TheRPGSite

Rather than waste time an energy in the vast 'throw philosophy degrees at one another' thread, which I long ago conceeded defeat in, I thought I'd bring this topic up in a new thread where it really belongs.

One of the great assumptions of western thought is that Evil exists, that it is a real, quantifiable thing.   Aside from some casual amusement from working out what that means (eg: evil is not the abscence of good, nor do they exist side by side, but good is the abscence (relative) of evil. As Darkness is the absence of light, cold is the absence of heat, etc...)

But I do not believe in Evil.  It doesn't exist. It is a failing of human thought processess to assume it does, unchallenged.  Suffering exists, certainly, but suffering is relative, even subjective.  Often we create our own suffering, in western thought this is viewed as evidence of 'Free will'.  Doug does not 'allow' suffering to exist so much as He refuses to prevent it because it would interfere with Free Will.  It leads to interesting discussions of the Ethics of Doug...

But not all suffering is created by people.  One could argue that the spread of disease is not caused by humanity. It's arguable, of course, most things are if you are willing to look.  Unsanitary living conditions are often a choice. The spread of the black plague can be linked to the mongol hordes and the seige of byzantium... in theory.  Smallpox epidemics in the Americas came from European visitors.  

Let us remove the human element, then. Natural disasters are a good example of suffering created outside of humanity. Often anyway. Mudslides can be linked to deforestation, as are many fires.  Of course volcanoes, earthquakes and others are, as yet, outside our influence.  Thus, suffering created by those can be used to show how Free Will is not the only reason Suffering exists.  Thus we can argue that Doug allows Evil... as long as one agrees that suffering and evil can be synonimous.

Only...

only....

Many times we ignore the bigger picture. The world exists in balance and humanity is not necessarily the ultimate benefactor of the world. We do not exist to be served by nature.  It is human vanity that writes our relgions to make it so.  If an animal kills a man it is because the animal must eat, and man is merely another source of meat.  Recently it has been shown that forest fires are necessary aspects of the life cycle of forests. That some animals, including man, may die or be inconvienced, is of no concern for the overall health of the ecosystem as a whole.

Bah, you say.  Such suffering is unnecessary, a better, less painful method must exist, and even if it didn't Doug could surely invent one.

Suffering, however, is not unnecessary.  Imagine for yourself the perfect world, where there was no want, no need, no pain... no suffering at all.  What would you do in such a world?  What would anyone do?  

It has been suggested that an artist's art suffers when the artist does not.  The man who hits the big time, marries a good woman and has happy adjusted children can no longer tap that need for something better that informed the works that drove him to success.  He becomes content, even complacent and is happiest just 'coasting' on his previous successes.   Suffering drives us, pushes us to change, to grow to improve. It contrasts the misery of now with the potential pleasures of later.   Can you know light without darkness? Can you know Good without Evil?  I submit to you that you can not.  As stories are driven by conflict, so too are game worlds, and so too are we.  We are driven by our conflicts, by our baser needs and wants, and by the suffering we create and are exposed to on a daily basis.

Perhaps there is a omnibenevolent, omnifisient, omnipotent Doug out there, and yet suffering exists, because Evil does not, and suffering serves a purpose.  Suffering is GOOD for us.  Life is short for a reason. I can name half a dozen reasons why we must die.   I fear the day mankind discovers the means to immortality, and the vision of the world that will follow disturbs me.

I do believe in pure, true evil, because I have met "people" who were nothing but pure evil made flesh. That's all I can say, I can't explain it, I can't say why it exists but I know it does.

I don't believe in evil as some sort of universal force, but I do think it's an apt descriptor for some of the things humans do to one another.

You describe what you see as evil (rather than Evil)... I see it as misplaced survival behavior. Sometimes not even misplaced.  Human beings are remarkable biological machines, and while higher order thought is a nice little addition to the normal package deal (an option, like Air conditioning if you will...), in reality in tends to interface poorly with the biological imperatives of your hardwired minds...

