How We Can Rid Our World Of Evil

loverofhumanity said:

I think that if we educate children to have a spiritual heart and conscience, that is to love being virtuous that would solve most of these problems.

We Baha’is have such a worldwide spiritual system where all are welcome, Baha’i or not to learn spiritual principles. Conversion is not involved. What it is all about is transformation of character.

Classes are taught to children, junior youth, youth and adults and even over Skype.

In order to change He world we have to first change ourselves and become noble and cirtuous people.

So we invite anyone to these courses which are free.

For example. Book One teaches to be truthful and have a kindly tongue.

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Is proselytizing permitted in this forum? If not, put me on record as in favor of a prohibition.

joe1776 said:

Is proselytizing permitted in this forum? If not, put me on record as in favor of a prohibition.

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I sincerely apologise that you feel that way but I was honestly answering how we are trying to transform the world and rid it of evil using spiritual education.

But as you have stated you feel that way I’ll try and find my post and delete it out of courtesy to you. Sorry.

joe1776 said:

Is proselytizing permitted in this forum? If not, put me on record as in favor of a prohibition.

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Thank you for bringing that up as I hadn’t thought it might come across that way so I deleted it.

Again thank you for pointing that out.

joe1776 said:

And I suggest you stop stubbornly insisting that your misunderstanding of what I wrote is what I really meant.

To state or imply that some perverts never move from fantasy to action would be a radically stupid comment.

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Anyway, you would be treating these individuals as 'no-hopers' and not worthy of rehabilitation, which is hardly a compassionate thing to do. Like prisons, they would hardly be likely to improve in the company of other criminals. So the whole idea is a non-starter and needs rethinking.

joe1776 said:

until an effective cure can be found

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So quarantining is just a desperate attempt to stop the spread of disease... I agree with that.

What can prevent the disease in the first place? That's the tough question. So I'll throw this idea out there: maybe blaming God isn't the solution. Maybe blaming God is a nonsense ploy - a psychological hang up, a negative or skeptical attitude that arises out of attachment to experiences or out of negative perceptions of reality. Some will call it realism and some may even dare to call it truth. Some will say, 'you can't blame what doesn't exist', but that doesn't appear to stop them from saying, 'it's not my fault; it's just the way the universe is'.. so like, whatever, if that's your flavor, po-tay-to, po-tah-to... am I right?

But maybe it's possible that people can eventually reach a point where they enter into a higher consciousness of reality and simply don't do 'evil' even though the opportunity presents itself. Maybe we would even call that a religion. or maybe it's a code of chivalry. Anyway, it probably works best if you actually share those higher ideals with other people.

Prophet Muhammed says: The example of the good companion and the bad companion is like the Musk carrier and the blacksmith. The musk carrier either perfume you for free or you find beside him a nice smell. and the blacksmith either you find a bad odor in his shop or your clothes may get burning by a sparkling)

environment plays a dangerous role in our lives

Ponder This said:

Okay... but the title of your thread is "How We Can Rid Our World Of Evil"
So if you have to wait for people to do evil before you can quarantine them, then you haven't actually 'rid the world of evil'.

So I'm proposing a 'problem of evil' here. You know God is sometimes questioned about why he allows evil to occur. Why doesn't he just not make evil people in the first place? And it's interesting because no one has any idea how such a world would work or how such a world could ever be created. They just assume it could be created that way... so it's a bull**** idea, but they ask: why doesn't God just not create evil people in the first place?

And maybe the answer to that question is that people aren't inherently good or evil to begin with...

So, okay, let's say you aren't proposing a system that actually rids the world of evil, but then, what are you saying?

Maybe you are saying, evil is a 'sickness'. Is that fair? But quarantining them doesn't cure the sickness because you can't quarantine them until after they've already been infected. But you didn't say that. You said:​

So quarantining is just a desperate attempt to stop the spread of disease... I agree with that.

What can prevent the disease in the first place? That's the tough question. So I'll throw this idea out there: maybe blaming God isn't the solution. Maybe blaming God is a nonsense ploy - a psychological hang up, a negative or skeptical attitude that arises out of attachment to experiences or out of negative perceptions of reality. Some will call it realism and some may even dare to call it truth. Some will say, 'you can't blame what doesn't exist', but that doesn't appear to stop them from saying, 'it's not my fault; it's just the way the universe is'.. so like, whatever, if that's your flavor, po-tay-to, po-tah-to... am I right?

