What is "evil"

[Doom Shepherd]

Except NOT REALLY, because most religions have HUGE loopholes in their no-kill laws.

 

Take the religions that follow the Pentateuch (all those that contain the first 5 books of the Bible.) God no sooner gets through tossing down "thou shalt not kill" when he commands the Israelites to move into an already-occupied land and KILL EVERYONE THERE.

 

They all have exceptions for "god told us/ god wants us to / deus lo vult!"

 

http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/cruelty/long.html has a pretty good compilation of the cruelty and violence-approving passages in all your Abrahamic religions, including Islam and Mormonism.

[BTGBullseye]

If you pay attention to the Bible, the old testament teachings are mostly replaced with the new testament... No more eye for an eye crap. Just because some assholes don't follow the teachings, or teach it right to the following generations, doesn't mean that the religions themselves are to blame. We after all are only human...

[dashofweak]

I don't think religion causes people to kill other people. Religion in of itself is just a set of belifs that a group of people follow (when stripped to the most basic level) however, he difference of opinions DOES make it easier for one person to kill another because they have a different belief system. But this is quickly turning into a debate of whether or not RELIGION is evil, not what evil is inof itself

[ThePest179]

The thing is that if you're following Christianity, Judaism, or most others, it is breaking the law of the religion itself to kill... Therefore, if you come across someone who is "killing in the name of [religion]", they really are only killing for themselves.

 

That's the problem I was addressing.

[BTGBullseye]

I know, I was just addressing Doom's concern over the Old Testament laws... You know, the ones who's holes were 'patched' by the New Testament... (even though for some reason there are a lot of people that don't want to follow the 'patched' version)

[Doom Shepherd]

If you pay attention to the Bible, the old testament teachings are mostly replaced with the new testament... No more eye for an eye crap.

 

Go back to the list and start reading at #1154. Stop at the end of Revelations (AKA "Jesus II: This time, he kills everybody!")

 

Your patch is extremely buggy.

[BTGBullseye]

That list is a vast list of intentional, or accidental misinterpretations... Go read the book yourself, and try to keep an unbiased mentality when doing so.

[Presence]

With the sort of "death of Christianity" looming over western societies, we will likely see more "evil" occur since there will be no easily available, relatively simple morality to guide a lot of people.

 

This century will be vital in the history of western nations: Basically, we need to establish some type of "new morality" and the appropriate justifications. In the meantime, there will be a quite good deal of chaos in western societies.

 

The utilitarian principle is stupid simple to remember and won't steer anyone wrong in real life situations. For reference, whatever causes the most happiness for the most people is good. Yes, you can talk about when the ends justify the means, the difficulty of predicting outcomes, and you can even get into thought experiments about organ harvesting and unpleasant sexual advances on the comatose. But outside of fantasy scenario land, in real life day to day stuff, utilitarianism is very easy and very reliable.

[Doom Shepherd]

That list is a vast list of intentional, or accidental misinterpretations... Go read the book yourself, and try to keep an unbiased mentality when doing so.

 

I read the book 20+ years ago, and while there may be a few new editions since then, to my knowledge the general theme is unchanged. The prose is tedious, the plot is unwieldy and self-contradictory, and the protagonist is entirely unlikeable.

[BTGBullseye]

:/

[Doom Shepherd]

...although that bit at the very end where he comes back with a sword-tongue, blood-drenched robes, a tattoo (his name, on his thigh) and a nasty sickle as a choice of weapon, and he and his henchmen KILL everybody in a bloodbath that makes Kill Bill look like a kids' Saturday Morning TV show from the 70's, is kind of entertaining.

[ThePest179]

Praise the Lord!

[Ross Scott]

The utilitarian principle is stupid simple to remember and won't steer anyone wrong in real life situations. For reference, whatever causes the most happiness for the most people is good. Yes, you can talk about when the ends justify the means, the difficulty of predicting outcomes, and you can even get into thought experiments about organ harvesting and unpleasant sexual advances on the comatose. But outside of fantasy scenario land, in real life day to day stuff, utilitarianism is very easy and very reliable.

The only thing I would add to that would be "that's sustainable over a long time". Heroin can make people incredibly happy, but only in the short term. But yeah, it gets stupid simple once you start talking about things like base needs to survive. Many people don't realize just how happy they are until they don't have food, shelter, water, etc.

[optimusjamie]

I think that there are certain things we can objectively think of as 'evil'. In general, I think the best definition is intentionally causing unnecessary harm, whether that's to people, the environment or even an animal.

Let's break it down a bit:

 

Intentionally: This should be an obvious one. Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by stupidity/coincidence/whatever (delete where appropriate). You also have to take into account informed consent, which makes the difference between, for example, BDSM and abuse. It's also why you can't consider an animal to be evil.

