If god is everything, doesn't that make him evil as well as good?

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Originally Posted by mike thomas

the goverment doesn't create all that is.

the goverment governs with the consent (most often) of the plebians. The plebs
pay the goverment to look after them...

god on the other hand, creates innocent, uneducated beings, puts them, like children in a candy store, in a garden full of temptation. In that garden god puts a walking talking serpent who's only purpose is to corrupt the innocent.

and here are we, blamed because go was an irresponsible parent.

regards

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God gave humans free will. To suggest that he should not have dones so is to say that we should not have been created to be as we are. But we, as is all of creation, are good. So saying we should not have been created as we are is tantamount to saying we are not good, which is a contradiction.

To argue that free will can be used incorrectly and that we therefore should not have it could be applied to other things as well. We can abuse our vision, touch, sexuality, eating, etc. How much should we cut off?

That we are ignorant one can not dispute. That we choose to remain ignorant is no one's responsibility but our own.

A good place to look that deal directly with these questions is Augustine's de libero arbitrio ("On Free Will (Choice)") Book III.xix.53.

God is everything, but what makes him divine is the balance between it all. :)

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Originally Posted by amanda_isabel

God is everything, but what makes him divine is the balance between it all. :)

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By "everything" are you including evil? The "balance" concept is very Oriental, but that includes the "dark side." Are you suggesting something similar here?

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Originally Posted by Redzeppelin

By "everything" are you including evil? The "balance" concept is very Oriental, but that includes the "dark side." Are you suggesting something similar here?

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While I can not speak for amanda_isabel, one argument can be that she means everything that has substantial existence, which would exclude evil from the mix.

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Originally Posted by RichardHresko

While I can not speak for amanda_isabel, one argument can be that she means everything that has substantial existence, which would exclude evil from the mix.

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Evil is that which is contrary to God's character: He cannot "contain" evil within Himself - evil is a new creation that (by the very requirements of freewill and love) must potentially exist.

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Originally Posted by Redzeppelin

Evil is that which is contrary to God's character: He cannot "contain" evil within Himself - evil is a new creation that (by the very requirements of freewill and love) must potentially exist.

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On the issue of the creation of evil the Church Fathers and Aristotle would disagree. Evil cannot be a true creation since only God can create ex nihilo. Evil does not, according to this view, have substantial existence and therefore does not require a 'creator.' You are correct in saying that evil is contrary to God's character. In fact we can go further and say that because of God's essence being Being itself, he cannot contain evil, which is a form of non-being. Evil has no potentiality to exist since it cannot have existence of itself, only in something else. A crude example: a hole in a shirt is a real hole but it does not exist in itself, only in terms of the shirt.

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Originally Posted by RichardHresko

On the issue of the creation of evil the Church Fathers and Aristotle would disagree. Evil cannot be a true creation since only God can create ex nihilo. Evil does not, according to this view, have substantial existence and therefore does not require a 'creator.' You are correct in saying that evil is contrary to God's character. In fact we can go further and say that because of God's essence being Being itself, he cannot contain evil, which is a form of non-being. Evil has no potentiality to exist since it cannot have existence of itself, only in something else. A crude example: a hole in a shirt is a real hole but it does not exist in itself, only in terms of the shirt.

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Well said.

"Evil has no potentiality to exist since it cannot have existence of itself, only in something else. A crude example: a hole in a shirt is a real hole but it does not exist in itself, only in terms of the shirt."

Exactly the same could be said of goodness, so it is only a matter of faith or opinion that one can be said to be more real than the other, or that one might be described as a presence and the other as an absence.

Common experience, regardless of the opinions of some Church Fathers, is that evil, like good, is an active driving force, not a mere negative. Shaw(?) commented "for evil to triumph it is sufficient for good men to do nothing." This has the ring of truth, and implies that evil is independent and active.

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Originally Posted by Whifflingpin

"Evil has no potentiality to exist since it cannot have existence of itself, only in something else. A crude example: a hole in a shirt is a real hole but it does not exist in itself, only in terms of the shirt."

Exactly the same could be said of goodness, so it is only a matter of faith or opinion that one can be said to be more real than the other, or that one might be described as a presence and the other as an absence.

Common experience, regardless of the opinions of some Church Fathers, is that evil, like good, is an active driving force, not a mere negative. Shaw(?) commented "for evil to triumph it is sufficient for good men to do nothing." This has the ring of truth, and implies that evil is independent and active.

