Boil it down enough, and I think that foolish pride is at the root of all evil.
This can cover all things, including the two you mentioned. The illusion of separation is pride generated. And what psychological dysfunction cannot be traced back to a damaged self-image? (Even ones happening chemically within the brain and beyond the conscious control of the sufferer. Even congenital ones)
Furthermore, issues of foolish pride are what has us abusing others; disrespecting them; playing games on or with them; neglecting them; lacking compassion and consideration for them; splitting into factions.
The more I break this down the more inclusions, and the fewer exclusions there seems to be.
@griz all sins are pride biblically… but lack of them doesn’t fill one’s stomach, cover one’s body, provide shelter, or get one anything else one needs in and of itself. For if it could, we’d be doing what the temptation of Jesus was told to do “turn these stones into bread!”
@Jear77
Not just “biblically”. You need to throw off the influences of that religion and learn to look and think for yourself. Foolish pride is logistically the root of all sin as well.
You are still looking for a juvenile’s equation; where being a “good boy” results in something akin to spoiling: having all your needs pumped in via umbilical cord.
Re-read Matthew 5 & 6. Getting spiritual “first things first” doesn’t mean we can stay in the proverbial womb, with no need or expectation of conscious growth and change.
If you could wave a wand and remove all need or expectation to grow and mature . . . I think you would.
@griz not at all! But growth needs to be based on us, our circumstances, our choices, on what we ourselves desire, and at our own pace, centered around what we are doing. AND furthermore if we’re happy with where we’re at it should be our right to stay put for the time being. This idea of constant growth, constant improvement, constant needing to be better, “righter with god,” have god more in control of your life is problematic in that the idea contains a seed of “if you’re not growing, becoming better, becoming more than you were a second ago, you’re dying” which i find distasteful because it’s forcefulness is artificial and needlessly stressful.
@Jear77
Left entirely up to them, a lot of children would not choose to go to school. Our inherent nature is to like being fed via umbilical cord.
I know the generation gap yawns wide; but seriously Jear?? You seriously believe a child’s contentment to remain in an ignorance state is valid reason to leave them there?? Or that their trepidation to face tests and trials is valid reason to excuse them from them?? As in, “Seriously, man”?
Both the Bible in good parenting allow for the taking of breaks. But you seem to champion a cause where the break lasts a lifetime! Or at least until stagnation and frustration set in; because one has lost so much ground and momentum that it’s hard to get going again. This is a VERY human foible.
And I would assert that you were stressed in your religious endeavors, because that’s what religion does! It is trying to do the impossible: namely to earn spiritual favor based on physical deeds. I don’t know what kind of fucked-up version of the Bible you studied: but if it told you this it is not the word of Truth.
And pissing and moaning that you followed a lie, is no reason to lay down and stop looking for the Truth
@griz in this day and age of the internet traditional school is unnecessary, obsolete, and problematic (at least in the USA) with the purpose of creating cookie cutter people! Furthermore there’s a trend of unschooling where the student gets a chance to choose their own curriculum. Not so with the rest of life, with the problems that it can bring. VERY often people go through “the school of hard knocks.” And heaven/ the concept of the afterlife doesn’t seem all it’s “cracked up to be”
In regards to a religion vs, relationship scenario, I don’t see it, and if the “person” who is at the center of this relationship needs to be sought I no longer have the time, energy, or desire to seek it out, as I see the problems with such, and want nothing to do with it. I can’t and refuse to spend any more time on anything unless it benefits me in THIS life, in THESE circumstances. I can’t, won’t believe in anything I can neither test nor control. I can only control one thing: ME — anything else I will let go of without a second thought and move on from its influence – and without regret.
@Jear77
Substitute ” learning” for ” going to school”.
You are like the man who waited for 3 weeks at the wrong bus stop for the number 10 bus to arrive. And now you are angry and want to sue the city.
The basis of your suit is that they could do whatever they wanted to within the city limits; and they could have made the number 10 bus stop there.
The Bible makes no secret of the fact that religious works do not ” render God unto you”.
@griz your analogy makes no sense. You’re comparing the physical to the infinite in every sense of the word. A city is a collection of physical objects. The god of the bible is not only not physical but said to be all powerful, everywhere, everywhen, and can use its power however it wants to – limited only by itself. If it chooses to limit, shackle its own power, it’s not on me or mine — it only has itself to blame for others disbelief when it could choose to exercise its power in a way that would allow others to believe.
@Jear77
The analogy works because your own words reveal a man who tried to acquire something spiritual through purely physical means.
The Bible is clear that God cannot be found there.
And you are now vexed by power with an intent that is not entirely within our scientific grasp?? ( essentially you want God to bow to us . . . or perhaps more accurately, to you?)
The course of spiritual maturity and learning that God has set out before us is rather brilliant. And giving us a free choice in participating or not, is awesome.
And regenerating us over time by fellowship with his Spirit using our own innate curiosity and desire to exeed what we currently are, is a masterpiece.
But if you want to whine that ‘ you don’t like the color of it’ . . . that too is your freedom. And the consequences of actions you have been warned about the folly of, are your right and freedom too!
Remember, we are talking about a man who had the answers in his hands; but chose a religion identical to the one that Christ made obsolete.
