[subversion]

Originally Posted by harmonygirl I do not subscribe to a determinist theory, whereby every action is ultimately good.

This means in an absolute sense that everyone is a bad person. I do not believe this.

[harmonygirl]

Well, Sub, I question the deterministic nature of the assumption that the good thing that happened in 2011 is necessarily premised on the bad things that happened before that. you are drawing a cause and effect where one might not be warranted. Some might say the good thing that happened in 2011 was due to planetary positions (or giant conspiracies or whatever). They are equally valid cause explanations. Further, there is nothing to say that one event in time is premised upon another (in the larger sense). Firstly, I don't believe that time is linear. Secondly, while we are aware only of a linear conception of time, there is nothing to say that things happen because they are supposed to happen and could not happen any other way. I don't subscribe to this.
Further, it doesn't follow that if we consider one thing to be good then it follows that everything is good. Once again, if you define good by definition there is bad.

[harmonygirl]

Originally Posted by subversion This means in an absolute sense that everyone is a bad person. I do not believe this.

Sub you are not understanding what I am saying. It is not an either/or situation. You must have both, but both are not connected to the Goddess. I certainly don't believe that everyone is a bad person. This is "all or nothing" thinking and I do not subscribe to it.

[Mr. Nobody]

War is not evil. War is just a struggle for survival of ONE culture. War determines which culture is stronger and will continue with the process of achieving order.
Both of you are tying together human concepts and try to find absolute roots for them. There are none. Evolution is the survival of the FITEST, not survival of good or evil. FIT is the attribute that nature demands. Nature does not care if you have evil intentions if they advance the survival of your group.
Fortunately what we deemed evil long time ago, is counterproductive to your group.
Read the "Lucifer Principle" by Howard Bloom for more discussions on that subject.

Darwin's principle is the only fundamental law of nature that applies to all systems from the quantum all the way to group mechanics of competing societies.
Perhaps we have not recognized that we already have a TOE in "Darwin's Law of Evolution"

[harmonygirl]

Mr. Nobody, I am going to have to disagree. War is evil. It is propogated for political and economic gain, not survival. It alienates sister from sister and objectifies ignominiously. There are no wars fought for survival anymore (although this may have been the case earlier on). Countries are illusions. There is no scarcity of resources on the planet, it is the DISTRIBUTION of them that is faulty.

[subversion]

Good and bad are opposites so if something is good it can not also be bad. Saying that something is both good and bad is a lie and a cop out.

So if not all actions are good, inevitably, then we will all be bad people. This is obvious.

Gravity connects all objects in space and time, therefore everything that happens is directly connected to everything else. Any moment in time is directly dependent upon everything that happened before it with no exceptions. THerefore since everything is uniform we can not describe it as being both bad and good. It has to be one or the other.

For example, let's say you consider your birth to be a good thing. But how can you prove that you would have ever been born if all the bad things of the past never happened? You see, your existence relies on all the bad things that ever happened whether you like it or not.

Now I'm not saying that we should not dislike things. I merely saying that what happens happens for better or for worse, so it's in our best interest to do things that we like. Physically speaking everything is always a good thing, but whether we like it or not is another story.

[subversion]

Originally Posted by Mr. Nobody Evolution is the survival of the FITEST

So why isn't survival of the fittest survival of the best? Why not assume that good always wins? Why not assume the winner is good? Afterall, that's the definition of a winner isn't it?

[Mr. Nobody]

Harmonygirl, you are correct in that modern wars are no fought over resources (perhaps a little, speak oil)
Most modern wars are about ideas. Ideas are very important and qualify or tie the groups together. Ideas represent your community. As I had indicated above, once you have become part of the group, you are asked to submit to this group. It is the price you pay to belong. You need the others, you need competition, you need alliances and you can not live without the support of the social order.
Destraught over a job loss? Why? Because in the eyes of your group you have become worthless. There are so many examples of the human herd animal that cannot exist, that is not even human without the support system of his peers, that it has become clear to me that the next step of the evolutionary ladder is not a species but that it is the collection of many to form a group. In that the groups struggle for domination, they fight wars, not to gain access to resources only, but to advance their ideals, their ideas. The group idea is vicious, it can and will afflict suffering whenever necessary to survive and to propagate. Propagation of these winning ideals is the continuation of biological evolution. Evolution of idealogies.....

Please both of you need to look into "Lucifer Principle" by Howard Bloom. It will illuminate your ideas of Absolute Good and Evil

[subversion]

harmonygirl, how can you say that war is evil if you cannot prove that it did not result in some good things?

[harmonygirl]

Sub, we're talking at cross purposes. I am not saying something is both good and bad (although this can happen depending on perspective ie the 1776 revolution of the states, good for america, bad for britain). I am talking about the whole picture. If you define good you MUST by definition define bad. Because of balance, equilibrium and related concepts, things tend towards the centre. good is not the ultimate outcome, neither is bad. There is no logical connection for your statement if not all actions are good, we will all be bad people. Some actions can be good and some can be bad. By themselves (individual actions) they don't define people as entities. It is the aggregate that we look at. I get the sense that this dialogue is bordering on simply restating our opinions, which is pointless. The original idea of the thread was whether the concepts of good and bad were necessarily linked to the Goddess. I think I have my answer, they are not, they are social constructs. Thanks for your opinions.