excreationist

But let's talk hypothetically... say someone was all-knowing and therefore wasn't evil at all in the faith sense. Then they could have some bad behaviour that is considered almost evil.
Also, what about toddlers and babies? They have beliefs and expectations about things... are they evil? Kittens also have expectations (which is a kind of belief) about things. Are they evil?

So in reality someone with faith might not be evil and this happens purely by chance?

emphryio

To Jesus Christ,

First of all, I sympathize with every point you made. I see all that crap too and the "knowing" of it does lead to pain. As I said before, ideally intelligence leads to happiness. But if you have less than "perfect" all-knowing intellgence, bad luck can lead to unhappiness. (The bad luck in your's and mine's case would be being stuck in a world full of idiots.)

To excreationist,


Hmmm, If you mean by "bad behaviours", causing pain. Then I don't believe an all-knowing person could have an bad behaviours.

(Of course the all-knowing creature may deduce that the happiness caused by long term pleasure is more important than short term pleasure and therefore may produce some action that seems like a "bad behaviour" in the short term. Etc, etc.)


The very short answer is: To some degree we all are evil including kittens and babies. But what I mean by this is that some of our actions are evil, not that WE are evil.

I'm not sure you'll read the attempt to explain and clarify why this is so. But I'll write it.

Let me attempt to explain what I mean by pleasure vs. pain, or intelligence vs. stupidity.

Let's call hypothetical perfect intelligence an operating capacity of 100 percent. Maybe we could also call hypothetical perfect intelligence a complete and total awareness of everything simultaneously that ever was, and is. (And therefore ever will be.)

Than "perfect stupidity" would be an operating capacity of 0 percent. This could be the same as zero consiousness or non-existence.

Now, I am roughly defining intelligent as anything above 50 percent operating capacity and stupid as anything below 50 percent.

In the same manner, pleasure is defined as an increase in the awareness or existence of an individual. And pain is a decrease in the awareness or existence of an individual. (In other words, pain signals that the individual is coming closer to death.)

NOW although I originally said, "all pain can be considered evil." I said this for brevity. In truth, whenever there is at least two possible courses of actions, the action that produces the lesser amount of pleasure is evil. Therefore evil is relative. (And I repeat actions are evil, not people.)

For instance, you can save ten lives or 8. You decide to save only 8 because you're feeling like a nap. That would be evil.

For instance, you can cause world peace or stare at the wall. You just stare at the wall. This action is then evil. EVEN IF you were staring at the wall because you're so stupid that's all you're capable of. (I'm not referring to you, excreationist, just a hypothetical person.)

Maybe it would be easier for you if I said: "Faith leads to pain, (or faith leads to an overall increase in pain),"

instead of: "Faith is evil."

To say such a supposed virtue is EVIL!, seems to elicit an emotional response in some. But well, it is true, faith is evil.

emphryio

To excreationist,

I think I mentioned before, but anyway I say again, people are not evil. Some actions that people perform are evil.

So therefore people with faith may perform actions that increase happiness and this is by chance.

For example, many christians do charity, are polite, etc, today. But if they had been born 700 years ago, these same people might be torturing others in the name of Christianity. Or if they'd been born in Afganistan, well you know.

The next criticism I can see coming is that since I say actions that are evil, are only evil relative to other possibly "better" actions, someone can now say that means that virtually ALL actions anyone commits short of creating world peace must be evil. (Or whatever else causes the greatest increase in overall happiness.) Because they most likely could have been off doing that instead of paying the bills, going to work, etc.

The answer to that is basically yes, virtually every action we do is evil.

I would suggest though, that we can at least try to improve ourselves. And getting rid of faith is a nice start.

Now if anyone is still reading they'll go back to mis-defining faith and tell me how wrong I am on that basis.

[ June 09, 2002: Message edited by: emphryio ]</p>

JL

emphryio,

What if someone's will, through intelligent and rational choices, lead them to live a life fraught with pain; pain that exists as an unavoidable consequence of the path to the completion of one's will. Specifically something approaching a truly altruistic life where one will not reap the fruits of their labor before they die. In such an individual wouldn't pleasure amount to laziness and evil and pain to goodness? This is sort of in the same spirit as J.C.'s post. And what if one were in possesion of perfect and all knowing intelligence and passed judgement on humanity only to find it revolting or fundamentally lacking in some way?

Just a little hypothetical food for thought.

Also what you're saying seems equivalent to hedonism, whose moral edicts have always seemed to me to reduce to a tautalogy. Doing what is in one's best interest is good. What's good for you is good. While I can't argue with the conclusions, I do find it to be hopelessly vague. But perhaps I've mistaken what you're getting at.

emphryio

To Jl,

I think I am somewhat an example of exactly that. I would say that some people find more pleasure in obtaining pride through the actions they believe to be right, no matter how much "surface" unhappiness results during their lifetime. The pride means more to their "real" happiness, than what may appear on the surface.

I don't understand exactly what you're asking. I don't know the answer to this "what if", because I'm not perfect and all-knowing. Maybe you're implying this perfect creature would decide to destroy everything and...? Are you asking if this is good or bad? I'm not perfect. I don't know.