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I disagree. C.S. Lewis lays out very nicely in Book II of Mere Christianity the problem with viewing good and evil and rival equals. In short form: bad cannot be bad in the way that good can be good. Most things we call "bad" in this world are not bad people pursuing badness for the sake of eing bad (though it is possible to pursue goodness for the sake of being good) - people who do bad things in this world are generally pursuing some good in a wrong way, for the wrong reason or to an unreasonable extreme. Bad is generally a perversion or degradation of good - not vice versa. Evil is parasite.

Next point: there is nothing positive about evil itself - just because evil can motivate good men to do something good, does not make evil a positive force.

The quotation is by Edmund Burke.

Hi! I might be able to offer a different stance, the Islamic perspective as to what the good-evil thing is, and what the purpose of evil is in this world.

So, according to Islam, both Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan [not a snake] in the Garden of Eden. As a punishment, God sent them to the earth, for a time. This time spent on earth is a trial period. God is testing us, humans, to see who is worthy of re-entering Paradise, and those who aren't worthy [who follow Satan] would enter the Hellfire.

So, while God CREATED satan, and the actions of satan, which are what we call evil, it is a means to an end, a test: it is a test of worthiness and of faith.
God just wants to know who will be faithful in Him, and who will pray to Him, and believe in Him, and turn away from evil and satan. Those people will be granted paradise. People who follow satan, will go to the hellfire.

I hope this offers an alternative perspective.

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Originally Posted by Whifflingpin

"Evil has no potentiality to exist since it cannot have existence of itself, only in something else. A crude example: a hole in a shirt is a real hole but it does not exist in itself, only in terms of the shirt."

Exactly the same could be said of goodness, so it is only a matter of faith or opinion that one can be said to be more real than the other, or that one might be described as a presence and the other as an absence.

Common experience, regardless of the opinions of some Church Fathers, is that evil, like good, is an active driving force, not a mere negative. Shaw(?) commented "for evil to triumph it is sufficient for good men to do nothing." This has the ring of truth, and implies that evil is independent and active.

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I don't see how one could in all seriousness maintain that the same could be said of goodness. Are we to believe that every empty space is merely a hole awaiting a shirt?

Common experience also tells us the world is flat, that the sun rises instead of the earth revolving, and that there is such a thing as centrifugal force (there isn't). That some perceive evil as an active driving force is not an argument that evil is such a thing.

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Originally Posted by Kareemah Ali

Hi! I might be able to offer a different stance, the Islamic perspective as to what the good-evil thing is, and what the purpose of evil is in this world.

So, according to Islam, both Adam and Eve were tempted by Satan [not a snake] in the Garden of Eden. As a punishment, God sent them to the earth, for a time. This time spent on earth is a trial period. God is testing us, humans, to see who is worthy of re-entering Paradise, and those who aren't worthy [who follow Satan] would enter the Hellfire.

So, while God CREATED satan, and the actions of satan, which are what we call evil, it is a means to an end, a test: it is a test of worthiness and of faith.
God just wants to know who will be faithful in Him, and who will pray to Him, and believe in Him, and turn away from evil and satan. Those people will be granted paradise. People who follow satan, will go to the hellfire.

I hope this offers an alternative perspective.

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Thank you!
Does Islam have a position on God's omniscience? Your post implies that it does not. I am curious also as to the degree Avicenna and Averroes are considered mainstream in Islam now.
Thanks again!

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Originally Posted by RichardHresko

God gave humans free will. To suggest that he should not have dones so is to say that we should not have been created to be as we are. But we, as is all of creation, are good. So saying we should not have been created as we are is tantamount to saying we are not good, which is a contradiction.

To argue that free will can be used incorrectly and that we therefore should not have it could be applied to other things as well. We can abuse our vision, touch, sexuality, eating, etc. How much should we cut off?

That we are ignorant one can not dispute. That we choose to remain ignorant is no one's responsibility but our own.

A good place to look that deal directly with these questions is Augustine's de libero arbitrio ("On Free Will (Choice)") Book III.xix.53.