Thus your higher brain functions see suffering and evil, while your lower brain goes... 'yeah, I need that more than that stranger consuming my resources does...'...

and so Doug is created to explain the difficulty. Only we want Doug to be a nice guy, which again doesn't jibe with the fact that we see bad stuff, so some guys call themselves philosophers and discuss moldy ideas without ever questioning the premises the use...

The two can be the same thing. "Evolutionary urges that don't fit the modern world" is a cause. "Evil" is a moral judgement. I'm comfortable making moral judgements on people that can't control their evolutionary urges.

But at least for me, it's rare that just a misplaced evolutionary urge will cause me to label someone evil. While that sort of thing might, for instance, cause a murder, it's unlikely to cause torture followed by cannibalisms and necrophilia. Murder in and of itself isn't evil, just wrong. You have to go the extra mile to move from bad to Dark.

I'm drunk, so I won't type too much, but:

Howard K. Bloom's The Lucifer Principle (http://www.amazon.com/Lucifer-Principle-Scientific-Expedition-History/dp/0871136643/sr=8-1/qid=1169263289/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-3677673-0102041?ie=UTF8&s=books) is a study into the biological necessity of evil.  It's an interesting read.

You have a slave's mentality, Spike. The true Übermensch is beyond good and evil (http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/beyondgoodandevil_tofc.htm). It is others who suffer, not me.

Droog, why would I seek to emulate a super 'man' when I am already a superior lifeform?  To be beyond good or evil one must first accept their reality, as I do not.

James: I do not thing our biological imperative 'survival behavior' is out of place in the modern world at all. I think it is a failing of our modern civilization that we have not come to term with our natures and seek to make their existance a part of our civilized behavior.  This isn't to say every act should be accepted freely, far from it, but some of the more extreme perversions of behavior you name are often either outgrowths of ruthless supression of the animal nature or are more harmless expressions of survival behavior. In times of need, humans can be viewed as a meat animal (re: cannibalism), and in cultures which practice it, they do not simply blindly feed on one another but ascribe it ritual and traditional venues for outlets.   Necrophilia is an outgrowth of repressed sexuality, which has been stated in some sources to be a biological need on par with non-sexual social contact.  It disgusts us because we have too much value, vanity, of our selves in the world. Further, in the later case, it is in fact a perverted survival behavior, thus disgusting because it serves no purpose beyond gratification of the individual.

I don't think all biological imperative is out of place, nor are cannibalism or necrophila by themselves evil. Torture, canniballism (note the lack of mentioning murder in between), and then necrophilia would be. Eating and fucking corpses by itself is just nasty, not Evil. Again, you have to go the extra mile to be Evil.

Quote from: SpikeDroog, why would I seek to emulate a super 'man' when I am already a superior lifeform?

You mean a pokemon?

Quote from: SpikePerhaps there is a omnibenevolent, omnifisient, omnipotent Doug out there, and yet suffering exists, because Evil does not, and suffering serves a purpose.  Suffering is GOOD for us.  Life is short for a reason. I can name half a dozen reasons why we must die.   I fear the day mankind discovers the means to immortality, and the vision of the world that will follow disturbs me.

Sure, but how does the death of a four year old girl in a Peruvian mudslide benefit anyone?  In particular, since this is the only life she has in this world, how is it good for her?

Quote from: SpikeSuffering, however, is not unnecessary.  Imagine for yourself the perfect world, where there was no want, no need, no pain... no suffering at all.  What would you do in such a world?  What would anyone do?  

One of the buddhist hells works that way, you get whatever you want instantly without effort, it is not seen as a reward.

So, I entirely accept that some suffering is a good thing for creatures like us, but where I differ is that some suffering we see goes beyond that.

Having to work all Summer to afford a new toy as a kid is not necessarily such a bad thing, having horrifically painful bowel cancer though seems less beneficial overall.

Quote from: BalbinusSure, but how does the death of a four year old girl in a Peruvian mudslide benefit anyone?  In particular, since this is the only life she has in this world, how is it good for her?

