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Does good and evil exist?
Is Good and evil a mere illusion? Does it exist just for our survival? Or has it been in existance long before us? Does good and evil exist for a greater purpose.
I believe in the supernatural. What gives us the abilility too be who we are? Are we here just too live and die or is there something more that we cannot see with our own eyes. Do we control our own future?
Ok first of all its hard too understand what you are saying. Second of all homophobes are not evil, why make a blunt statement like that? And can you speak in full sentences. I cant understand what your saying.
HOMOPHOBES ARE EVIL THEY BEAT UP MY BROTHER! I HATE THEM ALL! MY BROTHER IS DEAD NOW CUZ OF THEM I HATE THEM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EVIL BASTERDS
Im really sorry about your brother. Those people who killed your brother, should be punished according too law. That was a very evil act those people did. Dont let this hate build up in you. The monster will grow if you keep feeding it. It will destroy you and eat you alive. Your brother was loved. By you by your family and more importantly God loves him more then you can ever imagine. I cannot look down on anyone. I beleive that jesus christ died on the cross too forgive our sins. And this is not just what i beleive. It is truth. I am equal with your brother. I am a sinner just like him. But i am saved. I am healed. Mabye your brother asked for the forgivness and beleived in jesus before he died. We dont know. Mabye he found it in his heart for a very long time i dont know. Im sry if i offended you if i did. I had a hard time understanding you. Hopophobia is a sin and hypocritical.
thank you i wrote that after my brother was killed and i didn't mean it i was just so upset but i'm ok now i have been taking AM classes. And your a proberly right about my brother thank you!
Woah, that's a lot of big questions for one debate. I'll focus only on the good and evil part.
"Exist" can have different meanings - or you could say, alternately, that different things have different ways of existing.
Does love exist? Well, it's not a concrete object. I can't pick it up, I can't buy it, I can't throw it away. But that alone doesn't mean "love is a mere illusion". It's a term we English speakers give to a concept. The concept is that of an intense feeling of affection and care that one person can have for another. As long as you agree that at least some people are capable of having intense feelings of affection for other people, you will say yes, love exists in the sense that it describes a type of human interaction found in the world.
Of course, you can also then say that love is still only an illusion. Maybe you hold the belief that all material objects, feelings, thoughts, memories are illusionary, created by a devil or by human weakness to lead us astray from the true path, and that only by letting go of these worldly things can we become spiritual masters. So perhaps love exists, but on a lesser, illusionary realm that we should strive to transcend. In other words, it exists in one sense and not in another.
So back to good and evil. Do they exist? Well, like love, that depends on what you mean by "exist".
You see Mother Teresa spending her whole life to help the sick, and you say that is good. Then you see Hitler massacring Jews and you say that is evil. In this sense they're merely descriptive terms. You're using these words to tell people that you find the former behaviour morally praiseworthy, the latter morally repulsive. If you agree that Mother Teresa did something morally correct, you'd agree that good exists. If you agree that Hitler did something morally incorrect, you'd agree that evil exists.
Do good and evil exist in a greater form than merely as moral labels? That's the place where you start delving into more spiritual ideas. Some people believe that God or Jesus is the manifestation of good, and Satan the manifestation of evil. These forces are real, have their own mind and will, and actively persuade people to their side. Maybe they even directly cause certain people or events to become good or evil. Then you'd say they are not merely descriptions of the natural world; they can have an existence independent of other objects.
It's hard to have an informed opinion on this because such theories are very difficult to test scientifically, if not downright impossible. I tend to lean towards not claiming that concepts like good and evil have an independent or eternal existence, unless and until I'm convinced otherwise by scientific discovery or by logic.
Ok wow thats a huge responce, lol. So what i got from this is that you beleive the moral law or law of human nature is primarily based of feeling and instinct. Correct me if im wrong. For example love can cannont be created nor destroyed because it is created by us. Correct me if im wrong. Now what really cought my attention was your example of mother Teresa and Hitler. Two extremes Two examples of what we perceive to be good and evil. What your implying here is that our foundation of what we perceive to be good and evil comes from examples of people. I dont agree with this.
The special thing about us, what makes us truely unique is that we can choose too disobey the law of human nature. This is the only law we can break. We are subjected to several laws such asgravitation and as an organism we are subjected to biological laws which we share with living things. The law of human nature/ decent behavior is a law expect everyone too know. This is correct because then we wouldnt have considered hitler to be wrong more then we would consider the natzis color of their hair too be wrong. And based of cs lewis which is a strong defender for this case i beleive this too be so. we will continue this later hopefully i got too go too class lol
Yeah, that's roughly what I mean. I don't really see good and evil as being independent, eternal entities. It's just a label. I see someone doing something I agree with morally, so I say they're good. Vice versa for evil. So far I haven't seen compelling evidence that good and evil exist outside of people's actions.
