The Darkbulb

An explanation of why God is not to blame for the existence of evil.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Darkbulb
• Good
• Problem
• Of
• Evil
• God
• Christianity
• Atheism
• Ruben
• Ravatsås

[DeadSquirrelNet]

In which case, everything that is not "good" is evil? There's no neutral ground? A rusty broken toaster is evil?

[OmvendtVideo]

This does not make sense. First of all, using parable of light, there is something in between absolute light and absolute darkness. There are different intensities of light

Second, I'm not sure, but it seems to me that categorizing toasters in terms of good or evil seems pretty meaningless. These are moral categories, and as far as I can see, toasters carry little moral significance.

[DeadSquirrelNet]

"as far as I can see, toasters carry little moral significance"

That's sort of my point. If evil is the absence of good, then everything without the quality of "good" must therefore be evil. :)

You do have a good idea for setting a common viewpoint for looking at this issue, but I don't think this quite settles it.

Personally, I define evil as deliberately causing unnecessary harm. (Unintentionally causing harm would count as 'bad', not evil.)

[OmvendtVideo]

I congratulate you on sucessfully making the point that there is such a thing as moral neutrality. I fail to see why you thought that was a point worth making though.

When you're done patting yourself on the back, please explain why you seem to think that the existence of moral neutrality is irreconsileable with my thesis of evil being the absence of good. Preferably by using an argument rather than just saying it's so.

[DeadSquirrelNet]

You're saying that evil is simply the absence of goodness. Anything that s morally neutral, by definition is not 'good', so by your definition anything that is morally neutral must be evil.

If EVIL = ZEROGOOD

And NEUTRAL = ZEROGOOD

Then NEUTRAL = EVIL

Or are you saying that moral neutrality requires a degree of goodness?

Or that it only applies in certain circumstances?

Or am I misunderstanding you altogether? (This does seem likely.)

[OmvendtVideo]

I think we need to separate between two kinds of moral neutrality.

1. Just as light can have different intensities, there can be different degrees of goodness. It could be argued whether this is neutral in the truest sense of the word, but I don't see why that argument would be worth having.

to be continiued...

[OmvendtVideo]

continued...

2. A toaster in and of itself (there could be strings attached that would have moral significance) would not be the first kind of neutral. It would be the kind of neutral that you get if you try to weigh a radio wave. You're using a metric that is not really relevant to the object being measured.

[prolifeinternational]

Evil prospers when good men do nothing! Great video!

[OmvendtVideo]

Yes, pretty much.

[DeadSquirrelNet]

So, you're saying that evil is simply the absence of good?