SCIENCE OF GOOD AND EVIL:
GOOD IS THAT UPHOLDS DHARm
and
EVILS IS THAT UPHOLDS ADHARm
GOOD in English
language cultures is defined as:
-
something that possesses desirable qualities, promotes
success, welfare, or happiness, or is otherwise beneficial as in "teach
a child to know good from evil";
-
something that satisfies or commends itself to the ethical
consciousness or is conceived as fitting in the moral order of the universe;
-
the character of human beings or of their attitudes, motives,
and actions that is morally praiseworthy and defined as ETHICS;
-
conforming to a certain ideal or standard of morality or
virtue.
EVIL in English
language cultures is defined as:
-
Evil is the antithesis of good, especially in moral or
moralistic considerations;
-
not good morally : marked by bad moral qualities : violating
the rules of morality;
-
arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct;
-
the fact of suffering and wickedness : the totality of
undesirable, harmful, wicked acts, experiences, and things;
-
a cosmic force producing evil actions or states.
From wikipedia
-The Free Encyclopedia: Evil is a
very old term for describing that which is believed by some to be morally bad,
corrupt, wantonly destructive, selfish, and wicked. It is one half of the
duality of
good
and evil expressed, in some form or another, by some cultures. It describes a
hierarchy of
moral standards with regard to human behaviour; evil being the least
desired, while
love
is usually the most praised. In a casual or derogatory use, the word "evil" can
characterize people and behaviours that are painful, ruinous, or disastrous.
(Please enlighten yourself more on this reading by clicking on the red highlite
at the beginning of this paragraph)
According to a psychologist and science historian MICHAEL
SHERMER:
-
"The myth of good and evil is grounded in Christian theology and the belief that
such forces exist independently of their carriers, either directing the course
of history toward benevolent or nefarious ends, or within individuals driving
them to perform good acts or evil deeds. As adjectival modifiers, good and evil
well describe many acts and people. But as nouns, they imply autonomous
existence, as in forces- of-evil.
-
In a scientific worldview, however, there is no such thing as good and evil as
supernatural forces operating outside the realm of the known laws of nature and
of human behaviour."
At PVAF the whole purpose of spreading knowledge of
SCIENCES OF CREATION AND LIFE which in
sNskRUt language is known as
veD is to be GOOD in
life and avoid everything EVIL in all
kARm that one performs with every
breath of life one takes.....
And for this sort of lifestyle one of the prescriptions in
veD is that perform all your
kARm as per DHARm and
that will bring GOODNESS and HAPPINESS and such lifestyle is
called lifestyle of puAN`y kARm...DHARm
is all the rules and regulations of the creation, sustainance and
de-creation/recreation in this universe...The very basic requirement of
DHARm is never to hurt a fellow
creation in word, thoughts or deeds......
The opposite of puAN`y kARm
lifestyle is the paapi kARm
lifestyle in which kARm
are performed breaking all the rules and regulations of
DHARm which in turn inflicts pain and suffering on one's
fellow creations....
In veD it also states that paapi
kARm will force you to face in future the same pain you inflicted
on others...whereas puAN`y kARm will
reward you in future with returns of joy and happiness....
We live in kli-yug time era
in which the environment provides us with every chance not to uphold
DHARm....Thus, PVAF would like to
hear from YOU on this topic....just write away your thoughts by clicking on the
POST A COMMENT in the header of this news
item...(The preceding introduction on the subject was provided by
SRii chmpklaal Daajibhaai misTRii of Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada as part of the daily study of veD on this PVAF web site)
And to help you to have more reflections on GOOD and EVIL in
addition to reading on the
wikipedia -The Free Encyclopedia: Evil
continue reading the article titled "Something evil this way comes:
It is too simple to blame evil people for horrifying acts of terror"
by MICHAEL SHERMER as noted above from
Canadian
Globe and Mail by clicking on the
preceding red hilite or reading on this PVAF web site by clicking on the next
line....
