Good, Evil, and Who is In Charge

When I think about good and evil, I consider them as judgements of human behavior. No one ever calls a storm or a tornado evil. No one ever calls an animal attack or an insect or germ infestation evil. Yet all these things certainly cause significant human loss and casualty. Generally, it is said that these things are simply behaving according to their nature, or a god is behind it, so we simply accept these events and the results that they produce.

But human beings are held to a higher standard. As sentient, intelligent beings, government desires to apply controls to all the ways in which we humans relate to each other. So, in looking at human behavior and considering what constitutes good or evil, right or wrong, appropriate or inappropriate, we have to consider the motivations and intentions that drive our behavior.

On the surface, this may seem to be an excessive amount of analysis, but it is exactly what our law makers do in writing and establishing the specific requirements, levels, and degrees of evil that humans do, as well as the appropriate degrees and levels of punishment, fines, counseling, incarceration and premature death given by the state.

The basis for all laws is to protect the rights of one party against the risk of having something that belongs solely to them taken, damaged, or used in some way that causes the person being protected to suffer what has been judged to be an intolerable loss or, in some cases, an intolerable risk of loss, causing them to suffer trauma.

The something that is being protected has been judged by our law makers to be a thing that the person being protected has exclusive rights to.

Intentions are the results that we may desire to have from each step we take as we make decisions about pursueing something that we have allowed ourselves to become motivated to have. How we go about attempting to obtain the thing makes all the difference.

Motivations are the feelings that cause us to want things. Some things are okay for us to want and to have, but frequently only under specific circumstances that make it okay. Other things we may want are forbidden under any circumstances.

Many of these limits actually originated within religions as given from god. Yet many times we find that our trusted religious officials have become the most frequent violators AND, these religious violators are not taken unto lawful custody, but left for the churches to handle privately. So, we clearly have a double-standard in our systems regarding continued church authority AND church officials being held above the rule of law. Examples of these principles can be seen throughout history AND, they continue to accumulate in our current "modern" society with little change except some civil suits producing some monetary award to the injured parties, with no change in the lack of enforcement of the state laws where church officials are criminally involved.

So religion IS an integral part of our government. AND religious officials are protected and absolved just as law enforcement officials are. For every run of the mill citizen, consideration of others rights is the hallmark of lawful living and ignorance of any codified protection is never an acceptable excuse for any violation, unless you happen to be a religious official or an officer of the law.

What happens behind the scenes when cases like these arise? All of the same job functions remain staffed and presumably functional as usual, yet somehow, for these cases, everything kind of stops for a while, and a decision is made, and people disappear, and the cases kind of go away.

Do you think this is how "the establihment" encourages "the right kind of" young people to enter religious and law enforcement services?