Posts from Good and evil.

Well, the belief regarding "good and evil" is a separate topic altogether. In one of the psalms, it is said: "The gods of the nations are demons," meaning the context is clear – if nations worship demons, then they are doing EVIL. If you read the psalms, there are countless such "passages." Therefore, any "religious branch" based on "Jewish writings" already establishes this as a principle. I don't even need to mention the writings of biblical prophets; there is plenty of it there as well. Thus, the Old Testament provides a clear definition of who is "faithful," who is "good," and who is "

Well, the belief regarding "good and evil" is a completely separate topic.

One of the psalms says: "The gods of the nations are demons," which makes the context clear – if nations worship demons, then they are doing EVIL. If you read the psalms, there are countless such "passages." Therefore, any "religious branch" based on "Jewish writings" already establishes this as a principle. I'm not even talking about the writings of biblical prophets; there is plenty of that there as well.
Thus, the Old Testament provides a clear definition of who is "faithful," who is "good," and who is "not good." And here, as they say, "it's nothing personal; we are just pure, and they are not." And this is a completely special form of human interaction: "you are a good guy in yourself, but I am killing you because you are impure, just so that I don't get contaminated by your impurity."

Ganymed, are you distorting the scriptures again?:) the gods of the nations refer to money, power, and so on. When will you start reading between the lines?:rolleyes:

In my opinion, Good and Evil are just a construct of worldviews in relation to the world... and everything stems solely from the perception of actions and things.

Ganymed, I wouldn't risk interpreting the Bible in that way without reading it thoroughly four times and analyzing it in detail. Quote: "because it is known that he painted an ordinary picture, and then took and covered it with the famous black square." I don't know where you got this information. The so-called Malevich painted many pictures... hmm... of absolutely idiotic content, something that a sane person would never come up with. However, maybe he first drew three black triangles and then covered everything with black paint :) Here, religion is so often mixed with the concepts of Good and Evil that I don't quite understand where everyone gets such an opinion. The Bible does not give the concept of Evil, but it quite clearly gives the concept of Sin as a disease that has afflicted humanity. The essence of Sin lies primarily in "...the unwillingness of a person to recognize someone as their Creator, to recognize that we cannot do everything we want, to recognize that there are laws of the Creator...". We are ready to believe and come to terms with abstract power. Knowing that there is a director of a company somewhere is one thing. Directly obeying the orders of another person (even the same director or manager), who is alive and (in your opinion) no better than you - that is something else. Sometimes the power is abstract, sometimes it is real. You want to say, "I am the God and Master of my own destiny." And you are told: "Wait, you are a creation, and you have a Creator who has rights over you." So, gentlemen, the basis of sin according to the Bible is "the unwillingness of a person to recognize and submit. <> And you will be like Gods, knowing Good and Evil." Thus, any sin is Evil. Everything that is not sin is not evil. This is according to religion. From this, one can logically derive the concept of Good, as well as a neutral act. I note that it is not worth mixing Good with the favorable (or vice versa) consequences of an action. These are completely different things. So, a neutral act can be determined by anyone. It does not contain anything. Like when we eat, go to work, and so on. Then Good will be determined by everything else, since, according to the Bible, any deed/action can be attributed to Good/Neutral/Evil. An action is determined by its nature and is in itself local. Those who begin to add a global meaning to it are simply trying to mislead. It is almost the same as comparing computer bits (0 or 1) with the number one thousand or more. Locally, it can be either 0 (Evil) or 1 (Good) (in our case, also neutral). 0 is the minimum, 1 is the maximum. And this is an absolute (on a local scale). It reminds me of humanism ("man is the measure of all things") and those who say that man is just an organism that, within the framework of the planet Earth, is a dangerous virus that destroys nature and the environment. Quote: "In my opinion, Good and Evil are just a figment of worldviews in relation to the world... And everything comes only from the perception of actions and things..." Gentlemen, do you even realize what you are writing about? I get the impression that your worldview is spontaneous and has nothing to do with reason. If I kill your mother, rape your sister, spit in your face, and sincerely believe that this is Good, will that be good????? Will you shrug your shoulders and philosophically say: "Good and Evil are just a figment of worldviews in relation to the world... And everything comes only from the perception of actions and things..."??? Change your perception, gentlemen, while there is still time. P.S. Remember Raskolnikov from Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment." "Am I a trembling creature, or do I have the right?" (to kill an innocent) And in the end, he confesses under the weight of the burden.

