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Re: defining good and evil



>
>Good: anything that improves the human condition
>Evil: anything that detracts from the human condition
>


since everyone is on their soapbox preaching their ideas then i'll join in 
with the rest of the hecklers in the crowd.

you define good as anything that improves the human condition and evil as 
anything that detracts from it.  i guess that's classic humanism;  'man is 
the measure of all things'.  (was it some mathematician who said that?  
pythaga-somethin')  a rephrase of that statement is, 'man is the absolute 
standard'.  reality is measured by man's wits.  let me know if i'm reading 
too much into your above assertion.  but for now i'll go on to think through 
the above claims as i understand them:  since the human condition is, 
presumably within your philosophical framework, transient and sporatic, then 
therefore man's conception of good and evil must also be transient and 
sporatic, and thus a mere figment.  man is ironically the "product" of 
chance.  random nothingness is man's "father".  although man currently 
exists, he likewise is heading to the arms of random nothingness once again, 
as entropy is increasing. i think it's funny that i sit here and talk about 
man as if he something, because he is obviously nothing, considering his 
source and his destiny.  thus i am personifying mankind, something that is, 
in the greatest scheme of things, inatimate; less than a drop in the bucket, 
less than a spec of cosmic dust, nihl, zero.

within the community of the human experience, we know that we can, to a 
limited extent, communicate and understand one another.  we know that we 
share common experience and emotions.  we exist and subsist with society.  
we experience and exist. (what a remarkable coinidence!)  this most of us 
don't deny.  but i think our mistake, as good humanists, is supposing that 
within the experience there is meaning and significance.  for instance, it 
is said to be bad to hurt another human being.  we recognize their pain and 
disapproval of our action toward them.  that much is true.  but can we 
really validly call hurting someone wrong?  can we call killing a race 
wrong?  sure, they don't like it, pain sucks.  but what makes it wrong?  any 
way you cut it our existence and experience is heading lightspeed towards a 
big fat oblivion.  what difference does it make if i proliferate a 
transient, suffering race or kill it off?

we all talk about love and benevolence.  love and the decisions that go with 
it is just a bunch of chemicals reactions in our respective brains.  so is 
pain.  it doesn't mean anything at all, but we all play the game.  we go to 
work.  interact with friends. interact with family.  feed our children. 
nurse the wound.  it's easier than facing the truth.   we are humanity, hear 
us roar.  then watch us burn up.
-brian
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