But maybe it's possible that people can eventually reach a point where they enter into a higher consciousness of reality and simply don't do 'evil' even though the opportunity presents itself. Maybe we would even call that a religion. or maybe it's a code of chivalry. Anyway, it probably works best if you actually share those higher ideals with other people.

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As I wrote in the OP:

"But evil is merely a perception. If we humans were to see sickness and not evil. We would think of quarantine and not punishment."

So, we humans can rid the world of evil by changing our perception of evil just as we rid the world of legal slavery by changing our perception of slavery from moral to immoral.

The practical advantage is that the quarantine for sick, harmful acts could be a life sentence of a normal, unpunished life, yet one isolated from the general population who would live in a safer world.

joe1776 said:

Yes, men who are convicted of rape should be quarantined in a town with men only. How this should be done is just one of many new problems that a policy shift of this magnitude would entail.

My guess is that, at the beginning, existing, isolated towns would be adapted for this purpose on a trial basis.

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Note that nearly as many men get raped as women. The CDC's Rape Numbers Are Misleading
So you'll also need female-only towns for the female rapists. Then a further subdivision based on the sex of the perpetrators. Males that raped males will love to be consigned to an all-male town (vice -versa for female homosexuals). And what about the bi-sexual rapists?

joe1776 said:

If we humans were to see sickness and not evil. We would think of quarantine and not punishment. Our conscience would then allow us to isolate dangerous people from the general population until they are no longer dangerous. For example, people who only fantasize about rape or child abuse are not dangerous; but those who actually commit such acts ought to be quarantined for life, even on a mild first offense, until an effective cure can be found. Child molesters might be confined in an adult-only town where they could live their lives normally but without access to children.

Violent offenders might be quarantined as well. A safer world is possible if we were to think of quarantine for dangerous sickness rather than punishment for evil

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So unlike prison which bestows temporary quarantine, you'd favor permanent quarantine? I think a more effective solution would be to remove the sex organs of whomever committed a rape.

Akivah said:

Note that nearly as many men get raped as women. The CDC's Rape Numbers Are Misleading
So you'll also need female-only towns for the female rapists. Then a further subdivision based on the sex of the perpetrators. Males that raped males will love to be consigned to an all-male town (vice -versa for female homosexuals). And what about the bi-sexual rapists?

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As noted earlier, the new approach would require some intelligent management but the problem is not nearly as difficult as the current prison problem has in dealing with the various kinds of offenders because there are many isolated towns now in existence which can be adapted for use.

Not that it matters, but I don't believe that as many men get raped as women.

Akivah said:

So unlike prison which bestows temporary quarantine, you'd favor permanent quarantine? I think a more effective solution would be to remove the sex organs of whomever committed a rape.

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What about child molesters and violent offenders who didn't rape? How would you deal with them?

joe1776 said:

As noted earlier, the new approach would require some intelligent management but the problem is not nearly as difficult as the current prison problem has in dealing with the various kinds of offenders because there are many isolated towns now in existence which can be adapted for use.

Not that it matters, but I don't believe that as many men get raped as women.

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While it's difficult to state conclusively about the number of male victims vs. female victims, due to the increased stigma against male victims and the non-recognition of the issue, the material I looked at agrees with you. I found that the hypothesized male victims are anywhere from 5% to 30% of the total rape victims.

joe1776 said:

What about child molesters and violent offenders who didn't rape? How would you deal with them?

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Well rape is a fluid term. Is it only penetration or can it be harassment, sexual battery, or any variances? There is also the problem of false convictions. Anyways, this quarantine solution was proposed by you, not me. What would you do about these? Do all sex crime convictions earn the same sentence of quarantine?

IMO, the variability of human thought, circumstance, and action defies any single solution.

Akivah said:

Well rape is a fluid term. Is it only penetration or can it be harassment, sexual battery, or any variances? There is also the problem of false convictions. Anyways, this quarantine solution was proposed by you, not me. What would you do about these? Do all sex crime convictions earn the same sentence of quarantine?

IMO, the variability of human thought, circumstance, and action defies any single solution.

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Yes, the quarantine solution was mine and I'm answering for it. However, you were asked to defend your solution: "I think a more effective solution would be to remove the sex organs of whomever committed a rape." You didn't have a good answer for my question.

Yes, I would think that all sex crime convictions would be lifetime quarantine for the same reason that someone with a dangerous contagious disease should not be released into the general population until a cure is found.

