Spirituality Can God witness murder? And what about the after life?

[FortyTwo]

People keep focusing on minutia which really makes no difference to the main points.
Okay, instead of saying opposite how about I call it adverse, antagonistic, antipodal, antipodean, antithetical, contradictory, contrapositive, contrary, contrasted, corresponding, counter, crosswise, diametric, diametrically opposed, different, differing, dissimilar, diverse, facing, flip-side, fronting, hostile, inconsistent, independent, inimical, inverse, irreconcilable, obverse, opposed, ornery, paradoxical, polar, retrograde, reverse, separate, unalike, unconnected, unrelated, or unsimilar? (thanks to thesaurus.com)

But each emotion is different. None of them have any specific counter-emotion. It's like saying green is the opposite (or adverse to, etc.) of yellow just because they're different colors.

 

[K-II]

But each emotion is different. None of them have any specific counter-emotion. It's like saying green is the opposite (or adverse to, etc.) of yellow just because they're different colors.

Ridiculous. The colour wheel clearly states that blue is the opposite of yellow.

 

[Dropkick]

But each emotion is different. None of them have any specific counter-emotion. It's like saying green is the opposite (or adverse to, etc.) of yellow just because they're different colors.

People keep focusing on minutia which really makes no difference to the main points.

 

[Dropkick]

But each emotion is different. None of them have any specific counter-emotion. It's like saying green is the opposite (or adverse to, etc.) of yellow just because they're different colors.

They don't have to be specifically opposed. They don't have to be a positive and a negative. Black and white. Right and Wrong. Powerful and weak. They only have to be different enough to provide the contrast that's required for their existence.

They also don't have to be limited to one to one, they can be one to five, one to fifteen, one to whatever.

 

[K-II]

I think the point here is more: why isn't 'a lack thereof' enough of a contrast? This is what makes no sense to me.

 

[Dropkick]

Are you sure that isn't apathy?

Apathy isn't an emotion it's the absence of emotion.

 

[Dropkick]

I think the point here is more: why isn't 'a lack thereof' enough of a contrast? This is what makes no sense to me.

I'm probably not explaining this well, as the explanation isn't easy to simplify, and it has many parts that can get muddled if you can't see the whole.
Anyway, I'll try again.

If you only have one item in a subset, you have nothing to contrast it to. You can't recognize an absence and use it as contrast unless the absence replaces something that was there before.
Nothing is not something and it has no substance.

If everyone was only been able to see the color blue, then the concept of red would mean nothing to you.

How would you know what evil was if you didn't have good?

 

[K-II]

I guess that depends what you consider 'evil'. From my understanding it's possible for people/actions/things to be neither good nor evil. For instance, if helping is good, and hurting is evil, isn't 'doing neither' a third, neutral option?

If good never happened, there would be neutral or 'not evil' actions, and varying degrees of 'evil' actions still. Or in the case of light, there is still a range from 'no blue' to 'lots of blue'. Just like now, there is light we don't see. If we did see it, our minds might interpret it in such a way that there would be more options than we have right now. I don't think we could really be said to picture an extra colour (not just mixes of the ones we see) in our minds, but we still understand the concept of colours. Or for a better example perhaps, we can understand the concept of a 4-dimensional shape like a tesseract, even though picturing one is... awkward.

 

[kazyeeqen]

I think it would have to be an extremely narrow definition to not include it.
Perhaps you haven't experienced the soul sucking deadness of true boredom. To some people this is a true hell.

Just ask an ex-con, forced boredom seems to be the primary goal of imprisonment sometimes.

 

[FortyTwo]

I guess that depends what you consider 'evil'. From my understanding it's possible for people/actions/things to be neither good nor evil. For instance, if helping is good, and hurting is evil, isn't 'doing neither' a third, neutral option?

Furthermore, there are some cases in which our supposed notions of emotions and how we perceive them end up having a different effect than intended. For example, one person might help another believing that they are doing good, while their help simply pushes them over the edge, and a person attempting to affect another person's life negatively might cause them to recognize fatal flaws that they hadn't seen before and lead to a better state of living in general.

