SilentG said:

That's not true. There are objective truths regarding other things that don't require a higher power.

There are plenty of moral systems that place no emphasis on a higher power. Read Kant and John Stuart Mill for starters.

In fact if you say a higher power sets up morality then morality is no more than the arbitrary decision of a higher power. That's weak, why follow that morality? For fear of Hell? That makes the higher power essentially the biggest bully on the block and that's no reason to do something either.

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Colbadol said:

There is no Pure evil without Pure good.

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LuNaTiX said:

In electronics for power to exist you need two types of energy - and +, I believe it is much the same way in life about many things. Cats and dogs, although usually deemed enemies they are not true yin and yang because they could exist without each other. Now female and male dogs or cats is a different story, they need each other to exist. Good and evil are much the same way, if you just have good, and no evil at all, can you really call it good? it would just be... the way... there would be nothing to compair it to or give it its meaning. The more good there is in the world the more evil there will be... or at least seem to be. It's much like the war on drugs, think of the police and the law as "Good" or "Light" and think of your drug dealers as "Bad" or "Dark". Lets say the cops bust 50% of the drug dealers in america, and they go to jail, prices of drugs sky rocket and a void of oppertunity is created to be filled, and so it is, with more "Bad" drug dealers who see a chance to make some serious moola regardless of the risks. Now lets say some kind of organized crime syndicate decides to take out 50% of the cops, and they all die. Alot of the other cops start to become scared, and many want to quit, so the government decides to increase the wages of the cops conciderably, and a void of oppertunity is created and all of a sudden people signing up to become cops and cops who were already cops decide to stay and continue their pointless war on drugs.

This is... I believe... the force that holds the universe togeather, try not to think of it as bad and good, but rather two opposites that need each other to survive, and its not just as simple as one big yin and yang, there are billions and billions of them found all over the place goin in and out of balance everywhere to create what we call life.

So you see, left/right, up/down, right/wrong, life/death, smart/dumb, short/tall... it all needs to be balanced or it has no meaning.

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A comparison is great for understanding something better or making it have more impact on you, but I don't think that means it's necessary for its existence.

I understand the idea of yin and yang ok (I think) and it's not about good and evil. Negative and positive, creative and destructive, hot and cold yes, but good and evil as we're discussing is a more Western notion. The problem here is you're using an Easter system that explains how everything is as a whole to explain a small part of things that are generally discussed and understood in Western terms. Yin and Yang may explain how someone might be ruled by his passions and violate his duty to the state or his family or lord or whatever, but it's not going to explain much about whether it's ok to steal a loaf of bread to feed your starving family.

When you say "not to think of this as good and evil" it makes me think we're talking about two different things here. Yet you're trying to use this yin/yang concept to say something about good and evil. You also havn't really explained why the two things (yin and yang, hot and cold, not good and not bad, male and female) need each other to survive - you've simply just repeated the idea in different terms multiple times.

The Western ideas about good and evil generally revolve around God or moral systems which don't require the existence of evil. I only lend any credence to the ones that do not involve a higher power, and none of them require any amount of evil in the world to allow for good in the world. 

While a world with nothing but goodness in it might be boring and you wouldn't have any clue about what evil is, that alone does not make evil necessary for good. It would just mean our opinions and feelings about good and evil would be different (ie. possibly good would be how things always are and we would have no word for evil).

Any analogy that labels cops as good and drug users as bad I'm just gonna have to reject out of hand . Besides that sounds more like an argument for supply and demand than good and evil being mutually necessary for each other.

LuNaTiX said:

I understand that good and evil are merely concepts based solely apon each person, but you will never find a world where there is only good, regardless of how many try to aim for that. There will ALWAYS be something people do not like... it will just become more and more refined but it will always be there, it is like trying to devide a number over and over, you will never get to 0, you will always have a tiny bit.

as for my analogy, I ment no offense, it is just how many normal people see things, it could easly be turned around from the perspective of the drug dealers, because they obviously think they are the good and the cops are bad. Like I said, good and bad are merely words representing something that is basicly a matter of perspective. The purpose of this thread is to find out what people thought of good and evil, and many agree they are all in the eyes of the beholder.

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Moral concepts about good and evil have nothing to do with the way the world is. The way the world is is described by positivistic statements such as "today it is cloudy".

Moral theories and the morality of any given action asks "how SHOULD things be?" That is "should I steal a loaf of bread to feed my starving family?"

Please go back and apply my arguments for an objective morality here. I don't want to sound like an ass, but there are many arguments for an objective morality. Simply because people have different perceptions about an issue doesn't mean there isn't a correct perceptions. I'm not going to pretend I know what is right and wrong, but I do believe there IS a right and wrong.

If I did steal the loaf of bread that wouldn't make it right anymore than it would make it wrong.

edit: hey, yah, don't sweat it I took no offense!

I'm sort of playing devil's advocate and putting out some pretty solid ideas I've come across wondering about these same issues. I also don't think that something as amazingly beyond my scope as the 'cosmos and all things' can be bound to any one system of thought. Everything works on some level or another, but for everyday "should I do this or that" Western philosophy is pretty solid imo. I like Eastern ideas for examining the whole, but Western philosophy for everyday life and conduct.

Ripple said:

That's not nice

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well their food gives me the shits, thats dpure evil 

SilentG said:

Colbadol said:

There is no Pure evil without Pure good.

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Why? Is there any possible basis for this claim?

Lots of people hold this belief (usually in an evil is necessary for their to be good sort of justification for the existence of evil) and I've never read a single good reason for it.

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LuNaTiX said:

Interesting , I always thought evil to be the ability to make logical decisions without and morals or feelsings behind it, like a robot.

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I take offense at that.