Good is that which loves, which wants to unite and to create happiness, whereas Evil is that which hates, which wants to separate and to create suffering. — leo

So what is this ’evil’ that wants to separate? Can you name it?

There are forces that attempt to unite ideas, beliefs, things, people, beings, while other forces attempt to separate them. — leo

What are these forces?


Edit: and what is ‘hate’?

However, a concept as complex as procreation is linguistically-based, and personality-motivated in terms of preference. — schopenhauer1

Can you elaborate on that a bit more?

I wonder if more people think this than admit it. Can I ask what your motivations were, if you can remember when having them? Was there an overriding pressure? Pride that you made something from yourself? Was it really some "instinct"? What does an "instinct" to want a child even look like? How would it be differentiated from any other preference? How can you prove wanting a child is any more an instinct than wanting that book or game or tickets to that concert or house? — schopenhauer1

I’d always, and still do, love little children: their minds, their little bodies, their purity of spirit. I was 30 when my first was born. I didn’t feel any pressure at any level. My wife had the same feelings about children, but I can’t know what else was going on in her mind. I didn’t view having children as any statement about my masculinity, or myself. Having children was purely for my pleasure. I thought I would give them a better life than I had, that they would be better people in terms of relationships, confidence, achievements, etc. Later I learned that what I thought were my weaknesses and doubts weren’t specific to me but was just about being human. So, my children now live through all the things I did, give or take a few things: relationships, jobs, security, money, friendships, doubt, weariness with the battle and the world.

I don’t know if my reasons are like our unlike my wife’s. Her love for children is pretty strong, but how do I separate love for children from instinct?

My idea about the instinct to reproduce is based on what I observe in the world. All forms of life, conscious and unconscious, reproduce themselves, male animals fight and injure each other to claim a male, animals, male and female, are born with physical characteristics to attract the opposite sex.

Is there any proof of instinct? I’m not sure. I need to think about that a bit more. Usually someone’s questioning of what I say helpS me clarify my thinking.

What does an "instinct" to want a child even look like? — schopenhauer1

Sit among a group of young women when there is a newborn baby present and you might get some idea.

Indeed, I think procreation violates a principle of non-aggression. — schopenhauer1

It seems to me that the purpose of all life is to survive long enough to procreate, that the only purpose/desire/will of life is to reproduce itself: that’s the nature of life. Which is possibly why we regard it as tragic when someone young dies.

The principles of non-aggression have very little place in this, don’t you think? We reproduce for the same reasons as all other life forms. The consequences are of no interest, only that a replica has been produced.

The horror for us is in being conscious of our circumstances.

Philosophy of justice and morality.

It’s interesting for me to find that I didn’t chose to focus on this, but that it’s more often than not the underlying theme behind most of my thoughts and discussions with people. I’ve always had an interest in anthropology and sociology and so my theories and ideas are generally based on these fields. Consequently one philosopher I’ve enjoyed reading and find to be very persuasive is Mary Midgley.

Edit: Consequently I have been involved in heated discussions where I have argued that morality is not subjective or relative.

I have one troubling thought, though. Having been born I don’t want to die.

Of course, what might lie behind the insane human behaviour is not the hopeless and ethereal promise of happiness but just being born.

I’ve only glossed over a lot of these posts, but it seems to me you have a valid point.

It’s possible that the aspiration for ‘happiness’ is behind a lot of mental health issues, or possibly even the warped behaviour of humankind. The justification for this huge crime, birth, is that you will find happiness. What a crashing let down for those who don’t find it or suspect it’s a sham.

I have grown children, both pretty average in their outcomes, but a lot of the time I wonder ‘what was the point?’ A sentiment also held by my wife occasionally.

We see life and death in the cosmos — leo

I’m not sure that we do see that. I’m not sure if what we witness is the end, or death, of a star, or the birth of something. Using those as evidence of good and evil doesn’t help your argument.
I can’t think of anything outside of a human context that I could call evil, or good. I know there has been evidence, supposedly, of an ape “murdering” another ape. But I don’t know if it was murder, I don’t know what the ape was thinking.

Nor am I even sure, going along with your posts, that good is necessarily the opposite of evil. That seems a little too simplistic to me.

Because you're the one who made the post. You have two accounts. — Mark Dennis

Someone help me here.

You deny the existence of something that has been forever, ONLY on the premise that everything must have an initial state. But something that has been forever, does not have an initial state. To not be able to internalize how that is possible is plain limitation in insight. — god must be atheist

If you go back to the beginning if this thread you’ll see that I don’t actually deny the existence of something that has been forever. I actually questioned the denial of that idea.

Next time try and do philosophy though otherwise you're just going to annoy people on here when you don't understand what is being said to you. — Mark Dennis

I cannot see one post addressed to me by you.

there is no such thing as forever, because it doesn’t have an initial state.
— Brett

You deny the existence of something that has been forever, ONLY on the premise that everything must have an initial state. But something that has been forever, does not have an initial state. To not be able to internalize how that is possible is plain limitation in insight.
an hour ago — god must be atheist

You don’t read very carefully. The above statement I made was confirming to Devans99 what I believed he was saying. I’m not pushing any argument. As I said I’m just exploring ideas.

