So, it's more likely that someone will tell you a lie than the truth. Evil wins. Good loses. — TheMadFool

I have to correct myself: It is not I who took the liberty to equate "bad" with "evil". The structure of the argument and latter definitions, both by Mad Fool, the creator of this thread, begged for taking this equivalency as given.

Agreed; (might be irrelevant) following this assumption, we then must be confronted by the fact that every action we take in our lives is an inherently evil enterprise. What then, is the moral, virtuous young man to do? Do the world and the people around him Good by ending his butterfly effect. Or live under a moral bending of one's ethics simply doing the least harm as is available, due to what? Cowardice? And, if not cowardice, I'd love to hear what. — Frank Barroso

Dear Frank, Darf and Dust, and AND ALL OTHERS WHO ARE JOINING THE DEBATE IN THIS LATTER STAGE, I am not sure if you had a chance to read all posts in this thread. The idea is that evil is not used in its normative meaning; it is used to denote nothing more and nothing less than a lie. The thread's creator willed it this way, and corrected some of us to keep to this definition.

So the whole debate is a directed type of equivocation.

We must not give in to the lure that we imagine that "evil" means actual bad, vile, will or deed. It means, simply, "lie". The thread's creator built his or her entire opening argument on this condition.

Let's respect this condition, and not be fooled to think that "evil" or "bad" in this thread means anything other than "lie" or "falsehood".

This is not my idea; the thread's creator asked us to observed evil in this capacity only.

IF I am wrong in this assessment, then I ask the Mad Fool to please correct me and to please lay down the foundation of what word means what. We can't keep on arguing on a terrain of semantic quagmire where words change their meanings. I don't mind what rule you lay down, but I ask you, please, to stay consistent after the rule-laying.

To me, you, Mad Fool, have said "good=truth, falshood/lies = bad." Then I took the liberty to understand "evil" as an equivalent to "bad". So far this is the situation in this thread. Please correct me or yourself, and then stay consistent with that correction.

There are more ways of being evil than good. The surest proof of the above statement, in agreement to your theory that something can be both good and bad, is the old adage ''you can't make everyone happy''. — TheMadFool

Oops. Mad Fool, you have established, very firmly, in two separate places in this debate, that:
1. Good = Truth
2. Evil = Lie

And yet,
Yes, you can make everyone happy with a lie.
In other words, your adage proves against your favour, as evil can make everyone happy. (As per your definition of evil.)

Dear Mad Fool, given in your newer, revised wording, your 1. is true. But it is not the same as your proposition. Your proposition says that there are more lies than true statements. That is not the same as to say there are more ways to lie. Szardosszemagad has shot down your "More lies than true statements", so you had to revise your wording.

I don't even have to accept your new wording, but I do. It does not change the situation: There are fewer lies than truths uttered. Period. The amount of ways to lie, as per Szardosszemagad's reasoning, is staggering; but nobody utters them.

So you minced some words, but it does not change the position you are in.

Your alleged proof, "You can't make everyone happy" may or may not be true; but it is certainly not untrue that you can make many people happy, and leave only a very few unhappy. In fact, in Western societies, the living conditions that people only could enjoy as kings and princes, are now suprassed in quality even by paupers.

2. is also true, when viewed from your point of view. Moralilty is not flawed; moral theory is. You mixed the two terms or concepts up. The theory to explain morality is in shambles. But basic, innate, human morality is as straight as it was from time immemorial.

However, there is a moral theory that seems to have gotten the truth; it's based on evolutionary theory. Morality has been shaped by evolutionary forces, to aid survival of the individual and of the group. Once you can accept that, moral theory is clear as the azure sky in the deepest summer.

However, I accept that you can't accept my explanation of moral theory via evolutionary theory. I blame the intellectual shackles of dogmatic religionism for your inability to accept that, I am not blaming you personally or think less of you because of a possible inability.

So it's not moral theory that drives moralilty. Most everyone, other than us on the forums and very few people out there who deal with philosophy, are unaware of moral theory. Yet they by-and-large do not act immorally. If moral theory was the driving force of morality, then there would be mayhem on the streets (and in the buildings.) But there is no mayhem. So morality stands, it is working, we ("we" meaning those who can't accept evolution-based moral theory), however, don't know why or how it's working, because our moral theories are flawed.

Still, the flaw in your reasoning remains. Morality is given; it is not changing. It is the moral theory that can't put its thumb on innate, human ethics.

Moral relativism doesn't save the situation. In fact, it supports my case. If morality is relative, then it implies there will be confusion - a particular act, x, will be good in one culture and bad in another. So, not only do the possibilities of bad multiply, it also stymies all attempts to come to a consensus on what is good and what is bad; thereby perpetuating evil. — TheMadFool

The Mad Fool, You forgot to allow for the flipsidedness of evil. If it is good for one, it is bad for the other; if it is bad for one, it is good for the other; it can be good for both. You did not address this reasoning.