Another thing is, morality isn't an absolute like gravity is. We know what the law of gravity is, and if we see a drawing where people on Earth are floating upwards, we'd all know the law of gravity is being violated.
But we don't all agree with matters of morality. Most people today will say Hitler committed evil deeds, but what about the perspectives of Nazi officers or the millions of Germans who supported him back in his day? To them he wasn't evil. So how do we determine which perspective is the right one?
Different religions and philosophies have stated their own sets of morality (e.g. Ten Commandments for Christians, treat people as means rather than ends for Kantians), but since there is nothing near a consensus as to which rules are right and which are wrong, how can we say that there is a law of morality?
ok this is complicated and its hard for me too say all that i beleive because there is so much too be said, if you want i can give you a passage at a time of cs louis and we can talk about specifics, and shoot off from their. Csl i beleive wrights it out beautifully.
Mere christianity pg 5. "I know that some people say the idea of a Law of nature or decent behavior too all men is unsound, because different civilisations and different ages have different moralities.
"But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but there have never amounted to anything like a TOTAL DIFFERENCE."
Ok me talking, for example selfishness has never been admired. Later on he says this.
People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste or opinion any more than the multiplecation table.
None of us are keeping this law of human nature. Would you agree? So what do you think about all that has been said?
Well - in your example, selfishness is indeed admired by some schools of thought - for example in the philosophical stance of moral egoism (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egoism/).
I think that if you generalise far enough, you may be able to find some moral beliefs that appear to be absolute across all societies. But you'd have to generalise so far that you start to beg the question of what is right and wrong. I'll make an example...
Bob says that "no killing" is a universally-held moral belief (i.e. everyone thinks killing is wrong). Alice disagrees, saying that most people don't have a problem with killing animals for food.
Bob revises his view, saying "no killing of humans". Alice still disagrees; some people thinks it's ok to kill in self-defence or under compulsion.
Bob revises his view again, saying "no killing of humans when not necessary to your survival". Alice still disagrees; what about the people who believe in putting murderers to death simply because they deserve it?
Bob sighs, and says, "No killing of innocent humans when not necessary to your survival."
But Alice insists, "What about ancient cultures that believed in making a human sacrifice before going on a journey?"
Bob is at the end of his wits, and says, "Alright, no killing when you think it is wrong."
And Alice laughs. "So are you saying that it's wrong to do something that is wrong? That's not a moral rule, that's just begging the question."
That was a long-winded example, but the point of that was that I don't think you can find a moral rule that everyone agrees on, unless it's the really obvious and pointless rule that "you should do what is right and not do what is wrong".
As to people sometimes being mistaken in their moral beliefs, I completely agree with that. (e.g. I think men who approve of wife-beating have screwed up morals.) But how will we be able to know, as a verifiable fact, what the "true" moral beliefs are, if there are any? Most religions have their own set of moral beliefs, but they aren't able to prove that their moral views are more correct than other people's. In the end it just comes down to theorising and debating.
I also agree that, whatever moral rules people believe in, they usually aren't able to follow them all the time. Humans are fallible to laziness, greed, or passion, which work against fulfilling any rules, moral or not. But it's hard to give much meaning to this point when everyone has such different moral beliefs.
Well it all comes down too for my knowledge at this point considering i havent aquired that mush knowledge... especially at 18 lol. But i can say this. I do beleive humanity has the ability too twist morals twist the meaning of right and wrong upside down. I do also beleive nature is cruel in its self. I do beleive there is a God and there is a devil. I think without the salvation of Jesus christ the son of GOd the trinity we are lossed and will always continue too look for the answer too all thinks but will never find it. There is good and there is evil in every human being. Lies and deceit and all kinds of sins creep up in humanity. If i beleive this i beleive in the spirit i beleive in spiritual warfare between good and evil and i beleive we all have a divine purpose that has been in us all along. I do beleive we are able too define true love, true honor, true friendship and so on because of the teachings of God.
I have debated long enough on this webcite against atheists and it seems it will always hit the same wall everwhere i go. It all comes down too what you want too beleive, but know this there are errors, there are false teachings and there are lies. I beleive the truth lies within all of us i beleive there is a seed planted in us all along crying out too us, Give me life! Its called the seed of faith.If we cannot have faith than we cannot not have anything. I also do beleive humanity has tried for many years too sterlize christianity freeze it and store it way, make it disappear. But the harder we try the harder it is too admitt we cant do it alone. And this is where the story ends. A cold lossed heart. This is how i feal when i am without Jesus christ in my life. But this is not the case, I have been given life.
Good and evil has always been a point of view depending on the person who is debating between the two.It is the same as right and wrong. What is Right/good to one person may be wrong\evil to another. Because it is all based on the individuals point of view it can not really be considered something that actually "exists".