@Jear77
Even though the physical realm can only end in death, spiritual pursuit DOES provide abundant physical benefit; as well as benefits that COULD transcend.
And in connecting with “the real thing”, one tends to realize such a sufficiency of benefits here in the physical that even if there is no “spiritual”, the pursuit is very worth it!
But it’s starting to sound that despite your years of religious service and reciting “the magic words” of accepting Jesus into your heart, you could never truly accept God as God.
Because you proceeded to waste years trying to do of your own will and works, that which only God can do. Your ego never submitted.
@griz keep in mind that god is all powerful and everywhere at once for a moment. Every time someone disagrees with god they could be struck by lightning, some sort of nasty disease, some awful tragedy, or simply death and it would be quite easy to prove it was based on disobeying god. Millions upon millions of people would constantly be having this happen to them DAILY! The fact that it doesn’t makes no sense if he truly wants his way.
@Jear77
Theologians who study this call it the difference between God’s Sovereign will and his Divine will.
In human terms it’s the difference between what you have the power to do and what you ultimately do. A true gentleman exercises this difference all the time.
Again you try to foist the most devilish aspects of human nature upon God; because the religion you counted on for your salvation is just an echo of human foibles; with no spiritual truth or substance beyond this.
And your switch to atheism is not escaping from this pattern. It’s simply removing the facade that it’s about God: rather than just about us in our flesh in our feelings and our desires
I know there’s plenty of bad, wrong, sick, and twisted things in this world, and a good number of them are perpetrated by us humans on one another… yet “evil” I’m not sure I believe in anymore, at least not as such that most people call it.
Moreover there are other events that are outside our control due to various reasons. For instance a storm that takes away everything from a person, or an accident that is caused by a flaw in manufacturing that causes many deaths before it’s recalled to be fixed. Or what about if we’re in a hurry and grab a burger, fries, and soda (pop)- is the unhealthy levels of bad cholesterol, fats, salt, and sugar evil?
Getting back to people – not things outside of our control — Despite the fact that people’s behaviors may be wrong for any number of reasons, motivations may be off, thought processes may not be logical. The problem I see about calling something evil is it gives people’s behaviors a personification or some exterior boogeyman to blame the world’s problems on. By doing this we say the person who hurt us (or that other person) needs a security blanket to modify our behaviors called “salvation through Christ” — and even the best among that community still have the exact same problems that everyone else has — and at day’s end no better off overall, so where’s the benefit?
What if what we consider to be wrong, or bad, or evil might simply be a disagreement in priorities, a misunderstanding, a different motivation, a lashing out, an act or series of actions hurt others mentally, socially, physically, or sexually. And those things can be examined through the lens of science to be able to say what’s going on in their heads.
@Jear77
The mindset of “a boogeyman to blame” is still a juvenile process of denying responsibility. “No Temptation assails you save that which is common to Man”.
Meaning that some succumb and some don’t. Furthermore there is a great deal of choice involved in whether we succumb or not.
Religion “gets off” I’m trying to make sin “juicier” than the Bible presents it; and introduces “hierarchies of sin” — much like you are still trying to do: saying that some are Uber bad and others are not so bad — even excusable.
“Salvation through Christ” is not a behavior modifier: it is the beginning of a relationship. If the only reason you are with a partner is to modify your behavior, you are committing a vile usage of them. ( which interestingly, Falls firmly into the category of prideful sin).
Trespass certainly can happen from misunderstanding. But a child will try to use and over-milk that excuse. And at this point it changes from misunderstanding to willful misuse; and changes from childish ignorance, to intentional commission/omission of an evil.
And these are the actions that eternity judges us on. And evil is what it is; and not just what our ego thinks it should be.
One can only get away with saying, ” I didn’t know I didn’t understand” a limited number of times.
Especially when expectations, and responsibilities, and natural consequences are so well laid out
@griz you’re neglecting the fact that there’s also the thing that natural weather and manufacturer defects and the evils of things added to our food which we shouldn’t consume due to their unhealthiness in our daily lives – things outside our direct control which also may be considered evil that gives us problems!
@griz give me the movie, book, or other source you keep quoting! I have ZERO reference for that. The culture source behind that saying is lost to me completely.
@griz Back to your original answer. I was using hyperbole — I know the believer is supposed to be changing their OWN behavior out of love of the divine, and as time goes on less and less behaviors that are undesirable to god are supposed to happen. But my point was this: change is not only still needed, but demanded, and a more and more perfect nature results. I’m flawed, going to mess up no matter what. Trying harder doesn’t help, neither would having any type of relationship because it goes under the thought that the relationship can change a person. Ask any married couple if the husband ultimately changes the wife or visa versa. It NEVER happens for ANY reason! A relationship with god is no different.
@Jear77
You are so close to my friend! Love for the Divine gives us the desire to change. But we mostly lack the tools to change our physical nature. Religion would have us continually struggle to try, and then castigate us for failing.
Do you recognize this process?
And there is validity in saying that humans tend to become like those they hang out with. There is a difference however between the individual desiring change, and another trying to force it upon them.
That’s the difference between good relationship and toxicity masquerading as relationship.
@griz I am at the point i no longer wish to even try to change, to improve unless it suits me and only as it suits me – without any outside influences. And if that causes problems, that’s on the other person — not on me.
