CHALLENGE THE EVIL.

Do you agree with the proposition below, that EVIL
does not exist? Or do you disagree? Write your
comments, if any, in e-reply, or directly into the
FORUM at www.HumanCafe.com or at
http://www.humancafe.com/discus/ HumanCafe's
Bulletin Boards. All ideas are Welcome!

Ivan Alexander


EVIL, what is it? (Does evil even exist?)

This question was raised by Mike, an
interdenominational minister, at a Baha'i fireside
held recently at the Roshan's residence in Newport
Beach, California: "What is evil?" The responses
from the dozen or so participants in the
discussion, especially from the Baha'i point of
view, spanned the Judeo-Christian-Mohamedan-Baha'i
continuum, namely that evil is to be away from
God, is innate in man, is to disobey God's law, or
just the absence of good. Mike was more
interested in knowing the answer from the Baha'i
writings, of which there are volumes by the
founder, the Bab, Baha'u'llah, and his successors.
But there seemed to be no simple answer to this,
except to say, in an almost existential way, that
evil is an absence of good.

This made me think of evil in another way.
Perhaps, it is not so much an absence of good,
since the person who is committing evil may
actually believe he is doing good, or that it is
good for him to choose to do evil; rather, evil is
a value that is judgmental by someone else. What
a criminal does, for himself, is not necessarily
evil, maybe only necessary. A soldier who kills
another human being does not think his killing
evil. An executioner who kills a condemned
prisoner is not evil, in his eyes, or even in the
eyes of society. Yet, to the victims, their
actions would appear evil. So evil is more a
point of view, depending upon who is judging. I
like to think that evil does not exist. There is
no evil like spirit that is the prince of this
world, of original sin, of the devil, etc...
Rather, there is confusion, fear, superstition,
ignorance, and then more confusion. Those things,
confusion and fear, are what create conditions
that appear evil to those who are being wronged,
if not of and in themselves to the perpetrators.
Then, if so, evil is an outside thing, not because
we are further from God, or born in original sin,
or because we disobey God's commandments; not an
absolute that can be used to judge whether or not
they, or we, are evil. Instead, evil is the
absence of good, when seen from another's point of
view, and thus relative in nature. From my point
of view, I would rather think there are no evil
men, not bad men, only very confused ones. And if
it were possible to raise their consciousness,
their understanding and compassion, then they
would cease to be so confused, and actually
become un-evil, even good.

--I Alexander

PS: This message has gone out to 40 participants
via BCC/Blind Copy. Pass it on if you like.

From http://www.geocities.com/tulsidas_ramayan/
("Hindu and Interfaith" site):

Can God Lie?
From the Hindu point of view, to say that God cannot deceive, is to limit His Omnipotence. It is related to the Good/Evil problem. How can a Good God create a world in which there is evil? The Hindu answer is that God is a Good beyond good and evil, and a Truth beyond truth and falsehood. But to fully appreciate this belief, it is necessary for you to understand many other scriptures and religions.

- appended by Brother Michael (Interfaith)

Neither evil, nor good exist in the face of God. It only seems to be the case in the mind of man. When the mind of man says that evil does not exist, it is, somewhat, a distortion, because he has not yet discovered his True Identity, and thereby presumes an answer to the question. However, once that mind has been dissolved in the Original Primordial Being... God... then it is known absolutely that neither good nor evil exist. The thought of such a thing... such a duality... does not arise.
Warm regards,
Carl Schmidt

Dear friends,

First of all, I would like to clarify that statement “EVIL does not exist”.

If I consider the word evil as an adjective, this will mean an evil action.

If I consider the word evil as a noun, this would refer to an evil force, a cosmic evil force, the devil or Satan.

Let me assume for a while that the word evil is considered as an adjective. In this case my answer is, yes. An evil action can exist and can be performed by an evil person. As a Baha’i, I believe that at birth, each person is created good, in the spiritual image of God. It is only later in life that such a person might become mean and commits evil actions.

The following is a statement made by Abdul’Baha on that subject:

“Know thou that every soul is fashioned after the nature of God, each being pure and holy at his birth. Afterwards, however, the individuals will vary according to what they acquire of virtues or vices in this world. Although all existent beings are in their very nature created in ranks or degrees, for capacities are various, nevertheless every individual is born holy and pure, and only thereafter may he become defiled.”

(`Abdu'l-Baha: Selections ... `Abdu'l-Baha, p. 190)

If I consider the word EVIL to mean an evil force such as Satan, in this case I will definitely say NO. If such an EVIL force does exist, therefore my simple logic will tell me that God created such an EVIL force.

Personally I do not believe that the devil or Satan does exist, because if they did exist, this means that they were created by God. This will be contrary to my simple logic.

Why would God create Satan?!?

Here are a few more statements from the Baha’i Faith on that subject:

Good and Evil:

Every good thing is of God, and every evil thing is from yourselves.

(Baha'u'llah: Gleanings, p. 149)

Man is even as steel, the essence of which is hidden: through admonition and explanation, good counsel and education, that essence will be brought to light. If, however, he be allowed to remain in his original condition, the corrosion of lusts and appetites will effectively destroy him.

(Baha'u'llah: Baha'i Education, p. 247)

Alex J's response to the
linkhttp://www.geocities.com/tulsidas_ramayan/
offered by Bro Michael:

I clicked on the form/formless conundrum (evil or
good?). God is SO God. I thank Creation that He
has given me to even conceive the question much
less to even imagine there IS (IS NOT) an answer.
What He hath revealed to our limited understanding
is so very magnificent and joyous my eyes well
with tears to know that I cannot know the Unknown
but that I can let my imagination soar to the
realization that he has revealed Himself to be
known even in my unknowing I am so free....

Ivan:

Does evil exist? Or is evil merely a point of
view? If as you assert evil is as one views it in
his own context without reference to an external
reality, then anything goes. This assertion is
equivalent to saying that all knowledge is
subjective; one is lead directly to the assertion
that knowledge is impossible to certify. However,
the concept of evil arises directly from the needs
of a human being, who is trying to survive in the
real world. If one wishes to live, one must make
choices. These choices evaluate the probable
outcomes that are their consequences. It is this
requirement of human existence that leads directly
to the concept of value. When one chooses to do A
rather than B, one is placing a higher value on A.
This value has a standard: that standard is one's
own life. If you agree with me so far, then you
are ready to acknowledge that evil as concept has
a value insofar as it serves to improve one's
survival or material well-being. Evil is action
that tends to diminish everyone's chance for
survival or improvement of conditions of living.
As such, this is a universal idea. How evil
affects an individual depends on that person's
context, but the idea of evil is that which
universally diminishes all other values. Values
as such must be earned (for full discussion read
A. Rand's The Virtue of Selfishness). Evil then
is the attempt by a person to achieve an unearned
value. Evil takes two forms: initiation of force
or initiation of fraud. Force, used to gain
unearned values, and fraud, the attempt to gain an
unearned value without direct phyical threats, are
moral equivalents. For further discussion read A.
Rand's Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal, and for a
full discussion of how humans form concepts,
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. In the
latter book you will learn that all concepts are
objective; that is, all concepts are based on
facts. Fact (existence) precedes concept. The
idea of evil, a concept, then is objective. This
means that evil as a subjective evaluation has no
conceptual standing, just as the idea that
knowledge is subjective (or intrinsic) has no
conceptual standing.

Yours for objectivity,

Bill

Hi Ivan
"The Devil is one of God's best creations. All
of God's creations are exposed to impartial and
very cunning testing by the Devil (he was created
for that). He himself cannot create, but slips
provocative thoughts and ideas through the
channels of the soul, to which he, like no one
else, has access with God's permission. His work
is not the most noble, but he must do it very
conscientiously and despicably, thus regulating
the speed with which God's creatures develop, not
giving erroneous ideas the right to exist,
excluding in the future unexpected contradictions
of the developing laws of God. God gave him the
right to be despicable, to lie, to cause
temptations of various kinds. And he is perfecting
himself in this -- after all, this is his work and
he accounts for it before the all-highest. A
living creature, having understood the temptation
and its consequences, should cast aside
provocative thoughts and listen to God's voice
through the channels of his soul, differentiating
between the righteous and the sinful. After all,
God's world is so constructed that everything,
which is righteous and obedient to his laws, can
survive, even in spite of the clear improbability
of this. One of the Devil's first tasks was "man's
tasting of the fruit of knowledge." Probably, God
also makes mistakes or grows old. Possibly, he too
needs to be reborn." (chapter 9 of my book "after
us, the deluge)
Check my updated side at:
http://www.geocities.com/vladparkhom

AS for evil?

Well, make no mistake my friend, evil is not a
remote element. To dismiss it as viewpoint only,
is an error, IMHO. Why should a universalist hold
such a provincial view? What is the significance
of its presence, and/or our peception of its
presence or absence? What is the underlying
rationale behind our perceptions and implications?
Creation and destruction, Yin & yang, polar
oppositation. These are precipitations of
perceptions that epitomise our current level of
evolution, our polarised organs of filteration.

