Says thou shalt not kill. And since we have no power to either kill someone's soul or not, it would only mean that is refering to the physical body for the simple fact that a law would not be given to us that had no meaning to us. Wouldn't make much sence if it was to say Thou shalt not kill one's soul, since we have absolutely no power over doing as such.

You're comparing Ducks and Cows here. The two have absolutely nothing to do with each other in anyway. Not the true meaning of these, not the context, nothing.

Actually I fully understand your philosophy Cowboy. I just disagree with it on many levels.

Your philosophy requires seperation. You basically need to have two philosophies. One philosophy that pertains to a supposedly 'all-perfect' spiritual God that contains no evil, and another philosophy which supposely pertains to an 'imperfect' physical world which does contain evil.

You accept that the Bible contains the "instructions" from this God that teaches men how they should behave.

The reason that I compare Ducks with Cows when referring to your philosophies is because that's precisely what they demand. Your perfect philosophy of God can be considered your "Duck" philosophy, and your imperfect philosophy of man can be considered your "Cow" philosophy.

Therefore you give me no choice. In order to make sense of your seperate philosophies I have no choice but to compare Ducks with Cows. That's precisely what your seperate philosophies demand.

As long as you demand that God is 'perfect' and mankind is not, then you will forever be speaking in terms of Ducks and Cows.

We are perfect, everything is perfect less we use "our" free will to destroy it. When God originally makes everything, it is made perfect.

If everyone lived perfect as we should, there would be no crime, no disease, NOTHING imperfect in this world.

Diseases/sickness comes from germs of something that is imperfect/dirty/nasty/diseased. If we didn't do things to cause it to be that we, it would be perfect and would destroy disease.

And it's not two differen't philosephies.

"Your philosophy requires seperation. You basically need to have two philosophies. One philosophy that pertains to a supposedly 'all-perfect' spiritual God that contains no evil, and another philosophy which supposely pertains to an 'imperfect' physical world which does contain evil."

God created the world and he saw it was good. People and how they live their lives is what's made it not good.... PEOPLE, not God. For instance, when the world was newly born, people wouldn't have had lung and other breathing diseases. People making cars, factories, and things of that nature has caused those particular diseases. So again what God created was perfect and worked just fine till people used their free will to destroy it.

And yes God created us, but God does NOT create our actions and what we do through our lives, that is what free will is. And we have used that free will to turn this planet into a disease invested planet. And reason for those diseases may you ask, well with every action there is a reaction. Those diseases are there to open our eyes to what we have done to this planet. We have brought in disease and filth to a perfect planet.

Well, with all due repsect Cowboy, I personally feel that your philosophy is quite naive.

I simply don't believe that if all men began living perfect lives the whole rest of nature would conform to perfection. Animals would stop eating each other, disease would no longer exist, etc.

What we know about biology and the animal kingdom simply doesn't lend any credence to what you are proposing here.

So, though I understand your philosophy, I simply don't accept it.

If you can believe that, and are happy with believing that, then more power to you.

I tend to believe that the world was diseased and dog-eat-dog long before mankind ever showed up on the scene.

So there's no way that I can accept that mankind's actions and choices are responsible for bringing disease and so forth into this world.

But like I say, if you have no problem believing in those things, then more power to you.

You're welcome - but embracing the Eastern Mystic view is still
embracing the Abrahamic God since there is only one - they are
one and the same. There is no conflict except in your perception!

The Abrahamic God is no more responsible for the "dog-eat-dog"
nature of the world than in the Eastern Mystic view. The Abrahamic
god does not require that evil be viewed as anything other than human in derivation. So god is not responsible for evil - you did
not read the theodicy link!



Neither Maimonides nor Aristotle says anything which takes evil beyond man in the natural world. What are you talking about??!!
They view god as perfection and synonymous with what is good...
so...evil = lack of good = lack of godliness...in that statement
- I still see no conflict at any rate.

Well, I have no desire to attempt to change your views or philosophy in any way. I'm just sharing my views and comments on what you offer.

As I see it there are indeed major differences between two basic philosophies of the Abrahamic view of God and the Eastern Mystic views of 'god'.

In a very real sense the Abrahamic philosophies acknowledge the existence of "evil". It matters not how you "define" it.