Since some perverts only fantasize and never harm anyone, we don't need to find a cure for the perversion. We only need to identify the reason that some perverts are willing to cause harm and find a cure for that.

I think in the short term there is no immediate solution or quick fix but the sooner we focus on spiritual education and in teaching good character and virtues to our children the better the next generation will be and the less evil will be apparent.

It is my view that our education systems need to focus much more on virtues than it does now.

loverofhumanity said:

It is my view that our education systems need to focus much more on virtues than it does now.

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Educators can't teach what they don't understand. If our educators knew how to stop bad behavior, they would have stopped the problem of bullying in the schools long ago. The problem isn't that the school bullies don't know right from wrong.

From the New York Times: "According to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, humans are born with a hard-wired morality. A deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. His research shows that babies and toddlers can judge the goodness and badness of others' actions; they want to reward the good and punish the bad; they act to help those in distress; they feel guilt, shame, pride, and righteous anger."

What Bloom discovered is what we commonly refer to as 'conscience.'

The problem is that the bullies ignore their conscience for some reason and our educators, our psychologists, our philosophers, and our theologians haven't figured out how to stop that from happening.

joe1776 said:

Educators can't teach what they don't understand. If our educators knew how to stop bad behavior, they would have stopped the problem of bullying in the schools long ago. The problem isn't that the school bullies don't know right from wrong.

From the New York Times: "According to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, humans are born with a hard-wired morality. A deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. His research shows that babies and toddlers can judge the goodness and badness of others' actions; they want to reward the good and punish the bad; they act to help those in distress; they feel guilt, shame, pride, and righteous anger."

The problem is that the bullies ignore their conscience for some reason and our educators, our psychologists, our philosophers, and our theologians haven't figured out how to stop that from happening.

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The education children receive, even in religious schools is not spiritual. That is the reason they do not progress.

If the psychologists and theologians or philosophers got it right our society would not be in the mess it is.

It is precisely by following these people’s advice that we’ve ended up where we are.

loverofhumanity said:

The education children receive, even in religious schools is not spiritual. That is the reason they do not progress.

If the psychologists and theologians or philosophers got it right our society would not be in the mess it is.

It is precisely by following these people’s advice that we’ve ended up where we are.

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I think it impossible to get a religious education because religion begins with faith and education begins with doubt. The two ideas can't coexist.

Great teachers want their students to doubt all claims they hear, even the claims made by the teacher. In that way, only truth survives.

joe1776 said:

Educators can't teach what they don't understand. If our educators knew how to stop bad behavior, they would have stopped the problem of bullying in the schools long ago. The problem isn't that the school bullies don't know right from wrong.

From the New York Times: "According to Yale psychologist Paul Bloom, humans are born with a hard-wired morality. A deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. His research shows that babies and toddlers can judge the goodness and badness of others' actions; they want to reward the good and punish the bad; they act to help those in distress; they feel guilt, shame, pride, and righteous anger."

What Bloom discovered is what we commonly refer to as 'conscience.'

The problem is that the bullies ignore their conscience for some reason and our educators, our psychologists, our philosophers, and our theologians haven't figured out how to stop that from happening.

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Bloom will not be the only one who believes this to be true, since some research has shown that many other animal species also seem to have judgments as to what is and isn't 'moral behaviour'. I suspect that what we might be born with, and this will vary of course, will often be affected by our childhoods and early environment, and will then impact on how we develop. Much of which is rather difficult to change.

Where there is personal responsibility and accountability -which must be taught, accepted by individuals and developed by individuals, there is less need for government thereof.

Evil is evil because it threatens the greater and common good.
Evil can be innocent and ignorant when done by individuals, or it can by willful and knowledgeable.

The world can not rid itself of evil because new beings are introduced constantly, and not all existing beings will accept and do what is right even if taught.

If, once people develop to the point where it is known that they knowingly will to do good or evil, they are then separated -and if those who choose to do good are made permanent -immortal -there could be permanent change.

If the will of those who choose evil can be changed somehow -and they are changed to choose good -they could then be made permanent and separation is no longer necessary.

If all of that is accomplished -and all previous harm to individuals and the environment is healed -evil will cease to be an issue.

If those who have chosen to do good then unite to set up that which ensures the well-being of new beings -the process can continue while the risk of evil is minimized and evil is removed more quickly -as opposed to the present situation, which essentially does the opposite.

Though it is not readily apparent when reading the bible, that is actually a general description of the plan outlined therein.