Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

Nice to see Shakespeare dragged in to this discussion. Let me throw out Othello. Here we have the presentation of a bad/toxic/evil person, Iago, managing to manipulate Othello into a terrible act. There is no actual supernatural agent remotely parallel to the Weird Sisters. Othello is seduced but by a fairly believable mundane figure. We've all known people controlled by entitlement and envy, and if we're paying attention noticed at least shadows of Iago in ourselves, however pale.

Do we need any particular word to think Iago is terrible and Othello extremely flawed? I don't think so. I don't think we need a conception of a transcendent power that pulls people off the path of goodness.

Iago, seen from one angle, is fairly obviously a Satanic figure who uses all available wiles to interfere and destroy a beautiful union. If Othello is Man and Desdemona and ideal representation of Spirit or of the pure soul, then Desdemona is also 'the pearl of great price' which gets destroyed through Iago's machinations. Othello describes himself as

One whose hand / like the base Judean / threw away a pearl / richer than all his tribe

Therefore, it is possible to see Iago as a representative of a metaphysical principle. Iago loves evilness and sets out with absolute studied intentions to do harm to what is good. If I were to define what is *evil* I would say that we require a 'picture' of it in action on the experimental plane, and Iago is such a chilling future. When I first read the play I felt so strongly the depth of the loss that, later, when it was suggested that in many of Shakespeare's plays there is a theological dimension, and certainly the metaphysical dimension, the actions of Iago were brought out in greater relief.

There is no actual supernatural agent remotely parallel to the Weird Sisters

I am not sure if I'd agree with this (if I am understanding what you mean). Iago is more real than the rather theatrical portrayals of the Weird Sisters. He is extremely close to home. A betrayer very close at hand.

But no matter, I simply think it wise to grasp the metaphysical principles on which Christian belief is founded. It seems to me that *the picture* still has metaphysical validity.

This is in keeping with Basil Willey's admonition that we need to avail ourselves of a 'master metaphysician' in order to understand ourselves and also what is going on around us.

[promethean75]

1897, British South Regiment, Ghanda

[sound of horses lazily clopping along]

I say, Patsy, what's that man doing there?

Dispensing his neighbor for dinner, sir.

By the Queen he sure is a remarkably violent fellow, don't you say, Patsy?

Indeed sir....

(for 2 points, complete Patsy's reply with something appropriately clever)

[Alexis Jacobi]

1897, British South Regiment, Ghanda

[sound of horses lazily clopping along]

I say, Patsy, what's that man doing there?

Dispensing his neighbor for dinner, sir.

By the Queen he sure is a remarkably violent fellow, don't you say, Patsy?

Indeed sir....

(for 2 points, complete Patsy's reply with something appropriately clever)

"A man's got to eat, sir ..."

[Gary Childress]

Is there such a thing as a non-wicked "ideology"?

Possibly. But it's an irrelevant point. I only used the word to substitute for "evil," since people don't like that word.

What would you call Nazism? Would you regard it as "wicked," or merely "bad," or merely "unfortunate"?

If "Nazism" was responsible for the murder of 6 million Jews and responsible for the war that was fought during its dominance in Germany at the time (a war that resulted in unbelievable destruction of life) then YES, "Nazism" is evil.

[promethean75]

no that's not it at all, AJ. it would be a phrase play off 'being a guest for dinner' or 'having one over for dinner' of some kind. ya know like 'indeed, when being a guest for dinner means that u won't be having the pot roast but will be the pot roast, sir' but that's not funny either. too drawn out, but u got the idea.

[Gary Childress]

1897, British South Regiment, Ghanda

[sound of horses lazily clopping along]

I say, Patsy, what's that man doing there?

Dispensing his neighbor for dinner, sir.

By the Queen he sure is a remarkably violent fellow, don't you say, Patsy?

Indeed sir....

(for 2 points, complete Patsy's reply with something appropriately clever)

This ain't Kansas. Should we turn around and go back, sir?

[ThinkOfOne]

The possibility of abuse of something, however, is no argument against its right use. The same could be said of all language: propagandists can abuse it. So there's really no compelling argument from that observation, I think, except that we be vigilant as to how a term is being employed.

For many, in the US anyway, it has become a "dog whistle" term.

Ironically, the term "dog whistle" is itself a Leftist dog whistle. Sensible folks tend not to buy into that nonsense.

