what is good? who are we to to define good? if everyone say killing is good, does it make killing a good thing?
What is "good"?
I think that we kind of all have a own "good", the things you believes are good, they are good for you. Mostly of us thinks that killing is a bad thing (which it is) but if you looks at other animals, they kills without regret for their survival. (Either to eat or defend themselves.)
So the term "good" is something created by us humans and I guess that the things most of us thinks are good are things that helps peoples. Yourself and others.
Sorry for that the explanation become a little bit confused, I was thinking while writing.
So the term "good" is something created by us humans and I guess that the things most of us thinks are good are things that helps peoples. Yourself and others.
Sorry for that the explanation become a little bit confused, I was thinking while writing.
Hahaha man, you just taped one of the most intresting topics. Its hard to define "good" or "evil" mainly because our actions have a much more complex effect on the world then alot of people can comprehend. Things can be "good" for you or for a certain group of people, but there is also a group of people which wont get effected and theres the third group which will suffer because of your choice. Ofcourse you might not even notice the suffering people, because it might effect them very remotely. Also, if you do "good" to you or your group, you might not have done any good at all, so your either choosing the lesser evil (by helping atleast your group) or the greater evil (by not doing anyone any good). Lets say your throwing a party, you eat dance, shoot fireworks etc. You and your group is having a good time, but alot of other people go hungry or you slightly pollute the air with the fireworks. Think of the things that happen when you throw away an old fridge! Yuo just throw it away, some guys come and haul it away, while the freon causes the ozon layer to thing especially on the polar caps where the eskimos live, so they get a higher chance of getting skin cancer due to ultraviolet light that doesnt get filtered by the thin ozon layer or even a hole. Ah, well, this is a hard subject, some more input would be nice.
I think it's quite simple, really...
I believe that deep down inside every human being is a sense of what is right, good, and fair.
I believe that a person, whoever they be, cannot do bad, and well, not feel bad; therefore a person will never be TRUEILY happy when doing bad.
However…. that does not stop someone denying the feelings and/or losing there way. However (again) just because someone is doing bad things, that doesn't mean they're a EVIL person, they are probably reacting to extreme circumstances (eg abusive family, extreme bulling etc) or to bad judgement (often amplified by mental disorders or substance abuse causing paranoid delusions etc).
There are of cause, many other factors and points I haven’t covered, but overall I believe that people are good (at least the vast majority of them) and that by far the biggest problem we have today, is that people don’t realise that:
I believe that deep down inside every human being is a sense of what is right, good, and fair.
I believe that a person, whoever they be, cannot do bad, and well, not feel bad; therefore a person will never be TRUEILY happy when doing bad.
However…. that does not stop someone denying the feelings and/or losing there way. However (again) just because someone is doing bad things, that doesn't mean they're a EVIL person, they are probably reacting to extreme circumstances (eg abusive family, extreme bulling etc) or to bad judgement (often amplified by mental disorders or substance abuse causing paranoid delusions etc).
There are of cause, many other factors and points I haven’t covered, but overall I believe that people are good (at least the vast majority of them) and that by far the biggest problem we have today, is that people don’t realise that:
| Edmund Burke (1729-1797) wrote: |
| "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." |
| Jakob [JaWGames] wrote: |
| I think that we kind of all have a own "good", the things you believes are good, they are good for you. Mostly of us thinks that killing is a bad thing (which it is) but if you looks at other animals, they kills without regret for their survival. (Either to eat or defend themselves.)
So the term "good" is something created by us humans and I guess that the things most of us thinks are good are things that helps peoples. Yourself and others. |
The term 'good' can never refer to animal behaviour simply because all what they do is based on pure instincts, they don't have a will to make decisions so how could you judge their actions? Animals do what is natural for them, not what is good or bad.
[I've heard that in medieval times people didn't realise that difference between humans and animals and they happened to accuse animals in the court and even punish them with death. Sounds too weird, doesn't it?
]
| Quote: |
| I think it's quite simple, really...
I believe that deep down inside every human being is a sense of what is right, good, and fair. I believe that a person, whoever they be, cannot do bad, and well, not feel bad; therefore a person will never be TRUEILY happy when doing bad. |
Sure. There are indeed very few people who want to do evil [though there are some]. We all make mistakes, but because we are weak, not because we want to fail. However, what we consider as 'good' is another thing. My ex boyfriend truly believed that not telling me the truth would be for my good. The inquisition truly believed that the spirit of a witch would be purified in the flame so that it's the only way for her to reach heaven. Even Hitler believed that what he did was for the good of his nation. Here comes the question, where should we search for the universal laws of what is good.
