Is the DEVIL real?

There are things even the devil would fear . . .

 

i'm not saying every invisible thing has to be nice. this is not something we know. but this idea of gods being at war with each other, this is entirely an invention of our own insecure ego.

 

The Gods and Demons are at war, but their reality is as illusory are yours or mine, and ultimately all is God.

 

Myths point to deeper truths that are often indicative of true reality. But they are metaphors, not to be taken literally. Satan is the personification of evil. The evil is real, the supernatural person is not.

 

As I said earlier in this thread, there is the calendar and clock on the wall realized equivalent to time counted for human beings synchronously getting organized to date each other, make rendezvous's.

 

Devil...

"D" for dark for wickedly. Devil must mean wickedly evil live vile.

 

"D" also for dork, dumbass, dufss,dickhead. Devil must mean pretty damned stupid.

 

But I'm not even sure I know that evil is real.

 

Evil is real but often subjective. Perhaps it's always subjective but when we all agree that something is evil it doesn't seem subjective anymore

 

But what about the good old-fashioned evil before there was any man on the scene in the Universe. Alas it could not be merely subjective. And objective evil, some primordial soup or chaos existed, sorry to say, with God subjective towards It.:smilielol5:

 

There was no evil before anyone could perceive it as such.

 

Perceiving it as objective vs subjective is definitely one facet of the dilemma, but I'm more talking about the entire spectrum of morality itself. Whenever people talk about good or bad, they seem to really just be talking about cause and effect that they agree or disagree with.
Really it's almost an exclusively judgmental discussion.

If that is all that is meant, well, fine, but there is almost always this Platonic Golden Realm connotation with the words good and evil that I'm uncomfortable with for whatever reason.

I guess what I'm saying is I can't relate to conceiving of good and evil.

What I can relate to is the day-to-day experiences of feeling troubled vs feeling wholesome.

But defining those feelings as the derivative of one's actions and moral character brings up even more questions.
So, really I agree with neither a strictly objective nor strictly subjective idea of morality. Maybe I don't agree with the idea of morality itself.

Basically, I'm hopelessly lost.
Gee, this post makes me sound like I'm high.

 

Consider this. Some ultimately rich guy hires a technician and puts a gun to his head; fix my computer that it never has virus's again. He fixes it, and there is no devil again for this one clever affording businessman. Still, I get the virus for those soccer videos instead. Why should I have to do anything with the evil explanation in the computer. My subjections become irrelevant. But from primordial times to free man of responsibility that virus exists for over-population and poor sport attitudes of the losers (who cares). :sunny:

 

It's a concept.

 

You and 99.9% of the other pundits on this FORUM.

I think that's almost all that is meant. But I don't think it's that completely subjective. Neurobiologist and professional atheist Sam Harris seemed to be onto something (or on something?) in The Moral Landscape, where he argued that humans share a broad consensus abut what things make them happy or sad, and that this can become the source of a consensus morality. This is warmed over utilitarianism, resembling Bentham's felicific calculus, and Harris' suggestion that it can be quantified has yet to be demonstrated. I was hoping he'd go farther and use the MRI-based brain scans of human subjects neurobiology is famous for to identify what these are scientifically. But intuitively, I think he's on the right track. Add a contractarian dimension like Rawls' veil of ignorance, and I think we have something to work with. Of course, not everyone would agree, but what else is new? This is at least more tangible than some disembodied metaphysical entity called "Evil" residing in Plato's heaven. Incidentally, the idea that metaphysical entities like Sin and Death were actively working against humanity was widespread in Judaism at the time of Jesus, and was influential in the thinking of early Christians.

 

I'm not sure that it's a valid one.

Maybe I'm being excessively contrarian here simply out of my own confusion, but I don't think it's true to say that humans share a broad consensus about what makes them happy or sad, and so any resulting "moral consensus" (what an impossiblity!) would be vastly oversimplified.

There's many issues with it. The changing of the times and the disparity of various cultures to name an obvious one.
Also processes in which we believe we eventually may be happy by making ourselves temporarily sad (putting off short-term gratification for long-term gain).

Something like rites of passage in primitive cultures, often brutally painful and certainly evil by our standards, is a good example of the two previous points. One could argue that their primitiveness is indicative of a non-developed morality, but if morality is consensus and based on happy or sad then that shouldn't matter and perhaps their culture is even superior in such a way.

Really, I think humanity manifests itself in such a diverse way that to me Platonic Evil seems more likely.

I think basing morality on happy-sad is only something a hedonist could conceive of (if it feels good, do it!) and is about what I'd expect from someone like Sam Harris.

For me, a more fruitful spectrum than happy-sad would be troubled-wholesome, but maybe this is just semantics and also flies in the face of everything I just said.

 

I find morality to be consistently the impulse to protect and extend the self. Self being those things you identify with as being yours or your own.

 

Evil...oh it exists, and it is no extension of me......torturing an animal or anything, and finding that funny.....is pure evil......no ands, ifs or buts about that.

 

the human ego is real. "the devil" was invented to make a convenient excuse for it.