Necessary Evil?

[Ally C]

But ...

... it could be argued (using your temperature metaphor) that the human body is in fact very efficient at maintaining and regulating its temperature, and that it is in fact 'outside influences' which affect its equilibrium.

However, I refuse to bring rap music into this thread.

Boom-bang-bastic,
Knicker elastic
Boom Boom
Boom



'Too late' was the cry ...

 

[Andra_Jenny]

This is true, but occasionally, you get very sick. Sometimes fatally, and sometimes, you are contagious to others.

 

[Ally C]

At least we now have distinguished between our innate ability for good and evil, and other factors which are beyond our control (which have already been mentioned to some extent). Evil just is ...

 

[DevilMayCare]

I'll say it again using a different translation. You may prefer not to look at the Tao te Ching Samurai, but this is the precise answer to your question "is evil necessary?" Ally C is saying essentially the same thing. Evil simply is! It's a creation of our mind's abstraction. What's so difficult in seeing that? Suggesting its even possible to say 'no' to your question is sophistry. Or, it's a mind fuck. Your choice.

Tao te Ching

http://www.human.toyogakuen-u.ac.jp/~acmuller/contao/ttc.gif

2.
All in the world recognize the beautiful as beautiful.
Herein lies ugliness.
All recognize the good as good.
Herein lies evil.

Therefore
Being and non-being produce each other.
Difficulty and ease bring about each other.
Long and short delimit each other.
High and low rest on each other.
Sound and voice harmonize each other.
Front and back follow each other.

Therefore the sage abides in the condition of wu-wei (unattached action).
And carries out the wordless teaching.
Here, the myriad things are made, yet not separated.

Therefore the sage produces without possessing,
Acts without expectations
And accomplishes without abiding in her accomplishments.

It is precisely because she does not abide in them
That they never leave her.

http://www.human.toyogakuen-u.ac.jp/~acmuller/contao/laotzu.htm

 

[TygerEyez]

Re: Re: Re: Kahlil Gibran

On Good & Evil
And one of the elders of the city said, "Speak to us of Good and Evil."

And he answered:

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.

For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts, it drinks even of dead waters.

That is my all-time favorite Kahlil Gibran passages. Thank you for posting it.

But what does it mean. I'm sorry, but I need stuff laid out for me, or draw a picture. Kahlil Gibran is excelent poetry but not very good philosphy. I guess I'm just kinda dence.

No, you're not. Philosophy is hard to understand. But the passage does mean something.

Of the good in you I can speak, but not of the evil.

This means that he can speak of the good in someone. Not of the evil. Looking into it, think of it this way: He is basically saying that no one is predetermined to be evil. Instead the potential for evil resides in all of us.

Take a picturesque setting. Maybe a small wood near your house. The trees are there everything is quiet. Good, right? Yes, it could be. But there is also potential for evil in it. Now, I'm not saying that evil is going to manifest in the trees. That belongs in the X-file thread. But evil is (at its most primative meaning) a disruption of good. Therefore, what if a fire attacked this wood? Now it's chaotic. Trees are burning, animals could be dying.

That's all he's saying. Good can give way to evil.

For what is evil but good tortured by its own hunger and thirst?

Verily when good is hungry it seeks food even in dark caves, and when it thirsts, it drinks even of dead waters.

Basically, he just reitterates himself. He defines that Evil is merely Good that has a need for something. That Good is born from Evil's want. He gives Evil and Good properties of People. Take this idea:

You're walking in the forest (i love trees, so blech on you). But, you've been abandoned. You're out there to survive on your own. You're hungry, you're thirsty. Therefore, you NEED food, water. So, you kill an animal. In some people's eyes that would be Evil, that Animals have feelings too. However, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that your need for food, no matter if it was in order to survive, created the Evil needed for you to take a life.

If you were thirsty, and no water was around except for that in a dark, putrid pool, you WOULD drink. You can sit here and say "no way. that's sick." But if it came down to it, your desire to live and survive would force you too.

*chuckles*Hope I helped instead of hindered. Did I even make sense? Is it easier to understand now?

^.?.^