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I find your views to be quite interesting.
I agree with what you say.
In Islam, the belief is that humans have free will. Here is a quote from a book called 'Towards Understanding Islam' by S.A.A. Mawdudi:

" ‘Islam’ is an Arabic word and connotes submission, surrender, and obedience As a religion, Islam stands for complete submission and obedience to Allah [God] and that is why it is called ‘ISLAM’.
Everyone can see that the universe we live in is an orderly universe. There is law and order among all the units that comprise this universe.
EVEN in the human world the laws of nature are quite manifest. Man's birth, growth, and life are all regulated by a set of biological laws. He derives sustenance from nature in accordance with an unalterable law.

Man is so constituted that there are two aspects of his life: two distinct spheres of his activity. One is the sphere in which he finds himself totally regulated by the Divine Law. He cannot budge an inch or move a step away from it. Nor can he evade it in any way or from. In fact, like other creatures, he is completely caught in the grip of the law of nature and is bound to follow it.

But there is another sphere of his activity as well.
He has been endowed with reason and intellect.
He has the power to think and form judgments, to choose and reject, and to adopt and spurn. He is free to adopt whatever course of life chooses. He can embrace any faith, adopt any way of life and formulate his living according to whatever ideologies he likes. He may prepare his own code of conduct or accept one formulated by others. He has been bestowed with free will and can chalk out his own course of behavior.
In this latter aspect, he, unlike the other creatures, has been given freedom of thought, choice, and action.

Both these aspects distinctly co-exist in man’s life.

In the first he, like all other creatures, is a born Muslim, invariably obeys the injunctions of God, and is bound to remain so.
As far as the second aspect is concerned, he is free to become or not to become a Muslim.
Here he has been given the freedom of choice-and it is the way a person exercises this freedom, which divides mankind into two groups: believers and non-believers.

An individual who chooses to acknowledge his Creator, accepts Him as his real Master, honestly and scrupulously submits to His laws and injunctions and follows the code He has revealed unto man for his individual and social life, thereby becomes a perfect Muslim.
He has, so to say, achieved completeness in his Islam by consciously deciding to obey God in the domain in which he was endowed with freedom and choice.

Now his entire life has become one of submission to God and there is no conflict in his personality. He is a perfect Muslim and his Islam is complete-for this submission of his entire self to the will of Allah is Islam and nothing but Islam.

He has now consciously submitted to Him whom he had already been unconsciously obeying.
He has now willingly offered obedience to the Master whom he already owed obedience unintentionally. "

Follow the link for the complete book: it's excellent reading!

msite.com/books/tui/tui.html

RH: "Evil has no potentiality to exist since it cannot have existence of itself, only in something else. A crude example: a hole in a shirt is a real hole but it does not exist in itself, only in terms of the shirt."

Whiff: "Exactly the same could be said of goodness, so it is only a matter of faith or opinion that one can be said to be more real than the other, or that one might be described as a presence and the other as an absence."


RH: "I don't see how one could in all seriousness maintain that the same could be said of goodness. Are we to believe that every empty space is merely a hole awaiting a shirt?"

Ha ha - only Douglas Adams would know the answer to that one.
But there is still no particular reason (outside of some reilgious faith) to suppose that goodness has an existence any more or less independent than that of evil. Neither can function in itself - or maybe both can.


Whiff: "Common experience, regardless of the opinions of some Church Fathers, is that evil, like good, is an active driving force, not a mere negative. Shaw(?) commented "for evil to triumph it is sufficient for good men to do nothing." This has the ring of truth, and implies that evil is independent and active. "

HR: "Common experience also tells us the world is flat, that the sun rises instead of the earth revolving, and that there is such a thing as centrifugal force (there isn't). That some perceive evil as an active driving force is not an argument that evil is such a thing."

Of course it is an argument - not a proof, but at least basis for a working hypothesis. To deny the active power of evil is like denying the roundness of the earth having watched a ship go over the horizon. The evidence of evil is simply not accounted for by regarding evil as an absence or a void.

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Originally Posted by Kareemah Ali

I find your views to be quite interesting.
I agree with what you say.
In Islam, the belief is that humans have free will. Here is a quote from a book called 'Towards Understanding Islam' by S.A.A. Mawdudi:

" ‘Islam’ is an Arabic word and connotes submission, surrender, and obedience As a religion, Islam stands for complete submission and obedience to Allah [God] and that is why it is called ‘ISLAM’.
Everyone can see that the universe we live in is an orderly universe. There is law and order among all the units that comprise this universe.
EVEN in the human world the laws of nature are quite manifest. Man's birth, growth, and life are all regulated by a set of biological laws. He derives sustenance from nature in accordance with an unalterable law.