And then the 'neutral' option, doing neither, can so easily be adapted to circumstance and become positive or negative (which open up a new realm of uncertainty in their own right; "positive" and "negative" are entirely subjective).

It's not really arguing over minutia, or at least it didn't start that way - maybe now that's how it seems. But it's mostly due to the fact that all the really big points have been made by both sides and aren't going to change anytime soon.

 

[Dropkick]

Furthermore, there are some cases in which our supposed notions of emotions and how we perceive them end up having a different effect than intended. For example, one person might help another believing that they are doing good, while their help simply pushes them over the edge, and a person attempting to affect another person's life negatively might cause them to recognize fatal flaws that they hadn't seen before and lead to a better state of living in general.

And then the 'neutral' option, doing neither, can so easily be adapted to circumstance and become positive or negative (which open up a new realm of uncertainty in their own right; "positive" and "negative" are entirely subjective).

It's not really arguing over minutia, or at least it didn't start that way - maybe now that's how it seems. But it's mostly due to the fact that all the really big points have been made by both sides and aren't going to change anytime soon.

You're arguing about what constitutes evil and good - which had little to do with the points I was trying to make now. Do you believe evil exists? Do you believe good exists? If you do I feel that's all that's needed for you to understand what I was saying.

To me it seemed as if I was telling you how an engine works and then you were arguing about the weight of the oil.

I guess that depends what you consider 'evil'. From my understanding it's possible for people/actions/things to be neither good nor evil. For instance, if helping is good, and hurting is evil, isn't 'doing neither' a third, neutral option?

If good never happened, there would be neutral or 'not evil' actions, and varying degrees of 'evil' actions still. Or in the case of light, there is still a range from 'no blue' to 'lots of blue'. Just like now, there is light we don't see. If we did see it, our minds might interpret it in such a way that there would be more options than we have right now. I don't think we could really be said to picture an extra colour (not just mixes of the ones we see) in our minds, but we still understand the concept of colours. Or for a better example perhaps, we can understand the concept of a 4-dimensional shape like a tesseract, even though picturing one is... awkward.

There might be a large range of shades of blue, but they're all still blue. Just because there is a lighter shade doesn't mean there is another color.

If there wasn't good there would be no evil. Read the earlier posts.

 

[K-II]

I haven't seen anything in the earlier posts that explains why that would be so. If there is an option besides evil - even if it is just 'no evil' - then you have a way to perceive and quantify evil. It would be sort of like the difference between 'not perceptibly moving' and various speeds.

Light is a bit different. 'Blue' is actually just our mind's way of saying 'this wavelength is not the same as that one'. It's not even really a wavelength, it's a range of them. If you only saw what we right now think of as 'blue', it'd either be the equivalent of seeing only shades of grey, or you might simply be more sensitive to the differences within the 'blue' range and what we think of as 'blue' might look to you like all the colours of a rainbow. Mind, I think if you looked at an actual rainbow, it would seem very narrow. Very plainly written citation since I can't load wikipedia.^

So in this case, you'd either still be able to measure 'light' or 'no light', or you'd experience something roughly like you already do, but your 'visible' range would be even narrower than ours already is.

 

[FortyTwo]

You're arguing about what constitutes evil and good - which had little to do with the points I was trying to make now. Do you believe evil exists? Do you believe good exists? If you do I feel that's all that's needed for you to understand what I was saying.

To me it seemed as if I was telling you how an engine works and then you were arguing about the weight of the oil.

Okay, I suppose you have a point there. But even using the most black and white definitions possible, as in, suffering and happiness are the opposites of each other, how does the existence of happiness necessitate suffering?

 

[Dropkick]

I haven't seen anything in the earlier posts that explains why that would be so. If there is an option besides evil - even if it is just 'no evil' - then you have a way to perceive and quantify evil. It would be sort of like the difference between 'not perceptibly moving' and various speeds.