As my priest says: "People don't do evil because they want to do evil, but because they see some kind of beauty in it."
But I'll get into that topic later
Last edited by the_mariska on Wed Aug 16, 2006 8:53 pm; edited 1 time in total
| Quote: |
| The term 'good' can never refer to animal behaviour simply because all what they do is based on pure instincts, they don't have a will to make decisions so how could you judge their actions? Animals do what is natural for them, not what is good or bad |
That is exactly what I mean. It is only we humans who have the possibility to say if something is "good" or "bad" because our brain are built in a way which is different from all other animals. They do - as you said - react at instincs.
The whole "Good" or "bad" thing is something we humans have created.
Good is pleasing God. It isn't our job to redefine good. If everyone says killing is good, then no, that does not make it good.
Good is conscience, having one and acting with one. The stronger your conscience is, the more good you are, the weaker it is the more evil you are. If you don;t have one, you are pure evil.
| The Conspirator wrote: |
| Good is conscience, having one and acting with one. The stronger your conscience is, the more good you are, the weaker it is the more evil you are. If you don;t have one, you are pure evil. |
That kind of what I meant, but what I believe is that everyone has a conscience; there are just those that listen to there conscience, those that don't and those that are so confused and/or mentally disabled that they do not understand that, or how much that, their actions effect others (and there conscience is beside the point).
Humans are unique in the fact the they can think everything over before doing it, therefore instincts are beside the point; we each have a chance to decide whither something is right or wrong.
| Jakob [JaWGames] wrote: |
| The whole "Good" or "bad" thing is something we humans have created. |
If so, how do you explain that humans all over the world have such very similar ethics, such as peace (even if the don't always live up to them)?
| The Conspirator wrote: |
| Good is conscience, having one and acting with one. The stronger your conscience is, the more good you are, the weaker it is the more evil you are. If you don;t have one, you are pure evil. |
So the 13th Century Cleric engaged on his pious mission of burning many of the local women as witches is good, because he clearly is acting in accordance with his conscience since he believes they are evil and he is engaged on the Lord's work. He occasionally runs the risk of being bad when he gets a bit tired of the burning and fancies a nice lie-in in some mornings. Fortunately for him, his overwhelming desire to do the Lord's work means that he soon forgets such sinful sloth and gets on with the burning at hand.
Perhaps you need to refine this a little ?
Even orthodox religions have had to deal with this issue in the past. The solution of the Judeo-Christian faiths is mostly to refer to an 'evil' conscience which leads the possessor into evil instead of good. That always struck me as a cop-out since, in the example above, the Cleric would have been acting with the support and encouragement of many others from the same faith and was actually driven and given impetous by the Popes of the time. Gregory iX started the ball rolling in 1233 when he initiated the famous Inquisition. Pope John XII increased the stakes in 1320 when he forced through a Papal Bull declaring ancient pagan religions in Europe to be heretical and a 'hostile threat'. Pope Innocent VIII was, of course, the worst of this sick bunch and in 1480 he commissioned the Jesuits to produce a manual for witch hunters - the famous 'Malleus malificarum' (The Witches' Hammer). This was the official Catholic manual of how to burn people for the next 250 years. All these men at least claimed to be acting from conscience.
Let's not be biased here - what about the Muslim fundamentalist who is surely acting in conscience when he blows himself and a bus full of people up. He is completely certain of his spiritual reward - you would have to be pretty convinced, I think, to take this ultimate step. These are not people acting from some psychopathic absence of conscience and morality. In their eyes they are acting out of the highest forms of morality and in the best traditions of conscience - laying down their lives for their belief.
| Quote: |
| If so, how do you explain that humans all over the world have such very similar ethics, such as peace (even if the don't always live up to them)? |
We are the only animal which can think before acting and learn from what we have done, that makes us to the only one who can "think" that something is good or bad.
A lion is not evil because it eats a cow and you can`t say that it is evil even if it eats a human because it probably made it because it was hungry. That don`t mean that we should accept it, probably someone shoud kill the lion if he/she had the possibility and that would not be "bad" either.
