Good evil

Love and hate are not necessarily one against the other as good and evil are. True unhypocritical love will always hate evil for the harm it does to the one loved. Always seeking the best for the one loved is always good, always seeking their best. It then becomes no surprise that God showed us His love for us while we were His enemies seeking our best. He laid down His life for us so we could be forgiven, showing us the greatest love one could show, by laying down His life for us. His love is genuine that it is given for the sake of us, for our good due to our need, God is love, it isn't just what He does, but who He is.

@kellyjay said
Love and hate are not necessarily one against the other as good and evil are. True unhypocritical love will always hate evil for the harm it does to the one loved. Always seeking the best for the one loved is always good, always seeking their best. It then becomes no surprise that God showed us His love for us while we were His enemies seeking our best. He laid down His li ...[text shortened]... he sake of us, for our good due to our need, God is love, it isn't just what He does, but who He is.

Let's define "evil" first so that the discourse has some foundation.

"Evil" is egregious immorality (as already defined in numerous previous discussions, involving doing harm, deceiving and coercing) and gratuitous, sociopathic action that is gravely detrimental and/or damaging to others, and which stems from an abject lack or even absence of empathy and compassion.

That's what I propose.

Furthermore, to avoid confusion, the word "evil" is probably best used as an adjective rather than a noun.

It's not a 'thing' that exists or that was instituted by an evil being.

The word "evil" is simply an adjective that is more loaded up with disapproval than the word "bad".

@kellyjay said
Love and hate are not necessarily one against the other as good and evil are. True unhypocritical love will always hate evil for the harm it does to the one loved. Always seeking the best for the one loved is always good, always seeking their best. It then becomes no surprise that God showed us His love for us while we were His enemies seeking our best. He laid down His li ...[text shortened]... he sake of us, for our good due to our need, God is love, it isn't just what He does, but who He is.

Did Jesus really lay down his life? Did he not say that he would only be gone for 3 days?

And if Jesus is God, according to the Trinity concept, why would God need to be so dramatic in the act of forgiveness?

What was forgiven in the act of laying down and resting for 3 days? All sins, past, present, and future? And if God created us, did he not create us with an inherent defect, one which disposes us to sin?

And what of the original sin? If man has been given freewill, supposing a will to choose between good and evil, then why prohibit man from having the knowledge of good and evil? To properly exercise the gift of freewill in choosing to be good or evil, is not knowledge of what is good and what isn't, necessary? Therefore, God should not have prohibited the symbolic first man and first woman from gaining the knowledge from the "damned" tree. I suspect God, the Father, sent out his children into the physical world to learn, the hard way, just how good we have it in the spiritual world, the Garden of Eden. As it's said, we do not know what we have until we lose it. By losing the body we know we have a soul?

I believe that Jesus, like Socrates, allowed themself to be executed so as to not appear to be hypocrites, by not be willing, personally, to live and die as they taught. Besides, both knew that the soul lives on after physical death.

@fmf said
Let's define "evil" first so that the discourse has some foundation.

"Evil" is egregious immorality (as already defined in numerous previous discussions, involving doing harm, deceiving and coercing) and gratuitous, sociopathic action that is gravely detrimental and/or damaging to others, and which stems from an abject lack or even absence of empathy and compassion.

That's what I propose.

If I deceive you for your own good, is that evil? If I coerce you instead, again, for your own good, because I'm not able to persuade/deceive you, is that evil? If a surgeon damages your body by amputating a limb, to save the rest of the body, is that evil?

Is it not imperative to first have knowledge of what is truly evil, before choosing nouns and adjectives? Has nature any compassion for the weak, the sick, the needy? And for this lack of compassion, is the noun, nature, to be deemed evil? What of the good results from nature's lack of compassion which it seems to provide?

There is a fungus that exists purely to infect the brain of an ant. As it begins to impair the brain of the ant, it turns it into a zombie like state and causes it to climb to the highest point possible (perhaps the branch of a tree). A spore then shoots out of the ants brain, killing it naturally, before dropping further spores to the ground below, infecting more ants.

Is the fungus evil? Are the ants evil? Is nature evil? Is the creator of the fungus evil? Does evil even exist?

@pettytalk said
If I deceive you for your own good, is that evil?

I don't think so.

@pettytalk said
If I coerce you instead, again, for your own good, because I'm not able to persuade/deceive you, is that evil?

Probably not.

@pettytalk said
If a surgeon damages your body by amputating a limb, to save the rest of the body, is that evil?

I wouldn't say so.

@pettytalk said
Is it not imperative to first have knowledge of what is truly evil, before choosing nouns and adjectives?

Well, we undergo socialization as communal beings. "Knowledge" in that sense?

With your reference to "choosing nouns and adjectives", I think perhaps you are trying a bit too hard to riff on two words I used.

@pettytalk said
Has nature any compassion for the weak, the sick, the needy?

Humans acting in a morally sound way do.

@pettytalk said
What of the good results from nature's lack of compassion which it seems to provide?

"Nature" is neither good nor evil. Nor does it have or lack compassion.

@pettytalk said
Is it not imperative to first have knowledge of what is truly evil, before choosing nouns and adjectives?

What does "truly" mean in the way you use it here? "Very, very"?

@pettytalk said
Did Jesus really lay down his life? Did he not say that he would only be gone for 3 days?

And if Jesus is God, according to the Trinity concept, why would God need to be so dramatic in the act of forgiveness?

What was forgiven in the act of laying down and resting for 3 days? All sins, past, present, and future? And if God created us, did he not create us with an in ...[text shortened]... lly, to live and die as they taught. Besides, both knew that the soul lives on after physical death.

For Jesus it was much more than His earthly life alone, He who knew no sin became sin, and bore the full wrath of God for all of us. Many of His who He saved, died instead of denying Him. Many earthly lives were given for Him out of love for Him.

This is quite different from killing others to prove our devotion. We are given life a born again relationship in this life, not just the next.

Gods created a universe where real love is possible and for that to be true rejecting it must also be possible.

@PettyTalk
An interesting slew of questions, and yet, when I look back over them, they seem a bit disconnected from what I actually proposed in my first post on this thread.

It's OK to riff on words you see me using, but if it's just riffing for riffing's sake, it can come across like you didn't quite get what you are ostensibly responding to.