This is just one of the many possibilities, but perhaps it saves her an assload of suffering later in life and shuffles her farther along the path to the rockin' grooviness that is Dougland. Meanwhile down on Earth the family finds a stronger bind between them and more internal strength as they cope both seperately and together with their loss.

If you accept the Reincarnation Model (inventing terms via capitalization... go ME!) as valid, she is burning off bad Karma. Of course, when you scale down to the individual level, the universe is a vast and uncaring place. The mudslide killed a little girl who hadn't harmed a thing. It is evil.

But it isn't. Mudslides do not 'just occur'. They are caused by erosion, they are a part of the physical model of the universe, causality if you like. Man removes the trees from the hills for firewood, mudslides occur because the infrastructure that holds the wet dirt in place is now gone.  Free will, as exercised by man, caused the mudslide, and the girl was not killed by Doug, but by men.

Mudslides, of all the natural disasters that afflict communities of man are a result of our own imperfect use of the enviroment around us.  Right up there was fires.

One response to the problem of Evil that's unique to Christianity is that of Emmanual, "God with us".  God became a human being and experienced evil and suffering as one of us.  This means that He understands what we're going through even if we don't understand why it's happening

Quote from: Spike... But I do not believe in Evil.  It doesn't exist. It is a failing of human thought processess to assume it does, unchallenged.  Suffering exists, certainly, but suffering is relative, even subjective...

I don't know what you mean when you state that 'suffering is relative, even subjective'.

While different things might cause suffering in different people (e.g. drinking coffee makes you wince, whereas I like it), suffering itself is quite 'objective'.  It's experiencing pain -- something that all higher animals (animals with a certain developed neurological structure) can, and frequently do, experience.

Moreover, certain things cause pain/suffering in pretty much all human beings, e.g. violent injuries, starvation, etc.  If you're not feeling pain, i.e. suffering, after not having eaten anything for five days, you've got a serious biological disorder (and are not likely to last much longer in any case).

Regarding 'evil', many people would simply define it as 'intentionally causing unnecessary suffering' (e.g. torturing small innocent children).

Quote from: SpikeMany times we ignore the bigger picture. The world exists in balance and humanity is not necessarily the ultimate benefactor of the world. We do not exist to be served by nature.

I don't know what you mean by the world existing 'in balance', but pain obviously plays an evolutionary role.  Animals developed a capacity for pain (feeling hunger, wounds, etc.); it helped them to survive.  

Of course, this doesn't mean that a lot of the pain that we suffer is in fact unnecessary.  Indeed, most isn't.  But that's just an unfortunate (indeed, tragic) side effect.

Quote from: Spike... Suffering drives us, pushes us to change, to grow to improve....

Sometimes, perhaps (although I think it is a lack of imagination to think that the world must be constituted in such a way that suffering is necessary to 'push us' on, i.e., that some other mechanism is not available).

But suffering also causes people ... agony, depression, etc.  Many people give up thanks to suffering.  Many people die.

This is especially the case where suffering is acute and widespread.  

If millions of people are suffing due to a massive famine or plague, it seems disgustingly smug to sit back and assert -- while children weep with swollen bellies -- that this is somehow going to 'drive them on' to future success.

Quote from: Spike...
Suffering is GOOD for us...

Maybe a little.  But I cannot imagine how anyone could seriously assert that a child dying painfully from cancer is 'good' for her -- or anyone else.

I already pointed out how the death of a child might be good for her and others.

Quote from: James McMurrayI already pointed out how the death of a child might be good for her and others.

Well, even if one granted that in some cases the painful death of an innocent child might be 'good' for her and others, I cannot comprehend how one could plausibly claim this about all painful deaths of innocents.

Or consider this: if an entire society is wiped out due to a painful, slow disease (or famine), what 'good' is realised?  For whom is it realised?

Dr. Pangloss is rightly mocked.

Perhaps that entire society performed some act through which their free will brought on their death. Or perhaps they were working off karma from another previous incarnation. Or maybe god needed the real estate.