@Jear77
And isn’t that the core of the problem? You’ve only ever looked for a Salvation that suited you. The desires and understanding and convenience of your flesh.
Because that is what religion is.
It is us trying to craft something to our liking: something we can physically use and predict and manipulate and . . . master!
The common theme to all of your gripes . . . is that the things your flesh did, did not make you God’s master!
@griz If god can say my way or no way, so can i, and so it seems we’re at an impassable point once again. I’m not going to change… and the god of the bible is incapable of doing so, which means at day’s end I have no ability to believe.
@Jear77
You have and preserve the ability to believe.
You’ve always believed . . . in just your own ability to “save your soul” (hence your belief and “faith” in religious works) — but attached a facade-du-God on it.
All you’ve done now, is removed the facade.
Actually, God says there is a way other than His: but that we won’t like it. And even this is just another example of how you’ve substituted your own Human characteristics upon God to cast Him as objectionable.
I would suggest that you may have never really and truly, allowed God to be God — to be anything more than just an extension of yourself to be mastered and controlled.
And this may be why you never truly experienced the salvation experience.
I’ve asked you several times to share about it. I thought you might just be stubborn in refusing. But now I see that one cannot share from something they never had.
You’re tossing away something . . . that you never really tried.
@griz everyone does what is necessary for themselves. It’s one of the reasons we are all different. A god that tries to be all things to all people by being unable to change only ends up being nothing to no one.
@Jear77
But “necessities” that never exceed the flesh of the moment (the feelings, urges), is our downfall. It makes us “changeable” in the moment, and selfish unto schizophrenic duplicitousness.
The aspect of God being eternal and unchangeable personification of ultimate good, is the “anchor” for a species that really really loves to be tossed on the waves of feelings and emotions — going one way one moment, then the other in the next moment.
And I KNOW you want to do a rant on your perceived failings of God in this regard. I would simply remind you that all of your rants to date have just been you trying to project the failings of Humanity upon God. Which as I’ve said is understandable seeing as how you’ve only known religion; which is just us trying to make God walk in our shoes and be like us.
You will find no peace, no joy, no answers, until you break out of this religious cycle.
@griz i know you say that atheism is a religious system of beliefs, but it’s really not. If science were the textbook for people who don’t believe or at minimum don’t have a relationship with Life as you call it, the tenants of one’s beliefs would change literally moment by moment according to the scientific literature of the day. Atheists would constantly be at the forefront of both the hard and soft sciences, having no interest outside such, as they would use it to examine, explain, and logically disect every aspect of their lives. They would be distant, cold, emotionless as computers, if science were truly their god, they would be incapable of logical fallacies, and would always do statistically most beneficial thing. “Data” and “Spock” from Star Trek would be their role-models. But such is simply not true.
And there are plenty of people who aren’t into this relationship with Life and are completely fine.
@jear77
Religion would still be the physical activities, rituals, and thought patterns we rely on to render us and safe and right, whether you or I identify it as such or not. People use atheism religiously therefore it’s a religion to them: with almost all the traditional markers of religion that we only want to see in deistic religions. (Proselytizing, stubborn adherence despite logic and reason, attacking on its behalf, judging and condemning, seeing challenges to it as attacks on them personally)
Science is a good tool for everyone. But relying on it alone as our salvation will turn it into a religion like any other.
You have seen in church religions that people can spin them hard and cold or soft and squish-warm! The same can be done with any religion.
Your key problem remains that you stubbornly refuse to identify what bit and infected you. And if you don’t do this you are at high risk of being bit by the same thing again.
I once knew a man that I regarded as evil. He had a hard childhood. His Grandfather molested him and raped him. He was placed in an orphanage when his mother needed to get her boys away from her own father’s abuse. The boy was raped by older boys in the orphanage. He got into trouble and was placed in a juvenile reform school — where he was raped. His mother got him out of the juvenile facility and sent him to the Catholic church. He became an alter boy — and raped by the Priest. What a horrible childhood!!! His mother brought her sons across the country to California. She had her boy work for the Catholic church and the Priest at St. Catherine’s raped him.
I knew nothing of his horrid past when I met him. He was an obedient boy. He had a charismatic personality that made everyone like him. He was popular without having to be a sports hero. He was a mama’s boy to a mother that I wished could be my own mother. She was the most like Marion Cunningham, the mother on Happy Days, as any woman I have ever known. I loved being his friend in high school. I knew he was gay, but it was fun to hang with him and say he was my boyfriend. I married him for what was the shortest marriage of my life. His mother ended it after only 20 minutes and kicked me out of her house and away from her son.
He went into the Army becoming a cook and then sent to Vietnam, where he became a machine gunner that rides in the mid-section of the helicopter and shoots Vietnamese. When he returned from that war, he was changed — just a bit insane. He and I lived together, but I took my sons and left him when he molested my sons. It was my first hint that he had a big problem. I did not want my sons being part of that. We got away from him.
He went to live with his mother and molested neighbor boys. He went to prison twice for molestation —- and perhaps rape of little boys. I was there to hold his mother’s hand during heartbreaking trials. Finally, he was to be released and he told the Judge he wanted to stay in the prison population. The Judge dismissed his request to stay in prison. He stood before the Judge and said that if killing would get him placed back in prison, he would start the day of his release. Judge William Keen threw him out of the courtroom!