Perhaps I'm explaining it badly.
You can't recognize the existence of an absence unless the absence replaces something that was there before it.

Light is a bit different. 'Blue' is actually just our mind's way of saying 'this wavelength is not the same as that one'. It's not even really a wavelength, it's a range of them. If you only saw what we right now think of as 'blue', it'd either be the equivalent of seeing only shades of grey, or you might simply be more sensitive to the differences within the 'blue' range and what we think of as 'blue' might look to you like all the colours of a rainbow. Mind, I think if you looked at an actual rainbow, it would seem very narrow. Very plainly written citation since I can't load wikipedia.^

So in this case, you'd either still be able to measure 'light' or 'no light', or you'd experience something roughly like you already do, but your 'visible' range would be even narrower than ours already is.

Come on! It's an allegory!You're being to literal.

al·le·go·ry [al-uh-gawr-ee, -gohr-ee]
noun
1. a representation of an abstract or spiritual meaning through concrete or material forms; figurative treatment of one subject under the guise of another.

 

[Dropkick]

Okay, I suppose you have a point there. But even using the most black and white definitions possible, as in, suffering and happiness are the opposites of each other, how does the existence of happiness necessitate suffering?

I'm going to use 'happiness' and 'sadness' as examples as they are closer to be polar opposites.

In order for happiness to exist, there must be a complimenting/contrast for comparison. To know happiness, you must know sadness. In order to feel sadness you must know there is happiness to long for. Happiness is the absence of your sorrow. And your sadness is the absence of your happiness (or whatever brought you joy). We know good as good, only because we know evil. Neither can exist without the other and each exist because of the other. They exist together as one, or not at all.



The word 'happiness' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” Carl Gustav Jung

 

[K-II]

Perhaps I'm explaining it badly.
You can't recognize the existence of an absence unless the absence replaces something that was there before it.

Wouldn't that be happening? I mean supposing you were born and encountered nothing but evil, ever, then I can see how you would perceive it as inherent and thus the concept would become... hazy. I suppose you'd pick the average amount of evil in a day as your new basis for 'normal' and 'good' to you would be an action less cruel than that.

If all we're talking about is taking out 'good' though, then you'd understand the concept of being left alone and/or not subjected to any cruelty at all. In that case, you'd realize, I think, that suffering is not inherent to you, and that it is caused by certain actions other people can perform. So while nothing people did would ever be helpful to you, an action (or person) that didn't hinder you either would give you a contrast to evil. The difference from now would be that instead of seeing a range going from -10 evil to +10 evil, you'd only see things in terms of 0 evil to +10 evil. Something like how we see from 'pitch blackness' (which is not seeing at all) to 'too much light'.

It's an allegory!You're being to literal.

My mind tends to work very literally.

 

[K-II]

Also, I can feel sad and happy at once. Is that unusual? I don't think they're so much opposite feelings as just usually result from mutually exclusive scenarios.

 

[FortyTwo]

I'm going to use 'happiness' and 'sadness' as examples as they are closer to be polar opposites.

In order for happiness to exist, there must be a complimenting/contrast for comparison. To know happiness, you must know sadness. In order to feel sadness you must know there is happiness to long for. Happiness is the absence of your sorrow. And your sadness is the absence of your happiness (or whatever brought you joy). We know good as good, only because we know evil. Neither can exist without the other and each exist because of the other. They exist together as one, or not at all.

I disagree sincerely, but I'll give this one to you too, because I want to get on with the discussion.

How do these conclusions extend to God, and His hypothetical treatment of the human race as well as the rest of the creatures that inhabit Earth?

 

[Dropkick]

I'm sorry, but I'm going to quit this discussion for now as I feel like I'm just repeating myself ad nauseum.

 

[peacefulveglady]

Wow what a question to ask where there are various religous beliefs here, I know the answer but, I don't want to fuel the fire that was here anyhow, to give a simple question, what I was taught the God of the Bible sees everything you do and say but, I am not going to debate.