Cause and Effect

Leebal · Dec 6, 2005

I had a discussion of this today. It seems very interesting. It has been proven that coldth is the absence of heat and darknesss is the abscene of light. I heard this comment before and I agree. But there was a disturbing one I have heard as well. Here it goes, since the saying goes: if there is no devil, there will be no God, and if there is no god, there is no devil, would it be that everything in this universe is bi-polar?

But the disturbing one was this: Would good mean simply the absence of evil, or evil the abscence of good? Before I post my relies, I would like to hear from all of you.

God bless all!

elman · Dec 6, 2005

Leebal said:
I had a discussion of this today. It seems very interesting. It has been proven that coldth is the absence of heat and darknesss is the abscene of light. I heard this comment before and I agree. But there was a disturbing one I have heard as well. Here it goes, since the saying goes: if there is no devil, there will be no God, and if there is no god, there is no devil, would it be that everything in this universe is bi-polar?

But the disturbing one was this: Would good mean simply the absence of evil, or evil the abscence of good? Before I post my relies, I would like to hear from all of you.

God bless all!

God or good or love can exist without evil, the lack of good or love. The existence of Satan is not necessary for God to exist. Evil is the absence of good or love. Good however or love is not totally defined by the absence of evil. It is a positive active force and can exist totally by itself.

Merlin · Dec 6, 2005

Light does not require darkness to exist.
Darkness is merely an absense of light.

Evil is not required for good to exist.
Evil is the absense of good.

Prometheus_ash · Dec 6, 2005

Leebal said:
I had a discussion of this today. It seems very interesting. It has been proven that coldth is the absence of heat and darknesss is the abscene of light. I heard this comment before and I agree. But there was a disturbing one I have heard as well. Here it goes, since the saying goes: if there is no devil, there will be no God, and if there is no god, there is no devil, would it be that everything in this universe is bi-polar?

But the disturbing one was this: Would good mean simply the absence of evil, or evil the abscence of good? Before I post my relies, I would like to hear from all of you.

God bless all!

As I have said in other threads, opposits as they are traditonally thought of are not needed for their "opposit" to exist or be understood.

Good is not the other side of the coin for evil, meaning that they exist independently in actions from another. Evil is not the absense of good, as many believe.

For example, if I am not activly doing good, and am simply living my life as best I can, does that make me evil since I am not activily pursuing good actions? No, but there is a lack of good being done.

Much of this depends on how one defines "evil" and what context one places it in. I propose evil be defined as "the active, purposeful intent of casuing intentional harm."

If evil is the absense of good, then whole entire swipes of the world poulation are evil, because they are not activly seeking to end world hunger, poverty, wars, injustice, etc in the world, and are instead mostly living day to day. I dont want a definition that does that, partly because it is simply problematic, and partly because I dont feel comfortable judging whole swipes of the world as "evil", a world with strong connotations.

Lifesaver · Dec 6, 2005

Leebal said:
But the disturbing one was this: Would good mean simply the absence of evil, or evil the abscence of good? Before I post my relies, I would like to hear from all of you.

Evil is the absence of good.
God created all that exists. All that He created is good. Evil is nothing but the negation of that creation. It is being to a lesser extent that what God created.
Only good properly exists. Evil exists in the same way that cold or darkness do.

Verv · Dec 6, 2005

Leebal said:
I had a discussion of this today. It seems very interesting. It has been proven that coldth is the absence of heat and darknesss is the abscene of light. I heard this comment before and I agree. But there was a disturbing one I have heard as well. Here it goes, since the saying goes: if there is no devil, there will be no God, and if there is no god, there is no devil, would it be that everything in this universe is bi-polar?

But the disturbing one was this: Would good mean simply the absence of evil, or evil the abscence of good? Before I post my relies, I would like to hear from all of you.

God bless all!

This is pretty interesting; sort of goes back to the Korean philosophy of Tae-keok, the eternal contrasts that exist in the universe, or Yin & Yang (Eum and Yang in Korean); what is interesting about the concept is that though one can classify Yin as being the dark and the negative, it is viewed as a necessity for good to positive to exist, and thus though Yin is something that is inherently negative, it is fundamentally not negative because it provides a necessary contrast.

The same is for Christianity in the sense that we have to have eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil in order to know good; we have no understanding of God and His Glory unless we understand what the absence of it is -- understand where we are, a place that requires Faith and is without Him.

So yes, in many senses the Devil is necessary. Kahlil Gibran wrote a great story about a man who comes across the devil and sees him dying on the roadside, and in the story you begin to believe that the man was fooled into saving the devil, and in the end, the devil asks the man: "Why did you save me? You could have saved so many men eternal misery if you would have just killed me."

The reply was along the lines of: It is the will of God that you exist, and the will of God that some men must suffer for their own ignorance, sins, and crimes against Him; God made you for a reason, and your reason was clearly to act in the role of an eternal tormentor and a Devil.

That is my take on the necessary existence of the devil in concordance of God's plan, until God decides otherwise.