And about war, war is a terrible thing and most humans agrees about that and because of that they calls it "bad". But then there are a few humans who attacks other only because they thinks it is "good", for their country, for their religion or whathever. If they thought about it as something bad they wouldn`t do it.
There isn't any good for me so I can't define it... Good was destroyed hundreds of years ago
| Bikerman wrote: | ||
So the 13th Century Cleric engaged on his pious mission of burning many of the local women as witches is good, because he clearly is acting in accordance with his conscience since he believes they are evil and he is engaged on the Lord's work. He occasionally runs the risk of being bad when he gets a bit tired of the burning and fancies a nice lie-in in some mornings. Fortunately for him, his overwhelming desire to do the Lord's work means that he soon forgets such sinful sloth and gets on with the burning at hand. |
I like to think about it this way. A truly good person who has a strong conscience, when they do something wrong, they make no excuses or justification for it to them selves or others. The average person would (depending on the severity of what they did) would make excuses or justifications to others but not them selfs, those with a weak conscience would make excuses or justifications to them selfs and others, they lie to them selves choosing to believe there excuses or justifications, some one with no conscience would just not give a damn, they may make excuses or justifications to others but they themselves don't care.
Its like a child molester that lies to him self, choosing to believe that it dose not harm a child to molest them but a good person would not lie to them selves or choose to believe some justification. A good person would question the justification that they are evil witches and then see the flaws in witch trails for he would not won;t to risk condemning and innocent person in such a way.
| The Conspirator wrote: |
|
A good person would question the justification that they are evil witches and then see the flaws in witch trails for he would not won;t to risk condemning and innocent person in such a way. |
Ermm...I think that is way over-simplistic. Imagine, you are a religious person. The clergy of your faith are, to you, the channel to God. They tell you that not only is it righteous to burn witches but it is required of you as a good son of Christ and the church. You think that a 'good' person would question his faith in this circumstance ? I agree, but only if he/she had an internal code of ethics distinct and separate from his/her religion and was prepared to acknowledge and act upon the supremacy of his own ethical code over the presctibed one which the church insisted was the word of god.
Chris
| Bikerman wrote: |
|
Ermm...I think that is way over-simplistic. Imagine, you are a religious person. The clergy of your faith are, to you, the channel to God. They tell you that not only is it righteous to burn witches but it is required of you as a good son of Christ and the church. You think that a 'good' person would question his faith in this circumstance ? I agree, but only if he/she had an internal code of ethics distinct and separate from his/her religion and was prepared to acknowledge and act upon the supremacy of his own ethical code over the presctibed one which the church insisted was the word of god. |
Haha, it seems that Christians had done something really bad to you, if you think that burning witches is required to be a good son of the Christ
And back to your question - people generally base their ethics system on their religion. If someone is not religious, he would base it on the laws of his country [eg. French revolution] or some kind of philosophical system. Your situation is very hypothetical, because neither the catholic church nor any other religious authorities ever forced to kill in the name of God [even talking about the crusaders or inquisition, the two worst mistakes of the Church].
However that kind of situations happened eg. in the Nazi Germany of Soviet Union. The political system was supported with militar terror and people were forced to report against the others, steal and sometimes even kill. And there were some people that refused to cooperate with the criminal system, even if they were punished with death. They were those who had their ethics based deeply in a philosophy or religion that gave them the strenght even to give away their lifes.
| Bikerman wrote: | ||
Ermm...I think that is way over-simplistic. Imagine, you are a religious person. The clergy of your faith are, to you, the channel to God. They tell you that not only is it righteous to burn witches but it is required of you as a good son of Christ and the church. You think that a 'good' person would question his faith in this circumstance ? I agree, but only if he/she had an internal code of ethics distinct and separate from his/her religion and was prepared to acknowledge and act upon the supremacy of his own ethical code over the presctibed one which the church insisted was the word of god. Chris |
You missed my point, a good person would rather die himself than to kill an innocent person thus he would not risk killing an innocent person. So he would have to and would question id reasoning and find it flawed.