I read Snegov's novel "The Dictator." It is a very interesting piece and quite relevant. The essence is that one man, the hero of the novel, decided to end wars on his planet once and for all. To achieve this, he seized power in his country, won the war, and unified the entire planet. During the war, he saved enemies from epidemics and famine while simultaneously conducting military operations. A Black Tribunal was created—a court without control—and a Sacred Terror was introduced.
But at the same time, he unified the planet, making wars impossible.
And at the end of the novel, he turns himself over to trial, to this very Black Tribunal, accusing himself of committing many small and not-so-small evils for the sake of one great good. He said that the common good is abstract, while evil is concrete for everyone.
And the court sentenced him to be hanged. But a planet-wide referendum acquitted him.
So think about it: where is the good, and where is the evil...

You are confusing concepts again, gentlemen. How easy it is to mislead someone! "Acknowledged - Justified," "there are no more wars." You are mixing up the actions themselves with their consequences and global significance. Now, let me introduce you to Mr. XXX, who fell victim to the same deception.

Mr. XXX conducts psychological and social experiments to understand what is Good, what is Evil, and how to choose his own path. He gives money to a beggar and observes the events. Before the beggar can take a hundred steps, another (more of a thug) immediately attacks him to take the money (he saw everything). The beggar resists, but the attacker has a dagger, and it ends in murder. The thug takes the money and leaves the scene. Did Mr. XXX do good? It then occurs to him that everything is abstract, that Good and Evil are concepts invented by people, and therefore any action (ANY!) can be interpreted as good or bad, depending on the object. For the thug, the money is good! And so, another serial killer is born...

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"In my opinion, Good and Evil are just inventions of worldviews in relation to the world... And everything stems only from the perception of actions and things..."

Gentlemen, do you even realize what you are writing about? I get the impression that your worldview is spontaneous and has nothing to do with reason. If I kill your mother, rape your sister, spit in your face, and sincerely believe that this is Good, will it be good????? Will you shrug your shoulders and philosophically say:
"Good and Evil are just inventions of worldviews in relation to the world... And everything stems only from the perception of actions and things..."??? Change your perception, gentlemen, while there's still time.

You misunderstood me and interpreted what I said in your own way. I'm talking about a person's attitude towards the world, not all people... For one person, something might be good, and for another, it might be evil... It's just that in all sorts of books, Evil is a concept that is common to everyone, seen through the eyes of one person, and not each individual. After all, both Good and Evil are interpreted differently by different people. For example, for some negative hero, a certain bad deed evokes approval and is considered good, while for a positive hero, it is evil and is strongly disapproved of. So, for various "fanatics" - terrorists, the actions they commit are good and are done "for the good" (for example, in order to get to paradise), while for others, it is evil...

P.S. In general, I ask you to read carefully what is said, and if something is unclear, ask me to explain what and how.

I read Snegov's novel "The Dictator." It's a very interesting read and quite relevant. The essence is that one man, the protagonist of the novel, decided to put an end to wars on his planet once and for all. To do this, he seized power in his country, won the war, and united the entire planet. During the war, he saved enemies from epidemics and famine while also conducting military operations. A Black Tribunal was created, a court without oversight, and a Sacred Terror was implemented.
But in the end, he united the planet, and wars became impossible.
At the end of the novel, he surrenders himself to the court, to this Black Tribunal, accusing himself of committing many small and not-so-small evils in the name of one great good. He said that good for all is abstract, while evil is concrete for each individual.
And the court sentenced him to be hanged. But a planet-wide referendum acquitted him.
So, think about where good and evil lie...