This is where he became what I later regarded as pure evil. I did not know it, at the time, but while working as a trucker, he began to rape and murder young boys and young men. The evil was that he chose to murder. It was a conscious CHOICE. He even got my own cousin involved in the murders. In the course of one year, he killed 44 young boys and young men. His family and friends were not aware that he was the Freeway Killer the police were looking for. Each day, he would show up for work and over coffee he would look in the news paper and say, “The Freeway Killer got another boy and the police have not caught him, yet.”
All I knew, at the time, was that a killer was on the loose and all of the victims listed in the newspaper looked like my own two sons. That frightened me. I became protective of my two sons. I would take them over to Alice’s house to go swimming in the pool —— never aware that her son was the Freeway Killer. He would come home and be the sweet son that he had always seemed to be. No one suspected him.
He called the police after a year of killing. He turned himself in and it took the LAPD a full week of following him before they arrested him. I sat by his mother’s side in the trials and when he was sentenced to San Quentin State Prison’s Death Row. It was shocking to know that William Bonin was a person that could be so evil and unfeeling, lacking in compassion for his victims.
I stayed by his mother’s side and was involved only as her friend for the 13 years her son waited on Death Row for his eventual execution. Then, Alice’s husband took ill and was in the hospital near death when William’s execution was to happen. The family decided to stay away from the prison execution. They visited William the day before he was to be executed. However, they chose to stay by the deathbed of Alice’s husband, Odie. I was sent to spend the last day and to witness the execution and have his remains cremated and scattered at sea. The world was rid of a monster. I think of him as pure evil because he made a choice to commit his crimes. I rented a boat and we sailed 5 miles out from the Golden Gate Bridge and I dumped his ashes in the ocean —– no prayers, He was pure evil and I am glad the world is rid of him.
His stepfather died the same night that William was executed.
@ladybarbara
Evil can work a lot like a viral infection; passed from person to person where if it is not stopped, it reproduces and spreads. (the cycle of abuse, the cycle of sin).
It can be stopped by any one person in the process from spreading farther through them; but they almost always need help to do this.
And in any one person touched by an evil act, there comes a time when they submit to it often enough that they become “owned” by it. (the so-called “slippery slope of sin”)
@ladybarbara
Did he ever get to why he’d do it? Did they ever talk about the compulsion at the trial?
Was it a loss of control or a craving for control? Sorry about all the questions for something acutely personal, but my curiosity is red-lining.
@luftballooneyegouge He made it clear that killing was a choice because it was a way to spend the rest of his life in prison. He said that he didn’t know how many would give him “Life” in prison. He said, “Like taking prunes, is one enough? Is 4 too many?” He figured that he would kill every other week until they caught him. He was arrested for only 12 murders in Los Angeles and 4 murders in Orange County. They suspected that the murder count was 24, and no one thought it was as high as 44. However, on the day of his execution, he confessed that the number was 44.
@luftballooneyegouge You should check out the wikipedia entry on this sicko. 700 hours of active combat could definitely influence his value association with human life and it seems his mother was another active influence. Barb even gets a mention, albeit as the girlfriend with the roller skating hobby. There is no mention about his personal abuse, but that has to be at the root of his psychosis.
I find it difficult to accept that he was doing it just to get caught. It had to be more like a game to him to prove he could get away with it. One? Maybe. 20-44? Definitely feeding a “habit” Even admitting to 44 sounds like another attempt to mind “mess” although I don’t doubt this guy might have. The number of people in total, given his 700 hours behind a machine gun from a chopper, that this guy killed is staggering to consider.
Barb, if you are reading this, the wikipedia entry says the mother encouraged him to get married after high school hoping to get him past his issues. Sounds like there was a “Mommy Dearest” story playing along with the rest of the crap he was dealing with. Any way you look at this story, it was a total shit show.
Hard to point at one thing, but greed has to be one of the top ones. People want, want, want, and the needs of others be damned. It isn’t bad to want things, but how it affects the needs and whatnot of others should be taken into account.
Your description is a pretty thought provoking answer to this question, because it does provide a foundation for many, if not all, of the Seven Deadly Sins.
If I was to try and filter your response even further, it might be based on how we (maybe every single “life” mechanism) are focused on Self above our surroundings.
To use Einstein’s “Everything is relative” phrase in a broader context than even he may have intended; our deep need to evaluate, both quantifiably and qualitatively might be even more foundational than your choices.
I think the very idea of evil is the root of all evil. The thought that there exists some horrible thing out there that we might become infected with or influenced by. Some irresistible presence behind all things bad. For me “evil” is too extreme a concept. It all boils down to choice.
43 responses to “Who or what is really the root of all evil?”
Boil it down enough, and I think that foolish pride is at the root of all evil.
This can cover all things, including the two you mentioned. The illusion of separation is pride generated. And what psychological dysfunction cannot be traced back to a damaged self-image? (Even ones happening chemically within the brain and beyond the conscious control of the sufferer. Even congenital ones)
Furthermore, issues of foolish pride are what has us abusing others; disrespecting them; playing games on or with them; neglecting them; lacking compassion and consideration for them; splitting into factions.
The more I break this down the more inclusions, and the fewer exclusions there seems to be.
