Does ignoring evil make you an accomplice to it?

It seems to me that it would be unfair and unreasonable to be held ethically responsible for something beyond your power to change or alter. An example would be those who loathe the evil exploitation of animals but lack enough power to put a halt on this atrocity.

However, I strongly hold that the emotional and mental attitude with which you ignored the evil is of great consideration. If you enjoyed some pleasure and gratification by seeing the evil done— for instance enjoyed pleasure in seeing a heinous dictator in a distant land oppressing his subjects or robbers abusing your hated neighbour and plundering their abode— even though you didn’t partake in the evil physically, the prospect of ethical consequences to be incurred due to your emotions and thoughts seems very reasonable; well at least to those who believe we are held responsible for all our and emotions and thoughts

Again, define god as you seemingly have failed to do aside from giving me rather poetic language that hasn't gotten me anywhere. — substantivalism

The definition of God, well at least my conception of Him—which in all fairness might be different from yours— has really been given maybe you were just not satisfied. But I do agree some of the terms were not were explained and need some further elaboration.

Haven't really much defined matter here. — substantivalism

A simple definition of Matter, of course from the point of view of my conception, is all things whose particles are in movement, motion or vibration. I believe it is well established in science that every thing in the universe is in some sort of motion which I also called activity.

Substance is simply the essence of this matter. Matter is Substance in motion. When actvity shall cease in the universe, all matter shall resume its original condition spirit and be Substance. Here Spirit is used to mean a condition.

What is physical matter? What is astral matter and how can we perform pragmatic epistemologically idealist investigations of its existence/influence on understanding the inner behavior/workings of our universe? — substantivalism

Physical matter is referring to the tangible part or plane of our planet. I am afraid for the astral matter, I can't offer you any way to experiment with it unless you develop the corresponding senses to consciously experiment with that plane. On Astral matter and other non-physical matter, I can only direct you to those who did experiments on that plane and documented their scienfitic findings for you to judge whether they are credible or not per your own discretion.

Are you in favour of abandoning anthropomorphic renditions of god including giving him the human moral high ground or aesthetic perfection? — substantivalism

God, in His true self, is the essence and the highest of all the qualities we can think of; be it Perfection, Beauty, Good, Purity,etc. God defines what is moral and ethical and only that which perfectly conforms to His will can be rightly termed ethical and moral.

You have to thoroughly muse into why humans adopt these anthropomorphic renditions. Humans are the closest and highest in manifesting God on earth; Christ being the true manifestation of God on earth.

Now since the God of Mind is a subjective one, and the highest of any quality the Mind of man can conceptualize is actually his God; Man in taking the highest qualities he can readily see, namely those found in his fellow men, he creates the God of his Mind by attributing to Him those highest qualities he has come across and can conceive.

Thus, I won't say I am really in disfavour of those renditions since it is simply a means of man going Godwards. The higher your conception of God, the closer you are to Him and are getting alike since Man is ever striving to create himself in the image of his God..

You also haven't defined god so much of what you said remains somewhat meaningless.

By God, I mean God is his dual mode namely Spirit and Substance which are also called Male and Female, Father and Mother, Will and Love, Energy and Space respectively. This substance is the essence of Matter. Matter is the result of motion and activity of Substance, the female part of God. But I add that the Matter I am referring to, is NOT limited to Physical Matter only recognised by materialists. In addition to this, there is also Astral matter,...

Thus It means that all that exists is the substance of God simply in different conditions so that all is in God and God is in all and thus everything is God but only differ in condition or state.

By this definition, it is evident that God didn't create anything by means outside Himself as some, in my opinion, unreasonably assert since there is NO THING outside Him but used Himself(God's Self) to create all. And from this comes His omnipresence.

That's why all the great faiths particularly those of the east like HInduism and Buddhism call Matter Illusory or Maya and thus not real since fundamentally all that which changes isn't real but illusory.

Therefore in the absolute sense, your use of the word "Reality" wouldn't be true since that which is Real is immutable. And according to these great faiths, only God is Real.

For you to clear this dilemma, you must first understand how God’s law of evolution in the universe truly works. All beings in the universe are in the course of evolution towards the Highest namely God. God is not good but Good itself; not perfect but Perfection itself; not pure but Purity itself; not beauty but Beauty itself. He is the essence of all these.

Therefore, you beating a kitten to death would simply mean you have not yet developed or unfolded the pure qualities latent in your own being which would prevent you from doing such a heinous action and thus still on a relatively lower level on the ladder of evolution. I say relatively since there would still be those even lower you in evolution!

Moreover, Creation rightly understood means Manifestation. In each being, the Spirit of God lies within, like a seed in a field, and thus the potential prospect of being God, Perfect or Good is latent in all beings. Manifestation or Creation is simply the gradual unfoldment of this potential latent in all beings.

That the earth and all its inhabitants are not yet perfected by no means imply the creator isn’t good. It simply means the perfection and purging process is still ongoing and not yet ripe.

This is what Pantheism, the true hope and promise of salvation for all beings, means. God is in All beings and All beings are in God. In their joy He rejoices and in their afflictions He is afflicted!

I have to admit I found myself quite shocked with your conclusion “we cannot control our desires which guide our decisions, thus we are not really free”. Would one’s inability to control his own desires imply others are also incapable of doing so? Not so! I perceive that here this inability would be insufficient to eradicate the possibility of freedom. Moreover, you have disregarded another important factor which shapes our decisions or actions namely INFLUENCES such as books we have read and non-phyisical influences(ex: mesmerism). The latter not well recognised by typical materialists but well recognised by occultists and some religious circles.

For the issue of free will, I understand that it actually means the freedom to choose but from pre-existing options since “freedom to choose” presupposes the existence of things to choose from but in addition to a sane and stable mind able to actually make choices!

Thus the illusion would not really be with the possibility of “free will” per your Spinoza’s quote but more with one thinking he is able to CREATE his own options to choose form.

Hence the only way I see there can be an absence of “freedom to choose” is when an individual is under certain insuperable influences that have taken control of him like being subjected to high doses of psychotic drugs or heavily impaired by an ailment that prevents him from rationally making the decisions himself. And here, we can have many interesting scenarios.

For instance, if the individual was tied and forced to take these drugs, the ethical blame would obviously be on those who forced him to do so. But this would be different if he himself took the choice to take the drugs knowing beforehand their potential consequences.

Another scenario but from an occult or metaphysical point of view, where things like mesmerism are considered, the mesmerist would be ethically held responsible for what the mesmerised individual did.