Let's see what you did here. You edited out the bulk of the text of my previous post from your quote of it and attacked it as if that's all I had to say. It's dishonest. Unfortunately, that isn't at all out of character for you. You do that type thing all the time.

Following is the text my previous post in its entirety:

For many, in the US anyway, it has become a "dog whistle" term. They hear the whistle and react. It's why Trump employs it so often. Where's the "vigilance" from Christians? If Christians want to preserve its "right use", why haven't they done so? Perhaps because so many are busy reacting to and/or sounding the whistle?

Trump employs the term "evil" because he knows that so many Christians will emotionally and mindlessly react and resound the whistle. He's the puppet master and they're more than happy to have their strings pulled. It makes them feel good to demonize others. For all intents and purposes, they are the very "wolves in sheep's clothing" that Jesus warned about. It's mind-boggling.

[promethean75]

workable, maybe, but watch your dialect and idiom. these guys are 19th century british, not Midwestern american frontiersmen.

[Gary Childress]

workable, maybe, but watch your dialect and idiom. these guys are 19th century british, not Midwestern american frontiersmen.

My bad. How about this?

"I came here for tea and crumpets, sir. Where are the tea and crumpets?"

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Immanuel Can]

If "Nazism" was responsible for the murder of 6 million Jews and responsible for the war that was fought during its dominance in Germany at the time (a war that resulted in unbelievable destruction of life) then YES, "Nazism" is evil.

So there IS a proper application of the term.

QED.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Trump employs the term "evil" because he knows that so many Christians will emotionally and mindlessly react and resound the whistle. He's the puppet master and they're more than happy to have their strings pulled. It makes them feel good to demonize others. For all intents and purposes, they are the very "wolves in sheep's clothing" that Jesus warned about.

The problem that I see with your partisan stance, and the declaration that comes out of that stance, is that though it is certainly true that there is a great deal of projection by many in the Trump-MAGA camp, and their usage of symbolism that defines the Democrat Left as demonically-inclined, it would be a mistake in my opinion not to see the opposing camp (i.e. the Democrat Left to use a general term) as also being involved, though in different ways, in a similarly oriented metaphysic.

But the fact of the matter is that there are things that are going on today -- cultural and social manifestations -- which people, some people anyway, have a hard time defining without resorting to metaphysical ideas. I can cite one example that struck me when I was examining the wide range of theories and interpretations of the 9/11 events.

Now, the picture being presented in one specific presentation I studied was that *What you think you see happening here is a sort of façade. You need to see through the façade in order to accurately see *the real truth*.

And the reference made was to Ephesians 6:12:

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Now, I suggest that we can examine the assertion *from a certain distance* and that doing so will help us to better understand our world and how people are seeing things (current events, the direction of things).

There is a metaphysical assertion that is put forward, and then, as a necessary consequence, the assertion must be interpreted. That is the hermeneutical function: in application.

On the opposing side of the cultural coin -- though I suppose this is more difficult for those who have made those specific commitments to see it (to introspect) -- they also cast shade upon those they (genuinely) believe are the enemies of righteousness. Those portrayed in that way are backward, unsophisticated, and dedicated to regressive ideas that are highly vilified. It is a demonology in its own right. Yet I would agree that it is dressed up to seem more 'enlightened' and sophisticated.

Many who do think and write on these topic notice and point out that the assumptions and presuppositins of Left-Progressivism today shares many features in common with religious zealotry. The first element being a sheer and stubborn *certainty* of being in the right, and of being correctly and righteously situated metaphysically (though they do not describe things in metaphysical terms).

They present themselves as being *God's own righteous children* and they do declare that what they propose, and their activism, and the things they are activists for, are 'supported' or 'condoned' by something never questioned intimately: their own metaphysical assertions.

I introduce these comments simply because they are interesting and considerable as the conversation proceeds. (Not to necessarily take one side or the other).

[Immanuel Can]

For many, in the US anyway, it has become a "dog whistle" term.

Ironically, the term "dog whistle" is itself a Leftist dog whistle. Sensible folks tend not to buy into that nonsense.

Let's see what you did here. You edited out the bulk of the text of my previous post from your quote of it and attacked it as if that's all I had to say.

I ignored the "Trump" comment, due to its total irrelevancy to anything that matters here. I don't live in the US, and am not a member of any party there, and quite frankly find current American politics revolting and absurd. So I feel no particular interest in that slant at all.

Out of charity, I ignored the dig at Christians, because it simply wasn't true; but neither did I bite you for it.