Man is so constituted that there are two aspects of his life: two distinct spheres of his activity. One is the sphere in which he finds himself totally regulated by the Divine Law. He cannot budge an inch or move a step away from it. Nor can he evade it in any way or from. In fact, like other creatures, he is completely caught in the grip of the law of nature and is bound to follow it.

But there is another sphere of his activity as well.
He has been endowed with reason and intellect.
He has the power to think and form judgments, to choose and reject, and to adopt and spurn. He is free to adopt whatever course of life chooses. He can embrace any faith, adopt any way of life and formulate his living according to whatever ideologies he likes. He may prepare his own code of conduct or accept one formulated by others. He has been bestowed with free will and can chalk out his own course of behavior.
In this latter aspect, he, unlike the other creatures, has been given freedom of thought, choice, and action.

Both these aspects distinctly co-exist in man’s life.

In the first he, like all other creatures, is a born Muslim, invariably obeys the injunctions of God, and is bound to remain so.
As far as the second aspect is concerned, he is free to become or not to become a Muslim.
Here he has been given the freedom of choice-and it is the way a person exercises this freedom, which divides mankind into two groups: believers and non-believers.

An individual who chooses to acknowledge his Creator, accepts Him as his real Master, honestly and scrupulously submits to His laws and injunctions and follows the code He has revealed unto man for his individual and social life, thereby becomes a perfect Muslim.
He has, so to say, achieved completeness in his Islam by consciously deciding to obey God in the domain in which he was endowed with freedom and choice.

Now his entire life has become one of submission to God and there is no conflict in his personality. He is a perfect Muslim and his Islam is complete-for this submission of his entire self to the will of Allah is Islam and nothing but Islam.

He has now consciously submitted to Him whom he had already been unconsciously obeying.
He has now willingly offered obedience to the Master whom he already owed obedience unintentionally. "

Follow the link for the complete book: it's excellent reading!

msite.com/books/tui/tui.html

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This is an area in which I see virtually complete agreement between Islam and Christianity. Augustine, in developing his doctrine of free will, argues that true free will is to choose to follow the will of God. The reasoning goes as follows (somewhat simplified, but considering Augustine wrote over 5 million words I hope to be forgiven):
1. we have free will (I won't go into his proof of that, which is contained in de libero arbitrio
2. We exercise our free will to get what we desire.
3. we desire happiness.
4. True happiness is obtainable only from that which is eternally good and true and beautiful.
5. True happiness is therefore obtainable only by turning (technical term 'convertio' = converting ) to God.
6. Thus when we exercise our will in any other direction it is not truly our free will but an error in will. Just as tripping is not a voluntary motion.

True freedom, according to Augustine, is when we freely submit to God.
I look forward to reading the book you referenced. Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Whifflingpin

RH: "Evil has no potentiality to exist since it cannot have existence of itself, only in something else. A crude example: a hole in a shirt is a real hole but it does not exist in itself, only in terms of the shirt."

Whiff: "Exactly the same could be said of goodness, so it is only a matter of faith or opinion that one can be said to be more real than the other, or that one might be described as a presence and the other as an absence."


RH: "I don't see how one could in all seriousness maintain that the same could be said of goodness. Are we to believe that every empty space is merely a hole awaiting a shirt?"

Ha ha - only Douglas Adams would know the answer to that one.
But there is still no particular reason (outside of some reilgious faith) to suppose that goodness has an existence any more or less independent than that of evil. Neither can function in itself - or maybe both can.


Whiff: "Common experience, regardless of the opinions of some Church Fathers, is that evil, like good, is an active driving force, not a mere negative. Shaw(?) commented "for evil to triumph it is sufficient for good men to do nothing." This has the ring of truth, and implies that evil is independent and active. "

HR: "Common experience also tells us the world is flat, that the sun rises instead of the earth revolving, and that there is such a thing as centrifugal force (there isn't). That some perceive evil as an active driving force is not an argument that evil is such a thing."

Of course it is an argument - not a proof, but at least basis for a working hypothesis. To deny the active power of evil is like denying the roundness of the earth having watched a ship go over the horizon. The evidence of evil is simply not accounted for by regarding evil as an absence or a void.

