepfather was just as bad, but in different ways, he was cruel and enjoyed it...

Anyway, when the chance came two weeks after I turned 17 I was in basic training and would never walk through their door again, ever...

it wasn't until a couple of years ago that I learned exactly how my mother could become what she eventually did become over the years....

It does not negate her actions upon me, or my brother for that matter. But it does explain how she could and would become such an animal.
See her father used to be a Merchant Marine and he drank, and he was one sick bastard, he would come into Mayport and instead of heading home he would go straight to the Dolphin and get drunk then he would stop by the store right up from their house and purchase a bottle of rot gut. Go into his house while they were all sleeping, shag them out of bed, line my grandmother and mother, aunts and uncle up against the kitchen, open the bottle and por a glass, place one bullet in his 38 police special and lay it on the table, pick up his drink and then take a slow drink, and as the glass left his mouth mumble that if he didn't drink unti lhe passed out and one of them moved he would shoot them. Or the times when he would come home feeling randy and open the door to my mothers and aunts bedroom door and she was oldest and closest to the door, she would be awake as soon as she heard the front door open and lay in bed waiting to hear where his foot steps led him. When that bedroom door opened up she would act like she was sleeping and keep praying, she was a good christian, that it not be her, someone else god, not me one of the others, the others being her little sisters...

evil? yeah I have a grasp on what I see as being evil, but I also understand the affects of being raised in evil, and the power it can place over one to control their actions and reactions, and to also understand thta people are condition by it in many different manners...

Is my mother evil? No, she is/was sick, were her actions evil, without a doubt, were they without reason? no again... do I forgive her, no, but I also love her whie still hating her...

So please do not tell me that if I do not see evil or understand it as you do that you feel sorry for me...

anyway...

no more comments and no more posts from me of this nature...

one will wind up with splinters from sittin on the fence

snarph

true
so true

IPlural alot of ppl have similiar life stories to tell like that, some use their past to live in that grey area using it as an excuse for the evil things they do having been a victim of something aweful in their past, others just know it's part of life having experiences in good & bad and choose to become stronger by the bad and enjoy the good even more so

but to me good & evil boils down to right & wrong and each human being should "know" instinctively which is which and accept it as it is.

I claimed anything different?

Your correct, many people have do and will have such things happen. That also it seems is human nature sad to say.

It is all about choice in the end, but, the tools used to process the information to make that choice are dynammic and vary extreamly from culture to culture...

Just because You or I see something as evil, does not in fact make it evil for everyone else. What it does do, is make it evil for us and those whom also think and feel the same, period...

Culture, religion, environmental conditioning, and many other things play into a persons perspective and line of reasoning. There are not absolutes in this, only personally held beliefs.



my mentioning the previous post was to point out the fact that if by chance I do not subscribe to Larry's line of reasoing upon the validity of something being good or evil, does not in fact open me up to his pity... and that the thought of it hit me as being repugnant...

Though even with stating that, it oes not in fact form any personal opinion placed upon Larry. I do not know him and that would be completely wrong, because I own my htoughts, feelings, reasoning and conclusions. No one else, and if I find they bother me, then I know for a fact it is wrong, and I have the task of adjusting things until that feeling is removed... Only then do I know if I walk in light or darkness which is something no one else can control or cause me to do without my allowing it...

anyway

the short of it is, your correct in my mind(s)

Larry, as I said before, the is such a thing as fundamental evil, and it usually involve hurting or killing other human beings.
But it's in the interpretation of it by our cultures that lies the difference.
Killing is Evil. Sure.
How about a soldier killing on a battlefield? Evil?
How about Americans bombing Iraq in 1991? Evil?
How about Hiroshima, or Nagasaki? Evil?
How about Dresden? Evil?
How about the death penalty? Evil?

Doing Evil things seems to be justified when it's done for a "good" cause. Ironic, isn't it?

The Ivoriens rebels are sure they are doing "good" when they kill like that, just like the Germans thought they were doing "good" as well. And just as any other soldier in the World thinks he is doing "good" when he kills another human being. Just as the Israeli think they are doing "good" when they kill a Palestinian. Just as the US and British pilots and their allies will be convinced they are doing "good" when they drop their bombs and kill thousands of Iraki men, women and children.

Good and Evil is what we are told it is.

And just one more thought.
What to think of the expression "necessary evil", that is used to somehow turn an evil action into something good?