@griz all sins are pride biblically… but lack of them doesn’t fill one’s stomach, cover one’s body, provide shelter, or get one anything else one needs in and of itself. For if it could, we’d be doing what the temptation of Jesus was told to do “turn these stones into bread!”
@Jear77
Not just “biblically”. You need to throw off the influences of that religion and learn to look and think for yourself. Foolish pride is logistically the root of all sin as well.
You are still looking for a juvenile’s equation; where being a “good boy” results in something akin to spoiling: having all your needs pumped in via umbilical cord.
Re-read Matthew 5 & 6. Getting spiritual “first things first” doesn’t mean we can stay in the proverbial womb, with no need or expectation of conscious growth and change.
If you could wave a wand and remove all need or expectation to grow and mature . . . I think you would.
Tell me I’m wrong.
@griz not at all! But growth needs to be based on us, our circumstances, our choices, on what we ourselves desire, and at our own pace, centered around what we are doing. AND furthermore if we’re happy with where we’re at it should be our right to stay put for the time being. This idea of constant growth, constant improvement, constant needing to be better, “righter with god,” have god more in control of your life is problematic in that the idea contains a seed of “if you’re not growing, becoming better, becoming more than you were a second ago, you’re dying” which i find distasteful because it’s forcefulness is artificial and needlessly stressful.
@Jear77
Left entirely up to them, a lot of children would not choose to go to school. Our inherent nature is to like being fed via umbilical cord.
I know the generation gap yawns wide; but seriously Jear?? You seriously believe a child’s contentment to remain in an ignorance state is valid reason to leave them there?? Or that their trepidation to face tests and trials is valid reason to excuse them from them?? As in, “Seriously, man”?
Both the Bible in good parenting allow for the taking of breaks. But you seem to champion a cause where the break lasts a lifetime! Or at least until stagnation and frustration set in; because one has lost so much ground and momentum that it’s hard to get going again. This is a VERY human foible.
And I would assert that you were stressed in your religious endeavors, because that’s what religion does! It is trying to do the impossible: namely to earn spiritual favor based on physical deeds. I don’t know what kind of fucked-up version of the Bible you studied: but if it told you this it is not the word of Truth.
And pissing and moaning that you followed a lie, is no reason to lay down and stop looking for the Truth
@griz in this day and age of the internet traditional school is unnecessary, obsolete, and problematic (at least in the USA) with the purpose of creating cookie cutter people! Furthermore there’s a trend of unschooling where the student gets a chance to choose their own curriculum. Not so with the rest of life, with the problems that it can bring. VERY often people go through “the school of hard knocks.” And heaven/ the concept of the afterlife doesn’t seem all it’s “cracked up to be”
In regards to a religion vs, relationship scenario, I don’t see it, and if the “person” who is at the center of this relationship needs to be sought I no longer have the time, energy, or desire to seek it out, as I see the problems with such, and want nothing to do with it. I can’t and refuse to spend any more time on anything unless it benefits me in THIS life, in THESE circumstances. I can’t, won’t believe in anything I can neither test nor control. I can only control one thing: ME — anything else I will let go of without a second thought and move on from its influence – and without regret.
@Jear77
Substitute ” learning” for ” going to school”.
You are like the man who waited for 3 weeks at the wrong bus stop for the number 10 bus to arrive. And now you are angry and want to sue the city.
The basis of your suit is that they could do whatever they wanted to within the city limits; and they could have made the number 10 bus stop there.
The Bible makes no secret of the fact that religious works do not ” render God unto you”.
@griz your analogy makes no sense. You’re comparing the physical to the infinite in every sense of the word. A city is a collection of physical objects. The god of the bible is not only not physical but said to be all powerful, everywhere, everywhen, and can use its power however it wants to – limited only by itself. If it chooses to limit, shackle its own power, it’s not on me or mine — it only has itself to blame for others disbelief when it could choose to exercise its power in a way that would allow others to believe.
@Jear77
The analogy works because your own words reveal a man who tried to acquire something spiritual through purely physical means.
The Bible is clear that God cannot be found there.
And you are now vexed by power with an intent that is not entirely within our scientific grasp?? ( essentially you want God to bow to us . . . or perhaps more accurately, to you?)
The course of spiritual maturity and learning that God has set out before us is rather brilliant. And giving us a free choice in participating or not, is awesome.
And regenerating us over time by fellowship with his Spirit using our own innate curiosity and desire to exeed what we currently are, is a masterpiece.
But if you want to whine that ‘ you don’t like the color of it’ . . . that too is your freedom. And the consequences of actions you have been warned about the folly of, are your right and freedom too!
Remember, we are talking about a man who had the answers in his hands; but chose a religion identical to the one that Christ made obsolete.
@griz I have no desire to learn anything in that way that doesn’t benefit me physically, and therefore, the god of the bible can do nothing for me.
@Jear77
Even though the physical realm can only end in death, spiritual pursuit DOES provide abundant physical benefit; as well as benefits that COULD transcend.
And in connecting with “the real thing”, one tends to realize such a sufficiency of benefits here in the physical that even if there is no “spiritual”, the pursuit is very worth it!
But it’s starting to sound that despite your years of religious service and reciting “the magic words” of accepting Jesus into your heart, you could never truly accept God as God.