Instead, you declared that reversing good and evil increases bad (evil) across the board. That is not a solid argument, as good reverses to bad, and bad reverses to good; and you originally declared that there is more bad than good. If you are right, then reversing good to bad and vice versa (in relativistic morality, as you called it) increases the good. I don't see a line of reasoning in your argument in this last quote that refutes that.

So, it's more likely that someone will tell you a lie than the truth. Evil wins. Good loses. — TheMadFool

As you very aptly pointed out, this statement is is evil if you superimpose a morality on it, namely, "lying is bad".

However, morality is a "moving target". It is not a fixed entity and not fixed quality. Some may argue, that morality is completely arbitrary.

I shan't argue that. I will accept that lying is bad.

But I shall expand this acceptance of standards by saying that what is bad for one party, may not be bad for another party. Lying is a superimposed morality, that is, it is dictated by society, by authority. Lying is not an innately moral evil. If lying was an innate moral command, nobody would lie. We lie, because the mechanism of the lying process assumes that advantage is gained, and the lie shall go undiscovered.

We all lie. Why do we lie? Many reasons for it, and I shan't go into that. My point is that all interpersonal evil, morally judged or not, is evil for one party, and good for the other. Be it senseless Sadism that makes one lie, or a conniving attempt for undue advantage, or stupidity, all lies favour one party, and work toward the detriment of the other party.

I reject therefore the notion that all lies are always evil for all concerned. First of all, I reject that lying (not telling the truth on purpose) is immoral. It is immoral in some interpersonal sense of judgement, but in and by itself lying is not immoral, and many examples are extant to prove that exceptions to "all lies are evil" exist. Second of all, if a lie is evil, then it is necessarily good for some other party, at the same time. Lies can't be all bad (evl) for all parties at any given time.

This can be shown to be similarly true for the value couplets of (love, hate), (truth, lies), (kindness, meanness), (selfless, selfish), etc.

Therefore good will not be defeated by evil via acting immorally.

Now, you may talk about fair play, ethical expectations, and telling the truth. But to be fair, you must admit that telling the truth hurts the teller once in a while. You say telling lies hurts someone (the teller or the hearer of the lie). One is ethical, the other, is un-. So if they both hurt someone, and favour someone else, then I don't see how you can declare that lying causes more hurt than telling the truth.

Jeremiah, you said that death is not a life change. I accept your reasoning, but there is a chance you may have misworded the question. If you say "what is the biggest change in life after which life still continues", the unanimously you have the right to reject my answer. However, as you worded the question originally, there is ambiguity as to what one can consider a life change.

So to be fair, I wish you worded your original question less ambiguously and more precisely. They way you worded it, you needed a long paragaraph to explain why my answer was wrong. If you worded it less ambiguosly, as per my example, I wouldn't have put my reply.

In other words, I accept your explanation, but I charge that the explanation was necessary to clarify the ambiguity. If it were not so, you wouldn't have needed to clarify with the latter explanation.

You replied to my answer by saying that my answer was the repetition of the same thing.

That may be true.

On the other hand, the same thing is true of your example.

Your example, which was "2+2=696845" and an infinite number of other wrong answers, is a repetition of the same falsehood.

If you say that your falsehood is different each time, I reply that my counter example is different each time.

In QUALITATIVE form, my example is the same as yours. You provided an infinite number of false answers, and I provided an infinite number of good answers.

In essence, a decision must be made which is more powerfully indicative.

You say your example is more powerfully indicative.

I say our oppostionary examples are equally indicative.

I read the other day in the New York Times that Neanderthals had learned how to extract a pitch-glue from birch bark. They used it to fasten points to shafts. — Bitter Crank

Maybe we should let the NYT writers fill the empty spaces on this forum, and we all just shut up. :-)

You are either dead or you are alive and you can only experience life. To be honest even saying, "you are dead" is an odd phrase that does not reflect reality because there is no more "you". "You" can never actually be dead, your life just ends and you cease to exist. — Jeremiah

this does no take away from the original claim, that the biggest change in life is from living to dead.

If you define the state of death as nothingness of the conscious, or the ceasing of the conscious, the poster's claim still applies.

Counter argument to original post:

1.Trump is president.
2.Trump is president.
3.Trump is president.
4.Trump is president.
5. Szemi is president.

Here, four different people say the truth, and one person says a lie.

Therefore the truth is four times more likely to be heard than a lie.

Therefore good is inevitably going to triumph over evil.

-----------------

Same argument, different spin.

OP's argument is a fallacy, because it uses statistical evidence not found. It is using statistical evidence that has not been established.