Thursday 26 November 2009

Let's abandon the concept of good and evil

Let's forget the good and evil

All the three big monotheistic religions work with a text which clearly promotes an understanding of the world primarily in terms of good and evil. The good is the desirable, the rewarded, the blessed. The evil is the unwanted, the painful, the punishing.

God presents man with a choice between good and evil, allegedly depending on the man's behaviour. This choice is imposed on man, as if man agreed to choosing between good and bad. As if the world had to be created with these 2 categories. But surely god is not limited by design constraints. Then why not choose between good and neutral instead of good and bad? I can imagine a world in which, instead of good and bad, there would be good and neutral. I think I would like such a world better.

Perhaps you say, "But the new neutral is just another name for the old bad", or, "The neutral would soon become the bad, bad just by comparison to good", or, " Maybe the bad used to be neutral, we just call it bad today". So what's the difference between bad and neutral? Bad is something I do not want. Neutral is something I don't mind. That's a pretty simple distinction.

The Bible does not explain or justify why these categories are imposed on man and we have a possibility to stop interpreting the world in terms of good and bad, just because it is perhaps not the best model.

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