Laird wrote:OK, so that's two votes against the notion of evil as force for evolution of good. What would you guys suggest, then, is the answer to the question of why and how evil exists and is permitted to exist?
This is really the question, is it not? If the answer were readily forthcoming, as easily obtainable as when one orders the Pu-Pu platter
* in a Chinese restaurant - why, then where would all the atheists hide?
As it happens, I do know the answer, but have a devil of time (pardon the expression) of explaining it. You see, literally nothing can
not be be conceived of as a "force for evolution of good." This includes dog turds and dust motes, but concentrating on things like that will render any meaningful observation rather less meaningful.
So let's stick to the main players here. And as always, the elephant in the center of any philosophical room is Time - definitely a main player.
Let's imagine the cosmology of physics to be pathetically incomplete - and even in error - when it comes to yielding the size (or any other characteristic) of the Cosmos. One can find physicists' estimates of the number of atoms in the universe - god bless their pointed little heads. Let us imagine that Heaven is not a place on earth, but rather someplace else. Logically, that
has to mean - somewhere
out there. Let us imagine that beings exist
out there whose forms are not wrapped in heavy, carbon-based stuff, but who are spiritual beings of rarer and rarer constitution, yet who also reside somewhere, and that such somewheres are also spheres - not planets, but rather immense constructed architectural objects. Let us imagine then, that the concept of time must be different for beings who do not undergo birth or death, at least not the way humans do and in the relatively short span of time we have available.
Well, if this is not heaven (the here and now), and heaven is what you need or aspire to, then the above is as good a possibility as any other. Perhaps heaven is a condition, which spreads from an epicenter of the cosmos of space and time like a mushroom cloud, to the outer-most regions containing sentient life.
But a man is not merely a spectator - he can choose to be a participant. He can help bring his vision of the ultimate Triumph of Good - the era during which the Mushroom Cloud of the Spirit being "poured out upon all flesh" engulfs us. Between then and now, that which hinders this ultimate achievement of spirit is evil - which simply can no more succeed than the most elaborate sandcastle on a beach during even the gentlest storm. And the love of God is a Tsunami.
When observed from a mere human's perspective, the existence evil may seem like something necessary, if only transiently, for good to exist. It may even seem like it is
permitted to exist - when even now the Tsunami approaches.
Talking Ass wrote:Evil only 'exists' in the human world, don't you think?
Just so.
There is no hell but the extinction of choosing to embrace evil, for only the person who is committed to evil - even iniquity - is truly
mortal.
Lastly, Edmund Burke is often quoted as having said:
"All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing."
If you ever wonder whether David Quinn is truly any kind of genius - even the kind which he himself has defined - wonder no more! For if evil and good are equivalent, and finding the Tao is impossible if one endeavors to do good things - then the forces of evil cannot win. Of course, this is what I argue above, but David goes one more, because what will happen will happen regardless if one chooses to do a good thing or not. Presumably David refrains from doing evil things; but the point is if good and evil are equivalent, he has no desire to be a "good man" in the Burkian sense; therefore is just fine to do nothing. David - admit it! You have embraced/developed a consistent philosophy that logically leads one to conclude it is OK to do nothing!! Nay, the philosophy
demands one do nothing!
*Don't know if Chinese restaurants ae the same in Australia or Canada, but here in the USA the menus in Chinese restaurants are always huge with a million dishes described in tiny red-and-black print. If you will study such a menu for any length of time, you will notice that every place's menu has at least one mistake in it. My favorite one so far was in a hidden gem of an eatery on the second floor on Upper Broadway. The Pu-Pu Platter was described as "...
defecately seasoned..."