From: Pele@yabbs
To: all@yabbs
Subject: Good vs. Evil
Date: Mon Aug  1 02:41:05 1994
The Question was asked:  Can anyone define good and/or evil?

No.  At least I sure as heck can't.  But I know what is evil for me, and I
know what has been taught to me as good and evil.  It's a personl decision
that people have to come to grips with.  I have a concience and when I do
something wrong then I feel guilty.  It's as simple as that.  I don't
think that I am evil or that what I did was evil....

Let me start over.....

I can't define good.  Because what is good for one person may be bad for
another.  So...good...I can't define.  Similarly I can't define bad,
because bad for one person may be good for another.

Perhaps we should look at it like this though.  Intentions.  Someone can
do something good with good intentions (good can be bad, like I said before).
In that case...it's good.  Someone can do something bad with good intentions.
In that case, it's bad but not evil.  (For example, someone tells a lie to
protect a friend...this is according to my religious beliefs and that
differs from person to person so I don't expect everyone to agree that
this is bad)  Someone can do something good with bad intentions (like
freeing the slaves in order to punish the South for seceding).  I'd call
this good but not "GOOD" {like holy good}.  Finally, someone can do
something bad with bad intentions (like killing somebody because you like
killing)  That, to me is evil.  

So...in retrospect I guess I think of evil as doing something with purely
malicious intents and getting malicious results.  I think a lot of people
would agree that the Holocaust (sp?) was evil or the murdering of a baby
in her sleep is evil.  Philosophically it would be great to say there is
no such thing but the simple fact is, unless you are psychotic, there are
some things that are considered EVIL.  My example leave a great deal of leeway
for good though.  I think a lot more of it exists because we really don't
understand it.  I think the main problems that we face in our society
today, ie. Drugs, Crime, AIDS, etc..all stem from the fact that we don't
want to take responsibility for our actions.  

Evil does exist.  No matter what it's definition we know it when we see
it.  And if we don't say...that's evil when we see it, then we are going
to see things like Drugs, Crime, and AIDS and stuff.


I may just start a flame-war here but if I did.  I'm sorry.
That's not my intent.

-Pele

P.S.  I hope I made sense.   I mean...I hope you understood what I was
      trying to say.