Yeah, I suppose.
Anyway, that was just to illustrate the point of humanity's need for God/Religion/Love. We can try very hard to shake off God and religion, but fundamentally, it'll be very difficult for us to shake off love... even for an atheist.
Likewise, love, just like God and religion, can be good and can also be warped to bad. 'Satan's' job would be to guide us to feel hatred for others or to feel unloved for self.
Hey, as long as I can redefine 'asian christian' as 'murderous rapist', then sure, you can redefine atheist as something not at all in line with the actual definition.
Again, not trying to change dictionary definition here, but only to illustrate a point.
How are you feeling today? Are your feelings being led by 'God' or by 'Satan'.
Our current polarizing political climate is obviously due to "Satan's" handy work on both sides.
If you guys just absolutely cannot get the illustration, then okay, let's just use the words 'good' and 'evil', okay?
As for a person who just doesn't believe in either good or evil, what would you call that person? I think Buddha would be the closest thing, but even Buddha knows good and evil. So you have to be an unconscious zombie to not know good and evil then? Or perhaps a super innocent child born in paradise? What would you call such person? Adam and Eve in their pre-fallen state..., do such person(s) exist in our world?
That's what I think the author meant by no true 'atheist'. Anyway, sorry for the confusion, but I think this will be my last attempt at clarification. If you just don't get it, then please just stop reading Billi's posts to torture yourself! My intention was not to offend, I'm trying my best to clarify, but if Satan kept on adding oil to your fire whenever you're reading Billi's post, or if you think Billi is Satan himself, it's probably best that you stop reading.
And I will stop typing for now.
Last edited by Crazed_Insanity; April 6th, 2018 at 07:11 AM.
Thank you for no longer using those definitions, I hope you can understand why that was offensive.
Honestly, I think someone who doesn't see "good or evil" sounds a heck of a lot like psychopathy. Otherwise, I think if you have any empathy at all you'll end up with some sort of moral compass, and depending on where that compass points your definition of good vs. evil will be different. E.g., I think it's evil to bankrupt people if they get sick, so we should have universal healthcare. Someone else thinks it's evil to demand that a successful person pay for the healthcare of a destitute person, especially if that successful person has taken care of their health while the destitute person has not.
I also don't necessarily believe that our current political climate would be obviously due to "evil" workings. I would assume people on both sides feel the way they do because they feel that their opinions are the "good" side of things. In the above example, I don't think you can boil that down to 'love' vs. 'lack of love'. It's love for different groups of people in different ways that draws that out, and when you have a system with resource constraints, there will always be people who end up being hurt in some way. It's how you prioritize it, which is a lot more flexible than good vs. evil.
I don't think 'love' needs to be muddled with religion. We have evolved as a social species and, as with other social species, it's beneficial for us to take care of the community. In intense cases the instinct creates a chemical reaction which we interpret as love.
So if God is good and Satan evil, why does god allow Satan to get away with so much?
Yes, I guess I also didn't mean good and evil in any absolute sense. Conservatives and liberals love different things, so they end up disagreeing. I think even psychopaths love or are driven by something so that they end up doing what they do. They don't just do things for no reason at all, do they? I'm not an expert in psychopathic behavior...
Back to our current political climate, it's fine for the 2 sides to love different things, just as it's fine to have freedom of religion. However, evil began to wiggle itself in the mix when the 2 sides begin to hate the other side... that'll usually escalate or manifest into violence. I think unless you're a psychopath, most people would agree that violently suppressing the other side is evil? Certain wars may be justifiable, but most would agree they're evil nonetheless?
Hey, let's not muddle religion into this.Originally Posted by G'day Mate
If we have good and evil in this world, why does good allow evil to get away with so much in this world?
Without getting into moral relativism, good does try to stop evil and is mostly successful, but since there's no omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent overlord to keep things in line a few evils slip through the cracks every so often
So even without this omnibenevolent overlord watching over us, you believe good can always triumph over evil? Or do you believe in 50/50... or perhaps you believe evil will always triumph over good in the end?
What basis do you have for your belief?
That's a fairly vague question. If I said that evil things happen therefore it is possible for evil to triumph, does that answer?
I consider humans to be just a small part of the bigger picture of nature though, and nature contains some seriously sci-fi horror movie shit! Insects that lay their eggs inside other insects to hatch, burst out and devour their host, and ants that are turned to zombies by a mind-controlling fungus. In each of those cases though it's just the way something has evolved to reproduce. Seems evil, but is it? Evil is a human concept.
My belief is that the world is the way you would expect it to be in the absence of a god. You only need to start explaining things if you want to insert one.
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