budicca-- I am glad we are now getting along. I apologize again for putting your name and the Nazi's in the same ... more(+)
budicca-- I am glad we are now getting along. I apologize again for putting your name and the Nazi's in the same sentence. i should of just made my point without mentioning your name. I really meant no offense or literal comparison. I also may sound too arrogant in my choice of words, but I dont intend to be. I just like to explain my ideas directly. I also enjoy your insights. Your last post gave me plenty to think about. Both sides always learn in a debate and wisdom prospers. I hope we can continue.
What is Good and what is Evil depends on your point of view. If there were ONE simple definition of it, that would that mean that Good and Evil are absolute and that Good is Good and Evil is Evil no matter what perspective you view it from. Let's say that's true. By that logic, that would mean that there exists in our universe one perspective from which everything is TRUE or ideal (Plato described very similar concept). Who or what would hold that perspective? That has very powerful implications. Now let's say that there is such an Ideal Perspective. All principles of relativity go out the window and the work of people like Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawkins, Carl Sagan and anyone basing their work on theirs is debunked. The two ideas contradict each other. Unless, of course, we want to say that relativity only holds true for us and excludes whatever holds the Ideal Perspective. Some people may be comfortable with that leap in logic, I, however, have a hard time with it. Many people could argue that Einstein was talking about the experience of motion and time and no bearing the nature of Good and Evil. However, he was concerned with what is True. What he concluded what that there is no one Truth. Each observer has their Truth. Therefore, MY argument is that the human experience, like the experience of motion and time, is relative and the idea of what is good and evil depends on the experience of the observer. And that's not to say that there are no absolutes in the universe. Indeed, according to theory anyway, there is a finite amount of stuff (meaning matter, energy and their derivatives) in universe and it cannot be increased or decreased. There is also the speed of light which is the same no matter what your perspective or how fast you're moving.
And what is considered logical and reasonable are also relative.
I agree that there can never be no truth. My arguments are based on that. I have always believed in Socrates idea that " I know that I know nothing." You can not know anything. You cant even know that a book is a book. However we can know close truths, or workable truths. In other words, we can never know the root, but we can know a sub-root of truth.
We must classify everything to a certain level in order for there to be function. So instead of not-defining a book because we can never know it, we say " A book is a container for information". This becomes sufficient knowledge for us to attempt to use this book and prosper civilization. What I am saying is that you dont have to get to the root of good to have a definition of it. Like everything else, you just have to know it on a sub-root. Civilization can avoid defining good, because of the infinities, and therefore never having good, or we can get the worlds philosophers to come up with a sub-root of good. A definition of a sub-root of Good, that the majority of the populace agrees with. If our race was full of war-mongrels then I guess it would be good to kill. The important thing is that the action has a label. Good or Evil, plus or minus, doesn't matter, just as long as it has a sub-root definition. I agree, that truth is relative, but that amount of difference in truth between all of us is not that great. Most of us all can agree "Thou Shall Not Kill, is good", So this will go number 1 in the world list of Good Actions. The humans from Earth claim "Thou Shall not kill" is a part of the definition of good. Philosophers now have it easier to simplify a definition of good that the majority agrees.
By debating what good is and what evil is, we are trying to get to the closest sub-root that we can agree on. When we start going into infinities then we have gone too far and must find a solution backwards. I present a more general definition of Good and Evil.
Good is an action that is non or least destructive and ,or is helping to others and oneself.
Evil is an action that is destructive and or is damaging to others and or oneself.
remember it does not matter if an action is called good or evil, just as long as it is labeled. I know certain actions would be hard to classify, but never the less should be clasissfied and modified as seen fit.
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You have point, there is a big difference between empirical evidence and faith. Those who operate on faith tend to have a different thought process but it doesn't mean that there's no logic or reasoning behind it. I ask you consider that science, logic and reason all start with assumptions. I believe it was René Descartes who said "I think, therefore I am," meaning that the the fact that one is wondering if they exist is proof enough that they exist. This isn't proof. It's an assumption.
Sure science starts with an assumption, but it doesn't end that way.Descartes "I think therfore I am" is philosophy not science. Science does not answer things that lies in infinities or at the root. Your friend that suffered hallucinations, seeing things that no one else has. His visions logically should be thought of as un true, and is explained by lack of sleep. If the majority of people seen what your friend saw, then we could argue that it is true. The mind can make you see things differently than others, thats why science observations weigh towards the majority. The more people who show the experiment as true, the more true it becomes. But never %100 true. Religion, like I said is based on what we do not see. This is extremely dangerous in a world full of nuclear weapons, for a government to believe in assumptions with no evidence. Science uses math and numbers to explain things, we all see the color red differently, but science puts a specific color red at a precise wave-length in numbers that everyone agrees with, so as to eliminate the bias with our eyes.
We have to believe in what we know. We know we are 1 planet in a universe of stars. We know we are 6 billion people on this planet and we are destroying it with our activity. You can always go deeper and say maybe this reality is just in my mind, and none of it is real. But there is no evidence of this, so there is no reason to believe it. Also we can believe that we must force the world to convert to our religion,so I can get 50 virgins in the after life. And we can believe an infinite amount of things that do not fit with observation. This gets us no-where. Science has the best logical way for finding the closest truths. One-step at a time, closer and closer to the root. While religion jumps right to the root, without ever knowing anything.
-----IS there a purpose?
Here Again I argue not to go into the realms of the root. The root of this question is God, like any other question.
But yes we do have a purpose on a sub-root.
We were created from a process called evolution. After billions of years of evolution we developed awareness of our reality. Now we finally have the power to start understanding this universe that we arose in, but we do not understand it.
The meaning of life, therefore is knowledge. Since we are in a universe that we dont understand, the only course of action is to understand it. This is our purpose. To understand. We can never understand it completely, but understand it we must try. If we could understand the universe then we would be God. So in away our purpose is to get closer to God, buy understanding reality. Religion can never get us there, because you can not understand the root, without understanding all the sub-roots. Only science can take us on the path of our purpose, One step at a time.
In a billion years maybe future humans will have explored the whole galaxy, but if we took a religious path, we would still be on a dieing Earth praying to our God and not really knowing or seeing anything at all.
People say that the atheist or agnostic can not derive a purpose or morals, you need religion to do that. Knowledge is a purpose derived from logic and reason, and to get knowledge we must respect all life, because each life is a part of knowledge.
Our purpose is to acquire knowledge, and explore the unknown to get knowledge. We must preserve this knowledge and pass it on to our descendants so they can continue the purpose.
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