It's all very simple. You yourself understand all of this perfectly! And the author understands it too. He did a lot of evil for the sake of a greater good. How much simpler can it be?
If the question of good and evil is posed in this way – can the evil that is committed for the sake of good be called evil? – then we are substituting one topic for another.

Ganymed, I wouldn't risk interpreting the Bible that way without having read it four times from cover to cover and analyzed it thoroughly.

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"for it is known that he painted a regular picture, and then took and covered it with the famous black square"

I honestly don't know where you got this info. The so-called Malevich painted many paintings... hmm... of absolutely idiotic content, things a sane person would never have thought of. Though, maybe he first painted three black triangles, and then poured black paint over everything :)

Religion is mixed with concepts of Good and Evil so often here that it's become unclear to me where everyone gets this opinion. The Bible does not provide a concept of Evil, but it quite clearly provides the concept of Sin as a disease that has afflicted humanity. The essence of Sin lies primarily in "...a person's unwillingness to recognize someone as their Creator, to admit that we cannot do everything we want, to admit that the laws of the Creator exist...". We are ready to believe in and reconcile ourselves with an abstract power. Knowing that there is a company director somewhere out there is one thing. Directly executing the orders of another person (even that same director or manager), who is alive and just as much of a human (in your opinion, or worse than you) is another. In one case the power is abstract, in the other it is real. You want to say - "I am the God and Master of my own destiny." And you are told: "Wait, you are a creation, and you have a Creator who has rights over you." So, gentlemen, the basis of sin according to the Bible is "a person's unwillingness to recognize and obey. <> And you will be like Gods... knowing Good and Evil". Thus, any sin is Evil. Everything that is not a sin is not evil. That is according to religion. From here, one can logically derive the concept of Good, as well as a neutral act. I will note that Good should not be confused with favorable (or unfavorable) consequences of an action. These are absolutely different things. Thus, a neutral act—anyone can define it. It carries nothing within itself. Something like how we eat, go to work, and so on. Then Good is defined by everything else, since according to the Bible, any deed/act can be classified as Good/Neutral/Evil. An act is determined by its nature and is local in itself. Those who start mixing global meaning into this are merely throwing dust in people's eyes. It's almost equivalent to comparing computer bits (0 or 1) with the number one thousand or more. Locally, it can be either 0 (Evil) or 1 (Good) (and in our case, also neutral). 0 is the minimum, 1 is the maximum. And this is an absolute (on a local scale). Something about this reminds me of humanism ("man is the measure of all things") and those who say that man is merely an organism that, within the framework of planet Earth, is a dangerous virus destroying nature and the environment.

And how do you know, esteemed Berserk, how many times I have read the Bible?
And what is sin? If a person is rational, they understand without any Bible what is useful for them and what is not. If not, then life again, without any Bible, will beat them until they understand it, or they won't understand if they are stupid. But those are their problems. But it turns out that God created the world, and then wrote the laws by which the world should exist. And if I, upon being born, suddenly realize that I have some kind of, excuse me, original sin of some Adam whom I don't even know, then, in all fairness, I'll tell this Adam and the god who created me for his "toys" where to go.
You don't understand that you are humbling God just as the authors of the scriptures humbled him for their own purposes.
It's amazing how sure bible-worshippers are of their own rightness! For as long as I've lived, I've been amazed. Everything is correct with you, everything is "according to God," as if God whispered the ultimate truth in your ear.
If you are mistaken yourself, then do not lead others astray.

Ganymede, distorting the scripture again?:) the gods of nations—meaning money, power, etc. When will you start reading between the lines?:rolleyes:

Don't twist my words, and you even got pluses for it... and why "again"?

