Can anyone relate? I think I may believe there must be some sort of higher power that is good, and there certainly has to be powers that are evil. I suppose religions are just screwing up their descriptions and ideas for their own evil purposes.
A "higher power that is good" and "powers that are evil[?]" Why is one singular, and the other plural? And just what form might these 'higher powers' assume? Are they beyond nature, able to 'miraculously' disrupt the steady chain of causes and effects? In other words, are they supernatural?
So far as we can determine, there are no powers or intelligences superior to our own--not reassuring, perhaps, but a dose of reality is sometimes necessary to dispel flights of fancy, a common source of which is religion.
I assumed the singular on the good because I think good is the natural inherent state of all things and the universe is all connected. I think little rampant evils, have tried to control it from the control center, but those being anomalies and not interconnected with the rest, are more than one because of being separate entities. I'm working with a lot of theories here, but trying to get food for thought and yes I'm bored. If I assume every body has good intentions, then what causes them to act very badly sometimes, without reason toward others? I am assuming lack of adequate reason due to selfish gain exclusively. I suppose the alternate perspective is if their trained, by life to have such a strong need to exploit others and somehow not acting on evil in that way, but still hurting others.
If we were the highest intellect and abilities in the universe, would that make use gods to the rest of life?
@Desertcactus The odds are against us being (or having been) the highest intellect in the universe. But separated by the immensity of space and time, we may never know otherwise. The only life we know exists here on this world and to a simple organism like a paramecium we are as gods, though I would not necessarily choose that term.
@p-nullifidian I suppose I will have to be content with that for now. I just get so curious and start fishing for more ideas now and then.
“[T]here is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” (William Shakespeare, Hamlet)
I don't think there's a good higher power, and I don't think they're have to be powers that are evil. To explain away evil as something metaphysical or as an external cosmic force discounts the human element. (I can't discuss this topic further without getting into a longer discussion involving determinism and freewill. I might revisit it later, but at the moment I don't have time to get deep into those thoughts.)
I am wondering I suppose because of all the papers getting leaked about the government interacting with other life forms, like aliens. I was thinking that perhaps a group of aliens, if having more abilities and significant knowledge, would be gods to us?
@Desertcactus Which leaked papers? I'm afraid I'm ignorant on the subject of government interactions with other lifeforms, e.g., extraterrestrial aliens. How does that relate to the forces for good and evil you referenced in your original post?
@resserts I think its called project bluebook on archives.gov and UFOindex on NSA.gov.
@resserts The assumption of evil is from lack of evidence that people who exploit children especially using religion to justify, are doing things they know are harmful for personal gain, without real need at the great expense of others. I believe religion is evil because it keeps people questioning themselves that they may be the evil ones if their not careful enough, and steals their confidence to control them.
Heres a news story on one of the docs. [vice.com]
There is good and there is evil. Power simply means ability to do something. Religion... pure and faultless is this: to help widows and orphans in need and avoiding worldly corruption. James 1:27
For 2000 years Religion has been about helping widows and orphans while avoiding worldly corruption, who has screwed up that description?
Thats well documented cover up, lie. Religion has ALWAYS been about exploiting others. Have you ever seen the pedophile glorifying poetry published by nuns at the dawn of catholicism? Have you ever read about the word NUN in the early church? "NUN" was synonymous with prostitue. Your incompetent, ignorant and severely misled.
@Desertcactus If YOU'RE going to call someone else "incompetent" and "ignorant", it would have more credibility if you spelled all the words correctly.
@Desertcactus I don't know much about nuns any why would you call what they do religious? It is just like illogical atheist Jim Jones that used "religion" to get people out of "religion " then kill 900 people.
@LovinLarge Intellect has no logical correlation to ability to spell english. You seemed to miss a few steps of your premises there.
@Desertcactus All of your posts and comments are nonsensical. You are not all there. Blocked.
No. That is just the same logic as conspiracy theory, seeing agencies to explain, where there is only complexity beyond understanding.
And the belief in good and evil is itself a personalization, there is only, I like and I don't like, which may differ from one observer to the next. Human morality is a useful thing to humans but it has no meaning in the larger universe, the belief in good and evil is therefore only human hubris, seeing the universe as human centered and existing only to be interpreted through human eyes, which is just not true.
That makes a lot of sense. Do you believe there are things that have more power than humans?
@Desertcactus In the sense of alien species most probably, but its a big universe, a lot of space for them to hide. In the sense of supernatural beings, I honestly doubt it.
@Fernapple I guess I was considering "supernatural" the same as "existing in other dimensions, or unknown to our current natural world understanding"
Taoism states that there is good and bad in everything. Religious leaders often seem to be in it for the money, boys, or power but there seems to be a high demand for what they're selling. That demand tell us something about human nature that we should meditate on. Prayer was supposed to serve as meditation but it turned into a transactional thing for most of them.
When you start making up "beliefs", you start making up rules. Non starter.
Ya, I'm just saying it seems like that to me. So why? Why have so many throughout history thought that way? I don't think it was just religion, but that those thoughts drew them toward religion out of ignoranace.
I have a hard time believing in anything remotely like that. I’ve yet to find anything that could not be explained, or at least an offer of explanation. The god of the gaps gets smaller all the time.
Makes sense, just looking for explanations of why it seems that way. Like, if there were aliens or. something else, that was more powerful, wouldn't they be a sort of god to us?
Oh, I see. I did not understand at first. I would think that aliens would not be supernatural, D therefore not “gods”. How do you mean “... it seems that way.”? In what way does it seem so?
@BlizzardMan It seems that us humans are too stupid to make life work witlhout outside help historically. Something helped us. Thats where the science starts looking like its missing something from our evolution. The pyramids being one example of things that were accomplished that are not possible with just humans today. I suppose I consider aliens supernatural if their not in the same confinement of 3 dimensions that we are.
Pretty sure the pyramids were man-made:
@BlizzardMan Who gave them the knowledge of how? The idea that humans formerly were more capable than humans are now, doesn't fit with evolution unless another source of information is brought into the picture. Unless perhaps were devolving, moving backwards in abilities somehow.
Who ever gives humans the knowledge “How”? It’s a process. Also, the Egyptian civilization lost its prowess and declined. Therefore, their knowledge faded.
@BlizzardMan So do you think the Government is just following rabbit trails when their studying UFO's and alien activity?
I’m not sure there are even doing that.
Let's see your evidence.
Actually the question was asking if others had evidence for my feelings.
@Desertcactus How could other people have evidence for your feelings? Surely you're not asking members of a non-religious website for evidence to support religiosity.
You said that "there must be some sort of higher power that is good, and there certainly has to be powers that are evil." Upon what evidence are those conclusions based?
@LovinLarge Are you just trollin around looking for someone to spew crap at? Dang, I thought I was bored.
@Desertcactus Still zero evidence to support your claims. You have zero credibility.