Due to the need for brevity, please forgive my fragmental approach to this issue. What seems like several lifetimes ago, I had walked with Reverend Teresawa, a visting Buddhist monk, on a peace walk through Manchester. When we arrived at a Hindu temple, I met with an English Swami known as Amaranand. She was a psychologist working intensively with blind people. At that time I had come to a understand the poignancy of some of Blavatsky's words. Perfect light is absolute darkness, a place free of shadows. As Amaranand and I conversed I was aware that we had been working with similar ideas and principles. She made it clear that in her work she had discovered that certain blind people actually see things, colours, forms and even energy more vividly than the sighted. WITHOUT OPPOSTION THERE CAN BE NO MOVEMENT. And make no mistake there are many who habitually delight in
suffering and even the destrution of others.
There are despots, torturers, habitual rapists,
violaters, abusers and rioters of every kind.
All this and much more is locked up in the vault
of our collective unconscious, for some though,
elements of these are not unconscios, but are part
of everyday thought. There are those that
actually study, will, pray for and evince such
modes and acts in order to connect with their
hidden source of power. What lies there on the
hidden periphery of our consciousness, the
universe itself? What did Quetzecoatl try to ward
us from? Who were the ancient ones that had a
hand in forming our earliest history? Though
study and conjecture may persuade us in myriad
directions the evidence of our conflict, the
partial purpose of its being, is here before and
within us!

It was not an obsession with following orders, or
the fear of reprisals that allowed German soldiers
to smash the head of gypsy boys and girls against
walls and treestumps. It was not the lack of
commands and protocols that prevented the Dutch
peacekeeping forces from intervening when they
allowed the opponents of those under their care
and protection to be raped, tortured, brutalised
and put into a makeshift mass graveyard. It was
not incidental that Andrew Jackson swore to wipe
out all the people of Turtle Island. It was not
incidental that William Penn's descendants
returned to cheat the Indans out of the remainder
of their lands that culminated in Black Hawks
demise and the destruction of his peoples.

It was not a momentary quirk that led the British
Raj in india to cut off the hands of the finest
Indian artisans after inviting them to work within
their forts and provinces. Many of these examples
are quite mild compared to the deeper truth of
human barbarism, contempt and vileness that I
suspect is being planned in various sinktanks and
(limited) intelligence bases around the world
today.

Vandana Shiva pointed out an interesting
phenomenon experienced by the oppressed, it was
her analysis, that in desperation the oppressed
sometimes resort to a pardoxical excess in their
attempt to exercise an element of power over
others by taking their lives or perpetrating
injustice and even the same despotism that they
have themselves suffered. this is however, an
extreme circumstance which is usually derived
from extreme circumstances and prolonged
suffering.

In the most embarrasing of summaries the point is
that when people are conscious of their evil and
most people are (but actively put subsume their
awareness), this is one of the conditions required
to amass concentrations of negative energy.
Somehow these concentrations become animated,
there are myriad explanations which are not
entirley disparate but not yet cohesive.

As my own experiences have clearly obviated, there
are forces that are independent of even our
involvement that can be connected with....
And likewise, I gain my own respite in the
evidence and knowledge of benevolent forces
equally present within our unfolding universe.

Sure all of this is cosmically illusory, but it is
the will to power, hue and perspective of our
beliefs that animate this cycle and thereby
determine the next, the preceding the concurrent
and parallel.

Look forward to your feedback!

Your friend,

Amar

“IS GOD RESPONSIBLE FOR THE EVIL IN THIS WORLD?” OR
WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE.
WHAT GOOD, THEN IS RELIGION?
Last year, at a Baha’i fireside meeting, my wife and myself gave a presentation on the book written by Rabbi Harold Kushner “WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE”.
This subject has always been puzzling me. How could God let bad things happen to good people. The Holocaust, People dying in airplane crashes, children born with birth defects etc…
Harold Kushner is a reform Rabbi of a small town. He counsels other people through pain and grief, and shows compassion toward them…
Until the day that he learned that his 3 years old son Aaron was stricken with progeria, a very rapid aging process…
He knew that he was a good person, been nice and compassionate with all people. Why shouldn’t his son be like other children? Why do some people suffer much more than others…
I will not go through the whole book. My (fifteen pages) report is handwritten, and my typing ability is slow. However I will strongly recommend, to anyone who is interested in that subject, to read that book. This book should be available at almost any public library.
However I will include in this post a summary of that book.
The following is a quotation from that book:
“I believe in God. But I do not believe the same things about Him that I did years ago. I recognize His limitation. He is limited in what He can do by laws of nature and by the nature of human freedom. I no longer hold God responsible for illness, accidents, and natural disasters, because I realize that I gain little and I lose so much when I blame God for those things. I can worship a God who hates suffering but cannot eliminate it, more easily than I can worship a God who choose to make children suffer and die, for whatever exalted reason.
God does not cause our misfortunes. Some are caused by bad luck, some are caused by bad people, and some are simply an inevitable consequence of our being human and being mortal. The painful things that happen to us are not punishments for our misbehavior, nor are they in any way part of some grand design on God’s part. Because the tragedy is not God’s will, we need not feel hurt or betrayed by God when tragedy strikes. We can turn to Him for help in overcoming it, precisely because we can tell ourselves that God is as outraged by it as we are.”

“We love God because He is the author of all the beauty and the order around us, the source of our strength and the hope and courage within us. We love Him because He is the best part of ourselves and our world.”
Rabbi Harold Kushner

The free will of man, by Abdul'Baha

"Some things are subject to the free will of man, such as justice, equity, tyranny and injustice, in other words, good and evil actions; it is evident and clear that these actions are, for the most part, left to the will of man. But there are certain things to which man is forced and compelled, such as sleep, death, sickness, decline of power, injuries and misfortunes; these are not subject to the will of man, and he is not responsible for them, for he is compelled to endure them. But in the choice of good and bad actions he is free, and he commits them according to his own will."
(`Abdu'l-Baha: Some Answered Questions, p. 248)

'I just want to live my life the way I want to'
(Hendrix). Evil spelled backwards is l-i-v-e. Be
conscious. Make every moment the miracle it is.
Hope all is well. mark

With respect to Bill, Vlad, and Amar, and great
appreciation of Mark,

Dear Isaac,

When Rabbi Kushner says "He is limited in what He can do by laws of nature and by the nature of human freedom," our Rabbi surely means that God limits the laws of nature and the nature of human freedom by creating them, including their exceptions?

An adjective is a noun, as Jung points out with
some restraint; not only a psychic fact, as he
realizes, but a sacred existence as well. In
creating beings who enact the adjective, God has
created the noun of their action. Is God a verb,
as another popular book title suggested recently?
Certainly in the "nature of human freedom," as
we enact divinity, and God is also adjective,
noun, language, speaker, interpreter, listener,
subject, object, and above all, beloved in all
good, evil, transit, and the beauties of comedy,
tragedy, success, eternity, transformation, and virtuality.

And beauty, as Khalil Gibran's prophet gushes,
"is not a need but an ecstasy."

Dear Brother Michael,
What Rabbi Kushner means, is that God will not change the course of nature to please mankind or to answer some of our prayers for that matter of fact. God will not change the path of a tornado, the destruction cause by an earthquake to happen, the metal fatigue in the bolt of an airplane from fracturing, or a car accident from taking place. Sure we say that “God was looking for me”, or something like that when we are spared from bad things that could happen to us. How about when bad things do happen to good and nice people like you and me? God has given us the power to love him, and yes He does comfort us in time of grief.
God has given us the free will to do good actions or bad actions. A tyrant has the free will of doing good, but has chosen to hurt others…even if in his mind he thinks that he is a good person…
I am not an expert in answering theses questions. I know that I feel comfortable in praying to God in order to protect me from bad people, but if I am a victim of bad people or a victim of an unfortunate event, I will still pray to God to make my misfortune more bearable…
I you or anyone else have the time to read that book by Rabbi Kushner, I think that it will be time extremely well spent. I know that I became an entirely different person after I read that book. It did answer many troubling questions that I could not find any explanation for.
Good talking to you.
Isaac

According to Aristotle. Evil is the absence of
good. All existing things are good.

Adam and Eve, and the Apple.