I am not the one distorting the scripture; you are interpreting it your own way. In the psalm it is written clearly and without commentary: "Bozi yazyk - besove" (Church Slavonic). Where are the "money, power, and so on" here? Or are we used to reading "between the lines"? Words are perceived literally, not between the lines.
If I write your name and the word "idiot" next to it, will you read it between the lines or how? Demagoguery, guys... Scripture is that which is written and read regularly at services! And no one analyzes the meaning of a bunch of psalms based on what someone "meant." Everything is clear and precise. Do not deceive yourselves and look at history; it confirms my words, not yours. If you agree with it, of course.

Does a great good redeem all the great evil that was committed for its sake? And won't this good turn into evil over time?
It's better not to rack your brains with questions like "what is good and what is bad," but simply live according to your conscience. Because conscience is the highest judge; if it's absent, asking about good and evil is simply meaningless. If it's present, asking this question becomes irrelevant.

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"And how do you know, esteemed Berserker, how many times I have read the Bible?"

It is elementary. I have studied it, read many books, and one can immediately tell whether you have read it even once in full (I am 100% sure you haven't) or not. Such a document is studied thoroughly—sometimes for a lifetime—even by scholars.

Generally speaking, I sense anger, resentment, pain, and rebellion in you. Do you think every person doesn't wonder why they must pay for the sins of some Adam? But imagine yourself in God's place, and you will understand that everything is simple and reasonable.

1) God created a wonderful world and universe without sin.
2) God created angels and archangels. They are wonderful; they embody power and majesty.

Is this bad?
Almost every person is proud. When pride screams, it feels as if one's very core is indignant; few are those who can recognize the "Proud-I" and stop it in time. We WANT to be proud of ourselves, we want others to be proud of us. Any careless word offends us. We want greatness and power. Who doesn't?

Now let us imagine a high Archangel, the "right hand of dawn," the most beautiful and powerful of angels. And yet, God is more majestic, He is better—but in what way?... If one were to rebel and overthrow Him, then Lucifer would become the Lord of the World! Who would not be tempted by such a possibility? And so he rebelled. Naturally, the battle ended in his defeat and he was cast out. A third of the angels, seduced and deceived, followed him. They were ANGELS!
And what is the cause of what we have now? Pride and rebellion!
He was humiliated. Humiliated like no other!!! To fall from the heights to the earth is almost unbearable. Other angels probably despise him for such an act. And then God creates beings in His Image and Likeness! He even breathes Spirit into them. Lucifer hates the Creator, hates Him with all his fibers, and now more loathsome creatures appear who look so much like HIM... But all is not lost. One can still fight! He will take revenge, he will be remembered, his name will be mentioned tens of thousands of times. He knows Evil, he knows Sin, but they do not. Simpletons. They lack the most powerful weapon. The Creator is Truth? Then we shall be the Lie! Everyone is used to hearing only the Truth! How can one speak of that which does not exist or is not Truth??? And so he went to speak with Eve.

It is known that God decides for Himself and for the rational being. He did not want to create robots, but created RATIONAL beings with freedom of choice! Question: can God violate His own laws? - No. If He grants a right, He will not take that right away from you.
Such a trifle! Not eating the fruit! Are you familiar with the feeling of thirst, of passion, when you want something very badly, when something is accessible and close by? A thoughtless act, and Eve learned that EVIL also exists, that one can lie, steal, kill, and... slander the innocent. Adam realized this too when God approached them.
Was it painful for the Creator to suffer such a second betrayal? So much love He put into His works, He gave everything! And what did He receive in return? Can beings defiled by sin live forever? No. They were cast out of Paradise.
For Lucifer, this was a victory, the beginning of his time, when millions would be sent to hell, deceived by him, when people would begin to destroy that which was created by God and each other. And Sin progresses! It began with pride, then disobedience, and then murder out of jealousy!