You say:


Well, from my point of view the conflict should be blatantly apparent. If 'evil' is lack of good = lack of godliness, then 'evil' predates mankind. The unvierse itself cannot be said to be 'good' when it contains animals that each other other, and disease.

Therefore God could not have looked upon creation and 'Saw that it was good'. Because it wasn't "good" by human standards. Or at least MY STANDARDS. A dog-eat-dog world that contains disease is not 'good' as far as I'm concerned.

In the Abrahamic Picture the idea was that mankind's fall from grace brought all those things into the world. However, I don't buy into that idea because our knowledge of the universe and the evolution of life on Earth is not in harmony with that ideal.

The Eastern Mystics were already able to accept that even before this was confirmed by modern knowledge.

Therefore the Abrahamic philosophies accepted that 'evil' exists. (i.e. ungodliness exists) and had to work from there.

But the Eastern Mystics realized that there is no such thing as 'evil' beyond our very judgements of what we consider to be 'good' or 'bad'. So they had an entirely different starting point.

Far more importantly, the extremely anceint Abrahamic philosophers went way off the DEEP END by claiming to have knowledge of what "God" wants from mankind, and they began writing down stories that supposedly represent the "Word of God"

As far as I'm concerned that's where they crossed the line from being mere philosophers into actually becoming descievers and blaphemists. They started to act as thought they SPEAK for God.

The Eastern Mystics never fell into that egotistcal trap.

The Eastern Mystics have always remained HONEST about their philosophy simply being a matter of wisdom, reasoning, and belief.

But the Abrahamic philosophers got cocky and had to start claiming to SPEAK FOR GOD.

So how you can say that these two philosophies are the same is beyond me. As long as the Abrhamic Philosophers believe that God handed Moses the Ten Commandments, etc. etc, etc, all the way through the whole Biblical (or Torah) mythology, then they have totally lost my repsect as mere "philosophers"

They have no crossed the line of arrogance into trying to claim that they SPEAK FOR GOD.

So I don't see any comparison in that with Eastern Mysicism at all. They view the concept of 'evil' in an entirely different way than Easter Mysticism, PLUS they claim to hold the actual WORD OF GOD, which I personally feel is nothing more than the overly-inflated egotistical views of men.

Especailly when the first of those commandments demands that no one shall worship any other gods. What they REALLY meant by that is that no one should give any respect to the writings of any other philosophers!

In other words, if you reject their Torah (or Bible) then you are rejecting God!

In fact, that's how they DEFINE EVIL! Rejection of God is to be without God, to be ungodly! To be not good as you have just defined it.

In other words, to reject the idea that their Torah is the Word of God is to be BAD.

How can you claim to be "godly" if you are rejecting the very WORD of God?

That's what causes all of the problems that are assocaited with the Abrahamic religions in the first place. The very idea that to reject them is to turn away from God.

That problem simply doesn't exist in Eastern Mysticsm. Because they Eastern Mystics never became so ARROGANT as to claim to SPEAK for God. They always remained sane and sensible philosophers.

You keep referencing animals eating animals. That's how it's set up perfectly. Food chain is how we explain it. Everything is put on earth to make something else stronger from eating it. So that leaves your statement not making sence, it doesn't need to conform to perfection, the food chain is already perfect.

Clearly we have different ideas of what constitutes 'perfect'.

Perfect = greatly sufficient. And since this world has been here for who knows how long it seems to be greatly sufficient since the world's population hasn't ceased to exist.

Think about it a little bit. Simply because evil is the lack of goodness or lack of godliness it does not necessarily predate mankind. Prior to mankind there was God to which the term evil cannot apply. I will agree with you that evil does not apply to nature either - so evil did not exist prior to man.

The terms good and evil do not apply to nature then they do not apply to the universe either. Which is fine and does not conflict with the Abrahamic god. When the bible says god "saw that it was good" this is just more of the anthropomorphic sense - good as in beautiful but it is not a moral judgement obviously. There is no moral issue in spinach or minerals!

You say, "Prior to mankind there was God to which the term evil cannot apply."

Well, then after mankind there was still only God which the term evil cannot apply.

Mankind is not 'seperate' from God.

It seems to me that any attempt to 'preserve' the concept of 'evil' is the folly. Just do away with the concept of 'evil' altogether and that solves everything.