In Genesis, Eve offered an apple to Adam. The
good Book would have us see it as an act of
disobedience to God. By popular belief, this has
come down to us as being man's loss of innocence,
when human beings fell from the Garden of Eden
into the temporal world, when we first glanced
into the face of good and evil, of judgment and
wisdom. In this apple, woman gave man knowledge.
But is this not an unbearable burden placed on
Eve, or womankind? Does it not place man's
knowledge of evil into woman's lap? The Book then
says, in eating the apple: "And the eyes of both
were opened, and they knew that they were naked;"
(Gen. 3:7). Was this nakedness, then, their
first vision of evil? Or was it, instead, their
first awakening to their beauty, to their sensual
awareness of themselves as beautiful living
beings? I choose to believe the latter, that
woman opened man's eyes, not to evil, but to his
inner beauty. And to this day, we have not yet
understood.
I have a terrible fear that womankind carries an
unfair burden of guilt regarding evil, and that it
permeates throughout all the cultures descendent
of our Judeo-Christian-Mohamedan heritage. Modern
times have done much to erase this, especially
modern ideas of equal rights, the West's
philosophical enlightenment; it is less severe in
the cultures of the East, in Hinduism and
Buddhism; and to a large degree has been wiped
from the more modern religion of the Baha'is. But
in some cultures, it is still believed that women
do the devil's work, that they are impure, that
for a man to be with a woman is to detract him
from doing God's work. Why is this so? Can we
not see the allegory of the apple as a positive
thing instead? Women add a spiritual energy to
men that borders on the sublime, on a sensual and
spiritual cognition that we who dwell in reason
must oftentimes be reminded of. We are lost in
our thoughts. I suspect so were those ancients
who penned the words of Adam and Eve in the
Garden. Had they been more attuned to what women
had to teach, then they would have had a different
interpretation of the apple. It would have been,
instead, an act of giving, of love, of bearing
fruit, not against God, but as a messenger from
God: Here is the fruit of my womb, and with it,
we become the new human beings, able to love one
another.
I write this for this reason: I find women shy of
talking about evil. Perhaps it is because they
already know, intuitively, that evil does not
exist as a thing of itself, but is created by the
fallacious thoughts of men. If so, then I rest
easy. But if not, and they do not know this, then
I am troubled, and sincerely hope that women will
speak out, and Challenge the Evil. This is a time
of freedom, when all of our voices should be
heard, none criticized, but accepted freely in the
spirit with which they are given. I want the
apple to represent what those ancient writers may
have meant for it to be, but what was lost in the
translations of time: A Beautiful Awakening.

This is my contribution to the Challenge.
Thank you for writing.

Ivan Alexander

Ivan,

Have you begun the next topic in humancafe's
bulletin board already?:

"In this apple, woman gave man knowledge.
But is this not an unbearable burden placed on
Eve, or womankind? Does it not place man's
knowledge of evil into woman's lap?"

Would that I were already more fluent in Spanish!
This afternoon I caught a song by an artist
who may be named entirely or firstly Ricardo,
asking his love or desired love to come to him
in the beauty of her nakedness, clothed as
she was born; not only in private, as I felt
the song sway; with the freshness of no one's
conceptions, and not only poetically or
metaphorically, but in the flesh. And yet,
in one of the great natural languages of passion,
this singer's voice was easy, the guitar-based
instrumentation even folksy, reassured, natural
with a modest passion not bursting into fuego
con fuego.

Surely this is an important and for you
promisingly controversial proposition! . . ?

And so how is it that a goddess tears out
Dante's heart and they watch it beating in
her hand, cradled over her lap? And has this
act itself been the giving of wisdom, is she
our blind or radiantly impartial American
goddesses justice and liberty, shining in
silver at us from our coins, lighting the
lamp to the East, manifested each in at least
some ways, by at least some hearts, in every
temple including our legacy of Paris' temples
of reason? Ah, and you attract our eyes
to her, to our hearts in her hand, to the
beating apple we bite, as glorious spring
quickens the sap in we of every gender
in your garden with us. . .

The best Baha'i explination I have found is by Gary Matthews and his books on the subject. look at: http://bahai.about.com/religion/bahai/library/weekly/aa071500a.htm.

In part it says; Matthews recasts the discussion by using the phrase "negative existence" in place of nonexistence, and provides some additional images to help us comprehend the point. Particularly graphic is this one:

"Now consider that when darkness engulfs us, it's 'merely' an absence or nothingness...but it can feel downright palpable. More to the point, when we wander around in darkness, it can lead us over the edge of, say, a yawning emptiness, the cessation of solid footing. The fissure itself 'doesn't exist'...but if it is deep enough (i.e., sufficiently 'nonexistent'), the resulting journey through nothingness can smash every bone in our bodies. Blistering cold then closes in, and of course the cold also 'doesn't exist'--it's just an absence of heat. Somehow this lack of 'reality' doesn't stop it from turning our lifeblood to icicles, as it seeps out of our splintered forms." (p26)
So yes, Matthews asserts, evil does exist. Evil forces surround us and can overwhelm us if we are not vigilant. Evil is "nonexistent" in the same way that bitter cold is "nonexistent", yet both are deadly. The Writings of the Báb, Bahá'u'lláh, 'Abdu'l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi all make this abundantly clear.

I agree with Mr. Matthews that the explinations given at firesides are often vague and that Baha'u'llah, The Bab and 'Abdu'l-Baha all speak in the same manner about the Devil and Evil as does Christ. Mr Matthews explains that most Baha'is will dismiss the subject looking at a title of "The Non-exsistance of Evil", some of 'Abdu'l-Baha's remarks and figure that others are deluded, my understanding. I now agree with most of the Christian attitudes and even some explinations but with less enthusiasm. I prefer not to be paranoid, thank you.

Regarding the major Manifestations of God as one soul seams to mean that they do not contradict themselves so if we see contradiction it is our problem, eh.

Thanks,
jerome

In a posting dated 4/1/01, I. Alexander writes:

<< In Genesis, Eve offered an apple to Adam. The
good Book would have us see it as an act of
disobedience to God >>
Actually, it was not an apple, it was the
"fruit" of the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.

True enough, according to Genesis, God did say not
to eat it, "for the day you eat of it you are
doomed to die."

He did not say this to woman -- she had not yet,
according to the story, yet been made!

Later the snake asks her "did God really say not
to eat that?" and she tells the snake yes, we must
not eat it or touch it, under pain of death. (She
is apparently getting this from Adam and believes
him utterly,) And the snake says "no, that's not
true you won't die, your eyes will be opened."
The snake, of course spoke the truth. Eve decided
to eat the fruit as it looked and smelled good and
would make her smart -- as smart at God and
smarter than Adam one of my native American
friends says-- and lo -- they did not die.

No major religion tat I know of has bothered to
try to explain the import of the fact that God
seems to have lied and the snake has spoken the
truth.

But the ancient Jewish commentaries on he Torah
had much to add to Genesis. They tell that Adam's
first wife was Lillith, an unruly woman who
demanded that she be allowed to be on top, not
lawyers underneath Adam when they made love. Much
of men's fear of women deep power has been
constellated in their eons of fears of Lillith and
her daughters the Lilim.

Women;s power is far greater than that of men-- we
only can produce new life, we only can grant love
and meaning to the aridity of intellect! All the
Muses were female. Men left of an atoll without
women for many months grow careless of their
grooming and are demoralized.

I see the meaning of Genesis somewhat differently.
All children disobey their fathers. It is part of
the process by which they grow up. (And all
parents lie to their children -- they use threats
and bogey men to enforce obedience, they tell us
about Santa Claus.)

But when we, as humans, became intellectual, we
got disconnected from our hearts, which are
initially pure. We lost innate connection to the
divine, and we became prone to acting in ways we
knew were wrong -- but for the mental tricks by
which we justify them. The heart does not justify
-- it loves, it is sad or glad. It is where the
divine still resides. It is the head cut off from
the heart which leads us to personal and societal
war, genocide, failure to love another ... and
evil. Minds tell us to fear, fear tells us to
hate, hates tells up to kill.

This, a story of the beginnings of the growth of
Man, which the story tells.
Many more stories in the Bible tell of rape and
abuse of women (Tamar) , of abandonment and
cutting up (nameless concubine in Judges). The
Bible does not minimize the power of women, it
acknowledges it -- but only the shadow--and fears
it.

Now, we have some hope of balancing the knowledge
and the fear, to shed light onto he shadow. Light
brings with reconnection to the divine, and to our
essential essences and out interdependence. We
can now begin to be two wings of the same bird,
and fly to heights of joy and love. Of one another
individually, and of all mankind.

Carroll Straus

Dear Carroll,

Honoring your Native American friend (of what
people's tribe?), the explorer-painter George
Caitlin tells us in Sioux lore,

"One day when a large snake had crawled into
the nest of the bird to eat his eggs, one of
the eggs hatched out in a clap of thunder, and
the Great Spirit, catching hold of a piece of
the pipestone [on Red Pipe's mountain where
he liked to perch eating buffalo and staining
the ground red with their blood - BrM] to throw
at the snake, moulded [sic] into a man. The
man's feet grew fast in the ground where he
stood for many ages, like a great tree, and
therefore he grew very old; he was older than a
hundred men at the present day; and at last
another tree grew up by the side of him, when
a large snake ate them both off at the roots,
and they wandered off together; from these
have sprung all the people that now inhabit the
earth."

