bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 6:31 pm
K1Barin wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:33 pm
bahman wrote: ↑Wed Jan 25, 2023 5:06 pm
No, good is then the absence of evil which is 0 according to your logic.
You have a obvious flaw of Logic in that. When I say 1 is good, I don't say 0 is evil. 0 is nothing and of no importance. That is where the positive weight comes from. If 1 is good, Logic is based on good or nothing. And if 1 is evil, Logic is based on evil or nothing. Good and evil are not absence of each other; they are negative of each other.
Some Christians that I used to discuss with them think that evil is the absence of good.
Not merely "absence," but "negation" of "corruption" of, as well. If evil merely meant negation of good, then it would be neutral, not negative.
So, for example, "animosity" is not merely "the absence of affection." "Absence of affection" might better be called "indifference," or "coldness" or "lack of engagement." If we call something "evil," it must go beyond the merely neutral.
But what is the case is that evil is not a thing-in-itself. It depends on the corruption, destruction or misdirection of something positive.
Why not assign God as evil?
The point, I think, is that the property "evil" being merely a corruption, destruction or negation of "good" -- is a dependent property on the existence of those properties it would negate. There has to be the positive if the negation is going to exist. So before you claim "evil" has happened, you already must know there is a thing called "good." And you must imagine you know what that "good" is.
In this case, it might be, "the good is for people to be alive," and "the evil is for them to die in earthquakes." Okay, then...something evil is causing earthquakes, plausibly. But prior to that, there has to be something good that grounds the existence of living beings deserving of not being killed...and since you want to say that "god" is evil, you can't allow that the same "god" is good, or is the source of the good you're wanting to question the negation of.
That's hard to get you head around, maybe. But it's a real problem.
So you would have to be thinking there were at least two "creators," one that created good, and one that corrupted it to evil. But if you do that step, two problems immediately appear:
1. If you assign them the same weight, then you have no Supreme Being. So the concept "God" no longer applies to it, since "Supreme Being" is one of the true synonyms of "God." So you would have to say you don't believe in God, but in "gods." And you'd be a polytheist. And you'd have to say there is an evil "god" or "gods," but also good "gods." So now you've wrecked your thesis that THE God, the Supreme Being, could be evil.
2. If you assign the "god" to which you attribute the good the status of superiority to the "god" to which you attribute evil, (which you would have to, since evil is derivative an inferior to good) then you could plausilbly be talking about a Supreme Being again. But then He's good, not evil. And then you've got something like what's described Biblically, and one wonders why you bothered.
And there's a further problem. It might be even more serious.
Whichever you do, you need an objective set of criteria by which to judge the status of each. But those criteria cannot be borrowed from any reference to the "gods" themselves, since the purpose of the objective set of critieria is to give you solid grounds upon which to JUDGE both. But from where are you going to get such a set of criteria, since you cannot now refer to creation or to the Supreme Being in order to ground your concept of justice?
So now you've lost your basis for judgment, and are thrown back on making your statement read, "Evil means 'whatever Bauman dislikes,'" a definition bound to satisify nobody, not even yourself, since you know full well you're not the center of the universe or the unimpeachable grounds of truth.
So to get your criteria to say, (as you suggest) that "God is evil," where do you go? Where is the location of the objective moral criteria to make justifiable your indictment? From where, or what, will you draw them?
So you can't "assign" anything. You're not qualified to know whether or not something is objectively evil or good, because you have no grounds or basis for either assessment.
Ironically, to make the claim "I think God might be evil," you would need to draw your criteria from the Author of Good, i.e. from a Monotheistic, good God.