Because you proceeded to waste years trying to do of your own will and works, that which only God can do. Your ego never submitted.
@griz if the god of the bible is that picky, i have no use for it.
@Jear77
Of course you do!
Your current “god” is full of the same kind of pickiness!
Why would you keep trying to use something you “have no use for”? You’re just on a quest to show that your pickiness is more “all-powerful”!
@griz keep in mind that god is all powerful and everywhere at once for a moment. Every time someone disagrees with god they could be struck by lightning, some sort of nasty disease, some awful tragedy, or simply death and it would be quite easy to prove it was based on disobeying god. Millions upon millions of people would constantly be having this happen to them DAILY! The fact that it doesn’t makes no sense if he truly wants his way.
@Jear77
Theologians who study this call it the difference between God’s Sovereign will and his Divine will.
In human terms it’s the difference between what you have the power to do and what you ultimately do. A true gentleman exercises this difference all the time.
Again you try to foist the most devilish aspects of human nature upon God; because the religion you counted on for your salvation is just an echo of human foibles; with no spiritual truth or substance beyond this.
And your switch to atheism is not escaping from this pattern. It’s simply removing the facade that it’s about God: rather than just about us in our flesh in our feelings and our desires
I know there’s plenty of bad, wrong, sick, and twisted things in this world, and a good number of them are perpetrated by us humans on one another… yet “evil” I’m not sure I believe in anymore, at least not as such that most people call it.
Moreover there are other events that are outside our control due to various reasons. For instance a storm that takes away everything from a person, or an accident that is caused by a flaw in manufacturing that causes many deaths before it’s recalled to be fixed. Or what about if we’re in a hurry and grab a burger, fries, and soda (pop)- is the unhealthy levels of bad cholesterol, fats, salt, and sugar evil?
Getting back to people – not things outside of our control — Despite the fact that people’s behaviors may be wrong for any number of reasons, motivations may be off, thought processes may not be logical. The problem I see about calling something evil is it gives people’s behaviors a personification or some exterior boogeyman to blame the world’s problems on. By doing this we say the person who hurt us (or that other person) needs a security blanket to modify our behaviors called “salvation through Christ” — and even the best among that community still have the exact same problems that everyone else has — and at day’s end no better off overall, so where’s the benefit?
What if what we consider to be wrong, or bad, or evil might simply be a disagreement in priorities, a misunderstanding, a different motivation, a lashing out, an act or series of actions hurt others mentally, socially, physically, or sexually. And those things can be examined through the lens of science to be able to say what’s going on in their heads.
@Jear77
The mindset of “a boogeyman to blame” is still a juvenile process of denying responsibility. “No Temptation assails you save that which is common to Man”.
Meaning that some succumb and some don’t. Furthermore there is a great deal of choice involved in whether we succumb or not.
Religion “gets off” I’m trying to make sin “juicier” than the Bible presents it; and introduces “hierarchies of sin” — much like you are still trying to do: saying that some are Uber bad and others are not so bad — even excusable.
“Salvation through Christ” is not a behavior modifier: it is the beginning of a relationship. If the only reason you are with a partner is to modify your behavior, you are committing a vile usage of them. ( which interestingly, Falls firmly into the category of prideful sin).
Trespass certainly can happen from misunderstanding. But a child will try to use and over-milk that excuse. And at this point it changes from misunderstanding to willful misuse; and changes from childish ignorance, to intentional commission/omission of an evil.
And these are the actions that eternity judges us on. And evil is what it is; and not just what our ego thinks it should be.
One can only get away with saying, ” I didn’t know I didn’t understand” a limited number of times.
Especially when expectations, and responsibilities, and natural consequences are so well laid out
@griz you’re neglecting the fact that there’s also the thing that natural weather and manufacturer defects and the evils of things added to our food which we shouldn’t consume due to their unhealthiness in our daily lives – things outside our direct control which also may be considered evil that gives us problems!
@Jear77
You still are suffering very greatly under an extremely literal and legalistic religious doctrine my friend.
And you persist in wanting God to be like one of these religious taskmasters that you’ve grown to hate.
But again you are the quintessential man who had a bad experience in Aruba; and never miss an opportunity to rail against Patagonia.
@griz give me the movie, book, or other source you keep quoting! I have ZERO reference for that. The culture source behind that saying is lost to me completely.
@Jear77
Your only hope . . . is to think about it.
@griz I can’t think about a source I don’t get, am never going to get if the cultural reference behind it is absent. it was probably before my time.
@Jear77
It was simply an analogy Jear.
I gave a different one in another Thread about a man waiting for a bus at the wrong bus stop.
It’s like a man who went to religion to find God; in spite of ample biblical cautions against it.
@griz Back to your original answer. I was using hyperbole — I know the believer is supposed to be changing their OWN behavior out of love of the divine, and as time goes on less and less behaviors that are undesirable to god are supposed to happen. But my point was this: change is not only still needed, but demanded, and a more and more perfect nature results. I’m flawed, going to mess up no matter what. Trying harder doesn’t help, neither would having any type of relationship because it goes under the thought that the relationship can change a person. Ask any married couple if the husband ultimately changes the wife or visa versa. It NEVER happens for ANY reason! A relationship with god is no different.