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Something evil this way comes:
It is too simple to blame evil people for horrifying acts of terror,
By MICHAEL SHERMER
Canadian
Globe and Mail: Saturday, March 13, 2004 -
Page A21
I once had the opportunity to ask Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's List,
what he thought was the difference between Oskar Schindler, rescuer of Jews and
hero of his story, and Amon Goeth, the Nazi commandant of the Plaszow
concentration camp. His answer was revealing. Not much, he said. Had there been
no war, Mr. Schindler and Mr. Goeth might have been drinking buddies and
business partners, morally obtuse, perhaps, but relatively harmless. What a
difference a war makes, especially to the moral choices that lead to good and
evil.
Ever since 9/11, the discussion of good and evil has migrated out of the
departments of philosophy and theology and into our social and political
discourse. U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair
generously sprinkle their public orations with the terms, describing Osama bin
Laden and Saddam Hussein as the embodiment of pure evil.
3/11, 2004
Thursday's bombings in Madrid added another layer. Mr. Bush called them "a grim
reminder that there are evil people in the world who are willing to kill
innocent life."
I understand the political rhetoric, but when millions of people around the
world celebrate 9/11 as a triumphant victory over what they perceive to be an
evil America, or when others see the horror inflicted in Spain as a means to
their goals, we need to move beyond politics to arrive at a deeper understanding
of good and evil.
The myth of good and evil is grounded in Christian theology and the belief that
such forces exist independently of their carriers, either directing the course
of history toward benevolent or nefarious ends, or within individuals driving
them to perform good acts or evil deeds. As adjectival modifiers, good and evil
well describe many acts and people. But as nouns, they imply autonomous
existence, as in forces- of-evil.
In a scientific worldview, however, there is no such thing as good and evil as
supernatural forces operating outside the realm of the known laws of nature and
of human behaviour.
Good and evil are human constructs. A shift between two tectonic plates that
causes the earth to make a sudden movement is not inherently evil. It is the
effects of the earthquake that we judge to be evil. Likewise, bacterial diseases
are not intrinsically evil. By causing humans to sneeze, cough, vomit, and have
diarrhea, bacteria are simply doing what evolution designed them to do to
survive and propagate. As their human hosts, we may label the effects of a
disease as evil, but the disease itself has no moral existence.
Humans, however, do have a moral existence. We evolved to be moral animals, but
by no means always moral. Individuals in our evolutionary ancestral environment
needed to be both co-operative and competitive, for example, depending on the
context. Co-operation leads to more successful hunts, food sharing, and group
protection from predators and enemies. Competition leads to more resources for
oneself and family, and protection from other competitive individuals who are
less inclined to co-operate, especially those from other groups.
Social psychologists have well demonstrated how moral behaviour is tractable,
and that there is a range of potential for the expression of moral or immoral
behaviour. Which direction any one of us takes in any given situation depends on
a complex array of variables. A number of historical contingencies drove Oskar
Schindler to travel down a morally different path from Amon Goeth, even though
he could just as easily have gone the other way. From there, the cascading
consequences of each decision took each of them down their alternately chosen
tracks; the moral road not taken makes all the difference.
An obfuscating aspect of the myth of good and evil is an asymmetry that exists
in our moral observations about human nature. In our assessment of what people
are really like, we have a tendency to focus on evil acts and ignore the fact
that most of the time, most people are gracious, considerate, and benevolent.
For every act of violence or deception that appears on the nightly news, there
are 10,000 acts of kindness that go publicly unnoticed. In fact, violence and
deception make the news precisely because they are out of the ordinary.
The purpose of this exercise in ethical debunking is to shift the focus from
good and evil as metaphysical Platonic essences to quantifiable human behaviours
that can be scientifically studied, causally understood, and ultimately
modified. If pure evil exists, how can we hold people morally culpable? The
deepest problem with the myth of good and evil is that it implies that if only
we could rid the world of the evil, then good would triumph.
As one who would know from his experience with the gulags of the Soviet Union
(surely a den of evil if ever there were one), Alexander Solzhenitsyn explained
why the myth is so perilous: "If only there were evil people somewhere
insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them
from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts
through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of
his own heart?"
Eliminating the world's Osama bin Ladens, the Saddam Husseins or the
perpetrators of this week's latest carnage will not put an end to evil. But
debunking the myth and taking a more scientific approach to understanding good
and evil will start us down the path of immoral extrication and moral
enlightenment.
Michael Shermer is publisher of Skeptic magazine, a monthly columnist for
Scientific American, and the author of The Science of Good and Evil.
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