Absolute Good and Absolute Evil.

Is there such a thing as absolute good or evil, or is Man the measure of all things where truth and morality are relative?

Not sure about good or evil but I am all for Absolut Vodka...

No. Stoli is my favourite!!!!

My suspicion is that there are more options than (1) absolute good and evil exist, or (2) man is the measure of all things, that is, everything is relative.

I'm just throwing that out to keep the thread going.

If vodka doesn't keep it going, nothing will.

In order to square the circle, re the tangential aside contribution by our much respected Scheherazade on the merits involved in the consumption of vodka; I have responded with the aforesaid beverage by my side.

I agree YesNo on your argument. It's an over-simplification to believe that some people are innately "good" while others are innately "evil." It makes groups believe that they are fighting a just cause against an ‘evil’ enemy and that once the ‘evil’ people, ( in their eyes), have been killed or imprisoned that goodness will return.

"Good" and "evil" are fluid. People can be a combination of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ qualities.

One viewpoint is that the main qualities of "good" is an ability to empathise with other people, to feel compassion for them, and to put their needs before your own i.e to relate to a common human essence or morality.

Alternatively one could argue that "evil" people are those who are unable to empathise with others. As a result, their own needs and desires are of paramount importance. They are selfish, self-absorbed and narcissistic. In fact, other people only have value for them to the extent that they can help them satisfy their own desires, or to which they can exploit them. ( Anyone come to mind?) They can’t sense other people’s emotions or their suffering, can’t see the world from other people’s perspective. Other human beings are just objects to them, which is what makes their brutality and cruelty possible.

Presumably empathy can be cultivated, except in certain cases, or am I being overly optimistic?

There may be ways to cultivate empathy. Cultivating a healthy body helps. Thinking positive thoughts helps. Taking deep breaths and having good posture may help as well. I'm not sure if drinking vodka helps, but perhaps it doesn't hurt.

Good and evil are ideas. Absolute good and Absolute evil needn't have an expressor to exist. That is what people mean when they ask such a question: is there an actual manifestation, an expressor, of absolute good and/or absolute evil? It is similar to asking whether absolute nothingness could ever have existed. That issue has been philosophically settled in the Cosmology thread.

Now, we know we exist, and that seems absolute to us. Existence seems black or white--as in binary--to us, an either or proposition. But perhaps, just perhaps, it is not binary at all. Perhaps partial existence is possible after all, but not visible to us as that. In which case we would philosophically also still be stuck on the proposition of whether absolute existence or absolute nothingness can exist. I could not think of a scientific test for this.

One could probably easily interpret part of God's messages to mankind as the transmission that man exists currently in some sort of partial existence. The full existence is the one God promises in the afterlife of the city of Heaven.

I think I will use City of Heaven as a title, if it has not been done already. Sometimes other writers do not scoop you by a week or a month but by a century. Anyway, I call it scooped. By God, I was scooped once by Charles Dickens!

By George, I bet that was painful.

If i may be so bold as to venture onto this thread, being a new boy and all. I see Absolute good and absolute evil as really just another name for absolute love, or absolute
hate, both being on the same continuum and joined together.

warmest regards Michael.

I think Absolute implies philosophical difficulty. It means precisely: All that is possible of one, and none of the other'n, in this case.

People insist on their cliches. God must be all good. God must be incapable of evil, etc., etc. All the superlatives must apply to God. We picked up this habit and we are not letting go of it.

One question I have always had is: Is there something somewhere that God merely likes, he doesn't love it, he doesn't hate it, he just likes it passably well? Or is it always strictly an outpouring of divine wrath or ultimate absolute love for ol' Goddy when (he/it/she) feels something?

Back to the definition: All that is possible of one, and none of the other'n.

Sometimes a concept will seem plain and elementary to us just because we can say the words so easily with a clear idea of what they mean. But when we dwell on what they imply, we run into actual difficulty imagining them. Take faith and doubt. Doubt exists most strongly in the middle instead of at one end, for great enough doubt is certainty again. I doubt with great faith that God is not a Blue haired, red eyed monster who despises avocados but loves to eat the poop of babies. Would I bet my own life on it? Of course. This thing? Well, how about the life of my great grandson, then, a good pal of mine? I may not doubt God is a blue haired, green eyed poop eating avocado hater quite strongly enough to do that, after all, I guess.

God may love toilet paper itself, but I had good reason to suppose he only liked our spinning roll holders passably well, until I dwelt closer on the idea. A person with communicable disease could use the paper without handling it, and therefore possibly without infecting a user who came afterwards.

This shows that God does not merely like our spinning roll holders, he loves them passionately, and that would be absolutely, folks, because he is God and does nothing half assed, especially loving. Whoo-Ah!

So, we wipe out whole forests of elderly second growth timber because older trees have longer fibers which our rectums prefer in their toilet paper. Remember, to your rectum toilet paper is as personal as food is to your mouth, the other end of the spectrum. God waited a long time for our sewage systems to come about, but he likes his trees, too, and does not love it that we have found no better solution than than wiping out forests to wipe.

God's love of toilet paper does not seem absolute, after all. It now seems conditional, partial, spoiled by God's dislike of forests being clearcut so we can wipe. What does God want us to use, gunny sacks? The Romans used sponges.

God apparently always feels strongly about issues, to judge from this one, but can certainly carry contrary feelings surrounding a complex issue. We know now his love of toilet paper is not absolute, which we believed before, it is all mixed up with contrary feelings.

The best that a holdout for a God who is an absolutist in his traits can hope for at this point is that God's love of the hygienic aspects of toilet paper is absolute, while at the same time his hatred of clearcutting forests just for shaking hands with hemorrhoids, is an absolute hatred.