@Jear77
You are so close to my friend! Love for the Divine gives us the desire to change. But we mostly lack the tools to change our physical nature. Religion would have us continually struggle to try, and then castigate us for failing.
Do you recognize this process?
And there is validity in saying that humans tend to become like those they hang out with. There is a difference however between the individual desiring change, and another trying to force it upon them.
That’s the difference between good relationship and toxicity masquerading as relationship.
@griz I am at the point i no longer wish to even try to change, to improve unless it suits me and only as it suits me – without any outside influences. And if that causes problems, that’s on the other person — not on me.
@Jear77
And isn’t that the core of the problem? You’ve only ever looked for a Salvation that suited you. The desires and understanding and convenience of your flesh.
Because that is what religion is.
It is us trying to craft something to our liking: something we can physically use and predict and manipulate and . . . master!
The common theme to all of your gripes . . . is that the things your flesh did, did not make you God’s master!
@griz If god can say my way or no way, so can i, and so it seems we’re at an impassable point once again. I’m not going to change… and the god of the bible is incapable of doing so, which means at day’s end I have no ability to believe.
@Jear77
You have and preserve the ability to believe.
You’ve always believed . . . in just your own ability to “save your soul” (hence your belief and “faith” in religious works) — but attached a facade-du-God on it.
All you’ve done now, is removed the facade.
Actually, God says there is a way other than His: but that we won’t like it. And even this is just another example of how you’ve substituted your own Human characteristics upon God to cast Him as objectionable.
I would suggest that you may have never really and truly, allowed God to be God — to be anything more than just an extension of yourself to be mastered and controlled.
And this may be why you never truly experienced the salvation experience.
I’ve asked you several times to share about it. I thought you might just be stubborn in refusing. But now I see that one cannot share from something they never had.
You’re tossing away something . . . that you never really tried.
@griz everyone does what is necessary for themselves. It’s one of the reasons we are all different. A god that tries to be all things to all people by being unable to change only ends up being nothing to no one.
@Jear77
But “necessities” that never exceed the flesh of the moment (the feelings, urges), is our downfall. It makes us “changeable” in the moment, and selfish unto schizophrenic duplicitousness.
The aspect of God being eternal and unchangeable personification of ultimate good, is the “anchor” for a species that really really loves to be tossed on the waves of feelings and emotions — going one way one moment, then the other in the next moment.
And I KNOW you want to do a rant on your perceived failings of God in this regard. I would simply remind you that all of your rants to date have just been you trying to project the failings of Humanity upon God. Which as I’ve said is understandable seeing as how you’ve only known religion; which is just us trying to make God walk in our shoes and be like us.
You will find no peace, no joy, no answers, until you break out of this religious cycle.
@griz i know you say that atheism is a religious system of beliefs, but it’s really not. If science were the textbook for people who don’t believe or at minimum don’t have a relationship with Life as you call it, the tenants of one’s beliefs would change literally moment by moment according to the scientific literature of the day. Atheists would constantly be at the forefront of both the hard and soft sciences, having no interest outside such, as they would use it to examine, explain, and logically disect every aspect of their lives. They would be distant, cold, emotionless as computers, if science were truly their god, they would be incapable of logical fallacies, and would always do statistically most beneficial thing. “Data” and “Spock” from Star Trek would be their role-models. But such is simply not true.
And there are plenty of people who aren’t into this relationship with Life and are completely fine.
@jear77
Religion would still be the physical activities, rituals, and thought patterns we rely on to render us and safe and right, whether you or I identify it as such or not. People use atheism religiously therefore it’s a religion to them: with almost all the traditional markers of religion that we only want to see in deistic religions. (Proselytizing, stubborn adherence despite logic and reason, attacking on its behalf, judging and condemning, seeing challenges to it as attacks on them personally)
Science is a good tool for everyone. But relying on it alone as our salvation will turn it into a religion like any other.
You have seen in church religions that people can spin them hard and cold or soft and squish-warm! The same can be done with any religion.
Your key problem remains that you stubbornly refuse to identify what bit and infected you. And if you don’t do this you are at high risk of being bit by the same thing again.
The love of money is the root of all evil.
I once knew a man that I regarded as evil. He had a hard childhood. His Grandfather molested him and raped him. He was placed in an orphanage when his mother needed to get her boys away from her own father’s abuse. The boy was raped by older boys in the orphanage. He got into trouble and was placed in a juvenile reform school — where he was raped. His mother got him out of the juvenile facility and sent him to the Catholic church. He became an alter boy — and raped by the Priest. What a horrible childhood!!! His mother brought her sons across the country to California. She had her boy work for the Catholic church and the Priest at St. Catherine’s raped him.
I knew nothing of his horrid past when I met him. He was an obedient boy. He had a charismatic personality that made everyone like him. He was popular without having to be a sports hero. He was a mama’s boy to a mother that I wished could be my own mother. She was the most like Marion Cunningham, the mother on Happy Days, as any woman I have ever known. I loved being his friend in high school. I knew he was gay, but it was fun to hang with him and say he was my boyfriend. I married him for what was the shortest marriage of my life. His mother ended it after only 20 minutes and kicked me out of her house and away from her son.
He went into the Army becoming a cook and then sent to Vietnam, where he became a machine gunner that rides in the mid-section of the helicopter and shoots Vietnamese. When he returned from that war, he was changed — just a bit insane. He and I lived together, but I took my sons and left him when he molested my sons. It was my first hint that he had a big problem. I did not want my sons being part of that. We got away from him.
