Good without evil? Evil without Good?

Q

Quigly

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Registered Senior Member
Can Good exist without Evil as a point of reference. Can Evil exist without Good as a point of reference?

If God were to take away evil in the world, then how could anyone define good? If God were to take away all good in the world, then how could anyone define evil?

If you think about the garden of eden and adam and eve as perfect humans living in a perfect world. It would make the most sense for God to place evil in the world as a reference point to see how good they were and how good the world was. It appears that evil corrupted the good of the land and the good of the humans so that good could exist.( that may not make sense)

If you think about everything though. God is perfect and before earth and humans and all of life, God existed. Neither Good nor Evil. God must have created perfect and imperfect. Good and Evil. I still am curious as to how God defined himself as perfect and good. (Did he create evil to reference his perfection?)

This thread assumes on some things already, so please keep that in mind. Assuming there is a God. Assuming the origin of humanity.
 
Quigly said:
Can Good exist without Evil as a point of reference. Can Evil exist without Good as a point of reference?

If God were to take away evil in the world, then how could anyone define good? If God were to take away all good in the world, then how could anyone define evil?

If you think about the garden of eden and adam and eve as perfect humans living in a perfect world. It would make the most sense for God to place evil in the world as a reference point to see how good they were and how good the world was. It appears that evil corrupted the good of the land and the good of the humans so that good could exist.( that may not make sense)

If you think about everything though. God is perfect and before earth and humans and all of life, God existed. Neither Good nor Evil. God must have created perfect and imperfect. Good and Evil. I still am curious as to how God defined himself as perfect and good. (Did he create evil to reference his perfection?)

This thread assumes on some things already, so please keep that in mind. Assuming there is a God. Assuming the origin of humanity.
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I thought so too, but now I think that there really is no need for any point of reference other than God Himself. It's our nature to think of things relative to other things, it may even be so the world works. But the world and God are not the same thing. God don't need point of reference since He is the truth, only the blind need point of reference, blind meaning lack of truth. We are desperatly trying to grasp reality. God would know what is good and what is evil, in it's purest form, without having to compare the evil with the good to establish some kind of truth between them.

When we see something nice then we don't have to compare that to something ugly to know it is nice, we can for example compare it to something else that is nice, I liked that and this is similar and I like this too.

It's however not that simple in everyday life, but we have some principles which defines what we like and what we don't, these principles are naturally coming into place, both through symmetri of different kinds and through experiance. We may in different ways influence our taste, but we cannot directly control it.

I understand your argument, if we didn't know "cold" how could we know "heat"? Well cold and heat are the same thing, actually it is just heat, more or less. Should we compare heat and cold with good and evil? Before I thought so (nothing is evil it's just less good), but now I'm not that certain anymore, there may really exist such a thing as evil. So much more important that we do good deeds then. Even if it's not allways good with a capital G.
 
Since He created us, He made the rules and we started the game by eating from the tree. Satan can't be blamed for that no matter how much we try. More importantly God did not intervene, so I feel that He wanted us to fall. Through this, we not only need to choose to come to Him, but also to learn what He wanted us to do. That is what is "good". Then you could look at the fact anything "evil" lacks what God wanted. So "evil" could be the absence of "good" making it basically "anti-good". So Hell would be "evil" because it lacks God, and Heaven would be as "good" as it gets since you are with God. I would consider earth a middle ground since you influence how "good" or "evil" you are. However I also look at the fact that if we didn't know about "evil" before going to Heaven, we would probably take it for granted having not seen how life would be like without Him. Could this be what Happened to Satan????

Yes I am """""" happy!!!!!
 
i forgot what point i was going to make now it was something to do with god creating evil. couldnt have been that signifcant if i forgot it already.
 
ellion said:
was satan in eden before A+E?
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Satan didn't exist then. Satan lies dead in matter, as its law, until we, with our consciousness, awaken him. Matter is hard and cold. When people desire it, they reflect its law. Without man, satan cannot exist, for without man, satan is just an unconscious force, a necessary natural law of matter.

Every law in its right place is divine. Mind, time and space, defines what is satanic and what is divine. For example... talk at the right time and place... keep silent at the right time and place... When spirit obeys the law of the flesh, the law is in its wrong place. If a person has obeyed satan, and dies, satan draws him back to himself, to matter, to the darkness, to loss of consciousness.
 
Cyperium said:
Who said that God wanted it?
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you cant be serious.
so we have to debate adam and eve again, who put the tree there in the first place, why put the tree there if you didnt want it. and then to curse the serpent because it helped your cause, and blame man for the fall.
very very fair.
 
audible said:
you cant be serious.
so we have to debate adam and eve again, who put the tree there in the first place, why put the tree there if you didnt want it. and then to curse the serpent because it helped your cause, and blame man for the fall.
very very fair.
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nonono, He gave us a choice. What would we have free will for if we didn't have a choice? What happens when you reject something bad? You feel good! Alot of good things happen to you! But when you do bad things, bad things happen. So God gave us a choice, we should have rejected the serpent to go with God. There were so many trees with apples, but our desire for what we aren't allowed to eat made the tree look so much tastier. I don't think the tree itself screamed "eat me!" (since there were so many other trees) and God didn't tell us to. The serpent tempted us and we decided to follow wrong instead of following God.
 