How should I claim to know all the possible justifications for an infinite being I don't even believe in?

Quote from: James McMurrayPerhaps that entire society performed some act through which their free will brought on their death. Or perhaps they were working off karma from another previous incarnation. Or maybe god needed the real estate.

How should I claim to know all the possible justifications for an infinite being I don't even believe in?

I'm now confused as to what the point of this thread is.

I thought Spike was claiming that all suffering is necessary.  I noted that that claim strikes me as manifestly absurd.

Now I suppose that one could assume a Buddhist, Christian, or whatever perspective that would (if assumed!) render all suffering necessary.  

If that's the case, then I'm not sure what there is to discuss.  

You have some people who, on the basis of their religious faith, hold that all the horrible suffering and pain that has existed on the earth for countless millennia (including, of course, the suffering of animals for millions of years before the arrival of human beings) is necessary.  

And you have some people, who don't share those religious beliefs, who hold that a lot of the suffering and pain that has existed throughout the history of the world is unnecessary (even though the capacity for pain itself, and some suffering, enabled certain organisms to survive and reproduce, etc.).

What's left to debate? :confused:

Wouldn't the debate be between the ideas inherent in your second and third to last paragraphs?

Quote from: James McMurrayThis is just one of the many possibilities, but perhaps it saves her an assload of suffering later in life and shuffles her farther along the path to the rockin' grooviness that is Dougland. Meanwhile down on Earth the family finds a stronger bind between them and more internal strength as they cope both seperately and together with their loss.

Yes, sorry I didn't acknowledge this in the other thread did I?  You make a good point, one that I concede is a possible explanation but which on balance does not personally persuade me.

No problem. That's not the goal. :)

Suffering IS relative and subjective.  Look at it like this: The forest burns, the animals within that are burnt DO suffer, those that are displaced by the fire suffer less so.  

Yet, as the forestry service and various ecologists have become painfully more aware of, the forest fire was necessary to the overall health and livelihood of the forest itself.  the forest as a whole didn't 'SUFFER', so much as it went through a necessary cycle in its overall life. Animals return, are born and life continues, made better by the fire. Not by the suffering they expirenced, but the fire itself. This new life didn't suffer at all.

Relative and subjective based upon your scope.

But I'm feeling very inarticulate today for some reason...:(

Quote from: SpikeBut I'm feeling very inarticulate today for some reason...:(

I find it remarkable you can type with paws at all, I don't think my cats could.

Quote from: BalbinusI find it remarkable you can type with paws at all, I don't think my cats could.

Just so you know, I have it on very good authority that some primate types have decided we Pika's are actually... er... 'mouse types'.  Obviously much better than Cat types.:cool:

Evil is a label - generally - applied by others.

In reality...shit happens, the world turns, life - for most of us - goes on.

Quote from: SpikeSuffering IS relative and subjective.  Look at it like this: The forest burns, the animals within that are burnt DO suffer, those that are displaced by the fire suffer less so.  

Yet, as the forestry service and various ecologists have become painfully more aware of, the forest fire was necessary to the overall health and livelihood of the forest itself.  the forest as a whole didn't 'SUFFER', so much as it went through a necessary cycle in its overall life. Animals return, are born and life continues, made better by the fire. Not by the suffering they expirenced, but the fire itself. This new life didn't suffer at all.

Relative and subjective based upon your scope.

But I'm feeling very inarticulate today for some reason...:(

Nothing in what you're just written indicates that suffering is 'relative and subjective'.

It is an objective fact that the animals who burned to death in that forest experienced pain.  There's nothing 'subjective' or 'relative' about that!

The ecologists are using the term 'suffer' in an entirely different way -- they have a different concept in mind (something like 'ecological balance' or 'ecological wellbeing').  That is, they may as well be using a different word, as the concept they're referring to is entirely different from that of physical pain.  

The fact that the ecologists are referring to a different concept hardly makes the animals' pain a 'subjective' matter.