• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Evil among us

Jeremiah Ames

Well-Known Member
How can anyone know what is evil?


Only by knowledge of what is good. One cannot recognize evil unless one knows goodness.


One can only know good if one knows the truth. The truth can only come from God. Anyone, anywhere can know God. Religion can not give you God. That is a matter for the individual.


Therefore, any individual who does evil or abets evil (such as through voting a person of evil into power) does not know God. They may think they do, but their God would obviously not be the God who created all things, since He is perfect goodness and truth.


As a continuation, I will say that for a person who is involved in evil to have his evil set aside, that particular evil must come into the light. This does not mean acting on the evil, but recognizing it. That recognition must come from the person involved.
 

Jeremiah Ames

Well-Known Member
Does the obverse hold? That one must know evil in order to know what is good?
No.
It starts at God.
He holds the truth.
The truth is the key to goodness.
If we are on that path, we could not know evil, but would only know good.

If we were raised in a bubble with only awareness of God, we would never know evil.
But since we exist in the world, we can experience evil, and perform evil.
But if we have no knowledge of the truth, we could perform evil and call it good.
A very evil person may perform only evil, and never really know goodness, even though he could falsely call his actions good.
Therefore, knowledge of good cannot come from knowledge of evil.
 

osgart

Nothing my eye, Something for sure
So consider a person who never experienced love before, in words did they know it, and seeing others live it, and they knew what love meant, but rejected it all the way. That person would be living in evil.

It's different than a person who never knew love, but survived on it all their life; perhaps they made a choice to love themselves first, and knew not what to call it, or how it even worked, but they knew whatever it was they just had to do it. Perhaps they live in a cruel world of bitter necessity and never been loved by anyone before. And they might wonder why am I different than everybody else. And people only take me for what they need or want. And I'm always having to avoid danger, and lousy relationships they wonder. And I'm just barely getting by.

Could such a person exist and such a world? Not knowing the meaning of love, and living in a world of evil. Where the person's life is measured and protected by their utility, and the measure of decency in the laws only. And they have only scarce love to keep them alive. Perhaps only just enough.

Can the world survive without any love, and be only evil? I say it only destroys itself.
 

beenherebeforeagain

Rogue Animist
Premium Member
Thanks, that was my thought when I first encountered it.
Very difficult for me to get my head around initially.
Too much baggage inside.
But when I understood God’s true character, it cleared up nicely.
Here's how I look at it:

If there are two spotlights located just inches from my face, and one is 10 Billion candle-power, and the other 10 Trillion candle-power, there is no way I can tell which is brighter, because both will be completely blinding. Even if someone tells me that the one on the right is the brighter, I cannot tell that to be "Truth" for myself. Perhaps I can conceive that one is 1,000 times brighter than the other, but I cannot perceive it for myself.

The Earth is not a very big place, and yet I cannot really even conceive of its size...and the Cosmos is so much larger. How then am I to tell what is God and Truth and Good or Evil?

How can I, or any sentient being, tell what is God's "True Character?" As far as I can tell, a "God" on the scale of the Milky Way (heck, even on the scale of the Solar System, or even our planet) would still be able to show me just as much love and goodness as a universal "God," and I cannot conceive of any way to tell them apart, to know what the TRUTH is.
 

Jeremiah Ames

Well-Known Member
So consider a person who never experienced love before, in words did they know it, and seeing others live it, and they knew what love meant, but rejected it all the way. That person would be living in evil.

It's different than a person who never knew love, but survived on it all their life; perhaps they made a choice to love themselves first, and knew not what to call it, or how it even worked, but they knew whatever it was they just had to do it. Perhaps they live in a cruel world of bitter necessity and never been loved by anyone before. And they might wonder why am I different than everybody else. And people only take me for what they need or want. And I'm always having to avoid danger, and lousy relationships they wonder. And I'm just barely getting by.