A good way to tell is this, are you hurting, helping, doing neither, or both to anyone by doing what you're doing. If you're helping, it's good. If you're hurting, it's bad. If it's neither or both, it's somewhere in the middle.
| the_mariska wrote: |
|
Haha, it seems that Christians had done something really bad to you, if you think that burning witches is required to be a good son of the Christ
And back to your question - people generally base their ethics system on their religion. If someone is not religious, he would base it on the laws of his country [eg. French revolution] or some kind of philosophical system. Your situation is very hypothetical, because neither the catholic church nor any other religious authorities ever forced to kill in the name of God [even talking about the crusaders or inquisition, the two worst mistakes of the Church]. |
OK..let's disentangle this a little.
1) Burning witches was church policy and congregations were encouraged to 'seek out the scourge of witchcraft' from the pulpit. It may not have been 'required' but it was certainly encouraged.
2) If someone is not religious they will tend to base their ethics on another source, true enough. Any received system of ethics can be evil - I agree. 'Conscience' however, is a concept derived and rooted in religion. This can be illustrated :
The Greek equivalent is, "Suneida seos," the knowledge of two or more things together‑a knowledge with one's self‑also a joint knowledge. The important point being it is oneself which is the focus.
The Latin is, Con, with, and scio, to know. Literally, to know with another or joint knowledge; or knowing together; or, knowledge in common with another. Paul speaks of his conscience 'bearing him witness in the Holy Ghost'. IE, his sanctified conscience makes a decision in the fear of God, a decision which is rational, reasonable, and justifiable. Ordinarily, the decision of a sanctified mind, when empty of self, and God's glory alone is eyed, in said decision, may generally be relied upon as a safe expression of the "voice of God"; or, it is practically the same as God himself would wish; or, it is the same as God's judgment would be if audibly spoken on a given matter.
This is basic theology and it is why I raised the issue in the first place (the posting I replied to stated that conscience is the discriminator between good and evil. My point was, and is, that conscience is not sufficient).
3) Nothing in my posting was hypothetical at all.
4) The fact that the church did not 'force' people to kill is probably true. It did, however, incite, encourage and condone which, in my view and most legal interpretations is equally bad. Ultimately you cannot force anyone to do something. You can threaten, torture or even kill them if they do not do what you want, but they can always refuse - as many brave people have, some religious, some secular. The point I was making is that taking an ethical system from a religion is no guarantee of it's 'goodness'.
5) 'Mistakes' is a strange word to use in this context. The policy lasted centuries and there is no doubt that the church leaders knew what they were about. A mistake is :
| Quote: |
| An error or fault resulting from defective judgment, deficient knowledge, or carelessness. |
I would say that non of these apply in this case. If they did then it is extraordinary that the same errors were shared by all the Pontifs for several centuries. A better word might be 'atrocities'.
You continue :
| Quote: |
| However that kind of situations happened eg. in the Nazi Germany of Soviet Union. The political system was supported with militar terror and people were forced to report against the others, steal and sometimes even kill. And there were some people that refused to cooperate with the criminal system, even if they were punished with death. They were those who had their ethics based deeply in a philosophy or religion that gave them the strenght even to give away their lifes. |
1) I never claimed that evil actions were only down to religions. There have been many non-religious atrocities in history - I gave examples of Pol Pot and Stalin myself in another thread. However, since you raise the issue, let's briefly touch on the Nazi holocaust.
The Catholic church was almost completely silent on the holocaust, even when it was public knowledge. See
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_27_118/ai_79371673
for details.
That is a small issue however. The reason that the holocaust was able to be perpetrated in the first place was largely that Jews had been vilified and denounced by Christian religions for centuries. According to one Catholic Theologian (Hans Kuong) :
| Quote: |
| The Holocaust was built on a foundation of centuries of anti-Jewish hatred mainly promoted by the Roman Catholic Church, by the Protestant Churches, and to a lesser degree by the Eastern Orthodox churches. This religious hatred and intolerance was primarily created and maintained by Christian synods, councils, popes, cardinals, theologians, etc. until the 19th century. Since that time, anti-semitism -- hatred of Jews based on race -- has been a cooperative effort involving some religious, secular and government individuals and institutions. |
Regards
Chris
I have a good friend. He always borrows my stuff and never brings it back. I once threw him a party and he drank too much and puked into the linen closet. His advice about buying an appliance cost me three times what it was worth. The last six times we went out, I paid for everything. He’s a good friend though, good for nothing.
I like platonic good, christian good and common good.
But my favourite good is a healthy mind and body, fully functional in society, relationships and to self.
But my favourite good is a healthy mind and body, fully functional in society, relationships and to self.
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