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The neo-Platonists, among others, argued on philosophical grounds that goodness has substantial existence while evil is a privation, and therefore lacks substantial existence.

I disagree that, "The evidence of evil is simply not accounted for by regarding evil as an absence or a void." Consider the following: why does a man commit evil? It can be argued on perfectly sound philosophical grounds that he does so either because of ignorance (traditional Platonist) and therefore there is a lack of knowledge, or that the person possesses a will that is corrupted (more neo-Platonist), which is also a lack of a properly function will. To deny substantial existence to evil is not to say that there is no evil, only that evil is not a thing.

One argument for the positive existence of goodness and non-substantive nature of evil:
1. Existence is good. (This could be a separate argument, but consider that to argue the contrary is to maintain that the entire universe is evil.)
2. When something is corrupted it becomes less good, and is less of what it was.
3. If something becomes entirely corrupted it becomes not good at all, but also non-existent.

God, as infinite and incontestable good, precludes evil; God is not in a competition with an alternate power. We may feel this a lot, occasionally, almost never, or never.

The human mind only grasps and credits God's absoluteness and totality in occasional moments (thus, "through a glass darkly"); but, some people can extend it into an ongoing and repeated basis (thus, "now I know even as also I am known").

HR: "When something is corrupted it becomes less good, and is less of what it was."

For something to become corrupted, there must be a corruptor.

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Originally Posted by Shadowsarin

This is a bit of weird one I think. This came to me when I was reading a Philip K. Dick short story about something similer. This is purly hypothetical and I mean no offence.

If god is in everything and everyone, does that not make him as much an evil malevolent as a divine benevolent?

It just seems to me that evil is as much a thing as good; and something claimed to be everything must surely be both?

Thoughts on this random thought?

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egh.. i don't really know but in a way it woudl seem liek he can be both but mostly good.

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Originally Posted by Whifflingpin

HR: "When something is corrupted it becomes less good, and is less of what it was."

For something to become corrupted, there must be a corruptor.

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When speaking of moral corruption, the agent is free will that has been perverted. Here I am using 'perverted' in the technical sense, in that the will is directed away from that which will make the person happy. One need not posit an embodiment of evil as the agent of evil.

I agree with fisher of men. The way I see it God is perfect and only good. Bad things happen because disobey the laws of God or it is a test. Its like if you give your kid only good stuff and everything he wants, he won't turn out very well. Hard times train our minds and souls to become better. The soldier that comes home from war, will always resist a nobody-important-got-hurt attitude because he saw people die in front of him. Nobody is unimportant to him. God allows the devil to hurt us to help us grow stronger and become more like Him. He wants us to know both good and evil so we can chooses the good.

i will agree with most of that thinkerr, i believe that many bad things happen just because it happened, not because God was trying to test us, that makes God look like a school teacher who is uncertain as to whether we have learned a lesson. he is not uncertain, he is certain we are what we are because he is omniscient and can see everything about you no matter how you try to hide it. he may twist a few things in life to help us achieve a goal in his name, but not much more than that.

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Originally Posted by the silent x

i will agree with most of that thinkerr, i believe that many bad things happen just because it happened, not because God was trying to test us, that makes God look like a school teacher who is uncertain as to whether we have learned a lesson. he is not uncertain, he is certain we are what we are because he is omniscient and can see everything about you no matter how you try to hide it. he may twist a few things in life to help us achieve a goal in his name, but not much more than that.

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Given what you say is true, doesn't that imply that bad things don't just happen, but that he allows them to happen? And therefore, wouldn't it be also true that there would therefore have to be some purpose in everything that happens? This does not undermine your argument, but rather gives it some additional possibilities.

Silent X- most of the bad things in the world happen not because God isn't sure we have learned our lesson, but because we our now stronger and can endure different, harder lessons to teach us different more valuable things.

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Originally Posted by Thinkerr

Silent X- most of the bad things in the world happen not because God isn't sure we have learned our lesson, but because we our now stronger and can endure different, harder lessons to teach us different more valuable things.

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There seem to be two types of bad things -- natural bad things like earthquakes, and moral bad things like murder. The former can be argued to be only bad from a rather narrow perspective, and good from a broader point of view. For example, one may feel that a shark is bad because it occasionally eats people, but really the shark is good because it exists.

