Why do some religions say to always do good? Isn’t too much good unhealthy for a person? Isn’t leading a focused and narrow-minded life unhealthy? Is it not strange that many people don’t see the healthy factors of actually commiting an act of evil? That is, if it be called evil, but I rather would call it freedom.
Is there a chemical in our brain that tells us to naturally do something bad? Why is it that doing something bad makes us feel just as good as doing an act of complete goodness? …if one should call it that.
[size=150]“Damn all this self improvement! I want a pleasant dinner.”[/size]
-Dr. Hannibal Lecter
Got to shake things up a mite, else life is drudgery. You won’t find me eating another human being but if human beings cease finding amusement at each other’s expense, we will begin to take ourselves seriously, and that way lies madness and mass murder.
there are two kinds of evil in this world. there is dogmatic evil, which i call freedom and includes things like having lots of consensual sex, killing fetuses, eating meat on fridays during lent, using stem cells to cure diseases, not going to church. i do these things because they dont actually have any empirically verifiable bad effect on the world, only good. the only bad they supposedly bring happens after we die and is perpetrated by a god who REQuires that we believe the most important things in life without any real evidence. and those important things happen to appear as though they could have been made up for ulterior motives, believing them means more money for those people who tell you to believe it.
i say a god like that is a moron/devious trickster and cant expect smart people to follow him for long.
then theres real evil. real evil really hurts people more than they are helped. if you pinch somebody so that you save you and your family’s life, then, eventhough you hurt someone, you did ok. you can measure that the good created was more than the bad.
you could build diamond statues on your plantation at the expense of good sufficient food for your slaves, but only if you are truly evil. and no, there is no real benefit to be had by having diamond statues or cars that go over 150 mph or houses with more rooms than you use. buy those things at the expense of your poor workers, you are evil and i want you dead. and if god created this place for a purpose, you are completely violating it.
If you find a single person who has never done a bad thing in their entire life, then and only then can the idea that “evil” isn’t good for us be entertained. the simple fact of life is that everyone has a rebellious side to them and gets some kick out of exploiting it. however that doesn’t necessarily make it right.
“i say a god like that is a moron/devious trickster and cant expect smart people to follow him for long.”
however if this moron God didn’t set up these rules humans would have nothing to rebel against. It is not a freedome as such but a boundary for us to push. when trying to reconcile God and evil one theodicy uses the idea of a good and evil spectrum. Ie if we we all thought pre marital and free sex was right, then people would have to search deeper to rebel. what i m inarticulately trying to say is… doing wrong is good for is in that humans have a rebellious side. there are pettey rules because if only the truly evil things were banned then those would be the rules against which we would ave to rebel. do you see what i’m getting at?
i think rebellion is only a natural tendency if your ruler is a jerk who says stupid stuff. if the rule was “dont touch that stove, its really hot” and it hurt you real bad every time you tried, how long before you realize that rebellion isnt good for anybody, and god is actually right about something?
i doubt god expects us to not have premarital sex if it doesnt hurt us. i can certainly imagine rebelling against a silly god that does. but i doubt people would hurt their neighbors on purpose just to rebel against god.
Lincoln had said something to this nature: “When I do good I feel good, when I do bad I feel bad, and that is to how far my morality extends.”
Now, if we take Lincoln’s model we must suppose all to have an inner-conscience; a superego that does not let our selves rest, constantly yelling and belittling our poor (maybe wretched) id.
Now, in answer your question, honestly, I think there are two types of feelings one gets from committing any act. The present feeling associated with committing the act, and then the following long term psychological consequences. For example, We may be put into a state of ecstasy while committing murder—our adrenaline is sure to be pumping, we certainly feel a rush, and probably an insatiable euphoric feeling of liberation or freedom. So in essence, during the act we don’t just feel good, we feel great—terrific. It is only after the deed is done that we begin to suffer like a Raskolnikov. Our superego does not let us rest and ultimately the consequences of such action is wretchedness. So the question begs to be asked: did the act make us feel good or bad? The truth is, and I think we can agree on this, ultimately immoral action will not make us feel good, will not be beneficial to our psychological well-being, will decrease our freedom and liberty as our thoughts, consciously or unconsciously, will be tormented by the act. Is that freedom? Is that liberation? You decide.
