[futrethink]

Rufus.

the answer is.. Anything that desecrates Humanity

---A little while ago in the news; some teenagers took a cat, tied a rope around its neck, dragged it around on the ground, hung it from a tree and beat on it while it was being hung. Was that something that you would call, 'evil being done to something other than humanity'?
---Evil/bad things/unbearable pain isn't limited to human beings. All that human beings have over 'animals' is; the ability to describe the concept.

[Rufus]

Originally Posted by Tina Sorry but Answer is not yet revealed - I think you took definitions of "evil" as the answer

OMG Double Damn

Tina Tina Tina....

Ok I give up what do I have to do to come to the end result of this thread of yours.

Given your definition as dis-ing humanity being evil itself

the root cause would have to be poor judgement

Rufe

[Tina]

Originally Posted by Rufus OMG Double Damn Tina Tina Tina.... Ok I give up what do I have to do to come to the end result of this thread of yours. the root cause would have to be poor judgement Rufe

Poor Judgement is a symptom of evil - it will all make sense soon!

[Tina]

Originally Posted by futrethink Rufus. ---A little while ago in the news; some teenagers took a cat, tied a rope around its neck, dragged it around on the ground, hung it from a tree and beat on it while it was being hung. Was that something that you would call, 'evil being done to something other than humanity'? ---Evil/bad things/unbearable pain isn't limited to human beings. All that human beings have over 'animals' is; the ability to describe the concept.

Yes - I never meant to stipulate 'Humanity' as the sole recipricant of 'evil'. But I do insist that humanity is the only instigator of 'evil' in the sense of defacing life (as was done to poor cat).

And there are some studies on animals to show that they actually cry emotional tears. I will find link if you are interested.

[futrethink]

Tina.

But I do insist that humanity is the only instigator of 'evil' in the sense of defacing life

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxDZW4k8tCY
---This is a video of orcas playing with their food. To the seal, its emotional pain is being extended long past the point when it should have been eaten and put out of its pain from fear. Is that just life or is playing with your food, for teaching your young or for fun, something that you would call ‘evil’?
---Humans are not the only beings that can cause ‘evil’.

some studies on animals to show that they actually cry emotional tears.

---You don't need a study to tell you that animals feel emotions of some sort, if not some emotions that are exactly the same as a humans.
---All you have to do to find that out is; watch the world around you and watch/listen to/perceive the stories/news about the world around you.
---As I put forward already, you can't have a human or any capable being instigating ‘evil’ or even understanding what evil is until that singular being interacts with anything else. That is the root cause of evil.
---In your previous post, “Let us assume that the interaction between EVERYTHING NON-HUMAN is devoid of good or evil.”, you want to eliminate non-humanity from being evil. To some people a fire is ‘alive’. It almost seems to have a want of survival. In some cases it almost seems to seek out ‘food’ like oxygen and combustible materials. To some people being burned alive and living through it, gives them a respect for it, even when they call it an ‘evil’ thing that happened to them.
---Fire is neither good nor evil and yet, it can be perceived as such in the context in which it is placed. The ‘context’ of something is what surrounds a concept and what it is perceived to interact with.
---Your original question was/is, ‘What is the root of all evil?” Until you have interaction, you can’t have a human instigate evil if there is nothing to instigate it on, you can’t have a human deface humanity if there is no humanity to deface, you can’t have a human being be greedy if there is nothing to be greedy for, you can’t cause pain to another if there is not another to cause pain to, you can’t describe evil if there is nothing to learn from about what evil is, et al.
---Do you ant to know what is evil to me? The fact that we humans are supposedly very intelligent beings and yet we haven’t learned to not repeat history and end up causing/doing the same things that we say we hated happen in the past.

[Tina]

Originally Posted by futrethink 1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxDZW4k8tCY ---This is a video of orcas playing with their food. 2) You don't need a study to tell you that animals feel emotions of some sort, if not some emotions that are exactly the same as a humans. 3) As I put forward already, you can't have a human or any capable being instigating ‘evil’ or even understanding what evil is until that singular being interacts with anything else. That is the root cause of evil. 4)... you want to eliminate non-humanity from being evil. - Fire is neither good nor evil and yet, it can be perceived as such in the context in which it is placed. 5) Until you have interaction, you can’t cause pain to another if there is not another to cause pain to, you can’t describe evil if there is nothing to learn from about what evil is, et al. 6) Do you want to know what is evil to me? The fact that we humans... haven’t learned to not repeat history.