However, I criticized the dog-whistle idea because it's simply a rather silly, projected Leftist meme. Leftists think their opponents must run on "dog whistle" terms only because the Left does. They use words like: oppression, colonialism, racism, indigenous, equity, marginalization, sexism, -phobia, and a whole lot of other rubbish jargon to generate emotion in their useful-idiot followers.

That's because they're inherently collectivists, and think like collectivists, and actually despise diversity -- though they use it as yet another dog-whistle term, pretending they like it. They actually despise anybody who does not instantly agree with them, and regard them as "not critically conscious,"and thus, according to their understanding, as "not fully humanized," and therefore subhuman. But the center and right tend to be much more fractious and divided, emphasizing things like liberty, choice, individualism, personal effort, equality of opportunity, merit, achievement, non-coercion, personal rights, and so forth...which means they have much more actual diversity of opinion on the center and right than they ever do on the Left, and that they tolerate it.

"Dog whistles," I suspect, if somebody ever tried to employ them on the center and right, would be far less effective or even useless there; they would only ever appeal to some small fraction of the whole.

I think the term is silly. I would never use it, except as a self-chosen term applied to the Left. Nobody with a lick of sense pays any attention to it.

[Gary Childress]

Ironically, the term "dog whistle" is itself a Leftist dog whistle. Sensible folks tend not to buy into that nonsense.

Let's see what you did here. You edited out the bulk of the text of my previous post from your quote of it and attacked it as if that's all I had to say.

I ignored the "Trump" comment, due to its total irrelevancy to anything that matters here. I don't live in the US, and am not a member of any party there, and quite frankly find current American politics revolting and absurd. So I feel no particular interest in that slant at all.

Out of charity, I ignored the dig at Christians, because it simply wasn't true; but neither did I bite you for it.

However, I criticized the dog-whistle idea because it's simply a rather silly, projected Leftist meme. Leftists think their opponents must run on "dog whistle" terms only because the Left does. They use words like: oppression, colonialism, racism, indigenous, equity, marginalization, sexism, -phobia, and a whole lot of other rubbish jargon to generate emotion in their useful-idiot followers.

That's because they're inherently collectivists, and think like collectivists, and actually despise diversity -- though they use it as yet another dog-whistle term, pretending they like it. They actually despise anybody who does not instantly agree with them, and regard them as "not critically conscious,"and thus, according to their understanding, as "not fully humanized," and therefore subhuman. But the center and right tend to be much more fractious and divided, emphasizing things like liberty, choice, individualism, personal effort, equality of opportunity, merit, achievement, non-coercion, personal rights, and so forth...which means they have much more actual diversity of opinion on the center and right than they ever do on the Left, and that they tolerate it.

"Dog whistles," I suspect, if somebody ever tried to employ them on the center and right, would be far less effective or even useless there; they would only ever appeal to some small fraction of the whole.

I think the term is silly. I would never use it, except as a self-chosen term applied to the Left. Nobody with a lick of sense pays any attention to it.

If everyone were right, then would anyone be left? And if so, who?

[Harbal]

If, by evil, you are only referring to a particular degree of badness, then it seems I have misunderstood your use of the word. I was under the impression you meant more than that by it.[/wuote]
More? What "more"?

Could you really not think of anything stronger?

Genocide. See my last response to Iwanna.

"Genocide is nasty": does that seem a reasonable description to you?

Certainly more reasonable than saying genocide isn't nasty. But, again, you chose the word, "nasty", specifically because of its inadequacy. "Genocide is an atrocity": Does that seen an unreasonable description to you? Or what about abomination, or genocide is monstrous?

You're into the same problem: none of those words is better than "evil." For one thing, "abomination" is a religious word, and unless I misunderstand your point, I think you want to get rid of religion-implying terms. And "monstrous"? That can just mean "very big," and thus totally lack any pejorative connotation.

I'm not into any problem. I can easily dispense with the word, "evil", without any problems, and have quite happily been doing so for a long time.

I think I see what bothers you; correct me, if I'm wrong.

You don't like that it might possibly be construed to suggest there is a common nature in "evil" things, one that raises the question not just of actions but of motives. Have I come near to your concern?

Well yes, I thought I had already made that clear.

Human nature at its worst, coupled with a particular set of circumstances.

But why "worst"?