Moral evil is the result of free will that is turmed from its true freedom and selects a good that is inferior. For example, a person who steals is valuing money or some item more than the better good of honesty.

In this scheme of things moral evil is not chosen by god but is rather the consequence of our own actions and will.

I would argue that the natural bad things God commands are "trials". They are bad in that they usually kill or hurt people, but the people who come out of these disasters are better than before a "trial". The moral bad things God does not dirrectly order, but rather allows to happen, like a child learning not to put it's hand on the stove by being burnt.

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Originally Posted by Thinkerr

I would argue that the natural bad things God commands are "trials". They are bad in that they usually kill or hurt people, but the people who come out of these disasters are better than before a "trial". The moral bad things God does not dirrectly order, but rather allows to happen, like a child learning not to put it's hand on the stove by being burnt.

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It has been argued that there are no natural bad things, since all things are made by God, and God is, by definition, good. Thus things can only appear to be bad.

I am more inclined to agree with your stance on moral evil. Especially since you imply that the evil brings misery on itself.

Allow me to quote Lewis...

"If evil has the same kind of reality as good, the same autonomy and completeness, our allegiance to god becomes the arbitrarily chosen loyalty of a partisan. A sound theory of value demands something different. It demands that good should be original and evil a mere perversion; that good should be the tree and evil the ivy; that good should be able to see all round evil (as when sane men understand lunacy) while evil cannot retaliate in kind; that good should be able to exist on its own while evil requires the good on which it is parasitic in order to continue its parasitic existence."

This is the Christian perspective.

I just wanted to add my two cents on the topic...even though it may not be much different than what has already been mentioned. I agree with a lot of what has been said, but wanted to add the idea of free agency into it. For what has been last discussed in this thread, I think it is important to remember free agency when it comes to bad things happening to us that come directly or indirectly from other people. We have the free agency to choose right from wrong, just as everyone else does...and if you flip on the news, it is obviously there are a lot of people choosing the wrong. I agree that God allows it to happen, simply because He can't take away one persons right to choose, and not anothers (in the sense that it would defeat the purpose of being here). As for natural disaster type of things, I do think God tests us in a way. But moreso to make us better people. I think His intention is to help us learn something that we need to know, but that could also go with the trials inflicted on us by others. I have before found myself going through a rough patch, when I had already experienced something similar, not long prior. I eventually realize there was more to learn than what I got out of the first experience. And plus, how can we truly value, appreciate, and choose the good things if we don't know how the bad feels?

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Originally Posted by kari

I just wanted to add my two cents on the topic...even though it may not be much different than what has already been mentioned. I agree with a lot of what has been said, but wanted to add the idea of free agency into it. For what has been last discussed in this thread, I think it is important to remember free agency when it comes to bad things happening to us that come directly or indirectly from other people. We have the free agency to choose right from wrong, just as everyone else does...and if you flip on the news, it is obviously there are a lot of people choosing the wrong. I agree that God allows it to happen, simply because He can't take away one persons right to choose, and not anothers (in the sense that it would defeat the purpose of being here). As for natural disaster type of things, I do think God tests us in a way. But moreso to make us better people. I think His intention is to help us learn something that we need to know, but that could also go with the trials inflicted on us by others. I have before found myself going through a rough patch, when I had already experienced something similar, not long prior. I eventually realize there was more to learn than what I got out of the first experience. And plus, how can we truly value, appreciate, and choose the good things if we don't know how the bad feels?

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I agree with you over all, though I am not so sure that we need the bad to appreciate the good. But that is a minor point.

In the Christian tradition the ability that God bestows on people to become better is referred to as 'grace.'

4. True happiness is obtainable only from that which is eternally good and true and beautiful.
5. True happiness is therefore obtainable only by turning (technical term 'convertio' = converting ) to God.

This is true if you believe what you've read or been told. But what if you don't?
Is there really forces pulling people one direction or another? Good and evil, God and Satan, only exist because you think them to.
Religions were created as Laws for Society.
God was created as an answer for what we had no answer for.
Man has manipulated the laws and their God to get what they desire.
Mostly, I believe, the majority of people can not fathom non existance after death. To them if they do not continue to live, they lose faith in life. Thus they must believe in the continuation of life after death.
The good and the evil is in what we do. Heaven and hell is found in how we live our lives.
Yes we all desire happiness. We all have our own perception of what happiness is and how it can be achieved. Happiness can be found in everything, it's how it is perceived by the individual, be it considered by others as good or evil.
We are born greedy. Capable of all things, but unable to acheive them until we grow. As we grow we see what we do, hear what we do, our senses and our perceptions shape us. Once we have grown physically, we are able to decide as our experiences teach us or don't. We have the ability to change, as we desire. Some never learn, most do.