1) I only perceived the orcas as using strategies to reach their food...that ice is heavy you know. But emotionally the video made me feel 'sad' about the necessity of the food chain.

2) IMO humans and animals share instinctive SURVIVAL emotions: Fear/anger/happiness/sadness/surprise/disgust. In animals these emotions are pure - in humans, emotions are bound up with intellect (ie we interpret, add dimensions to, and make value judgements about what we feel emotionally).

3 & 5) Regarding interaction:Yes 'evil' manifests through interaction - but I ask again is it inevitable that 'evil' manifests through interaction? )

NB:Pain to me is necessary for survival - its presense warns us that somethig is wrong and/or to avoid something.

4) Fire is fire - we know its causes - we know its effects! But ultimately fire is necessary for survival.

5) see 3 above

6) History will repeat because the 'root of evil' has not changed.

[Profpat]

Originally Posted by Tina Poor Judgement is a symptom of evil - it will all make sense soon!

HOW SOON!!!! YAWN.

[futrethink]

Tina.

Regarding interaction:Yes 'evil' manifests through interaction

---What results through interaction is merely a change. That change is good or evil depend on how it is perceived/interacted with.
---That interaction can only occur when you perceive/interact/sense something, whether it be matter or energy or massenergy or time or space or spacetime or the absence of something.

but I ask again is it inevitable that 'evil' manifests through interaction?

---Yes. No. (Subjective existence or nonexistence).
---Both at the same time. (Intersubjective reality)
---None of the previous. (Objective nonexistence)
---Someone in a previous post brought up a woman in the 1600s showing a little bit of leg, being considered evil. To someone looking at her, in that time of Puritanism, she was seen as a seductive evil being. To the woman, who had been working hard and not noticed her clothing slide up for that small moment, it was simply a mistake. To a person who is into naturism, wearing nothing is considered a good thing and would laugh about any fuss about something showing a bit of leg. To most people seeing something like that happening today, it is neither important nor unimportant.
---It all depends on the degree/level of interaction (between the something and the context that it is in) that you interact with/see/perceive happening.

Fire is fire - we know its causes - we know its effects! But ultimately fire is necessary for survival.

---Again it comes down to how you interact with/perceive it. To someone burned in an arsonist’s fire it was an evil happening. Looking at fire, by itself without any context, it is just a visible form of energy.
---And as to it being necessary for survival; how many fires do you see in business skyscrapers that are there for survival?

in humans, emotions are bound up with intellect (ie we interpret, add dimensions to, and make value judgements about what we feel emotionally).

---The emotions that we feel are as pure, as any animals, for one instant of time. That pure emotion only becomes bound up with thought after time passes.
---Animals have the same thing happen to their emotions, depending on their level of intellect.

I only perceived the orcas as using strategies to reach their food

---Those orca ,that you think are just using strategy, are part of the cetacean family and are considered intelligent mammals by many scientists. And the seal was actually put back up on the floe by the whales. Are you telling me that that was just strategy?
http://www.studentsonice.com/antarctica2004/html/dec25.html
“The orcas circled the ice-floe where the seal was lying and, using their bodies and fins, made waves to knock the seal into the water. After a while underwater the seal, one of the whales lifted the seal back onto the ice-floe and the process of making waves and dislodging the seal began again.”
---There have been other instances that have shown orca playing with their food, like flipping the seals in the air. Is it for fun, to tenderize them or for to kill them in a different way other than just eating them alive?
---In any case, to the seal (who is the toy), I don't imagine the pain and terror that it is feeling about its lack of survival is a 'good' thing, since it won't be able to learn from it.

[Polybius]

HMmmm , ***In a state of infinite ponder***

There is no such thing as evil. Was this a trick question???

It is a definition invented by man. With the help of language we can state on a very personal level what evil is to the individual.

If there would be a cause/root for evil it would be Life itself, because this 'evil' would be apart of life.

To ponder the cause/root of evil you would have to know the cause of life itself...actually aren't Humans then themselves the root of all evil? If you think of it as just a word invented by man...

[Tina]

Originally Posted by Profpat HOW SOON!!!! YAWN.

OK Profpat take a rest from this for a while.
I will wake you when answer is ready (by private message) and will post only when you reply. There is a specific reason for this. (he yawn again).