zyta

I'm sure that all, if not most of us, have some belief of Good and Evil forces working around and through us. These beliefs can stem from various places: Morals, religious beliefs, Light Side and Dark Side of he Force, defined laws by the Government, or even fear.

Good and Evil is really clear cut in the Holy Bible; either you do sinful things, or you don't. Sinful things such as murder, rape, sodomy, theft, lying, and some others that could make this a really long list are easily defined as wrong. The Seven deadly sins are sometimes impossible to know when you tread its paths - as the Lord regards them in the Book of Proverbs:

• Haughty eyes
• A lying tongue
• Hands that shed innocent blood
• A heart that devises wicked plots
• Feet that are swift to run into mischief
• A deceitful witness that uttereth lies
• Him that soweth discord among brethren

Later these Seven sins transformed into our modern Seven Deadly Sins:

• luxuria (extravagance)
• gula (gluttony)
• avaritia (avarice/greed)
• acedia (acedia/discouragement)
• ira (wrath)
• invidia (envy)
• superbia (pride)

If you recall, Satan the Deceiver, was cast out of Heaven because he was prideful and thought himself better than God himself. No one who studies Biblical lore or Demonology questions this, after all that was the Great Downfall of Lucifer and the His angels (better known today as Demons). If Satan was truly prideful (in sin) for thinking that he was greater than God, does God have just as much, if not more pride than Satan for thinking that He, himself, is better than any other living being?

However, not once have I read that God created Satan or the angels. I firmly believe that the God of the Bible is actually more than one god (in the original Hebrew text, the First of the Ten Commandments it says not to take any God before "Us". Why US was switched to ME is something that I don't know). As far fetched as it may seem, I believe that God was but a few of many gods in the universe (the angels and Pagan gods are included in the number of gods), but were extremely powerful beings. But this is an entirely different debate altogether.

In Star Wars there are two sides of the Force: The Light and the Dark Sides. We naturally take this to mean good (light) and evil (dark), and while the dark side contains many sinful reasons and basis of achievement, the Light Side is not without its sinful streaks.

Ra, the Sun God of ancient Egyptians believe Ra to be the absolute 'good-guy' the bringer of the sun. In other words light = good. Apep, a serpent-crocodile god, stands in firm oppositions of Ra and rules the night. In other words dark (evil).

Humans have also related many evil creatures as the forces of the night, Vampires for instance. However, there are also many races on Earth that, though they believe that night is evil, there are some gods of good and righteous powers working to counteract the nighttime evils. We hardly ever hear about them, if at all.

Karma is a wonderful idea to me. If you do good, good will happen to you; if you do evil, evil, as they say, loves company. At the same time it is a good idea and theme to live by, I also find it irresponsible. Take for example a story from the Bible that may or may not have happened, I for one like to think that it has. In the Book of Job, Job was a devoted follower of God, always did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, but then Satan came along and made a bet of all things with God about Job's loyalty.

This bet is rigged in that God knew that Job would not curse him and die, the sneak XD

But back to the story; Job was covered in boils from head to toe, everyone in his household died (family and servants) his cattle died. Every moment Job was in pain, but not once did he curse God and die.

Now, following the belief of Karma, DID Job deserve what happened to him?

I believe that Good and Evil are both real and figments of the mind. Remember that Adam and Eve ate of the forbidden fruit and gained knowledge of Good and Evil.

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beast

No I do not think that Job deserved it, and that is why I will just stay wicked.

atomik_sprout

Job knew he didn't deserve any of the negative things that happened to him during his "dark times". However, the story tells us that even though he understood that bad things were happening to him--bad things nobody would ever think they deserved--he knew that if he kept his faith alive, good would come out of it. That's what the whole bet was about between God and Satan. "I bet ya twenty bucks that guy will still have faith in me after I ruin his life!" That's pretty much how it went down.

So, saying you're gonna stay wicked doesn't really mean anything, except maybe that you'll end up having wicked things happen to you. I don't even believe in the Christian faith and I still know that the book of Job has a great moral to its story. It's almost like karma--the energy you put forth is the energy you recieve. If bad things are happening to me and all I do is allow myself to be sucked in all that negativity, then all I'm gonna get are more bad things. If I remain positive during the hard times, then I'll get positive results. Nobody ever got successfull by crying about how sh*tty their lives are.

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aceman67

As this question has been posted so many times before, I would like to point out that 'good' and 'evil' are points of view, not absolutes.

Example: Eating a Hamburger could be seen as evil by someone from India, since you're eating a sacred animal, but to me, its perfectly fine.

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atomik_sprout

Mmm... Sacred beef. *drools*

You're absolutely right, Aceman! Nobody truely knows what good and evil are.

The word "sinister" came from the latin "sinistra" which means "left" (as in the direction). So, if I write with my left hand (which I don't, BTW) then I could be considered sinister, or evil. Righteous, right wing, etc. are all terms used for the "good guys". Yet, nobody is ever righteous and if you're a left-wingist, you're a radical or "evil". WTF?

Also, Zyta made mention that hands that spill innocent blood are evil. Well, I'm sure that we've all gutted a fish to cook it, if not, we watched mom or dad do it. We shed innocent blood to eat every day, whether we do it ourselves or have someone do it for us, we still are killing innocents to eat. Out of every living thing on the planet, humans are the least innocent. EVERY other animal are saints compared to humans. If you've gone hunting, you've spilled innocent blood--but I bet it tasted good, huh? LOL.

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Scourge

All of those are very true, how ever, the concept of light meaning good also means wisdom. Which is why God or good things is shown as light, for having the wisdom to differenciat between what is right and wrong. What your saying is based off of cultural aspects. How ever in all culture the act of murder is considered evil. Example. The Mians, yes, they practices Human sacrafice, but an act of killing another out side this was considered evil and punishable by death. So it isant as gray as you two precieve it to be Ace and Atomic. The context of which way it is taken varies but all cultures share a very basic concept of good and evil. Spilling the blood of an innocent animel to eat is justafiable in that you do this to servive, there is no avoiding it, even when you eat plants, you are still killing something for nurashment. Also killing in self defense, you have no intentions to hurt another but yet another wants to harm you, the fact that you are forced into a do or die situation makes the act of killing in self defense justifiable as you did not want want to harm or kill by choice.

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Spike'sRose

I'm not religious... Spiritual, I guess if you want to label it something.

That being said... There is no magic force making people evil or good... I believe in Karma, but in the sense that if you are evil, it will come back and kick you in the face later.

To me, evil is man. Human beings are in themselves evil. Rapists, serial killers, murderers, child molesters, and in general those who do pretty nasty stuff for their own satisfaction/personal gain are evil, and wastes of flesh. Being good to me is just living a decent life for you and yours, and having respect for your fellow man. Being a good person doesn't mean you have to volunteer to feed the homeless or things like that. Whatever. It means caring about someone other than yourself, and be willing to makes sacrifices for those people.

That's just how I look at it, anyway. And to me it is very much black and white. There are no shades of grey for me when it comes to things like that. Indeed, to many it is in the eye of the beholder.

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POOHEAD189

god said before "us" because god is...the father, the son, and the holy spirit. And god is not prideful of his powers, furthermore, god KNOWS hes the most poerful being in the universe, as opposed to satan wishing it. And i really dont think job deserved it, but it really doesnt matter what he deserved. His sacrifice became a book of the bible, and has possibly helped millions of people.