Cacodaemony

Originally posted by Pawnokeyhole
Oh, do make an effort lads.

I was thinking of a "cacodaemon-icy" along the following lines.

Making everything straightforwardly bad would not be quite as bad as allowing some good things to exist and then sullying them. Hence, the supreme cacodaemon allows some good as a means of facilitating a greater badness.

Artful inversion!

If god is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-evil, how can there be good in the world? Every event of goodness must somehow contribute to the greater evil, as part of the grand scheme.

There’s got to be a free-will argument in there somewhere...

Originally posted by vistesd
Artful inversion!

If god is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-evil, how can there be good in the world? Every event of goodness must somehow contribute to the greater evil, as part of the grand scheme.

There’s got to be a free-will argument in there somewhere...

Aloha,

I read somewhere that "evil" is the "active principle" according to--the word Buddhist resists being inserted into this sentence.

In the meantime I've found an essay touching on "the strange parallelism of thought between the
English poet-painter's mythic philosophy and that of
Mahayanna Buddhism" ( http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-JOCP/ferrar1.htm ).

As for the cacodaemon--take away his pain and he ceases to exist, a Good Thing for some.

There are daemons made of cake?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
There are daemons made of cake?

Caca, not cake.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Aloha,

I read somewhere that "evil" is the "active principle" according to--the word Buddhist resists being inserted into this sentence.

In the meantime I've found an essay touching on "the strange parallelism of thought between the
English poet-painter's mythic philosophy and that of
Mahayanna Buddhism" ( http://ccbs.ntu ...[text shortened]... As for the cacodaemon--take away his pain and he ceases to exist, a Good Thing for some.

I read somewhere that "evil" is the "active principle" according to--the word Buddhist resists being inserted into this sentence.

I don’t know how “tongue-in-cheek” you’re being (and in your previous post as well). There’s some food for thought here. Nietzsche, for example, might argue that both the Buddhist and Christian notions of “good” are linked to more passive “herd” behavior and passive obedience or submission to authority. These would be essentially sociological defintions of “good” and “evil,” perhaps?

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]I read somewhere that "evil" is the "active principle" according to--the word Buddhist resists being inserted into this sentence.

I don’t know how “tongue-in-cheek” you’re being (and in your previous post as well). There’s some food for thought here. Nietzsche, for example, might argue that both the Buddhist and Christian notions of “good” are li ...[text shortened]... thority. These would be essentially sociological defintions of “good” and “evil,” perhaps?[/b]

Not really tongue-in-cheek. Blake's words have a magnetic charge, an effect that precedes my attempts to understand them. Apparently now they share something with some Buddhist thought. There seems to be something to this! Blake also reversed the traditional role of Evil. I don't recall Nietszche saying the Christian "good" and the Buddhist "good" were quite the same thing, though I could be wrong about that. I mean, there is no "good" in Buddhism is there?

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Not really tongue-in-cheek. Blake's words have a magnetic charge, an effect that precedes my attempts to understand them. Apparently now they share something with some Buddhist thought. There seems to be something to this! Blake also reversed the traditional role of Evil. I don't recall Nietszche saying the Christian "good" and the Buddhist "good" were ...[text shortened]... ng, though I could be wrong about that. I mean, there is no "good" in Buddhism is there?

The reason I asked about tongue-in-cheek is that “good” and “evil” are simply words—labels we use to mark certain happenings, attitudes, etc. To say that “evil” really represents the active life-force (or the elan vital—another word applied to a whole complex process) is simply to invert the social/cultural usage, and to say that the standard labeling is in error. I think that is the reversal Blake is getting at.

I don’t think Nietzsche said anything about Buddhism at all. Some Buddhists use the terms good & evil, heaven & hell—even God (especially D.T. Suzuki who was writing almost strictly for a western audience, and trying to get Buddhist philosophy into terms a westerner could comprehend). But these terms in Buddhism almost always have to do with illusion* versus awareness. The root of evil is in maya, hence evil is not a substantive reality per se—I think of it rather as an adjective, rather than a noun: thinks happen that we reasonably define as evil.

With regard to the article: there are streams of the perennial philosophy everywhere—the expressions are different.

* In my personal vocabulary, I distinguish between illusion: perceiving something incompletely, or other than it really is—and delusion: perceiving something where there is nothing, or vice versa. So, in a sense, the everyday phenomenal world is real, and evil events happen. An earthquake is not a delusion, so that one can say: “No fear, it’s not ‘real’.”

Originally posted by vistesd
Artful inversion!

If god is omnipotent, omniscient and omni-evil, how can there be good in the world? Every event of goodness must somehow contribute to the greater evil, as part of the grand scheme.

There’s got to be a free-will argument in there somewhere...

The cacodaemonic God made free will to intensify evil.

He could just have made our natures totally bad, like those of the demons, who inexorably commit evil.

However, God realized that a more intense evil would come from creatures who freely chose (like Him) to commit evil.

The accidental goodness that arises from them committing voluntary acts of kindness is counterbalanced by the greater badness that arises from them committing voluntary acts of cruelty. The cacodaemonic God is thus maximizing evil on the sly.

Even psychologists agree: bad is stronger than good.

https://www.carlsonschool.umn.edu/Assets/71516.pdf#search=%22bad%20is%20stronger%20than%20good%22