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Originally Posted by Rockin462

4. True happiness is obtainable only from that which is eternally good and true and beautiful.
5. True happiness is therefore obtainable only by turning (technical term 'convertio' = converting ) to God.

This is true if you believe what you've read or been told. But what if you don't?
Is there really forces pulling people one direction or another? Good and evil, God and Satan, only exist because you think them to.
Religions were created as Laws for Society.
God was created as an answer for what we had no answer for.
Man has manipulated the laws and their God to get what they desire.
Mostly, I believe, the majority of people can not fathom non existance after death. To them if they do not continue to live, they lose faith in life. Thus they must believe in the continuation of life after death.
The good and the evil is in what we do. Heaven and hell is found in how we live our lives.
Yes we all desire happiness. We all have our own perception of what happiness is and how it can be achieved. Happiness can be found in everything, it's how it is perceived by the individual, be it considered by others as good or evil.
We are born greedy. Capable of all things, but unable to acheive them until we grow. As we grow we see what we do, hear what we do, our senses and our perceptions shape us. Once we have grown physically, we are able to decide as our experiences teach us or don't. We have the ability to change, as we desire. Some never learn, most do.

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Let's consider whether statements 4 and 5 quoted above can be understood as true without any claim to authority.

Statement 4 reads: "4. True happiness is obtainable only from that which is eternally good and true and beautiful."

Note that the discussion is limited to "true" happiness, not happiness in general. What distinguishes true happiness from other kinds of happiness? Other kinds of happiness are always connected (ultimately) with pain -- even the best ends. Your loved one dies, you grow sick, and so on. Dennis Leary makes this point in his comedy performance "No Cure for Cancer." To have a true happiness would be to have a happiness that does NOT end. Thus the conclusion follows.

One can conclude, as Leary does, that there is no such possibility for us. In which case statement 4 is still true, but we would conclude that it is unobtainable.

Let's consider statement 5 now: "True happiness is therefore obtainable only by turning (technical term 'convertio' = converting ) to God."
Given that statement 4 is logically consistent, we can identify true happiness with attempting to be joined with that which is good, true, beautiful and unchanging. A being that has being as its essence is, philosophically speaking, the only one that matches that description. Such a being is labelled 'God'. This statement does NOT have built into it any particular religious 'God', but merely designates that being which has those attributes.

Once again, if one concludes that there is no God (which is an entirely different consideration) the consequence would be that true happiness, as defined above, is unobtainable. The internal validity of the logic is, however, left intact.

The truth values of the statements are independent of the individual's beliefs.

In considering the remainder of the post I am reminded of the line, I believe by Voltaire, "If God did not exist we would have to invent him. That, coupled with the line (I forget the source) "God was created in our own image and likeness," seem to match the sentiment.

Well (my own opinnion for this theme) God is not really ultimate goodness couse , if you watched the movies readed bible or something like that you can se how manny people God really killed...right? So is killing bad? God did it why cant we?
i mean i beleve in God and Christ and Holy spirit , and i pray and go to Church and cant wait to die to see what will hapen to me ( my soul ) , but i just wanted to see your comments on this .
Dont take me wrong i dont judge anyone and anything i just posted this Fact.

"To have a true happiness would be to have a happiness that does NOT end. "
That is an arbitrary and unnecessary definition. Maybe transitoriness is an essential element of happiness.

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Originally Posted by Kiba

Well (my own opinnion for this theme) God is not really ultimate goodness couse , if you watched the movies readed bible or something like that you can se how manny people God really killed...right? So is killing bad? God did it why cant we?
i mean i beleve in God and Christ and Holy spirit , and i pray and go to Church and cant wait to die to see what will hapen to me ( my soul ) , but i just wanted to see your comments on this .
Dont take me wrong i dont judge anyone and anything i just posted this Fact.