I'm not condoning the Holocaust: rather, I'm asking why that word strikes you as apt. If the Holocaust is an expression of human nature, and human nature is nothing more than an expression of the larger, impersonal world of Nature, then "better" and "worse" are gratuitious terms. Getting pulled down by lions is "worse" for the individual gazelle, but "better" for the lions, and possibly (according to survival of the fittest) "better" for the herd and "better" for evolutionary development. So gazelle death isn't really so bad.

But with the Holocaust, we (rightly, I think) want to say much more. We want to say that it was a horrendous badness, of such a kind that it truly DOES shake the very foundations of our confidence in human nature. And I don't think I'm at all alone in that impression, even among non-Jews and raw secularists. The Holocaust was a consummate disillusionment moment in the 20th Century, one with lessons embedded in it that should never be forgotten -- not least of which is the one you're decrying, namely that human nature, which we are sometimes tempted to valourize and worship, is capable not merely of great achievement but in that achievement, also of unspeakable evil.

I use the word, "worst", because the element of human nature in question is a threat to me, which obviously alarms me, and it is also a threat to every one else, which concerns me. I would rather live in a world where things like genocide didn't happen, and so would most people, I imagine.

To understand why such things happen, and in turn figure out how to prevent them from happening, we need to better understand human nature, what can go wrong within it, and how it goes wrong.

"Wrong"?

You see, all that does is replace the pejorative "evil" with the word "wrong." But "wrong" is far more tame.

I think "wrong" is the appropriate word for the context I was using it in.

While ever we attribute such things to the mysterious dark force we call evil, we are not going to get very far in understanding how stop them.

I wonder whether that will turn out to be true; or whether, in refusing even to entertain the postulate that perhaps there is an affinity in all evil, we will simply overlook the basic hypothesis that would give us clarity and understanding about what we're dealing with.

I'm just giving you my opinion that the word, "evil", and its connotations are an obstruction when we are looking for a cure to the ills some of us deliver upon others of us.

In any case, we're not in a position to decide that in advance, are we? I mean, you're not going to say you have evidence that there is no common thread between various kind of evil, I assume, because I can't imagine what such evidence would even look like. So I think we might do better to remain open to all hypotheses, rather than gratuitiously foreclosing on one.

I don't have any evidence about anything that happens within evil, and I wouldn't expect to ever find any, because I don't accept that the word, "evil", has an existent referent.

[Harbal]

I would have no difficulty in using the word, "evil", as an adjective that means extremely bad if everyone else used it in exactly the same way, but they don't. The word has religious, super natural connotations for many people, which distorts the truth of the situation.

How do you know that's "the truth of the situation?"

I don't say it is the truth of the situation, just that it is my firm opinion that it is the truth of the situation.

If we want to stop genocide from happening, then surely it would be better to study what is going on in the minds of the people who commit it, rather than looking towards the sky and bewailing the existence of evil in the world.

Oh, that's not a necessary choice. One can do both. Susan Neiman, in her study of evil, mentions two types of "evil," which she designates "natural evils" and "human evils." The "natural evils," she thinks, are things like earthquakes and tornadoes, or more arguably, cancer -- things that have no definite human agency involved. "Human evils" are things like Hitler's, or Stalin's, or Mao's evil deeds, or the predations of an ordinary criminal. So nobody need deny both.

Interestingly, Neiman doesn't even entertain the possibility you're worried about: she never mentions anything about "supernatural evil." She doesn't seem to think the two (natural, human) have more than a passing resemblance with each other, and she doesn't seem to think anything supernatural is involved at all.

I don't know Susan Neiman, and I'm not interested in what she says. Nothing I have said has anything to do with Susan Neiman.

Nevertheless, if "evil" or "badness" is NOT capable of being "natural," far less "supernatural," then that claim needs to be shown. Otherwise, we would be wise to leave it an open question. I can see no justification for foreclosing on it. That just seems rash. For what if we are missing something, and the people who think "evil" ought to be applied to natural or supernatural things turn out to be right? Then we would have gelded our ability to recognize and deal with evil...which is the very outcome about which you express concern.

In my view, the only sensible way of dealing with evil, is by getting rid of the word.

And I don't hate the idea of God; I have no emotional response to the idea of God. I do hate that some people look to God for answers to the serious problems we have in the world, because it diverts them from looking for answers in the right places.

Well, that, too would be merely assumptive: it is not evident that anybody has evidence that looking to God is "the wrong place." One would already have to be an Atheist to think that...and as we know, Atheism has no evidence to justify itself, let alone such a deduced claim.

Yes, it is assumptive. I assume that the ridiculous myth of God is complete nonsense.