@kellyjay saidI don't see how moonbus is putting himself "as the higher power above" anything or how the fact that he does not share your particular religious beliefs makes him "the great decider". It sounds like a kind of feeble religionist trash talk. Aren't you just projecting these things onto him because what you are proposing to him is not convincing. For whose consumption is it? Other Christians?
As it stands you put yourself as the higher power above all of them, the great decider of what is and isn't worthy.
@moonbus saidEvil is the abuse of good and truth, the greater the good, the greater the evil. Since everyone is a singularly divinely created individual, abusing any of them is evil. Mistreating any of them for our viewing pleasures turns them into objects for our pleasures or mistreat them for our other appetites we do them harm. Robbing them of dignity, property, harming them by verbal assaults, we do these things like we breathe air or drink water. Hate justifies these things, being apathetic towards them allows these things, but actually loving others even those we consider our enemies stop it.
Isn’t that what makes evil evil: the innocent are made to suffer for things they didn’t do.
@kellyjay said
Evil is the abuse of good and truth, the greater the good, the greater the evil. Since everyone is a singularly divinely created individual, abusing any of them is evil. Mistreating any of them for our viewing pleasures turns them into objects for our pleasures or mistreat them for our other appetites we do them harm. Robbing them of dignity, property, harming them by ver ...[text shortened]... rds them allows these things, but actually loving others even those we consider our enemies stop it.
@Divegeester: Do you think this is news to moonbus, or to any of us for that matter?
I'm waiting for him to remind us that no one is innocent, everyone is evil ... It's straight out of Augustine, you know. Augustine claimed that the apparent innocence of infants is not that they have innocent motives; infants have all the same evil motive adults have, but they lack the physical capability to execute them. Verily, verily, Augustine's tiny fragment of a mirror was cracked and scorched, so everything he saw reflected in it was dark and fragmentary. Sound like anyone we know here at RHP?
@moonbus saidDo you claim everyone is good? Maybe only some are good, which ones, how do you tell them apart?
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@kellyjay said
Evil is the abuse of good and truth, the greater the good, the greater the evil. Since everyone is a singularly divinely created individual, abusing any of them is evil. Mistreating any of them for our viewing pleasures turns them into objects for our pleasures or mistreat them for our other appetites we do them harm. Robbing them of dignity, property, h ...[text shortened]... o everything he saw reflected in it was dark and fragmentary. Sound like anyone we know here at RHP?
@kellyjay saidI think most people most of the time are mostly decent. If they weren't, we wouldn't be here; if people were basically evil ("by nature", as the doctrine of original sin claims), we'd have extincted ourselves millions of years ago, our species would have died with Lucy in Olduvai Gorge.
Do you claim everyone is good? Maybe only some are good, which ones, how do you tell them apart?
Some people are a-social or even anti-social, there's no denying that, but they're a minority. Some people are under-evolved for civilisation, that's true; they're not outright criminal, but they can't usefully contribute to the common weal, they're just a burden on society; they too are a minority.
How do I tell the under-evolved and a-social and anti-social ones from the decent ones? By their behavior. By how they treat other people.
@moonbus saidDecent, or nice, doesn't answer my question? Even serial killers can be both of those things to most, but that doesn't alter the evil done by them.
I think most people most of the time are mostly decent. If they weren't, we wouldn't be here; if people were basically evil ("by nature", as the doctrine of original sin claims), we'd have extincted ourselves millions of years ago, our species would have died with Lucy in Olduvai Gorge.
Some people are a-social or even anti-social, there's no denying that, but they're a mi ...[text shortened]... social and anti-social ones from the decent ones? By their behavior. By how they treat other people.