Redefining Good & Evil

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

EDIT: x-posted with Esty. All right, I hope it is forgiveable... and since I have already written it... anyway, good idea to try to bring the thread back to Tolkien. Though not sure if it was very closely related to him originally anyway.

Originally Posted by Gwathagor

"Newly-born politicial christians" don't, as a rule, blow people up.

Fortunately not, but also unfortunately sometimes they may support when somebody else blows people up...

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

sorry no many religious people go around blowing themselves and other up.... only one group comes to mind... sorry if it's politically incorrect just how it works.

More groups. In all cases, it is just the sects on the edge, but it happens/happened also in India or wherever. Anyway, the point is that it does not need to be blowing oneself up - religious people can be unfortunately often easily misused by some warmongering leaders (who need not to care about the words of their God at all, thinking themselves gods). (That's why the Bible leads people to question stuff... they should.)

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

Now to the point the authorimposes the metaphor of a chain... good rarely is a chain see thrying to bring everyone to the same level means forcing some down... in fact everyone looking out for themelves...(evil if you will in the scenario) builds stronger links.

if the good chain wants to rust just for the sake of "fairness" andr"rightness" it will break

And so which way is it supposed to work - will it ultimately go down to "eat or you will be eaten"? Also if what Nogrod quoted is right, it doesn't work like that even among animals who have been often used (unrightfully anyway, as it's been known for a long time already) as example of the mere survival of the fittest (and in the era of enlightement as the cruel nature with claws and jaws in contrary to the reasonable human mind).
And isn't it so rather the other way around - and obviously it works that way, otherwise we won't be here, but just a few of the most powerful and capable individuals - that it is inherent for humans to think of the other? Now it actually dawned on me that it really is so - how else could we last the way we did?
There have been bones of very old people found by the archaeologists, coming from really ancient times, some beginning of neolite. The interesting thing was that they were bones of some people who have apparently been disabled, and ontologically - all their life. But they lived until very old age. So that means they had to be cared for by others, even back then.
And then, just because of the limits. Purely pragmatically: even if you were on your own and cared only for yourself, there are things you have no power against - random events, natural disasters, anything. At any point, also anybody stronger than you can come and take your property or kill you or anything. Whereas when the parts of the chain care of each other, you, as one of the links, can help the other when you are all right and the other is not - and the other can then do the same for you in reversed situation. This way, it's not just relying on oneself, but this way also the community is capable to withstand f.ex. the natural disasters or things like that (to some scope, of course, but generally...).

And just from the worldwide scope, we are basically called upon to be "good" and that this "good" should have some social dimension to it. To kind of build on the words of Hakon on alatar - even if we are "just animals", the point is, what do we make out of what we have?
According to Genesis 2:15 - "God put Man into the garden to care of it and to keep it" ("to care of it", in Hebrew it says "to serve it" - just the way a good farmer "serves" his animals or something like that). Even if we are "just animals", we are - and certainly now - in the position of the dominant species, so it calls upon our responsibility. And that is on the world-wide scope, ecologically, and socially (which was the original point of this).
(Not to speak that while being the dominant species, we still are not completely in control and cannot know whether some changes we make on the Earth won't backfire on us.)
So, my point is just that - it does not matter that much, in my opinion, what are the presumptions you are stemming from, but how you act. Because also many people act differently even if they base on the same ideas. To use examples from this thread, the thought of inherent wickedness of humans can lead to different ends: a given-up pessimism ("everything is going to go wrong anyway, why should I bother to do anything"), but also to a strong effort in opposition to the bad. Despite the Catholic doctrine of original sin, the Christians often - led by their faith and hope - were the more determined to do something. Whereas somebody who lacked hope would be far more inclined to just give up. Though, importantly enough - and partially in connection to what Nogrod said about the inherent goodness - people many times don't cease to try to do good things even then. Just some who are really cynical and don't care about anything then.

Originally Posted by Morsul the Dark

Ok couple of things in this thread I've noticed and then my point on the subject

someone said Satan Herself Trust me satan (if he exists) is a guy Woman are inherently good.

Originally Posted by Hakon

That is sexist. Women can be just as bad as men. For all we know if Satan exists that you call a he and Nogrod a she could be an it. I always pictured God and Satan as sort of having no solid form. As not actually visible but there nonetheless. Then again I was raised as a Jew and not a Christian.

It goes (and I hope it goes even outside my view) that way also among today's Christians (and it went so more or less for most of the time. Funnily enough it's mostly unreligious people who think of God as male or things like that. Even the un-orthodox Jewish kabbala, which was in many other things rather "blasphemous" from the point of view of orthodox Judaism or Christianity, portrayed both "masculine" and "feminine" sides in God). Simply put, not only God is not male nor female, and neither "it" (and this is why I don't like either pronoun to be used, not even "it", but what can one do then, I guess it doesn't matter what we use as long as we know what we are talking about. Or, even better said: as long as we don't know what we are talking about, if you get my meaning), but in some way all of that together and even more, transcending any masculinity or femininity or whatever. (Which is unnecessarily overemphasised anyway.)
It also makes no sense to divide sexes on the basis of good or evil and I hope reasonable people (and on this forum) do not think like that anymore, one way or the other. I have heard really angered complaints from the part of the feminists who have, in some way, encountered some similar things like Morsul said, and they complained about it a lot, because such way of thinking once again makes a woman just something else than a man (intentionally using this word so that you can read it in both senses: as "human" and "man").
Whereas, to return to speaking biblically, according to Genesis 1 and 2, God created both man and woman equal, as counterparts to the other (Gn 2:18), even - as emphasised - from the same material (unlike in many myths of other nations, where man is made of e.g. iron and woman of clay or stuff like that). According to Genesis 1:27, God created man and woman together and together they are called "Adam". (I don't know what it is like in various translations, in the Czech one we have "human" at first and "Adam" is used only later as the personal name. I know at least that in the King James version the word "Adam" is used since the end of first chapter, but it is referring to both man and woman still and it is not clear in there when it switches into the personal name of the male. In any case, in the original, "adam" in Hebrew means "human" and the word does not have any female counterpart, unlike the words which are used from v. 22 on to label man and woman ('iš and 'išša, similarly to in v. 1:27 zakar and neqebah, "male and female").
Anyway, the point is, also with their part on eating the fruit of the tree, and on the sin, they are equal - they both eat, and most of all, they both try to hide after their crime. And they are trying to put the blame on the other in such a typical way that it's so actual even for us now. Just the way they answer to the question: "Have you not eaten from that tree?" "Oh, but it was the woman you [!] gave me" (so who is blaming whom here?) and when the woman is asked "Oh, but it was the serpent". Like quarreling children.
To add more of the Protestant perspective here, the point is often seen nowadays not in the deed itself, but in this reaction. It at least shows the way of thinking of the "criminals". First trying to hide, then putting the blame on each other - certainly something is wrong here just from the behavior, quite plainly without the need to speculate about any metaphysical reasons behind it.

And I did not even get to write anything in particular to Nogrod's post above But I guess I have written enough and I also have other things to do than just to write here (unfortunately).