Re: Evil

Posted by Hal on November 04, 1998 at 08:10:37:

In Reply to: Re: Evil posted by lawry2 on November 03, 1998 at 23:49:15:

:
: : I have no concept of the "universal or over-arching" nature of evil. I believe that evil like the "kindom of God" is within. Therefore, as an antithesis to the discussion on charisma I would propose that evil is the embodiment of pure self interest above all else.

: Agreed. Isn't evil the cost of keeping an ego-centred, ego-protecting, ego-enhancing UNconsciousness?

: To me the conventional Christian concept of evil seems to deny self-responsibility by universalising and putting it 'out there' (extraversion - about 75% of society is extravert, so that (perhaps) extravert ideas of evil have become a 'convenient' way of conceiving of it).

I also never liked the Christian concept of evil being "out there", that God is good and the Devil is evil, and we have neither responsibility nor control over either of them. Good and evil are one and the same, in the sense that you can't have one without the other--everything for us exists only in relation to its opposite.

In that sense, I would say that evil, like good, comes from within. In a more philosophical sense, neither one of them exist, but they are both products of our perceptions of reality, which come from within. If you look at it this way, you can't say that a person is evil, but you also can't say that a person is good. And evil, like charisma, can be tied to our type to the extent that we define good and evil by the traits of each type.

- Hal -

Follow Ups:

• Re: Evil; the shadow knows. Brian C. 11:23:31 11/04/98 (0)

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