Cyperium said:
nonono, He gave us a choice. What would we have free will for if we didn't have a choice? What happens when you reject something bad? You feel good! Alot of good things happen to you! But when you do bad things, bad things happen. So God gave us a choice, we should have rejected the serpent to go with God. There were so many trees with apples, but our desire for what we aren't allowed to eat made the tree look so much tastier. I don't think the tree itself screamed "eat me!" (since there were so many other trees) and God didn't tell us to. The serpent tempted us and we decided to follow wrong instead of following God.
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so why did he give us a choice? who wants choice if it leads him to hell? god made us the way we are, everything is his fault.
 
so why did he give us a choice? who wants choice if it leads him to hell? god made us the way we are, everything is his fault.
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I don't entirely believe in choice, so I couldn't tell you. Choice seems like it would take no internal(belief system, internal order of the mind) or external (force: Gun to your head, false and true promises/rewards) influence.
If choice was reliant on a neutral decision, than that is not possible.

Even Adam and Eve, not knowing the nature of Good and Evil nor the nature of the world they were placed in had both internal and external influence when it came to the fruit. In this case the external influence triggered the internal influence about there eternal God.

One could blame God and turn from him and another embrace him and find salvation, so is the order of man. Let the creator create to his own delight for if we were God we would understand the events prior and the events to come and see that all is good and right and just and pure.
 
Cyperium said:
nonono, He gave us a choice. What would we have free will for if we didn't have a choice? What happens when you reject something bad? You feel good! Alot of good things happen to you! But when you do bad things, bad things happen. So God gave us a choice, we should have rejected the serpent to go with God. There were so many trees with apples, but our desire for what we aren't allowed to eat made the tree look so much tastier. I don't think the tree itself screamed "eat me!" (since there were so many other trees) and God didn't tell us to. The serpent tempted us and we decided to follow wrong instead of following God.
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yesyesyes adam and eve where but children and had no idea what good or evil was before they ate of the tree, therefore can not be held responible for the fall, they would not know they where making a wrong choice, they would not of understood exactly what a choice was. its like telling a lion not to kill to eat. it has no knowledge of good or evil, the lion just does it, it cannot make a choice not to kill. just as a+e were before the fall.
a+e were coerced into eating of the tree by god. else why put the tree there in the first place. we've been through this a thousand times before.
 
Well the point was they made an influenced choice and did disobey their creator. He instructed them not to eat of a specific tree. Hell, he made and said don't eat of it. They decided through persuasion to disobey. Don't piss off the creator.
 
Quigly said:
He instructed them not to eat of a specific tree. Hell, he made and said don't eat of it. They decided through persuasion to disobey. Don't piss off the creator.
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Questions:

1. Without possessing the knowledge of good and evil, how do they know that disobeying is bad?

2. When two children in the complete blank state of guillability going against the slickest used car salesman (Satan) in the universe, how can you blame them for getting persuaded?
 
1. Without possessing the knowledge of good and evil, how do they know that disobeying is bad?
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That is a good question. They don't specifically know is my guess. When God said, if you eat of that tree you will surely die, to them death was not an existant thing. It is my guess that some part of them knew what they were doing was in direct conflict in what God said though. The serpent came to them and said you won't surely die. He knows that when you eat of the fruit you will be enlightened..ect. They went from listening to the creator to listening to the created.

2. When two children in the complete blank state of guillability going against the slickest used car salesman (Satan) in the universe, how can you blame them for getting persuaded?
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You can't blame them as if it were me, I would have fallen prey also...That or cut down the tree and burned it so I wouldn't eat it. Whether we can blame or not blame doesn't really change the outcome of original sin.
 
Quigly said:
That is a good question. They don't specifically know is my guess. When God said, if you eat of that tree you will surely die, to them death was not an existant thing. It is my guess that some part of them knew what they were doing was in direct conflict in what God said though. The serpent came to them and said you won't surely die. He knows that when you eat of the fruit you will be enlightened..ect. They went from listening to the creator to listening to the created.
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Then how do they know listening to the creator or the created is good or bad without the knowledge of good and evil?

You can't blame them as if it were me, I would have fallen prey also...That or cut down the tree and burned it so I wouldn't eat it. Whether we can blame or not blame doesn't really change the outcome of original sin.
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Well, if Adam and Eve didn't do anything WRONG, they don't deserve punishment. But in the bible they were punished. God in the bible is unjust.
 
Quigly said:
Well the point was they made an influenced choice and did disobey their creator. He instructed them not to eat of a specific tree. Hell, he made and said don't eat of it. They decided through persuasion to disobey. Don't piss off the creator.
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utter rubbish, they had no choice they did'nt understand. and it was not persuasion it was coercion, they could not have been persuaded the didnt understand, what would happen if you put banana in front of a monkey and told it not to eat it. as it has no knowledge of good and evil, would it know it was doing wrong by eating it. adam and eve were likened to that monkey, before the fall.
insult you own intelligence, not mine.
and if you god does'nt like me saying it forced adam and eve, then let it smite me tonight, and I tell you about it tomorrow.
 
Does my dog have a choice, if I set my dinner on the floor and walk out of the room? Yes.
Depends a lot on the dog's pre-conditioning.
Do we know what pre-conditioning had been done in Adam and Eve's case, by their previous existence in Eden? No.

It doesn't really matter -
The choice is incorrectly put as a choice between what is right and wrong, rationally made, by as Audible describes them, children.
The choice should be described as, obey God or don't. Understand that your conclusions will sometimes be incorrect and follow a higher moral dictum, or don't.
Trust God, or don't.
Aso, God didn't punish them for eating the apple, God warned them away from eating the apple. "Be happy little children, and never you mind that knowledge apple."

Of course there are many other complexities to the concept of original sin, which i can't pretend to explain.
How do some people see this as so incredibly simple?
By becoming ignore-ant.
 
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