That sneaky bastard! — Terrapin Station

Very.

a system’s initial state determines all subsequent states. 'Forever' has no initial state so is impossible. — Devans99

So, there is no such thing as forever, because it doesn’t have an initial state. And if it did it wouldn’t be forever.

Why do you still assume time started? — Mark Dennis

Or Spacetime for that matter? They are all part of the same improvable dogam that things need starts. — Mark Dennis

I think I was meaning that if there was a start then it suggests something greater, or earlier in existence.

if you disagree with this statement, you should provide a counter argument to the argument I gave in the OP. — Devans99

I’m not disagreeing about anything, I’m just exploring.

I said that the universe cannot have existed 'forever' in time. The timeless universe is timeless - it has no start or end - it just 'IS' - it has permanent existence. — Devans99

Are you saying that ‘forever’ is a quality of time and therefore it cannot exist in timelessness?

Given birth by the wider universe.

Through the Big Bang?

My problem is with the idea that the universe contains everything. If it can’t have existed forever, if it was born, then it was born from something.

I’ve got myself confused. I was thinking along some other lines that I can’t even make sense of now.

What would cause the start of time? Shouldn’t a beginning have a place?

What is time, anyway?

A start of time. — Devans99

How would that work?

There are also quite a few other arguments that the universe cannot have existed ‘forever’: — Devans99

What's the alternative?

There seems to be a hell of a lot of good old bible bashing going on here and other posts. What’s up?

I think that in some ways, even though the south had been defeated many years ago in terms of slavery, and as a separate part of the country, as a country in the 60’s the USA had still not fully evolved, it was still divided, not just geographically but philosophically and emotionally. Martin Luther King and others were a continuing part of that development.

However, that’s a view from afar.

What seduces us is the logic itself, as well as the premises. We tend to think that if it's logical then it's true. But we forget about checking the premises for truth, so the premises tend to appeal to our emotions. — Metaphysician Undercover

This part, I believe, is true. But then what is thinking without emotion?

I think your post has taken me off the path a little. The appeal of logic to people, as I see it, is in its supposed purity and mathematical conclusions, it’s ‘rightness’, a sort of air tight, objective answer. So my thoughts are not so much about truth, the truth that comes to us through social conventions, but the idea that logical decisions are right and therefore the best decisions made. Our love affair with this idea, the seduction of it, blinds us to the errors we make in the name of logic. Which is why I asked is thinking logic? I don’t think it is.

Terrapin Station thinks logic is the smaller circle inside larger ‘thinking’ circle in a Venn diagram. I’m questioning that and saying it’s the opposite, and that it has assumed more power and influence than it should.

It is a type of common sense, or intuition. — Metaphysician Undercover

Yes,I think so. But are you suggesting it’s formed by the conventions of society? I don’t think you are, but a couple of sentences aren’t clear to me.

The problem is that we tend to take this skill for granted, as if it were a skill which is naturally gleaned just from existing as a human being within a society. In reality we naturally recognize what is believed as true according to the conventions of the society. — Metaphysician Undercover

Edit: I’m muddying the waters a bit there. I don’t think ‘common sense, or intuition’ is logic.

Logic" is the smaller circle inside larger "Thinking" circle in a Venn diagram, not the other way around. — Terrapin Station

Well of course, that’s how logic would like you to see it.

the logical approach is directed toward those who have already decided what they want, demonstrating with logic, that here is the place to get it. — Metaphysician Undercover

The seduction. What’s doing the seducing?

Nobody at Target cares whether I look like a hot number or look like an old troll. — Bitter Crank

Is that logic, or emotion, or intuition?

Period of dithering about color. Logic only tells me the color will not affect wear. — Bitter Crank

In your post about the colour of the shoes it seems to be that your application of logic was actually part of the process, not after the fact.

Ah ha, 990s (normally $175) were on sale for $129. A deal -- only they are a light gray-green. Is this tolerable? Period of dithering about color. Logic only tells me the color will not affect wear. — Bitter Crank

Aren't you using the respectability of logic in this purchase to justify it? You looked for at least one logical reason that made the purchase acceptable.

Edit: A wolf in sheep's clothing.

Coordinate

As an adjective they can mean to be the same standing or rank, relating to coordination, or relating to an intersection of indices. As a verb it means for things to work or flow smoothly as a group, or to cause things to work or flow smoothly together as a group.

You give me too much credit. Epsilon-delta? I can barely say it.

Please define "thinking," that appears in the OP. — tim wood

“the activity of using your mind to consider something”, Cambridge Dictionary

Though I think people in general would say that thinking is considering something in an intelligent way, or that the activity of the mind is intelligent. Or, of course, I think, therefore I am. Therefore if I think then I am intelligent.

So, it’s the underlying analysis to action. Though I’m not sure if there must be action as a consequence. So I would go with the dictionary meaning.

and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it.” — Wallows

What does this mean?

To me, a moral god would cure and never kill. That is the position Jesus took towards the non-believers. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I guess this is just your perception of God. If a God did exist it’s not necessarily so that you would know his intentions, or if your concerns mattered to him. To me it seems that your failing at exactly what you see as the weakness in believers, this idea of a personal God that you understand.

It also appears to me that you think God exists but you just don’t like him.