Indeed, there are numerous memories from our
different tribes of the relations among the
serpent, the tree, the fruit, our first
human ancestors or proto-human ancestors,
and third humans of either obvious gender or
second or third creator deities - like Lilith,
the other man and other woman who both loved
the second woman in Madagascar memory, Brahma
out of Brahman, Orisha Nla jealous of Olorun,
New Zealand's Tane, lord of forests, the tree
become one of the fully divine players, separating
Father Sky and Mother Earth for seedlings and
creatures to grow upwar, so demigods and mortals
cause the creation of the creators' cosmic forms,
Eurynome going beyond Hawa (Eve in Hebrew),
copulating and marrying the serpent Ophion before
any human male was created, NeoZarathustran first
humans Mashya and Mashyane deceived by both
female devil Johi and grand male devil Ahriman
out of the truth of Wise Monarch Ormazd who
is Mother Spirit as well as Father Earth.

Some regale themselves in all this lore, which
is a great thing to do; greater yet is to
personally inherit its complementarities,
recognizing the divine facts and messages and
genetics we carry through all these truths,
for perhaps heresy does not exist, any more
than one-, two-, three-, or only four-dimensional
truth. In the past, I have practiced, like
many others, a display of whatever etymology
I knew; it impresses people to note out loud
that in its original Greek, "heresy" simply
meant "choice"; yet just as religions and indeed
all spirits grow, language grows, and now we
mean something more specific than "choice."
In this case, rather than the common use of
etymological use in spiritual guidance to
suggest a "real" or "true" meaning for a word
which now has a new one, I suggest that it is
the earlier concept (word or not) which is more
illuminating, nourishing, healthful, and
sacred than most of us conceiving today that
heresy can actually exist, any more than
obscenity can actually exist. Sarcasm, anger,
disdain, pain, ugliness, unusual tastes,
and advanced physiology exist; not automatic
evil out of the expression of sexuality's
energy; this is sadly maintaining that all
overt sexuality witnessed by third or other
non-participant souls is a form of raping
them by causing them to rape the participants,
as President Carter acknowledged "lusting in
his heart" for women other than Rosalind
Carter while married to her. Sexual embrace
of Tantrikas from ancient Inanna in Sumer
to largely veiled priestesses today is as
far from what we fear damages prostitutes as
to be a sacramental calling. Also spiritually
respectable is Prophet Mohammed, radiAllahu anha,
calling us to chastity except in wedlock; also
holy is the celibacy which Gandhi practiced in
wedlock, and the forgoing of marriage of lay
Shakers and many ascetics, monastics, and clergy
around our living world. Some of them are in
the role of parents to children who are tomorrow's
citizens.

What is the nature of evil, in the worm, the
fruit, creation, deity, you, or I, you, and I?

Certainly I join you all in fighting it, with
determined opponency, love, ignoring its
attempts to substantiate influence on any
one, and recognizing the portion of it in
not just what is commonly misunderstood to
be my shadow, but my beloved daimon, that I
may be a whole being loving, may love
beings wholly, and may commume with whole
divinity.


Dear Jerome,

Perhaps in addition to your suggestion that "major Manifestations of God as one soul seams to mean that they do not contradict themselves so if we see contradiction it is our problem, eh," is that if we see contradiction, it is our great boon, for we begin to learn to engage complementarity beyond rationality. After
all, understanding isn't everything, neh?


Dear Jerome,

Thank you for your synthesis, with Gary Matthews, of the Baha'i lore of Evil.


Yours in the sacred Muse who inspires us with
God's story in every tongue,

Your Brother Michael

Jerome,

I hope I have addressed two of your
interconnected selves so far?

Yours in the sacred Muse,

Your Brother Michael

Brethren,
Perhaps it is easier to understand the question, i.e. the existence of evil by the following:

The question begs to be asked...

Does Love Exist?

Certainly if love exists, then evil must exist.
Is God nothing if not love? Even He Himself said so.

It is our choice, as mortals, which path we choose to embody.
Wor. WB Hodges
A.F. & A.M.

The Atheists Challenge; "There is too much evil in
this world; therefore, there cannot be a God."

To read full text:
http://www.yfiles.com/evil.html

Sisters,

See that the discussion on Animal Spirits in
the PeoplesBook2000 section of this very
Humancafe has come to Challenge the Evil in
its latest entry by host Ivan:

"some spiritual forces are higher, others lower, and some even bad": ah, yes, the noun "evil spirit" comes to us here out of your voice!

A great and natural merit to worthy exploration is the inclusion of what is cogent from other
explorations when they are recognized as being
intimately related. I encourage you to absorb
into your experience of this column what has
led to it from Animal Spirits, beginning with
the very first entries in that column.

Your Brother Michael

Dear Brother Michael,

Thank you for your recent comment, April 7, 2001:
"some spiritual forces are higher, others lower,
and some even bad": ah, yes, the noun "evil
spirit" comes to us here out of your voice!

Indeed, it does appear to be a noun, the evil
spirit. Can we manifest evil spirits? I think
that is the beauty of having a mind, and a free
will, that we have the volition to do so. Do they
last beyond our creation? I venture that probably
not, but they can exist while we are choosing to
act in ways hurtful to others, through our
coercions. Do animals have this ability? My
feeling is that they do not, being mostly devoid
of volition, though not always. A chimpanzee who
kills another may be perceived by the victim, and
perhaps even other members of the troop, to be
evil. However, I doubt the chimp mind has yet
evolved to the point of where they can recognize
it as such. I think Evil is still a human thing,
something we have gotten to be rather good at, but
which we do not have the power to make it into a
lasting thing, into a noun. It is my position
that in the end, we can create evil conditions,
but not Evil itself, since that does not exist.

Take care, all with love, Ivan

Ivan, I've thought about the Evil question now &
then, with similar thoughts to yours, particularly
the cultural and individual relativism of it.
Your natural kindliness toward people, and
optimism, encourages a benevolent interpretation
of motivations of things/behavior which may appear
evil. Many times I also have thought that people
generally try to be good rather than otherwise. I
don't believe that evil exists as an independent
force. BUT, it really is shocking to be reminded
of the many ways that people can be/have
been/are savagely destructive; not necessary to go
into details. I believe that people are
fundamentally amoral, and can too easily be
disconnected from healthy, socially responsible
behavior to inhuman excesses toward others.
"Absence of good"..? maybe, but doesn't quite hit
the mark.

Greetings from PiB.Net: http://www.pib.net/

KOESTENBAUM'S WEEKLY LEADERSHIP THOUGHT(on Evil)

The fight against evil is the free and lonely
decision of individual human beings to commit
their lives to an ethical purpose, to being
ethical individuals, to choose ethically. That
lifestyle is chosen because it is right, not
because it leads to rewards or because it avoids
punishments. The most noble ethical posture
belongs to that person who, risking total
isolation, creates an ethical and civilized
atmosphere by choosing to be just, fair, moral and
decent. Such a harsh and high attitude -- which
characterizes the finest moral leaders throughout
history -- is to do what is right because it is
right and for no other reason.

                                                  
April 27, 2001
Peter
*********************************************

why
Re: Does Evil Exist?
Thu Apr 26 00:34:02 2001


Hello,

To me, evil is the corruption of good in the
created universe.

The fallen archangel and angels (and or men) who
were once "good" became corrupt, thus casting
shadows while turning their backs on God, the
Source of all goodness.

Evil and or evil beings do exist, but only as long
as they can corrupt or feed off that which was
once good. Evil has never, and will never stand or
exist on it's own as a force.

Only the One Spirit and Source exists eternally,
thus even what we may call evil can turn around
and find its way back to God.

regards, why

CHILDREN OF GOD: Ch. 30, Habeas Mentem,
http://www.humancafe.com/chapter-thirty.htm

"So what is the game here? Who is pushing on our
social buttons to drive us ever closer to a self
destructive brink? What is the goal of this force
that enslaves us into a fearful existence devoid
of dreams? I refuse to believe in Satanism. I do
not think there is a devil-like force that wants
to keep us in darkness devoid of a positive cosmic
light. I think that to focus on this negative idea
only reinforces what is already going on. To seek
to overcome the devil would, in the end, only
confirm us to a focus on the negative. If there is
a Satan, ignore him, and do not empower him. The
answer, I believe, lies in the positive. We need
to fall back upon what we already know. We know
who we are. We know that we have a mind, and a
soul. And now we know that it is important to be
free. With this new found consciousness, and
faith, we can explore once more into the nature of
being. And in that exploration, we can rediscover
what we may have long ago forgotten, and to which
we have unconsciously gravitated for millennia. We
can rediscover that there is a God, and we are
the children of God."

--Ivan Alexander, 1998

hello,

Knowledge of our own actions or potential for good and evil is important "self knowledge". To have control or mastery over what could be called our internal potential for, or past actions of evil will help us meet any external evils we may face. By learning from the battles of good and evil we may grow into something more than just young "children of God", and into "Sons of God". As Lord Jesus said, "ye shall do what I have done"! I agree that, "what we fear shall come upon us", then again what we deny may come upon us also. In a way you could say evil has no reason compared to what we think reason is or should be. It is a malice and a hunger that will stop at nothing except when coming up against the truth and power of the Holy Spirit. It ignores human morals or reasoning, but it has a diabolical intellect capable of twisting reason for it's own purpose. That purpose is to corrupt and then feed off the corruption.