Unnecessary: Can the action be justified on practical grounds? This brings us to the Baby Hitler problem- could I justify killing a baby on the grounds it grows up to be Hitler? If I did remove Hitler from the timeline, how do I know some other dictator won't come to power in Germany and start World War II, or any number of other scenarios that still result in World War II? There were thousands of bitter people who wanted revenge for Germany's defeat in World War I, and the Soviet Union was a thing, so it's highly probable that all killing baby Hitler will change is the name of the most reviled person in history.

 

Now that we've got our parameters established, let's work through an example- environmental damage caused by energy companies. Is it intentional? It's hard to tell. There are reasonable arguments for any possible answer. Whilst there is evidence that energy companies actively fund global warming denialism, you could also argue that they simply don't care. Is it unnecessary? Almost certainly- why stick to outdated methods of energy production when we have perfectly viable solar, hydroelectric, geothermal and probably other methods? Hell, nuclear power may not be renewable, but it's still a hell of a lot better than coal or natural gas, and we've had it for over 60 years now. The energy companies definitely know about those methods, but deliberately ignore them because all they see is a threat to their bottom line. now, we can quibble over why they see them that way, but that's not the point.

So, environmental damage caused by energy companies. Is it evil? Well, it's hard to say whether or not it's intentional: after all, we're dealing with real people, not the villains from Captain Planet. It's definitely unnecessary, because there are perfectly viable methods of producing energy that don't damage the environment. Therefore, I'm going to have to say that it's leaning towards evil, but may have some amount of stupidity involved as well.

Edited July 20, 2014 by Guest (see edit history)

[BTGBullseye]

why stick to outdated methods of energy production when we have perfectly viable solar, hydroelectric, geothermal and probably other methods?

Because it causes about 10x the pollution to make those energy sources a viable alternative for mass producing the energy we use. Current power requirements turned to solar would require nearly 75% of the US landmass to power New York City during the day, and couldn't generate enough to be able to store for powering it at night. Also, it requires a large supply of extremely expensive exotic materials to construct the solar collectors.

Hydroelectric has turned out to cause some serious problems for local wildlife unless it's merely as a byproduct of flood prevention, and we have nearly run out of suitable locations to place these extremely expensive dams.

Geothermal is currently untenable since it requires drilling to a depth we're just barely reaching now with the newest state-of-the-art drills, and then finding machinery that can withstand prolonged use in those conditions. (not to mention maintenance is extremely dangerous) In addition geothermal is similar to hydroelectric in that there are only a select few locations suitable for making these generators.

Wind power is only functional when the wind is blowing fast enough to generate. Any slower, and it actually draws more power than it produces. It is expensive, both in the land required, (has to be in the right location too) and in the materials and labor. The blades have been known to cause issues with local airborne animals including birds and bats. And believe it or not, noise is often reported as being an issue with wind turbines. (it isn't as quiet as the infomercials portray)

Biomass is a decent one, but requires a ton of money, and lots of much needed space.

Tidal and wave energy generation are promising, but we don't currently have the technology or funds to make them usable.

 

Right now, the cleanest, most efficient, and most powerful generating systems we have are nuclear. They produce no waste whatsoever if run properly, are impossible to melt down, (unlike the older reactors) can't be seriously damaged from a distance with anything short of a nuclear strike, (or massive tsunami) and can even be made with one of the most common elements on the planet. (thorium, it is as common as lead) The ONLY reason we can't have more of them, is because the "environmentalists" have had way more pull than should ever have been allowed. Fortunately, there are several new nuclear plants under construction to replace aging facilities.

 

Just a little piece of info about the US power consumption... Nuclear power accounts for 790TWh of electrical production; 19.2% of the US power consumption. Coal accounts for 39%, Natural Gas 27%, Hydroelectric 7%, Wind 4.13%, Biomass 1.48%, Geothermal 0.41%, Solar 0.23%, Petroleum 1%.

[optimusjamie]

Good point- I should probably have mentioned nuclear power in my post.

[ThePest179]

Because it causes about 10x the pollution to make those energy sources a viable alternative for mass producing the energy we use.

 

I'm going to straight up say that that's bullshit. most of the rest of your post makes sense though.

[BTGBullseye]

Because it causes about 10x the pollution to make those energy sources a viable alternative for mass producing the energy we use.

 

I'm going to straight up say that that's bullshit. most of the rest of your post makes sense though.

Do you have any proof? I got my statements from several different sources including Wikipedia and energyinformative.org.

[ThePest179]

Because it causes about 10x the pollution to make those energy sources a viable alternative for mass producing the energy we use.

 

I'm going to straight up say that that's bullshit. most of the rest of your post makes sense though.

Do you have any proof? I got my statements from several different sources including Wikipedia and energyinformative.org.

 

Your own proof please, then I'll get some of my own or concede the point.

[BTGBullseye]

What do you mean "my own proof"? You mean the kind of proof that you've been saying is me making things up? Or do I have to go and post every pertinent sublink available on those pages?