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God did it so why can't I? That's like a 6-year old saying "Dad drives a car, shoots a gun, uses a credit card and is married - can't I do the same?" God - as creator of all - has more prerogatives than we (His creations) do. As well, we make a big deal out of the deaths that God commissioned, as if God's values must be ours or something is wrong with Him. Has it ever occurred to people that perhaps God's value of life may not exactly coincide with ours because He is less concerned with our life on this earth than He is with our life in the Hereafter?

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Originally Posted by Whifflingpin

"To have a true happiness would be to have a happiness that does NOT end. "
That is an arbitrary and unnecessary definition. Maybe transitoriness is an essential element of happiness.

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The definition is not arbitrary for the following reason. If the happiness is true, it is not mixed with anything else. If something makes us happy and we know we will be spearated from it at some point, then there will be a mixture of feeling, since we would feel some sadness or regret at the loss.

It is not clear how you would build transitoriness into a definition of what the essence of happiness is.

If you wish to argue that there is nothing that can provide true happiness as given above, that is possible. But then you would not be arguing that the definition is arbitrary.

It is not clear what is "unnecessary" about the definition. Is it that we all agree about happiness (your answer suggest not), or that it includes unnecessary terms? The latter point has been addressed.

"If the happiness is true, it is not mixed with anything else."

Maybe happiness is an alloy, and cannot otherwise be "true happiness" I think, for instance, of that satisfaction of a long marriage, where the weathered storms, and the certainty of future challenges, deepen the shared content.


"It is not clear how you would build transitoriness into a definition of what the essence of happiness is."
I had in mind my first taste of wild strawberries, an instant experience of startling joy, not to be prolonged or repeated or forgotten.

I don't know, but I am deeply suspicious of the deadness of your certainties.

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Originally Posted by Whifflingpin

"If the happiness is true, it is not mixed with anything else."

Maybe happiness is an alloy, and cannot otherwise be "true happiness" I think, for instance, of that satisfaction of a long marriage, where the weathered storms, and the certainty of future challenges, deepen the shared content.


"It is not clear how you would build transitoriness into a definition of what the essence of happiness is."
I had in mind my first taste of wild strawberries, an instant experience of startling joy, not to be prolonged or repeated or forgotten.

I don't know, but I am deeply suspicious of the deadness of your certainties.

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Notice that when you bring in the example of a long marriage you naturally shifted from "happiness" to "satisfaction" which may be a different thing. Also, I think that the happiness in weathering a storm such as say, the death of a child, is not unalloyed for obvious reasons.

In considering the case of wild strawberries, while there is no doubt that that is a happy event, the problem here is that the event is very limited. In a sense it suffers from the opposite problem of the marriage example.

Perhaps it is the adjective "true" here that's the problem. We could also refer to the type of happiness referred to in the definition as "complete" or "ultimate" or "perfect" without doing violence to the terminology.

I am not sure about the "deadness of [my] certainties." Notice that all I have done is strung together some definitions that are logically consistent. I have nowhere stated, let alone proved, either that true happiness exists, or that God exists, or that even if God exists that there would exist a means by which we could in a meaningful way make God the center of our happiness. All I have done is shown that if we accept certain premises and definitions (based on what is presumed to be reasonable conditions) that certain consequences follow. Nothing more.

If god is in everything and everyone, does that not make him as much an evil malevolent as a divine benevolent?


In Isaiah 45:7 God expressly states that he is the exclusive creator of ALL evil.

In many cultures the root for the word ''god'' is the same as that for the number two. This is because humanity has long recognized that god has a dual nature. So, yes, he is both good and evil.

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Originally Posted by hellsapoppin

If god is in everything and everyone, does that not make him as much an evil malevolent as a divine benevolent?


In Isaiah 45:7 God expressly states that he is the exclusive creator of ALL evil.

In many cultures the root for the word ''god'' is the same as that for the number two. This is because humanity has long recognized that god has a dual nature. So, yes, he is both good and evil.

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The version you refer to is the KJV. The NIV uses the word "disaster" instead of evil. Here we need to refer back to the Hebrew text. the Hebrew word here, "rah" can mean "calamity" and "disaster" and "to break" as well as "evil."

In addition, in the context of the verses we are looking at God as the author of things in the natural world. Thus he is the author of everything, including what are referred to as "natural evils" such as earthquakes. This does not apply to moral evil.