Could such a person exist and such a world? Not knowing the meaning of love, and living in a world of evil. Where the person's life is measured and protected by their utility, and the measure of decency in the laws only. And they have only scarce love to keep them alive. Perhaps only just enough.

Can the world survive without any love, and be only evil? I say it only destroys itself.
I agree.
I agree.
Yes.
I agree.
No.
 

Jeremiah Ames

Well-Known Member
Here's how I look at it:

If there are two spotlights located just inches from my face, and one is 10 Billion candle-power, and the other 10 Trillion candle-power, there is no way I can tell which is brighter, because both will be completely blinding. Even if someone tells me that the one on the right is the brighter, I cannot tell that to be "Truth" for myself. Perhaps I can conceive that one is 1,000 times brighter than the other, but I cannot perceive it for myself.

The Earth is not a very big place, and yet I cannot really even conceive of its size...and the Cosmos is so much larger. How then am I to tell what is God and Truth and Good or Evil?

How can I, or any sentient being, tell what is God's "True Character?" As far as I can tell, a "God" on the scale of the Milky Way (heck, even on the scale of the Solar System, or even our planet) would still be able to show me just as much love and goodness as a universal "God," and I cannot conceive of any way to tell them apart, to know what the TRUTH is.

Don’t confuse a present reality with truth. And the truth of which I speak is divine truth.
Lights come and go.
The brightest light in the room does not represent truth, it represents a present reality.

You and I go into a room. You say the room is quite warm.
I say it feels too cold to me. That is merely our individual realities based upon our perceptions. It has no relation to divine truth.

You say it is honorable for a person to serve in the military.
I say it is not. We have our opinions, which may or may not align with divine truth. (A hypothetical):)

People often confuse their reality, or their idea of truth with divine truth. They are not the same. Our truths can change based upon many variables. As a youth I may think capital punishment is a good thing. As an adult I may find it totally wrong. Something changed in me. Divine truth never changes. Ever. If capital punishment is wrong now, it’s always been wrong. Or the opposite.

Our job is to seek divine truth, so that we may do good.
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
How can anyone know what is evil?


Only by knowledge of what is good. One cannot recognize evil unless one knows goodness.


One can only know good if one knows the truth. The truth can only come from God. Anyone, anywhere can know God. Religion can not give you God. That is a matter for the individual.


Therefore, any individual who does evil or abets evil (such as through voting a person of evil into power) does not know God. They may think they do, but their God would obviously not be the God who created all things, since He is perfect goodness and truth.


As a continuation, I will say that for a person who is involved in evil to have his evil set aside, that particular evil must come into the light. This does not mean acting on the evil, but recognizing it. That recognition must come from the person involved.
when I read Genesis....I say.....
no one in the garden lied

but most people seem to think a great harm was dealt

was God being evil?
or was He returning evil for an evil done?
and what of the serpent?....he didn't really lie
when Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit.....was that a bad thing?

I say....no evil happened
the acquisition of knowledge was the game plan

the serpent may have thought he was interfering
and the effort made might upset the scheme

but it didn't
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
and the Carpenter said.....when referred to as Good Teacher...

Do not call Me good.......no one is good but the Father

does that put Him on the side of fence with us?.....no one being good?
 

syo

Well-Known Member
and the Carpenter said.....when referred to as Good Teacher...

Do not call Me good.......no one is good but the Father

does that put Him on the side of fence with us?.....no one being good?
not exactly. jesus is good BUT he is not good on his own. his goodness comes from the father. the father made the son good, because the father is the creator. jesus isn't the source of goodness. that's why he says he is not good. it's like the sun and the moon glowing. the moon takes it's light from the sun.
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
not exactly. jesus is good BUT he is not good on his own. his goodness comes from the father. the father made the son good, because the father is the creator. jesus isn't the source of goodness. that's why he says he is not good. it's like the sun and the moon glowing. the moon takes it's light from the sun.
and that does put Him on the same side of the fence.....with us
 
Top