Mr. Redden, I would say the prodigal son thought he know what the good was, but was self-decieved.
According to some Christian philosophy, “good” is the desirable. Having virtue is good and makes one happy. Once we attain virtue, our good can then overflow onto others … as we cannot give what we do not posess ourselves. It takes sacrifice to become good when we are not yet virtuous, but virtuous action eventually becomes a pleasure.
mrn
xxxxx
A beer and a hooker.
Ah-men.
Profit and power.
Rhein, I’m sorry to hear you don’t consider yourself a Christian anymore. I hope this is just an intellectual funk that will clear up later in your life.
I beleve there is a Psalm that is applicable, but I can’t find it in Bible Search. Perhaps you will recall it. It goes something like: You have saved us to show us your mercy, now use them to show us your judgement. There is also the case in Kings which has God asking his spirits who will decieve the king for him.
As I think Augustine might say, our obedience to God depends on whether we get the grace to do the good or not. So he might not contort our will, but he can leave the will feeble if it would be to the good.
Now back to the original question: What does Santa want? He wants good and happy little girls and boys. He wants to give out of his own generosity. And he discourages bad little boys by putting coal in their stockings. And a jolly man it makes him. Don’t they know that? Santa’s goal is for all people to honor the Christ-child.
mrn
My two cents:
If we’re going to tread the bible line (a huge assumption for me but never mind…) I’d say Satan doesn’t give a shit about us (or rather our attitude to him), his goal is our destruction and casting down God’s order, we are merely incidental in the conflict, although he might well engage in plots utilising humans. His ultimate aim is to eliminate us and restore the angels and god society, which brings up an interesting point, is he actually evil in this case? He shows humans to be unworthy of god, treacherous and cruel, in his way he is defending righteousness.
Anyway… Philosophically, evil cannot be defined without some limited precepts of ‘good’ and deciding that evil is moving against such ideals (but still prevents a definition of absolute evil); so trying to fit satan into this framework isn’t easy, it is best to say evil is destruction, any activity that limits or harms.