He went to live with his mother and molested neighbor boys. He went to prison twice for molestation —- and perhaps rape of little boys. I was there to hold his mother’s hand during heartbreaking trials. Finally, he was to be released and he told the Judge he wanted to stay in the prison population. The Judge dismissed his request to stay in prison. He stood before the Judge and said that if killing would get him placed back in prison, he would start the day of his release. Judge William Keen threw him out of the courtroom!
This is where he became what I later regarded as pure evil. I did not know it, at the time, but while working as a trucker, he began to rape and murder young boys and young men. The evil was that he chose to murder. It was a conscious CHOICE. He even got my own cousin involved in the murders. In the course of one year, he killed 44 young boys and young men. His family and friends were not aware that he was the Freeway Killer the police were looking for. Each day, he would show up for work and over coffee he would look in the news paper and say, “The Freeway Killer got another boy and the police have not caught him, yet.”
All I knew, at the time, was that a killer was on the loose and all of the victims listed in the newspaper looked like my own two sons. That frightened me. I became protective of my two sons. I would take them over to Alice’s house to go swimming in the pool —— never aware that her son was the Freeway Killer. He would come home and be the sweet son that he had always seemed to be. No one suspected him.
He called the police after a year of killing. He turned himself in and it took the LAPD a full week of following him before they arrested him. I sat by his mother’s side in the trials and when he was sentenced to San Quentin State Prison’s Death Row. It was shocking to know that William Bonin was a person that could be so evil and unfeeling, lacking in compassion for his victims.
I stayed by his mother’s side and was involved only as her friend for the 13 years her son waited on Death Row for his eventual execution. Then, Alice’s husband took ill and was in the hospital near death when William’s execution was to happen. The family decided to stay away from the prison execution. They visited William the day before he was to be executed. However, they chose to stay by the deathbed of Alice’s husband, Odie. I was sent to spend the last day and to witness the execution and have his remains cremated and scattered at sea. The world was rid of a monster. I think of him as pure evil because he made a choice to commit his crimes. I rented a boat and we sailed 5 miles out from the Golden Gate Bridge and I dumped his ashes in the ocean —– no prayers, He was pure evil and I am glad the world is rid of him.
His stepfather died the same night that William was executed.
@ladybarbara
Evil can work a lot like a viral infection; passed from person to person where if it is not stopped, it reproduces and spreads. (the cycle of abuse, the cycle of sin).
It can be stopped by any one person in the process from spreading farther through them; but they almost always need help to do this.
And in any one person touched by an evil act, there comes a time when they submit to it often enough that they become “owned” by it. (the so-called “slippery slope of sin”)
@ladybarbara
Did he ever get to why he’d do it? Did they ever talk about the compulsion at the trial?
Was it a loss of control or a craving for control? Sorry about all the questions for something acutely personal, but my curiosity is red-lining.
@luftballooneyegouge He made it clear that killing was a choice because it was a way to spend the rest of his life in prison. He said that he didn’t know how many would give him “Life” in prison. He said, “Like taking prunes, is one enough? Is 4 too many?” He figured that he would kill every other week until they caught him. He was arrested for only 12 murders in Los Angeles and 4 murders in Orange County. They suspected that the murder count was 24, and no one thought it was as high as 44. However, on the day of his execution, he confessed that the number was 44.
@luftballooneyegouge You should check out the wikipedia entry on this sicko. 700 hours of active combat could definitely influence his value association with human life and it seems his mother was another active influence. Barb even gets a mention, albeit as the girlfriend with the roller skating hobby. There is no mention about his personal abuse, but that has to be at the root of his psychosis.
I find it difficult to accept that he was doing it just to get caught. It had to be more like a game to him to prove he could get away with it. One? Maybe. 20-44? Definitely feeding a “habit” Even admitting to 44 sounds like another attempt to mind “mess” although I don’t doubt this guy might have. The number of people in total, given his 700 hours behind a machine gun from a chopper, that this guy killed is staggering to consider.
Barb, if you are reading this, the wikipedia entry says the mother encouraged him to get married after high school hoping to get him past his issues. Sounds like there was a “Mommy Dearest” story playing along with the rest of the crap he was dealing with. Any way you look at this story, it was a total shit show.
Hard to point at one thing, but greed has to be one of the top ones. People want, want, want, and the needs of others be damned. It isn’t bad to want things, but how it affects the needs and whatnot of others should be taken into account.
Your description is a pretty thought provoking answer to this question, because it does provide a foundation for many, if not all, of the Seven Deadly Sins.
If I was to try and filter your response even further, it might be based on how we (maybe every single “life” mechanism) are focused on Self above our surroundings.
To use Einstein’s “Everything is relative” phrase in a broader context than even he may have intended; our deep need to evaluate, both quantifiably and qualitatively might be even more foundational than your choices.
……lack of empathy & surplus of ignorance.
I think the very idea of evil is the root of all evil. The thought that there exists some horrible thing out there that we might become infected with or influenced by. Some irresistible presence behind all things bad. For me “evil” is too extreme a concept. It all boils down to choice.
Maybe choice is the root of all evil? Hmmm…