Leebal · Dec 8, 2005

buy that would justify that the devil would just be within us and not a physical object. How would you explain thaty maybe there isn't no god (I believe there is.) and that good in humans is simply within us and the Devil is the not as an abstract object like some people percieve HIM or IT. Need more info.

elman · Dec 8, 2005

jmverville said:
This is pretty interesting; sort of goes back to the Korean philosophy of Tae-keok, the eternal contrasts that exist in the universe, or Yin & Yang (Eum and Yang in Korean); what is interesting about the concept is that though one can classify Yin as being the dark and the negative, it is viewed as a necessity for good to positive to exist, and thus though Yin is something that is inherently negative, it is fundamentally not negative because it provides a necessary contrast.

The same is for Christianity in the sense that we have to have eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil in order to know good; we have no understanding of God and His Glory unless we understand what the absence of it is -- understand where we are, a place that requires Faith and is without Him.

So yes, in many senses the Devil is necessary. Kahlil Gibran wrote a great story about a man who comes across the devil and sees him dying on the roadside, and in the story you begin to believe that the man was fooled into saving the devil, and in the end, the devil asks the man: "Why did you save me? You could have saved so many men eternal misery if you would have just killed me."

The reply was along the lines of: It is the will of God that you exist, and the will of God that some men must suffer for their own ignorance, sins, and crimes against Him; God made you for a reason, and your reason was clearly to act in the role of an eternal tormentor and a Devil.

That is my take on the necessary existence of the devil in concordance of God's plan, until God decides otherwise.

God did not need Satan to exist. Man already knew before eating of the tree that he should not eat of the tree, thus he already knew good from evil. It is a symbolic story with devine lessons but one of the lessons is not that evil must exist for God to exist.

elman · Dec 8, 2005

Leebal said:
buy that would justify that the devil would just be within us and not a physical object. How would you explain thaty maybe there isn't no god (I believe there is.) and that good in humans is simply within us and the Devil is the not as an abstract object like some people percieve HIM or IT. Need more info.

I believe there is a God but I don't believe in Satan. The evil we need to worry about is not outside of us but in us. What cartoon character said we have met the enemy and it is us. That is the satan I think we need to fear, the one we are when we chose to be unloving.

Leebal · Dec 9, 2005

elman said:
I believe there is a God but I don't believe in Satan. The evil we need to worry about is not outside of us but in us. What cartoon character said we have met the enemy and it is us. That is the satan I think we need to fear, the one we are when we chose to be unloving.

Well, that leads us to if Satan is even real. I deeply think he is a real person and not jsuta person within us. I can see where you saw that the devil is not real. There are lightbulbs, but there isn't any dark bulb. that would be cool though if we did.

DhikrAllah · Dec 9, 2005

Leebal said:
There are lightbulbs, but there isn't any dark bulb.

I have about 11 years on you in terms of age, and even I only vaguely remember them. But let me point out that the 80s had, amongst various other misguided innovations like legwarmers as a fashion item, black lights. They, you guessed it, made things very dark when you switched them on.

Leebal · Dec 9, 2005

I'm sorry. I may be 11 years younger than you, but I am far more mature, smarter, responsible, friendler, and benevolent that some of the older folks. I grew up too fast in my time and have done and seen more things as well. (not judging you or being prideful.) Anyways, what I meant to say was not fully expressed. Read carefully and read the context clues this time.

You turn ON a lightbulb to give off light. When you turn on the light in a room that is dark, darkness instantly disappears. If darkness was really matter (and not an abstract thing that never had a begining) then one would be able to make a darkness light bulb, not a bulb light as well. How it would work, you go to a well illumintated place and screw on the darkness lightbulb. once you turn it on, the light will instantly dissapear. Can you make such innovation like that without a concept version of just busting the lightbulb to pieces? Of course, breaking the lightbulb when it is turned on will of course make the room dark. But you understand what I mean.

When I said "that would be cool if we did" I meant the darkness lightbulb. imagine having one and turnig it on in the afternoon. You would have a stream darkness whereever you point.

Anyways, back to the topic. How can you explain that we need evil to have good? Would it not be so logic to think that there would be no courage if there was no fear. How can we be sure that there is a devil because we know good exists.

OrangeMery · Dec 9, 2005

Leebal said:
Anyways, back to the topic. How can you explain that we need evil to have good? Would it not be so logic to think that there would be no courage if there was no fear. How can we be sure that there is a devil because we know good exists.

Good argument, Leebal. According to the Law of Cause and Effect, both good and evil could not have existed previously--(needing evil to have good, and vice versa...) one must have pre-existed before the other. No question. To say that good and evil simply are explanatory <b> because their opposites exist</b> is illogical because two equally opposing sides must have originated from one or the other. Such is the same with light and darkness.

Light exists; darkness is merely the absence of light. You can't define darkness with light--darkness is scientifically measured by how much light is present or not present.

Goodness exists, and God is that goodness; evil is merely the absence of goodness. You can't define evil WITHOUT goodness--because evil is merely the absence of goodness.

OrangeMery

DhikrAllah · Dec 9, 2005

We obsess about light because without it we cannot see, and evolving over how long we have weve ended up developing sight as our main sense. Hence why we measure darkness in terms of absence of light.

But God created, according to a Christian viewpoint, everything using Let there be light as His 1st words (in relation to existence of our universe). In which case darkness must have reigned prior to light, surely?

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