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Agreement With Alexander

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Posted by Richard Ruquist on January 25, 2002 14:25:21 UTC

Yes. Good and evil are relative terms. In any war the enemy is evil, on both sides. But I think it goes a little deeper than 'what I like and do not like'. I believe that there is a common morality, at least in the USA, that for example says that no man should be a slave of another, a corrolary of all men, and now women, are created equal.

Of course, the US has not always behaved correctly on the basis of this code of morality. I would say that the philosophy of might makes right, which is close to survival of the fittest, is basically evil, even though it is a principle exercised by the US in the world today.

So good and evil are relative, but meaningful terms.

In terms of a god. If we can identify a god, even one that is intelligent rather than just being fate, that god must incorporate both good and evil. The paradox for all believers is why such a god victimizes the good and the innocent. The promise in the jewish bible is that if the jews keep all the laws given to them, then god will reward the jews with prosperity. The actual reward for the most observent jews in WWII was death.

Might is right is not a positive precept in any religion that I am familiar with. Yet more than any other principle, it appears to apply to our world. When the first immigrants to the New World, including Columbus, committed a genocide of the Native Americans, religious thinking supported that genocide. Was that also god's work?

So the many genocides carried out in the world in the name of religion is the central problem to one's faith in the existense of a god. My take on it is that if a GOD EXISTS, he or she is much weaker than most believers would suppose.

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