But there is Good News, "God has not willed that any soul shall perish, but has prepared a way out for all."
Regards why

STOP CHILD PROSTITUTION

ABOUT MAITI NEPAL
http://www.mait
inepal.org/
 
MAITI Nepal was born out of a crusade to protect
Nepali girls and women from crimes like domestic
violence, trafficking for flesh trade, child
prostitution, child labor and various forms of
exploitation and torture... During a survey, Maiti
Nepal uncovered that mostly, the rural children
aged between 11 and 14 were most vulnerable to
trafficking... Most of all, its special focus has
always been on preventing trafficking for forced
prostitution, rescuing flesh trade victims and
rehabilitating them.

http://www.mait
inepal.org/

Regarding your question--Does Evil exist as a
separate force from our human actions?:

The Hollywood view is Yes. Good and Evil exist as
separate forces. This is also the common view.
Good manifests itself in certain nations, such as
the U.S.A., and Evil manifests itself in other
nations, such as the Evil Empire (at one time
Russia, or more generally Communism, or
Totalitarianism, or Collectivism). In some
philosophies--Capitalism=Good vs. Socialism=Evil.

Two less common views, but closer on track are
these: 1) Socrates viewed Evil as a form of
ignorance. People do wrong because they are not
wicked or driven by evil impulses, but because
they are ignorant of the proper course of conduct,
or, more fundamentally, of the correct nature of
goodness. 2)Spinoza viewed Evil as missing the
target of goodness. We all aim to be good, but
because of various impulses, we are driven
off-course. In other words, we all know what is
good and how to be good--it is "written in our
hearts",as it were--but because of certain
emotions, such as pride, anger, lust, we are
driven off-course.
The above two views are more or less "synthesized"
in the view of Freud and modern psychoanalysis.
People are born with various impulses, but through
"therapy", or gaining self-knowledge, we can find
our way to acting morally. Understanding and
self-understanding are the key to good conduct and
moral responsibility. (There are no really
"wicked" people--even Hitler was just
psychologically screwed up!)

That is in brief the scenario concerning your
interesting question. What are your own thoughts
concerning this question?

askthephiloso
pher@sympatico.ca

EVIL AND COERCION:

This post by me was entered into "The Examined
Life Discussion Forums" under the heading
"Existentialism, Dualism, and Truth", which can be
found at:
http://examinedlifejournal.com/discus/index.html

[By Ivan A. on Thursday, May 24, 2001 - 04:43 pm:]

Hello WJ,

RE "I'd like though, to further explore how this
philosophy (interrelationship) relates to a
theistic dualism. You mentioned coercion. What do
you think, or maybe I should say, what does the
philosophy think about why coercive forces exist?"

I had posed the question, of 'good or evil', on
the Forum (broken at this moment, alas, so it
can't accept new entries) at Humancafe.com, under
Challenge the Evil. My position was that evil, as
a separate force , does not exist; rather, people
who are victims of coercion would conclude that
their perpetrators of what is hurtful to them as
evil. So evil, in this sense, is relative, from
one's point of view. In terms of the general
thesis of how evil fits into the concept of a
reality spanned by interrelationship as the
mechanism of how reality affect us, then evil is
what happens to us in such a way that forces us
from being who we are. Now, it is further
understood that this is an interpretation of evil
by a conscious mind, not necessarily as seen by a
mind that is not conscious of who they are. For
example, a person in a vegetative state would have
no conviction as to whether or not someone is evil
because he pulls the plug; a conscious person who
wants to live, on the other hand, and has an
awareness of the life support system keeping him
alive, would think pulling the plug as evil. Now,
evil is a loaded word in our culture, so maybe
'evil' as such is not the right word, since it
implies something along the lines of a biblical
idea of evil. But coercion, which may be perceived
as an evil, or abuse, is to me a valid description
of what is being described here. From a secular
view, a deistic thesis of evil would be any action
that disconnects a conscious being from what it is
that makes that person be who they are within the
concept of their god. A virtuous person,
therefore, would imagine themselves doing their
god's, or God's, will. They might think a person
not doing God's will as they interpret it as
'evil', but that is only an opinion, not
philosophically valid, unless that action affects
them. Consciousness comes in many forms, and goes
to many levels, so a very conscious being might
forgive another's trespass if they understand
where it comes from; another person may not care
to accept any trespass and resist immediately. (To
me tolerance is awareness.) There is no right or
wrong answer about this, unless it is a trespass
that is not acknowledged, and force continues.
That is an 'evil' action.

This is why I call it a law of agreement: if a
person is forced against his or her agreement, and
the rejection is ignored, then that person has a
genuine grievance and is a victim of coercion.
Now, if that same victim is himself guilty of
coercion, then he does not have any philosophical
argument to fall back upon, since the concept of
interrelationship calls his coercion unconscious,
same as the first example, where a person
trespassing on another against agreement is
unconscious. It's a little more complicated than
that in Habeas Mentem, because when a person
forces another against agreement, they actual rend
their relationship with who they are in the cosmic
sense. ( Too complicated to explain here,
however.) So the real test of whether or not a
coercion is taking place is first with the
individual affected, and second with the
interrelationship related being of that person,
the state of being that defines for him or her who
they are. Doing things through agreement, then
enhances their relative position both in relation
to the other person, as well as in relation to
their being. Doing things through coercion, or
being forced against our agreement, then affects
us both in our minds, making us unhappy, and in
our greater definition as the reality of our being
is affected within the environment of our
existence. For example, a slave or prisoner might
like to be somewhere else, doing something else,
but being unfree and subject to his keeper's
whims, for better or for worse, he is under the
strain of a continuous coercion. Unless he finds a
way to cope with this and thus 'agrees' with it,
then his person suffers and his reality, what
manifests around him in his physical environment,
is not who he is.

Is this like Tao? I like Alan Watts' "Tao: the
Water Course Way", so kind of take my ideas of Tao
from that. In the universe as defined by
interrelationship, things, events, actions do best
where they move fluidly with the least resistance.
This is not always possible, and sometimes we are
faced with obstacles that require a forceful
response. This is why we have a mind, to assess
when actions of will are required. But the result
from reality is very accepting of our willed
actions, so no blame. When we need to do
something, unless we are damaging more than we are
gaining, there is no response from infinity's
interrelationship that interprets such action as
being bad. Action merely is, and reality then
either responds in the expected way, like moving a
large stone boulder and force on it moves it, or
it does not, the boulder stays put. Are we
coercing that boulder into moving aside for us?
Yes, of course. But the boulder has no conscious
mind with which to object, itself it neither
agrees nor disagrees. If it did have a mind, would
it consider our action 'evil'? But, joking aside,
a large boulder that moves in reaction to our
applying force on it is, in effect, a form of
acceptance or agreement (with the
interrelationship definition that identifies that
boulder at that moment): it shifts from its place
because the reality of the universe allows it to.
If the boulder does not move, then our action is
being met with a universal disagreement. Good or
evil? Neither. It just is. But from its being we
can then judge as to whether or not our action is
good, it succeeds, or evil, and we fail. It is the
same with people. If they accept and agree with
us, it is good. If they reject us, it is still
good, unless we force them into it: then it is
Bad.

Would a world that works like this, which is
cognizant of these principles be a better place to
live? Well, if nothing else, each person would
have a better idea of when they were being
coerced, become more aware of when they were being
forced against their agreement, and perhaps abuse
would be less rampant. Part of the problem with
our civilization is that we had been conditioned
to believe that institutionalized coercion is good
for us: "I am spanking you for your own good!"
Alas, in the framework of the Habeas Mentem
philosophy, that is not true. If a person is not
guilty of trespass, either against another person
or against the social contract within which he or
she lives, our laws, then that person is free to
be who they are. Then, each person can become more
aware, more creative, more free to be loving, more
in his or her being as that being reflects and
materializes who they are, if they choose this.
That is the fundamental freedom of Habeas Mentem.

I can have fun with this, though I don't know if I
am adding to your understanding, though I think
this is what you asked about. In essence, bad
things, or coercion, or evil exist because they
are the rejections of what the universal reality
(conciousness?) would find acceptable. Ditto for
us people.

Ivan

As found in the "Examined Life Journal, Philosophy Discussion Forum: http://examinedlifejournal.com/discus/index.html"
************************************************

By Anonymous on Tuesday, May 29, 2001 - 05:41 am:
Ivan,

If only good existed, would not good then become evil?

Thinking out loud again,

Anon

By WJ on Tuesday, May 29, 2001 - 01:20 pm:
Hi Ivan,

Sorry I've been out of the loop for awhile...

"Good or evil? Neither. It just is. But from its being we can then judge as to whether or not our action is good, it succeeds, or evil, and we fail. It is the same with people. If they accept and agree with us, it is good. If they reject us, it is still good, unless we force them into it: then it is Bad."