Well, I wasn't trying to display my entire philosophy of life. I was trying to talk about what was relevant to faith being evil. I'm thinking, (maybe incorrectly), that what I'm saying is applicable to different philosophies.

My personal philosophy is.... well. I think my personal philosophy would be frowned upon but yes it is hedonistic in nature. Maybe call it, hedonism or egoism with extreme forethought. The extreme forethought, or attempt to find personal happiness over the very longterm, makes it much more than a tautology. It makes it impossibly complicated. And it results in actions upon my part which may appear highly altruistic.

You could say my greatest goal in life is to reduce the amount of irrationality in the world. Even assuming that I am somewhat successful. (Which is unlikely). It would be hard to see how this could result in any meaningful benefit for myself. But yet I do it exactly and solely for my own benefit.

(The reason being, an increase in the intelligence of others SHOULD increase my own happiness and intelligence.)

I wonder if all that I'm really doing is being more honest than others.

So egoism with extreme forethought seems close to the equivalent of altruism.

But anyway, I believe that wasn't what I was getting at, at all. I was only talking about faith being evil. (If it is possible to talk only of that.)

I would be very interested to hear some responses to this last post. I'm far less sure of what I have said in it than previous posts.

JL

Sorry for the ambiguity regarding my question on a super-intelligent being. What I was trying to get across was what if the progressive increase of intelligence results in unhappiness, a pessimistic nihilism if you will. I see though what you're pushing for is the heightened rationality of all people, not just a lonesome few. The image I had in my mind was of an individual painfully aware of his superiority and lack of companions. I guess that's just the pessimist in me coming out; I think people revel in their ignorance, in their adamant refusal to abandon faith. To be completely honest I think their's a whole lot of people out there who couldn't function in a reality as most atheists know it.

I agree with you completely. To butcher the words of a great mind: "How can one act without one's will?"

I admire your stance (it's very similar to my own
) but most of the people I see identifying with hedonism are alltogether lacking in foresight. But I guess I digress.

excreationist

I think altruism is highly desirable to them because they get pleasure from it ("connectedness") and they feel pain from a lack of connectedness. (or guilt, etc)
So I think they are seeking emotional rewards and/or avoiding guilt/bad feelings - they personally have extremely compelling reasons to be altruistic although this doesn't mean they are necessarily rewarded in other ways.

echidna

3 subjective statements, none of which I agree with. Can you demonstrate even one of them objectively ?

Surely as a non-theist (assumption) you must be a believer in chance and random influence. As such one’s worldview cannot disregard the inevitable and real influence of random chance. Basing a moral conclusion on the idealism of a non-existent world is the same mistake which most theists make.

[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: echidna ]</p>

emphryio

To JL,

Yes, one lonely intelligent person could be quite unhappy. As a matter of fact, in the world of today, I think most young intelligent people are probably unhappy.

Sometimes when I'm feeling tired I think that you almost have to have some form of irrationality/insanity in you to be happy. Then I think that us basically rational people should make up something akin to a faith based religion except without all the harmful parts that come along with it.

But obviously you can see that in general, an intelligent person may be more likely to...
Avoid a car wreck. Not starve to death. Figure out how to get over a failed romance. Etc.

Also it has been my personal experience that my own progressive increase in intelligence has so far ultimately increased my happiness. (In truth my "progressive increase in intelligence" is probably more like 3 steps forward and 2.9 back.) Along this road I've have been quite unhappy at times as a result of being MAYBE slightly more intelligent than others. (And for many other reasons). But all in all, my experience is that generally, eventually intelligence does increase happiness.

I guess it isn't certain that this is the case all the way up to becoming "all-knowing". But excuse me if I assume it is.

BTW, thanks for the compliment.

To excreationist,

Connectedness? I don't know. Maybe. Ultimately most altruistic people don't really understand why they are altruistic. Ask them and they say, "...It's just the right think to do."

For example, my stepfather is extremely altruistic, I've attempted to discover exactly what his motivation is.

I ask, "Do you expect anything in return?"
"No," he says.
"Why exactly do you do it?"
"...(blah, blah, something, blah) it's the right thing to do."

I must admit in real life situations I don't coldy calculate if an altruistic action will result in my future happiness. As long as it isn't too much trouble, I may do it with a feeling of pride, which I believe is the same as thinking, "Look at me. I'm playing the game of life well."

And the reason the particular altruistic action I've accomplished makes me think I'm playing the game of life well, goes right back to egoism with extreme forethought.

But do I feel more pride in an altruistic action as opposed to some other thing in life that I feel I've done correctly that isn't altruistic?

If I do, then maybe I'm wrong in my thinking somewhere.

Hmmm. Upon further analysis, no. I don't feel more pride in seemingly altruistic actions.

(The thing I feel the most pride in, is the ability to withstand mental or physical pain. I would consider this the greatest virtue in the game of life.)((This isn't to say I seek out pain just in order to feel pride.)) (((And please feel free to go away echidna.)))