If God was the Devil, How Would You Know?

[Purple Knight]

Questions for debate: If the more powerful being were the evil, and the rebel the good, how would you know this? What clues would you look for? Would it even be possible to glean such knowledge in a universe where the evil being is omnipotent and controls all? Is it a nonsense question because a being that was truly all-powerful would have every authority and power to set up the rules for good and evil and simply favour itself?

[Purple Knight]

If "evil" is the complete absence of good,

I can't think that it is, especially since evil is often designated as doing something immoral. Without at least the knowledge of morality, which is arguably itself good, there could be no evil.

So how would you define evil?

I can't define something I don't understand. But I can recognise patterns in what other people understand.

Knowing the right thing and doing otherwise anyway is one cornerstone of two that I've pieced together from that. The other is selfishness. In other words, profiting from hurting others. Having more because you took it away from someone else, who now has less. In its purest form I would say if that profit is pure enjoyment and you don't even gain anything real from hurting someone and you do it anyway, for sport.

Why I say evil can't be just the absence of good is that animals aren't said to be good, and despite doing many of the same things humans consider evil, they aren't considered to be evil. "He doesn't know any better" is also the ultimate cop-out, invincible as it protects wrongdoers against being evil, even in the case of the worst wrongdoing. (It's often used to protect older children of 13 or more, who I suspect very well do know better, but that's another story.)

[Dimmesdale]

Questions for debate: If the more powerful being were the evil, and the rebel the good, how would you know this? What clues would you look for? Would it even be possible to glean such knowledge in a universe where the evil being is omnipotent and controls all? Is it a nonsense question because a being that was truly all-powerful would have every authority and power to set up the rules for good and evil and simply favour itself?

It would go against the natural order of things.

The higher up you go on the ontological scale of beings, the more good, the more noble, the more perfect they become. A corrupt being would ispo facto not occupy the highest post, the highest station, in the ontological hierarchy.

We see this practically. A tree has greater being than a rock. A dog has greater being than a tree. An infant has greater worth than a dog, etc. We can naturally intuit that the greatest being - God - must have power actualized at a level far surpassing any mere man.

We see, furthermore, that corrupt beings are prone to many defects. Criminals and psychopaths grow up in dysfunctional homes, and so on. In that sense they are products of evil and privation. The highest thing would be good from start to finish and would not even touch dysfunction.

The greatest possible being would be utterly in control. Why? Because someone not in perfect control would therefore lack power. And the greatest thing of all is by definition the source of fathomless power, etc.

[brunumb]

...When was stupidity made a sin? ...

Bible tells eternal life is for righteous:

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Mat. 25:46

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 6:23

Righteousness means wisdom of the just, right understanding that can be seen in the actions of righteous person.

He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever is born of God doesn't commit sin, because his seed remains in him; and he can't sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn't do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who doesn't love his brother.
1 John 3:7-10

You disregarded most of my post and then didn't even address the question you homed in on: When was stupidity made a sin? Sheesh.

[brunumb]

If other nations are so evil that they sell own people, I think it is ok, if Jews buy, especially if they obeyed all the rules that were given to them.

No, no, NO! Owning people, regardless of any rules, is morally wrong. People who buy and sell other people are evil. Any deity who does not condemn the practice outright is also evil.

Yes, yes, this is absolutely what I was just talking about in my reply to JW!

Could you please clarify your position for me. Are you saying that owning other people is not morally wrong?

[1213]

...You disregarded most of my post and then didn't even address the question you homed in on: When was stupidity made a sin? Sheesh.

Sorry, if you didn’t understand the answer. But, that was the answer. I think sin is only to reject God. And the real question is, is person righteous or not, because eternal life is for righteous. And righteousness means wisdom of the just, right understanding that makes person do right things. If person doesn’t have that right understanding, he does bad and stupid things.

[Purple Knight]

Could you please clarify your position for me. Are you saying that owning other people is not morally wrong?

I'm saying I basically agree that slavery is not morally wrong for Jews in Biblical times if done according to their religious law. They have always been persecuted. If they take slaves from cultures that enslaved them, even if the act is reprehensible, it is at very least, less reprehensible in retaliation. There could conceivably be a situation wherein some slaver can't be punished except by making him a slave.

You can't just say, X is wrong, against anyone, period. That's the first-order-only rule. I think it fails, for reasons I explained in my post to JW. Whether the Trump-voter-killer is wrong depends on whether voting for Trump is really evil. I don't know if it is or not, but if it is, then the poisoner is good.

If you invent a first-order rule that people can't be hurt or killed because of who they vote for, no matter what, they might vote for someone genuinely evil. Surely there have been evil politicians with evil policies that can be opposed with force. People have gone to war and killed over an excessive tea tax, which I don't think killed anyone. If Trump's policies really are evil (and again, I don't know, but if) then everyone supporting them is a collaborator, and it is absolutely morally good to kill them off any way you can.

[brunumb]

I'm saying I basically agree that slavery is not morally wrong for Jews in Biblical times if done according to their religious law.

Slavery is either immoral or it is not. There are no excuses for immorality. Inventing religious laws to justify immoral behaviour doesn't cut it. The fundamental act is still immoral.

[Dimmesdale]

I'm saying I basically agree that slavery is not morally wrong for Jews in Biblical times if done according to their religious law.

Slavery is either immoral or it is not. There are no excuses for immorality. Inventing religious laws to justify immoral behaviour doesn't cut it. The fundamental act is still immoral.

In the ancient world, sometimes the decision to be a slave or not, was the decision to eat or to starve. Slavery was in other words a necessary evil.

[brunumb]

I'm saying I basically agree that slavery is not morally wrong for Jews in Biblical times if done according to their religious law.

Slavery is either immoral or it is not. There are no excuses for immorality. Inventing religious laws to justify immoral behaviour doesn't cut it. The fundamental act is still immoral.

In the ancient world, sometimes the decision to be a slave or not, was the decision to eat or to starve. Slavery was in other words a necessary evil.

Whatever the excuse given, the act of owning another person is still immoral.

[Dimmesdale]

I'm saying I basically agree that slavery is not morally wrong for Jews in Biblical times if done according to their religious law.

Slavery is either immoral or it is not. There are no excuses for immorality. Inventing religious laws to justify immoral behaviour doesn't cut it. The fundamental act is still immoral.

In the ancient world, sometimes the decision to be a slave or not, was the decision to eat or to starve. Slavery was in other words a necessary evil.

Whatever the excuse given, the act of owning another person is still immoral.

Okay, so let's say you are an ancient slave holder. How are you going to better the life of would-be slaves? Could you, as a single individual, up end the whole system of slavery, revolutionize it, to the extent that they need not be slaves in order to eat?

Please tell me how you would do that. In what context.