Religious folk fail to realize that the best way to learn as you live life is through your own mistakes. How is someone supposed to truly live if they obey every stupid command their parents ask of them? Could it be the reason we have rebellion is that’s nature’s way of saying to us: this is how it was for man in pre-technological times…man learned from his mistakes and did better afterwords. Science is based upon this, testing theories, making mistakes, and then fixing them. Religion tends to be the anti-thesis of this great teaching of life…it says: do what your told and don’t ask any questions, if you make risks or take chances, you are condemned. When did man decide to doctrinate this system of self-imprisonment??
why is any authority figure ever secretive about anything?
they want your cash, and they want you to believe that they deserve your cash because thats easier than enslaving you forcefully.
i wonder why it is that people feel good sacrificing a piece of their life to a god who makes their bodys hurt because of it. maybe because somebody gave those people the idea that god, in human form, is a very very nice guy who would sacrifice anything for you, so the least you can do is sacrifice your friday meat. because the two are intricately connected to eachother, friday meat and jesus torture that is. as in jesus is made of meat and was tortured on friday. so dont eat meat on friday. see the connection?
It’s human nature to fulfill needs. There are limited resources around, but unlimited wants. I gain, you lose. Human nature makes us to hurt others. So you might as well say that human nature is to hurt others, doesn’t matter much really…
PR, i love eating red meat. id love to gain it as often as possible, for as cheap as possible. it actually tastes the best when its fresh, right off the living carcass. assume for a second that bums are clean enough to eat. by your logic, i will lose nothing by brutally murdering them and eating them alive, and i will gain delicious food.
why dont i eat all of the people that i can get away with murdering? is it because those jerks at the roman catholic church dogma-fied me into believing something so stupid and irrational? or is it that human nature and its connection to evil cant exactly be summed up in a mini-paragraph?
That there are limited resources is debatable. I would say that a BELIEF that there are limited resources would turn into a “better you than me” kindof attitude… but only in high-stress situations.
Yes, this is true. I’ve always gotten a thrill out of rebellion: stealing for the sake of stealing, pointlessly vandalizing property, breaking things for no reason, playing for the sake of playing… I’ve changed a lot since I was a teenager for sure, matured beyond my angst. I realized that my conscience was getting heavy. I’ve never really liked messing with people. I know that there are infinate ways to manipulate or mess with people, but I’m a very sensitive soul and see that same sensitivity in the hearts of others. I suppose I can’t be intentionally evil to another human or living thing. I have the impulse to do so when I’m hurt- it feels like it will hurt less if I screw someone over…it’ not rational at all and I don’t know why that is. People do it all the time when their sadness manifests incorrectly as anger because they can’t bear admission of their weakness. It’s a self esteem issue and being an asshole can make you untouchable.
“It’s not human nature to hurt someone. And if you think it is, elaborate please…”
D, Sagesound said that it’s human nature to hurt oneself not someone. I don’t know if hurting oneself is human nature in a broad sense, however, personally I have a penchant for self harm- it’s in my nature. I’m not sure if it’s human nature for us to hurt one another, it feels like it with all of the hurting going on in the world, it must be- but maybe it’s just because as intelligent beings we are given to experiencing pain and we’re all creating it on the inside.
All, I wasn’t trying to be cruel to insame people or anything like that. As far as I’m concerned, I just generised the characteristics of the insane in the most efficient way - to compare them with the sane, who are fully human. I mean, the insane don’t even know some of the basic stuffs that we need to do in order to survive right? Or at least survive in a proper way. And they just don’t have proper emotions - which I consider less human for that.
Maybe it’s just our Puritan-based society that makes “evil” seem so attractive. This whole “Oooo…this is so exciting because it is forbidden"is really silly,especially in regards to sex. We have this guilt/arousal connection programmed into us, which goes a long way to explain adultery,deviancies, and the ever-annoying Madonna/whore labels put on women. I honestly believe that there are many people who need to feel guilty in order to become sexually aroused. It actually makes sense; we’re told that masturbation is bad, we get sent to our rooms for playing “doctor” with the neighborhood kids, etc… We end up like Pavlov’s dogs, hiding our masturbation and sexual curiosity while deriving great pleasure from these activities. The result is we need to feel as though we are doing something"wrong” in order to enjoy sex. Bizarre.
If you aren’t hurting anyone else without their consent and you are enjoying yourself, you aren’t doing anything “evil”. I have no desire to harm others, and I don’t understand why someone would want to hurt another person or animal. It makes me very sad to see someone suffering. It really should make everybody else sad as well.
I know what you mean. whenever I do something I don;t approve of later on, in the longer time-span, I feel, everything I do in the rapport with others, I feel so much self-reproach that it hurts my conscience. I feel guilty. in this sense I also have a penchant for hurting myself, and then, as a consequence I try to punish myself, not brutally, but by rationalising some bad/uncomfortable events that happen to me by explaining myself I deserved them.
I don;t do myself self-harm purposefully, but when I come to think of my deeds I always end up in what would seem almost as indulging oneself in self-harm. (more mental than physical)