Can one really say that there is such thing as good and evil?

Question

if so, how and why? isn't good and evil just a concept or construct formed by the human mind to decide whether or not something is good or bad for the species? killing hurts the human population, thus seeming evil. helping the poor seems good, because it helps humans prosper and reproduce. good and evil are bound into us to keep us from destroying ourselves. but if you look outside of the human perspective, you can see that good and evil are nothing but animal instincts. when you detach yourself from human views, you can finally see the truth. good and evil don't really exist.

you got me there wonderwall.

You all base your views on assumptions that living is good and dying is bad. that's part of your instinct telling you that you should live at all costs.

Answer 1

The concepts of good and evil aren't just for self-preservation. If we look at other examples - such as cheating on a test or sleeping with someone else's spouse - we can see that good and evil aren't just some kind of "natural law".

And how does a human detach himself from his human views? That sounds all philosophical and everything, but your tune would probably change as soon as someone breaks into your home and steals your stuff. All of a sudden you'll want justice! Good and evil will become very clear to you at that moment.

I believe that good and evil come from our creator. The Bible tells us that God made man in his image, and part of that was an internal awareness that there are absolutes for good and evil. As evidence, I offer the fact that around the world isolated people groups uniformly develop similar laws and cultural values.

Answer 2

Yes, there is good and evil. Evil doesn't apply to killing only. Did you see the pictures of the torture rooms found in Iraq? Don't you think it takes an evil person to turn on the electricity that was attached to a wire frame bed? Grown men raping and murdering little girls. People strapping on bombs and blowing themselves and others up. Cutting off the head of a bound, defenseless captive. These are not animal instincts. Animals don't kill, torture and rape for the "fun" of it. Some people are evil.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays.

Answer 3

Good and evil are more than just concepts. They were not formed by the human mind. Thousands of years ago, laws were given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, which spelled out the basic code on which most laws that have been written since are based. They are popularly known as the Ten Commandments. What has gotten the human race into trouble in the last 200 years or so, is that the human mind has tried to decide what is good or bad for the species, and we humans have made lots of errors. A knowledge of good and evil is "bound into us" because we are the seed of Adam and by definition have tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. We are not inherently good. We do not have animal instincts because we were created in the image of Jehovah God. Since I am

I assume you are educated. If so, you must have heard of the physical law which dictates that for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. Based upon that fundamental law of physics, you must agree that if there is good in the universe, there is also evil, and that if this is so, that there must be a force for good as well as one for evil.

You don't have to take my word for it. God is not impressed b y your noisy unbelief. His Word says that there will come a day when every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Just believe that I believe that one day you will confess belief. I just hope, for your sake, that it is sooner, rather than later.

Don't buy into this secular humanist point of view that everything is relative. There is good and there is evil and there is Jehovah God and Satan. Two choices. Choose whom you will serve.

Answer 4

OK, then you go out and eat somebody, like an animal. See where you end up (I'll see you on the news). And don't try calling me up for bail money either. Humans and animals aren't the same. Humans have the natural instinct to know good from evil, it's not engraved into us by society. If so, then where did the first "goodness" and "badness" of a society come from? A building? And where did that building come from?

Answer 5

I think the concept of "good" vs "evil" came from Zoroaster, and was later adopted by Christians.

When I think of things that we consider evil today, they often seem to be relative to the society - eg, today we believe slavery is evil, then do we have to believe that every American, Briton, Greek, Roman, Israelite who ever owned a slave was therefore evil? But if you held a vote within those societies, obviously the opposite opinion would win.

Or another example - someone who can't live within the rules of society and becomes a horrible mass murderer - we can call him "evil" as though it were an objective, unchangeable fact, or consider him mentally ill, and search for a cure.

Edit -
I think a lot of the other answers are using "good" as short-hand for "behaviors we like" (obviously a subjective measure) and "evil" as the antonym.