I think the concept of coercive forces have to be defined in a good or evil kind of way. Otherwise, parent-child relationships, public education, public safety laws, and such would be acts of coercion.

Evil coercive forces then, would certainly consist of a form of physical harm to an 'undeserving' party. Like intentional causes of death. (Please not another death-penalty thread, which I don't support:)

"Why do you think coercion exists in our world?"

It is because of such evil forces that comprise choices of, physical harm to others, and all the other psychological emotional distress that comprise the human condition. I like you, perhaps feel that gaining a 'virtuous wisdom', and a consistent search for this higher understanding, should increase the likelihood of one's choosing from 'good' forces. But the human condition does not guarantee that consentency, of course. So, my feeling is the reason it exists, as a choice (similar to early Greek thought)is due to a lack of 'understanding'. An ignorance of sorts. Beyond this, it merely becomes an issue of ethics.

And that all goes back to using reason, logic and intuition. At some point, and to some degree, a (mentally healthy) 60 years young individual will have gained a better understanding of a [his own]truth. At least, perhaps a 'better' understanding of [his] Being.

However, both yours and my formula, have yet to remove these (one of many) painstaking elements of our existence. These formula's have merely reduced its occurance.

Thoughts?

Sincerely
WJ

By Ivan A. on Tuesday, May 29, 2001 - 03:23 pm:
Hi Wj, Anon,

I can't imagine a world of only 'good', but it would pose an interesting challenge to then find 'evil'. Inexpressible would be called in to solve that one!

I agree that there is some sort of propensity on the part of most of us to do things, or say things, that inevitably are coercive both physically and emotionally to somebody. Having conscious minds, or at least potentially so, we can then soften the effect and correct the damage. This helps if the other is also a conscious being, however does not solve the trespass if they are not. A person unawares of who they are, as it relates to another person, may as often as not trespass without even being aware of what they have done, or even been done to. So where does that leave us regarding the idea of 'coercion' as the origin of 'evil'? A generality would be that ignorance is potentially coercive, though not always so, so may or may not be evil. Willful intent to coerce by a conscious mind, however, always is evil. The best way to ameliorate this, in my opinion, is for an aware person to act in their own best defense by communicating to the other that they are being victimized. Too often, I suspect, this is not the case and we accept coercion when we should not. So the burden of fixing 'coercive actions' falls on those who are most aware, most conscious. In the lexicon of Habeas Mentem, it falls to those who 'have a mind'. This is not an automatic fix, but it is a step in the right direction. Like our use of tools; which to us seem so normal now, but which to our distant ancestors was still a difficult novelty (some probably used a newly made tool to beat another on the head!); someday it will be a very normal thing. Until then, well, it is still as you say, a "painstaking element of our existence".

All the best, Ivan

***

As posted on, http://www.inexpressible.com/wwwboard/MBoard.html
The Inexpressible Message Board:

Posted by Evelayo Heinen (200.11.151.85) on May 31, 2001 at 08:16:14:

The following is a solution to the problem of why evil happens, solved from a monotheistic point of view. It is religious, but then, isn't religion a sort of glorified form of philosophy?
God created the universe but He did not create the evil in the universe, although the potential for evil was there at the time of the universe´s creation. You see, God created an infinite number of perfect universes, which are completely detached from this one and no amount of scientific observation and testing will be able to detect them. God created this universe because since the number of perfect universes He created was infinite, the only way to further expand His creation was to add more VARIETY. Thus, he created this universe with certain pleasures and non-malignant experiences that are IMPOSSIBLE to experience in the perfect universes, for example, in the perfect universes it will not be possible to experience the feeling of relief of pain. Also, the human race has great potential to improve itself, and has already PARTIALLY done so (look at the west european and some other societies, and their improvement over the centuries (two world wars not-withstanding)). I believe that God has planned a glorious future for the human race, as long as people try to improve themselves, pray to Him for moral guidance and give Him thanks for all the good things that happen to them (not the bad ones, for that would be hypocrital). People in this world have the potential for commiting evil, but God doesn´t encourage people to do evil deeds. Also, hurricanes, earthquakes and tornados are not programmed to happen by God, but are a byproduct of the laws of the universe, and if we make an effort, we could eventually suffer much less from these catastrophes (by having more earthquake resistant buildings, for example). I strongly believe that although God considers the current condition of the human race to be tolerable, (after all, with all the problems people have, most are glad to be alive), God wants people to be a lot happier and more just, but it is our job to make ourselves reach this state, for God wants us to use our own efforts to improve ourselves. He will help us, of course, especially on moral issues, but we shouldn´t expect God to do all of the work for us; He also wants us to do our own thinking. The previous view is not a "biblical" view but the product of years of thought. It should not be discredited just because it is not in the Bible or for contradicting the current biblical interpretations of evangelical Christianity. If you see something inherently wrong with this theory, or that it can be interpreted in a way that can cause people to do evil deeds, please let me know.

Live long and prosper

WHY IT IS IMPORTANT TO NOT BELIEVE IN EVIL AS A
SEPARATE FORCE: a synthesis.

***I write this in part in answer to the entries
already posted in this Forum of Humancafe.com, in
"Challenge the Evil", and in part as an addendum
to another forum's post titled 'Question of
Pragmatism' found under the heading
"Existentialism, Dualism, and Truth", at the
Examine Life Journal Discussion:
http://examinedlifejournal.com/discus/index.html
***

My basic premise is that Evil as such does not
exist. What does exist is that people do 'evil'
things to each other. But why is this important?
I think it is a matter of perspective and focus.
If we focus on the Biblical sense of Evil, as
those ancient scribes innocently envisioned it,
then we are instead playing into a diversion that
prevents us from focussing on what we should focus
in order to eradicate evil: We need to eliminate
'coercion' as an acceptable way of human
interaction. I see this as an ultimate Good. In
the Question of Pragmatism, I wrote:

"'Is there a pragmatic application to the
philosophy we had been discussing in the posts
above, namely: is 'Being' defined as a 'Truth',
applicable to the choices we make in our daily
existence?'

The question is asked as a summary of five points
raised in our discussion:
1. Existence may be defined as a self identifying
entity called 'Being', as described by the
conceptual mechanism of 'interrelationship',
within which we exist, are conscious of our
existence, and interact with it in this Reality.
2. Our consciousness, as aware human beings, has
been elevated high enough to ask the 'big
questions', namely, what is 'Good' as opposed to
Evil.
3. If this Good is then defined as the avoidance
of 'coercion', as opposed to interacting through
'agreement' (though the avoidance of coercion may
necessitate the use of force), then are we in the
world operating on this foundation of a
consciousness of Good, where our actions and
choices, our interactions with Reality, manifest
this Good? If so, then is it a 'Truth'?
4. Is such a world based on this Truth
'functional', given our culture of today, and
given the laws of society as they now exist? Can
Truth manifest Good in our world, and if so, what
does it look like?
5. Lastly, if such a world is functional, then
does the manifestation of Good in our society's
world culture validate the basic principles of a
philosophy that is defined by the 'self defining'
mechanism of Being? If so, is this then a self
perpetuating system based on Truth?"

This is an important question, because it asks if
there is not a better way to bring a 'functional'
Truth into our social reality. The way to this
functional Truth is to have a society based on
'agreements' rather than coercions, where each
person's agreements are validated by law, and the
coercions are discouraged by law, or its extension
in the Social Contract. If such a society
existed, then the idea of Evil would be expected
to in time dissipate, as each person desires to
live by this Truth. If we instead continue to
focus on Evil as a separate force, then we are
diverting human consciousness, and thus behavioral
choices, away from where the effort of eradicating
evil should be applied, to unintentionally
perpetuate it. By not validating evil action, we
then encourage a world that is run on agreements
rather than coercions. I believe this will become
a better world, less evil and more a world of
Good.

There is one final point I would like to make,
regarding eliminating coercions and choosing our
human actions by agreement: When we do this, we
are imitating what Reality is already doing for
itself, since it is always in agreement with
Itself. So when we do this, we may be basing our
existence on a principle by which our grand
universe is already organized. If so, if this is
the Truth, then are we inviting the Order of the
Universe into our midst?

I hope this answers some questions that may have
arisen from all the many excellent entries above.
I also hope new questions will arise. When
Brother Michael asked the original question of
this Challenge: "Does evil exitst?" Or Vlad P.
said: "The Devil is one of God's best creations."
Or Amar: "Without opposition there can be no
movement." Or Isaac's: "God has given us free
will to choose good actions or bad actions." Or
Bill's: "Evil then is the attempt by a person to
achieve an unearned value." Or Mark's: "Make
every moment the miracle it is." And Carl's:
"Neither evil nor good exists in the face of God."
And as Carroll says: "..we, as humans, became
intellectual, we got disconnected from our
hearts.." Or Why's: "..evil is the corruption of
good in the created universe." And all the other
fine posts by Daria, Jerome, Peter, Tom, like
Wayne's "Does love exist?" They all express
something we know in our hearts. We have answers,
and yet we need to search and ask the questions if
we are to approach the Good.

