There are 3 choices, 5 votes for stesuswede's debate

Is evil and good contradictive or interweaved?

Gnostic dualistic division of good and evil, flesh and spirit


  • Annihilation of the "flesh"

    What make human beings so keen to annihilate them selves? Many philosophers insist on the necessity of self-denial and mortifying of the “flesh”. Asceticism exists in many systems by means of fasting periods, temperance when it comes to food, beverage, sex and other physical or mental pleasures.

    I find that these systems seem to have very much in common, whether it is about Christianity, Islam or other eastern religions or philosophical systems. Together with Gnosticism they all share some portion of devotion to the principle of dualism, the “bad” versus the “good”, where the bad most often is connected with the physical body and the material world and the good with the spiritual world. It seems to have led to some kind of quest for nothingness, Nirvana, the extermination of ego and existence itself. Why do we look for the ultimate, the ulterior boundaries? Why do we find the presence here and now so unbearable? Even I find it so rather often. But is this experience caused by evil?

    Close to this concept it is easy to understand the materialization of these two entities through angels and good spirits versus evil spirits and demons at the other end of the scale. In Gnostic belief partly based on Platonic philosophy the world is built up by a Demiurge, the creative God, made evil in the Gnostic system, but not in Platonism. Christianity has tried to combine these two elements of God into one, Jesus Christ, both God and Man, and by this redeeming and uniting mankind into a holistic unity, although dependent of the free will of man.

    All this has created a great confusion over time, but most theologies and philosophies have kept the concept of polarity of matter and spirit, evil and good, very much alive. To gain a higher level of spiritual consciousness we are supposed to fight the flesh to achieve a supposed catharsis.

    My question is why we still consider the physical, visible part of existence evil. Is it because of its mortal and transient character? If we for a moment try to look at it from a quantum physical point of view, we may realize that these two elements exist simultaneously as two vectors in the same matrix as parameters in the same equation.

    The question remains about how the parameters, considered evil, would affect the rest of the “matrix” or compilation of the life equation. Have most philosophies missed the point that there is no real wall between life and death, matter and spirit? My point is that they may be part of the same substance like an alloy, hard to separate. If they are possible to extract like metal by different melting temperatures or by electrolytic processes, what does this mean in the spiritual context? Do corresponding “ion bindings” exist between soul and matter as in the physical world? Or is it as with the definition of the Holy Trinity, without mingling or confusion, distortion or alteration?

    What this polarization has meant to people can’t be overrated. Most conflicts in this world are described as a fight between good and evil. But what is good for one part is evil for the other. Is it possible to find something that is good or evil from an objective point of view? In times of peace it’s an erroneous and evil doing to kill another human being, but in times of war it is a most valuable act, by calling it self-defense. What is considered a necessity in one case is regarded an evil deed in another situation.

    And yet I think that most people have an inner voice telling them what is fundamentally right and wrong, due to tradition and upbringing. Or maybe it is engendered by unconscious but innate spirituality.

    All these questions may seem inadequate but are still confusing my insufficient understanding ability and my lack of higher knowledge. I maybe just mess it all up.

    60%  Voted for by ohsweetie2788, stesuswede, jasonstambo.
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  • Daodejing

    When one creates good, he creates evil. When one creates order, he creates chaos. There are always two complementary sides.

    Voted for by kage069.
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  • Evil is a parasite

    As once said in the popular little story I see running around with the boys and their professor. Evil is either 1: the Absence of Good. or 2: The pursuit of Goodness, but in the 'wrong' fashion.

    Voted for by ChaosJesterHaunter.
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