That's what the Eastern Mystics did.

If you cling to the concept of 'evil' then you end up getting into the nasty business of having to "judge" it. And that gets you into all sorts of ideas about sin and God passing judgements on individual men, which means that every individual man must have an individual soul that can be judged in an 'eternal sense', and it just goes on and on with no end.

The problem with taking that route is that it ends up producing religions that become obscessed with sin and can't move beyond that crippling concept.

Look at how that very concept created Christianity. People creating idol worship in a man hanging on cross who died for their salvation from sin.

It totally detracts from everything that's wholesome and good and ends up creating gory dogmatic religions of idol worship. Religions that end up just having men pointing fingers at each other demanding that everyone is a sinner.

Especially the men who refuse to join in the idol worship of the man hanging on the cross. It's even considered a sin to not join the idol worship.

you cannot do away with good and evil. it is perhaps the single most
important question of existence.

what is good? what is worthy of your effort?

there is a qualitative difference between human beings.

Pol Pot and Ghandi were not equivalent morally or Stalin
and Jefferson if you prefer.

We will defer judgement on Benjamin Franklin for the time
being. But I cannot brook moral equivalence. It is unseemly.

nevertheless. there is good and there is evil.

and there is something uniquely special about the concept
of one god. it simplifies and unites all monotheistic religions
in a truly singular and beautifully appealing fashion.





people are obsessed with sin. religions are not obsessed with anything. if you have a problem with an irritable belligerent philosopher it does not mean there is anything wrong with philosophy.

i am sorry that you keep having run ins with small minded
autocrats. but don't blame god. it is not god's fault.

I don't 'blame' god. After all, what's to blame? The universe is 'perfect' remember?

The only "small minded autocrats" that I have a problem with are the one's who wrote books and claimed to either be speaking for God directly, or claimed to be quoting a mortal man who was supposedly the son of God but didn't have enough sense to write down his OWN message.

I have no problems with the "followers" of those dogmas. I feel sorry for them, they are just victims of poorly thought out philosophies.

Having said that though, it is rather depressing having to live among the victims of such a sin-oriented picture of God.

But I guess the damages has been done and it will just take humanity in general a little more time to get over it completely. I think these dogmas are in fact losing their appeal rather rapidly.

I saw a pole that showed that the most rapidly growing 'religion' in America is "Designer Christianity" or "Salad Bar Christianity".

What does this mean? Well, it actually means that the formal religion is actually dying extremely rapidly. The "Designer Christians" are people who cling to the idea that Jesus is their Savior, yet they basically reject the dogma of both the Bible and the Church.

In other words, they just want Jesus and they really don't want any parts of the rest of the religion. So what they are basically doing is rejecting the formal religion and making it into something entirely "informal" and different.

The reason that it's the "Fastest Growing" is not because it's attracting new members, but rather the children of the existing Christian families are the ones who are doing this. So since it is the 'fastest growing' religion, what that truly means is that the formal religion is the 'fastest dying' religion.

So it won't be long before all modern Christians denounce the church and dogma and procure Jesus as their own personal friend. In fact, the very term "Chruchianity" was coined by these "Designer Christians" as a why of renouncing the church. They make a distinction between "Christianity" which they see as a "personal relationship with Jesus" versus religious dogma, which they refer to as, "Churchiantity".

So Chrisitanity as a formal institutionalized religion may totally disappear from Planet Earth in only a few more generations.

I'm happy about that.

I personally don't like sin-centric religions to be perfectly honest about it. So I'm glad to see them give way to more intelligent ideas.

the universe is so perfect that its parts contain a variety of
delightful and beautiful imperfections including us.

but all we can do is strive and fail.

yet in the effort is our imperfect redemption. go figure.

And I confess that I still lust over some of them.

I saw a beautiful imperfection just today. She was wearing a very scant and translucent imperfect little dress. The imperfect breeze was making it flutter and reveal her imperfect naked skin next to her imperfectly hidden panties.

The whole scene appeared to be perfect from my vantage point though. If there were flaws they must have been in the quantum details, which at the time I wasn't the least bit concerned about.

It's times like these when I sigh and say, "YES! There is a God after all!"

there goes the thread!!

Salut ... ... La'chaim!

nah....rather talk about platypii....it was more interesting