Sincerely,

Ivan

HEROIC JOURNEY AGAINST EVIL--CHOICE


Excerpts taken from the transcript of Your Heroic Journey: Do You Have the Will to Lead? or Achieving Greatness in the Age of Anxiety (Chapter VI, Ethics) by Peter Koestenbaum:


"Ethics is fundamentally the struggle against evil, overcoming evil. Evil needs to be a separate and legitimized category of explanation of the world if the struggle against injustice and dehumanization is to be understood and make any sense.

Evil is in essence the disregard of human inwardness. It is to not value what it means to be a person. It is to disregard a person's dignity and self-respect. Evil is to degrade human beings, to humiliate them, to control them, to abuse them, to treat them like animals (not that animals should be treated that way). Evil is not discussed in the sciences. And this is rather unfortunate, considering that the behavioral sciences dominate leadership work in business, and that without understanding evil, morality makes very little sense....

The crucial succeeding step is to realize that precisely because our pure inner will is free, is capable of the sublimes and most saintly good and the lowest and most bestial evil, the very existence of civilization -- of decency, justice, fairness, respect, considerateness, commitment, help, caring -- depends on one thing and one thing only. It is the decision that we as human beings make to sustain ethical behavior in being, with our very lives if it must be. It is to search for a moral order in society.

Science is not ethics. Nature is not ethics. Ethics is the human addition. There will be no morality by natural law. There will be no ethics by the laws of the jungle, or any other natural laws, such as gravity and electromagnetism. These are totally amoral. The kind of world that works is a moral world, a world that acknowledges ethical responsibility and moral courage. And that is a human world. A fully human world. A world that recognizes nobility of spirit, honor, truthfulness, honesty, promises kept, and the absence of betrayal, lies, and deception. And these are choices."

Excellent!

"Neither evil, nor good exist in the face of God."---C. Schmidt

okay, 1st prove the existence of such a being "[God]" *smile*

not to be a smart ass, but i feel it is a tricky proposition to be able to put words into the mouth of a Being which doesn't exist simply because it can't be proven. this is not to say that a/The [God] does not exist because i can't prove that position w/o there ACTUALLY NOT BEING a [God] which we presumably have a definition (persona and such things that are defined as 'character') for--this is only if [God] is defined.

it's cool that we have 'strong concepts' like good, evil and "God" that exist. it's food for thought and can end up helping us greatly.

right now, the human seems on the verge of both collapsing the world in general but also resolving any/all of the pains and 'ills' a majority of us have realized into existence.

both stand a chance of happening which is why i feel it is vitally necessary for EACH SINGLE BEING that has the ability to dig within themselves to do it, to whatever depth they have to go to find...It...whatever It is i would suggest that it is of the greatest important to us, perceptually speaking.

even if It turns out to be nothing at all, it's still what it is.

it's about the query which is about "heurism" (in my estimation): 'knowing' it all.

even if we "challenge the evil", we would still end up challenging ourselves--if we're honest with ourselves about our potential for evil as existent and sentient beings--first and foremost.

take care all--it's free

NO GOOD OR EVIL?

There is no evil as evil and no good as good at the present and in the future. There is an aspiration for good, virtues. In everybody and anyone. In those that are moving. And in this aspiration sometimes evil is born because there is good. Evil is a fruit of the contradictions of virtues.

All human passions give birth to virtues, the creative movement of life. Worse than to bring evil is to bring nothing.


Are our sacrifices needed?

God doesn't require our sacrifices. But He grants us the right to choose a symbol of the strength of our faith:

When you are a slave - return your life if you need it for your faith.

When you are a servant - return you tithe.

When you are a son or a daughter - return your confidence.

But when you are a friend - your life filled with passions is a symbol of the strength of your faith and love. And for Him this is the biggest gladness.

"Prism of Murgenstein"

The Prism is not an altar. Three sides were expanded and existed by themselves until they were bounded by the forth one. The forth side begins where ends the truth of the Father and ends where the truth of the Creator begins. Watching the world through the Prism you can see all truths of one Law. And it is in your power to turn it. It is in the power of Striving for Perfection. His Friend. Demiurge.

EVIL FOR GOOD?

There is a quote in Romans 12:21, which says:

"Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."

What does this mean? Is 'evil' a separate force outside of what we do, of what happens to us? Is evil 'who' we are, in our souls, in our minds? Is 'good' the same, but opposed to evil?

There is another quote in Romans 12:17-18:

"Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of men.

"If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men."

Can we live in peace with all men, if what is evil for one man is good for another? If another calls my way of life, my thoughts and dreams, things I cherish and love and consider good, Satanic, evil to be destroyed, can he live in peace with me? Can I think of his hatred for my life's good as evil? And if so, then is my returning 'good for evil' not the same, in his mind, as returning 'evil for good'?

Or is it up to God to decide, and we mere mortals have only be patient, so that Good will prevail over Evil?

I confess, I don't know.

Ivan

the 3 monkeys are right...'see no evil', etc. the Bible tells us to be as babies to find peace.

Matthew 18
1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven?
2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of
them,
3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become
as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the
same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.

coz we are (meant to be) spiritual beings, our only protection is in seeing good. have you noticed how good you feel after you stop cursing others and criticizing yourself?

EVIL AS A NEXUS OF FEAR

by Ivan D. Alexander

Euclides (c. 430-360 B.C.E.) believed that "Evil has no real existence. The good alone truly is." He also said that the Good is identified with Being, which is God, or the One, and that in the multiplicity of the many was evil.
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/e/euclides.htm

Epictetus (1st cent. C.E.) wrote in his Discourses (4:12.7-8): "No one is master of another's 'prohairesis ' [moral character], and in this alone lies good and evil. No one, therefore, can secure the good for me, or involve me in evil, but I alone have authority over myself in these matters."
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/e/epictetu.htm

Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430 C.E.) in his writing the Confessions (in rebutting the Manichean heresy) says that "The sensible world is not evil, nor is embodiment itself to be regarded as straightforwardly bad. The problem that plagues our condition is not that we are trapped in the visible world (as it is for the Manicheans); rather, it is a more subtle problem of perception and will: we are prone to view things materialistically and hence unaware that the sensible world is but a tiny portion of what is real [Confessions IV.xv.24], an error Augustine increasingly attributes to original sin [De Libero Arbitrio III.20; De Civitate Dei XIII.14-15];" and that "Moral evil is, strictly speaking, not a thing, but only the will’s turning away from God and attaching itself to inferior goods as if they were higher [ibid.]." http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/augustine/#5

Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274, born in Rome) believed that "Whether the act be good or evil depends on the end. The 'human reason' pronounces judgment concerning the character of the end, it is, therefore, the law for action." He then further reasoned "An act becomes evil through deviation from the reason and the divine moral law," and that sin is due to our lust, which deviates from divine law, and that we are misled by self love.
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/a/aquinas.htm


So here is a brief sketch history of some of the origins of 'evil' as they had come down to us from theological thinking to our secular attitudes on evil today: that Evil is somehow an error in our behavior, a deviation from what is divine in us, and through this multiplicity of errors, and a lack of reason, we then commit evils. So when we use the term 'evil', it means as often as not that we are being subjected to some behavior that is morally wrong, unreasonable and injurious, excessively selfish, and with a design or will to do harm. Most people of the modern western world do not see evil as a design of the devil, though there are those who do. I suspect fewer still will think of it as a result of some manifestation of our fears, of some deep psychological insecurity. That, however, in this last point, is what is of interest here, that evil is from fear.

There are two kinds of evils, the one that means it is an evil action, which is an adjective; the other that it is a noun, such as an evil force, or from a devil, or Satan. As an adjective, I believe evil exists, and that we do 'evil' things to each other more often than we admit. In this category I would place all coercions, all deceits, lies, injuries, causes for suffering, spitefulness, and the general disposition of human beings to harm others, often for their own gain, though not always. The problem may also be a problem of semantics. For example, there is no semantic distinction between 'lying' to prevent or resist coercion, a good, as opposed to lying to twist the truth for some personal gain, an evil. But in the noun category, evil becomes more problematic, since it is then some cosmic force which we cannot directly identify, except perhaps as a negation of Good; or, as is often interpreted theologically, as a distance from the Light of God. Thus, Evil is seen a force that has some influence on human behavior to do evil things. Here we may find ourselves digging deep into our religious history to find the roots of this vision of Evil, perhaps pre Judaic, pre Zoroastrian, or even pre Ancient Egyptian. In effect, this kind of evil as a force that rains suffering upon people may be as old as humankind. Who, while sitting in a dark cave, listening to the roar of beasts outside, huddled over a small fire in the close presence of kin and kith, would not look upon the shadows cast in the darkness without foreboding? There has been reason enough to call on some divine intervention to relieve the darkness of the evil forces that surrounded us, and over which we had no control, and like children afraid of what is under the bed at night, we huddled in fear. From these fears were born demons, evil spirits of the dead, spirits manipulated by shamans, who could visit us to bring misfortune or good, or otherwise find ways to do us harm. And when taken in toto, when this demonic presence took on an existence that even rivaled that of God, then some chose to worship it over God, and turned to Satan.

