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I posted what follows a day or two ago in the Philosophy group, which brought on a tidal wave of people telling me that evil, or the idea of it, is A. Inappropriately (for this site) religious or B. Completely subjective or C. Non-existent. I wasn't really looking for that particular debate, but what the hell. I was up for it to a degree. But only to a degree; you can't be the person I am, with the history I have, and not think evil is real. My intention was really more political and socio-cultural than philosophical, or semantic, even though I don't think you can completely separate any of these things. But as I say, my intentions were political, so here goes: I'm re-posting it in Politics. As I had thought it was needless to say, but some of the philosophically minded didn't get, I was thinking of 45 and his supporters when I wrote the post.

I have always thought that A. Evil is a bad thing by definition and should not be supported or empowered. And I had assumed, without giving it all that much thought, that B. Most people agreed with A. I still don’t see a problem with A, although I am not a philosopher; perhaps I have overlooked something. But both history and the condition of these disunited States at this time show that B is wrong and incredibly naive. But has anyone made a convincing argument against A? Not that I know of. Someone from among its opponents should work up the nerve, or whatever it takes, to try. Unless—and here, I think, is a distinct possibility—the current iteration of anti-A is coming from a place beneath argument or logic, namely a deep-seated death wish for both oneself and all of humanity. Whatever you think of Friedrich Nietzsche, he did sound a warning about nihilism, and he wasn’t wrong.

AlanCliffe 6 Oct 21
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Convuluted

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I have had multiple 'discussions' with believers about The Problem of Evil :
[en.wikipedia.org]

Their 'solution' is Free Will (a large philosophical issue on its' own), which accounts for human 'evil'.

What they don't like to consider is that an omnipotent being COULD create a world with a LOT less 'natural' suffering -- hurricanes, pathogens, volcanoes, etc. IMO, in some sense, this is a kind of (not strictly necessary) non-human 'evil' argument against religious dogma.

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As an entity self possessed I know that ultimately I'll be dead, and then it'll be as if I never existed in the first place. As forgotten as any other animal that died and left no trace. From that knowledge I'm good with nihilism, and I personally think Nietzsche is over rated.
But as part of my celebration of my memories, and life, and all those people that I feel love for that can't participate in my feelings due to them being MY feelings I honor life of all kinds. I see no benefit in making life worse for any creature human or otherwise.
I have empathy, but expect nothing for it beyond being left the fug alone to wrestle joy from the world that will mean nothing at all to anyone other than myself.
As for "evil", it's just another four letter word, and means only what you think it means, which to me is nothing at all, I think the same thing with "good."

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I have Seen evil, it is simply one human's twisted ideas carried out against other/s... no woo required!

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