Where is God's fault? In the fact that He didn't create robots? Would you prefer to be robots? Or do you have no right of choice, no conscience, no free thinking?

But Lucifer knows that to control the masses, one needs many religions, many currents. Remember what he said to Eve: "And you shall be as Gods..., knowing Good and Evil." If this is applied once more, the effect will be colossal! Humanism: "Man is at the center of the universe and the foundation of all things. Man is the master of his own destiny. Man is God on earth and the Lord of Nature...". It is so easy to lure billions of people into the nets! Let someone write about God on their forum, to hell with him (the man). Regardless, those who are needed will go where He wants them to go!
Charles Darwin was a deeply religious man. But in life, everything turned out differently for him. He never married. He had a whole complex of inferiority. "Woman is worse than a Negro slave," he thought. And then one day he read a book by a certain lawyer/jurist about the age of the earth, where the author showed a geological column he had created and claimed that the earth is millions of years old. Darwin quickly grasped the idea. Where there are millions of years, there is no room for God, which means... It means that since time immemorial, there has been a struggle for survival. The strong are the engine of evolution. Thus, Negro slaves are slaves by law. They are weak and unworthy of the future. Into this same chain, the loser Darwin placed women. Now his pride would be satisfied. He is a man, he is great, he has made a discovery for which all slave traders will be grateful to him. And he understood why he was unlucky with family. Because women are inferior beings! Another victory on the strategic map of the world. It's alright, He will tell Darwin the truth, but later, much later, when the latter dies. He will tell him what service he rendered to the world, but for now, let him rejoice... Against the backdrop of the confrontation between science and religion, many saw Darwin's theory as a deadly instrument that would undoubtedly help them defeat religion. The so-called geological column of the age of the earth became the cornerstone of this movement...

Hitler:
"People are more likely to believe a greater lie than a smaller one."
If we say that a frog can become a human, no sane person will believe us. But if we say that over millions and millions of years a frog can EVOLVE, then it will seem very MUCH like the truth. Lie as a weapon was adopted by many politicians and statesmen. Hitler was not stupid. Not at all. But he, like Darwin, had problems and complexes, and he had Darwin's idea. If you are all the result of chance and the strongest survive, then why not help the process of evolution and weed out the weak races in advance? After all, it is for the good of Evolution. Everyone knows where this led, but not for a second do they realize all the depravity, dishonesty, and artificial attractiveness of Darwin's theory and Atheism in particular.

Don't confuse Darwinism and Social Darwinism. Darwin himself wrote all his laws exclusively for the animal world, without applying them to humanity. This was done later by Social Darwinists, who only adopted the external aspect from Darwin – the struggle of the strong against the weak. Darwin himself would never have stooped to such a thing. And it's not necessary to blame Satan (the Devil, etc.) for all the evil. People themselves do much worse than he could ever imagine. Moreover, the Devil is a "servant" of God; he performs the task assigned to him (this is especially evident in the example of Azrael). It seems that the good and evil of God and the good and evil of Man exist in different planes and do not intersect in any way. And no one can understand anyone. Even the gods cannot understand people.

If you believe in Satan, then you should think that his evil plans are more successful than those of humans! Similarly, if you believe in God (and not in some god), then it is wrong to claim that He does not understand people – because He is all-knowing.

The devil has no special task – he is simply full of pride.

Good and evil are the same for everyone; God is good.

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"One should not confuse Darwinism and Social Darwinism."
And here is your mistake, dear Alexey. Darwin was a slave trader, openly stating that Negroes and women were inferior, as evidenced by his contemporaries. So, the mistake is yours, and there is no difference in how you call it; it stems from the very idea, from the very theory.

And here's something about Satanists!...
They believe that Judas did a good thing by betraying Jesus. And that Jesus himself asked to be betrayed. And that He (Jesus) was crucified. And in doing so, human sins were redeemed (I don't remember exactly which sin, perhaps the original sin)...

But this is just a side note, since we're talking about the Bible.