But is this not a clever lie? What forced us to turn away from reason, from seeing evil as an adjective, and instead giving it the power of a noun? Was it fear? Is there some part of the human psyche that needs to be expressed in its fears, even a fear of the devil?

There is no question that we do evil things, things that will damage others, and thus judged evil by them. But are they actually evil in themselves, if there is no recipient who can judge it as such? Or, can evil happen in a vacuum? No, it cannot. Then it becomes a question of what drives us to do evil to others? That we do evil would appear to come not from a position of strength, but rather from a position of weakness. If we cannot achieve or gain through means that are amenable to others, through their agreement, through ways we would consider ethical, then we are sometimes forced to fall back upon what we know in our hearts to be wrong. So whether through lust, or through some inner weakness, we find some devious way to achieve our end; but in looking deeper into that weakness, we find that there is always some element of fear. Usually, it is a fear of loss, or loss of control, or loss of love, or recognition, or fear of rejection, or of acceptance, or fear of fear itself, or death. But sometimes, rather it is a fear of betrayal, a loss of truth, of certainty, or a loss of what had been accepted, agreed upon, a loss of trust. Then there is a fear of loss of material goods, for survival, of wanting to have enough to not go into privation; though in today's more affluent societies one would expect this fear to be diminished, and yet it is not. Instead, a fear of loss turns into avarice, and the resulting greed drives a kind of bloated evil to gain from others at their expense. Are these all Satanic forces? No, they are what we do to ourselves, because we fear.

So there was no need by our ancient ancestors to imagine a cosmic force that was Evil, and that in some way was distant from or opposed to God, or that it manipulated our lives because we were inherently fallen due to some original sin. How convoluted, and how absurd. Rather, it is much simpler to see human action as a product of our faiths, or fears, our strengths or weaknesses. But when we are afraid, we will cling to those things that allay that fear; often we will cling to each other unreasonably, or to material things. Like a small child afraid of falling, we will grab on to whatever is closest at hand, the closest person, and cling, not out of strength, but out of fear. This is the nexus of fear that ties all our evil deeds together: that we are afraid and thus become filled with anxiety, lose faith, and grab onto whomever or whatever gives us relief, even if it causes injury to others. But that is not an evil force. Rather, it is a natural condition of our mind's attempt to make sense of what often leaves us confused, and hopeless without sense. Why would God allow evil things to happen, we ask. And the answer is that God has no personal part in what happens to us, that it is a condition of our existence, and it is the challenge to which we must find the strength to rise. As conscious human beings, we are both blessed and cursed with our minds, in that we can see and understand what 'evil' befalls us, but at the same time we fail to see that often, by being less aware, this is what we had caused for ourselves. And in this failure to consciously perceive reality, we then cast blame on the events, much like a young child might blame the table against which it bumped its head. Events are, and we exist within them, as best as we can with the equipment of mind and body that we have. And to blame it on evil when things go wrong is to evade that the responsibility for our lack of well being falls not on God, nor Satan, but on ourselves.

Evil understood as a nexus of fear then means that Satan, unless he can turn himself into an adjective, does not exist. There is no evil force that drives human beings to do evil things. We do evil things to each other because we have fear. As fear, evil then becomes naked before a plentitude of accusations throughout human history: we had blamed demons and devils to persecute each other out of fear. This was the tragedy of the Medieval Inquisitions, of the Salem witch trials, of the accusations against Jews, or Communists, or Gypsies, or Palestinians. All these accusations were fear driven failures to understand, to control, to feel safe from. We could not see, so we blamed. Today, we are faced with a threat of a new kind, worldwide terrorism. But this did not come out of a vacuum, and the grievances that generated the suicidal acts of terror against civilians were with us a long time; we did not see them, were oblivious as they built up into a credible force, and now we face their evil consequences. Yes, their acts are evil, but they are not an evil force, an 'axis of evil' as dubbed. The terrorists are not satanic, rather they are human beings who had succumbed to their fears, their own unhappiness and sense of oppression, and now lash out against a world they cannot understand. Their acts of terror are horrible and unforgivable, they are criminals; but at the same time, they see themselves as good, while they see us as evil. Is this not an absurd contradiction? Obviously, this is indeed a contradiction of terms between a noun and an adjective. Evil exists only as an adjective, of how we do to each other, and ourselves, not as a noun. It is that evil that is not an 'axis of evil', but rather, a 'nexus of fear'.


I bring up this subject of Evil as Fear because I believe it is its misunderstanding that has led to so much torment and persecution through the ages. By blaming evil deeds on an Evil Force, we had been evading the causes of what had driven human beings to doing evil things. And now, by confronting evil deeds for what they actually are, that they come from fear, allows us to more realistically understand what drives the men and women, and children, who do them, and how to avert them before they become real. But on the nature of fear, how to overcome it, is a topic of which philosophy is strangely silent, and beyond the scope of this paper.

Lastly, I think every human being is born with some capacity for both love and compassion as well as fear, and that it is in the person's psyche makeup to lean towards one end of the spectrum or the other. However, it is an act of will and courage to overcome fear, not to give into it. And by how well this fear is overcome then becomes evident how much love and compassion this person is able to command, and how well potential evils can be held in check. From fear, whether we choose to do with good or evil, is then a mark of our humanity.

End.

(as submitted to Examined Life On-Line Journal, 4/13/02)

Ivan,

I do not think you can place evil into just two categories, neither do I think all lies are evil, or all deception is evil. I can think of many cases where lies are justified, and lies occur in nature; therefore, I think you need to go a bit further than your research suggests.

Evil does not occur in nature. Is it evil for a lion to kill a zebra? Of course not!

Personaly, I think more evil acts are committed for purposes of greed than of fear.

A Reader

Dear Reader,

I hear you. But where does 'greed' come from? Can it be another manifestation of fear? I am not sure I understand how nature 'lies', though I suppose this can be.

Thanks for your input.

Ivan

Reader,

RE "Neither do I think all lies are evil."

Upon further reflection, I think that 'lies' not always being evil may have more to do with semantics, since in the English language, as it is currently used, there is no distinction between lying to twist the truth of reality, to confuse, and lying to resist coercions. For example, if I am captured by an enemy and am questioned under duress to reveal the location of my friends, I would likely and justifiably lie. But this is not the same as lying to deceive, to withold truth so that I could coerce another into doing my will. So, if I were to create a new word for this kind of lying, where it is used as a force to resist coercion, say I call it 'mincing' (not to mince words!), then this lie, 'mincing', is different from the other lie, 'lying', though our language at present does not make the distinction. Or perhaps the 'liar's paradox' is another kind of semantic difference for lying, though we have no semantic variance for it.

Also, as concerns lying in nature, I suppose nature does lie, or at least it 'minces', especially if it is in response to predation (coercion). Can we call camouflage, or the bluffing of threat posturing, or color changing chameleons, as evidence of 'natural' lying? Perhaps. Is this what you meant by nature's lying?

Finally, I agree that evil does not occur in nature, except to the recipient who feels that what has befallen him or her is 'evil'. A forest fire may be evil to those trying to escape it, for example. Nature has no sense of evil as we define it, adjective or noun; but nature does have pain, and thus fear. However, what distinguishes natural fear from human fear is that our consciousness of it responds in hurtful ways, because we have a consciousness of fear, that others, those who are victimized by it, would call evil. If so, then evil remains what it is, a function of fear. Now think of this, as fear is also an adjective which modifies the victim's perception of this effect as 'evil', then it also has the power to spread, through this evil influence, fear to others... and then repeat the process again! So, fear has the power to generate 'evil', no?

I hope this helps clarify some.

Ivan

Is evil a function of fear? I do not go along with the idea that fear generates evil.

It has been my experience that evil generates fear, and fear is spread by fear. Fear, I suppose could theoretically generate evil, but I cannot honestly think of a single incident were fear generated evil.

A Reader

I evil a function of fear?

I think every human being is born with some
capacity for both love and compassion as well as
fear, and that it is in the person's psyche makeup
to lean towards one end of the spectrum or the
other. However, it is an act of will and courage
to overcome fear, not to give into it. And by how
well this fear is overcome then becomes evident
how much love and compassion this person is able
to command, and how well potential evils can be
held in check. But this is a conscious act, and
we have to choose it.

Ivan

(this above was added to the original Test post)

THANK YOU!

I wish to thank all of you who helped me write the "Evil as a Nexus of Fear", either through this forum, or to me via email, since your ideas were valuable and I incorporated them when I could. The final product is now revised above, see Mar. 10th post. It has thus been submitted to the Examined Life On-Line Journal for its next issue.

Many thanks, muchas gracias, merci beaucoup, ochen spassiba, grazie tanto, danka...

Ivan