Others use "good" as the synonym for "behaviors that help us live healthier, longer lives". Could be objective, but when 2 groups need to compete for a scarce resource, both will consider themselves "good" and the opponents as "evil".

Imagine the leaders and soldiers of practically every war in history (especially b/n 2 monotheistic countries) - don't BOTH sides always expect God to answer their prayers to help them win?

Answer 6

Your statement presupposes that it is "good" to know there is no good or evil. Else why would you bother to assert it? But if there is no good or evil, then knowing or not knowing that fact is morally neutral. If it is neither good nor evil to know whether there is good or evil, then your assertion is meaningless. If you propose we believe your assertion, then you believe it is good for us to do so. Assume we do so, and accept your "good" premise that there is no good or evil. In fact, assume everyone accepts it, and further that they act consistently on it. Then any given act has no basis for preference over any other given act. Yet, in reality, if I choose act A over act B, it is because I find A to be the greater good. Take human survival, the centerpiece of your hypothesis. Why is survival better than non-survival? Life and death are neither good nor evil. They are mere “social constructs,” whatever that means. Pain or pleasure offer no reference point for moral choice. Thus genocide, while it may have a reductive effect on the number of surviving humans, is completely irrelevant because death in large numbers is no more good or evil than life in large numbers. If pain is morally irrelevant, as it would be were your system universally accepted, then torture is not evil and comfort is not good. Therefore, your theory, if accepted and practiced, destroys your premise of survival. Furthermore, your theory can never be fully put into practice because it can never be self-consistent, and that because it must assert it self as better than it's logical opposite. It must say it is good to not believe in good. Therefore, it is fundamentally absurd. It is an odd system that works better when one believes it is false, for whence comes love, if not from the desire for good? Or beauty, if not by contrast with the ugly? Or truth, if not by opposition to falsehood? Reduce man to nothing but a surviving machine, and his survival is defeated. Raise him to the nobility of moral reasoning, and his surviving gives his life meaning. Truth is what works. Therefore good and evil, because they work so well, must be true. Deny me, and you confirm me.

Answer 7

Just because they are human concepts doesn't make them not exist. minutes and hours are human concepts but I still wear a watch. Good and evil are subjective though.

Answer 8

I know there is evil...I used to be married to her.
Having said that, there must be a balance. I just proved evil does exist, so that means good must also exist to maintain balance in the universe.

Reflecting upon that, toilet paper is good....dontcha think? Imagine if we didn't have it. Eeeewwwww!

Answer 9

definite, i think of there is the style of outrage as evil. it fairly is father is devil, its beginnings in the international got here via devil, Adam, and Eve. there is the style of outrage as a results of fact the absence as good, yet this and evil are no longer equivalent. The absence of excellent isn't something. Evil is something.

Answer 10

Hmmm, what you and I see as evil and or good may differ in a few MINOR respects, or so I hope.... beating a child?? good or evil ??? Murdering an elderly person or any person, just to kill ?? good or evil ? locking a child in the closet for months with no food or water ?? good or evil ?? a serial killer on the loose, is he ? good or evil ?? burning a dog while alive just to hear him howl or watch him die ? good or evil ? detatch from *human* veiws ?? how is that possible ? we are born *human* and we die *human*.... we feel the pain..... our hearts break..... we reach out to each other in times of need..... we cry with and for each other ..... we scream and holler for and at injustice..... detatch ?? ohhhh, I pray NEVER..... we would kill our young at birth..... we would kill our old...... we would kill the homeless.... we would let the hungry starve....... we would let the cold die a frozen death..... we would let the serial killer roam the earth free to kill........ *sigh*.........everything has a name...... right is good..... wrong is evil....... even in the *out house* animal kingdom mourning is done for the loss of a young one.... howls are heard for pain..... they limp, bleed, lay down in death...... Killing is not evil in their world, it is done for survival and food.... the is this line which a *human* can cross, but it takes you into a different deminsion/zone of life...... go in peace....... God bless