Angels & Demons

It's been a little while, but I have been giving some thought to the nature of good and evil and how it relates to being Athiest. William Shakespeare, in Love's Labour Lost, wrote that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", and in Hamlet stated "There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so". I think both phrases amply reflect the proposition that "good" and "evil" are human constructs and not, as those of the Abrahamic monothiestic faiths would assert, actual forces that actively influence in our lives.

So, what does that mean? Do Athiests believe that there is no such thing as good and evil? Of course not! Too many times Athiesim is lumped in with Anarchism and those who rail against the Athiest will attribute the stereotypically worst attributes of Anarchism to buoy up their arguements. This does not reflect the mores or mindset of the Athiest. Athiests can be good or evil in exactly the same ways that the devout can be ... the difference is that the Athiest knows that the fault or virtue of an action resides within their own character and that they, and they alone, are responsible for their actions.

So, you might ask yourself how an Athiest can judge what is good and evil? The answer, ironically enough, is to stand of the shoulders of our ancestors and their ancestors past. Contrary to what those who believe would like to portray, humanity created for itself a social code long before we created God. Without that evolutionary development toward socialization our species probably would not have attained it's place as "the paragon of animals". The Thiests would argue that the laws come from God, as told in the fable of Moses and the 10 Commandments and the other writings in the Bible. Believe it or not, most of the laws that we have in modern society can actually draw a valid and valuable notion that is set out in these basic laws ... as long as you jettison the first three on the list, and extract only what is valid from the fourth commandment.

The first three commandments have but a single message: A powerful force must control our lives so don't piss it off. At this time in our evolution we had moved from small hunter/gatherer social groups into larger, and more complex social groups. We had also begun to evolve our understanding of the world, of rudimentary engineering, mathematics, animal husbandry and agriculture and the hundreds of other arts and sciences that we, to this day and beyond, continue to develop to make our lives better. For all the progress made in those days we still had no understanding of those things that we know now so we sought to rationalize them through varying "divine" constructs and explainations. Over time, these constructs became less about explaining our world and more about controlling it. If a powerful force controls the seasons, and the lightning & storms, the crops and all the beasts of nature ... then why can't we borrow some of that power to our own ends? Thus, was religion created, and moreso the ability to enforce "The Rules".

Now, the fourth commandment has a religious command, but within it is the first indication of what could loosely be called common sense: keeping the sabbath day holy and not working on the sabbath. Pure and simple this is a survival imperative ... being tired reduces your chances of survival. We can see the value of this in everything from taking a vacation to watching lions snooze on the plains of the Serengeti.

The fifth through tenth commandments that serve as the basis of Abrahamic law are purely a construct of social evolution. Where the survival of pack, or social groups, is in question the ability to act in mutual self interest greatly increased the chances of survival for the whole group. The more that members of a social group could adhere to those six social mores, the greater the chance of survival for all the members of the group. Simply put, the social contract relies on recipocricy ... the ability to give to a common good to receive the benefit of that good. Any pack member who could not adhere to those social codes would find they also could not receive the benefits derived from that adhereance.

So, does good and evil exist? Yes ... and No.

Good and Evil are not, as the Thiestically inclined would have us believe, tangable forces that are manipulated by dieties unknowable to us to achieve their ends. Simply put, Good and Evil are measured by the extent that a person, or group, is willing to go to meet their needs or the needs of others. Evil can be personified in the drive that ... say, Hitler, employed to acheive his personal need for power. Countless millions lost their lives, their families, or their freedoms because he was able to marshal the forces of like minded people to pursue his ends. Goodness can be personified in the desire to serve others in need ... best exemplified by Mother Theresa of Calcutta who, despite the revealed troubles she had with her faith in her god, selflessly gave of herself to ease the desperate need and suffering of those she lived with.

A question that the Atheist might ask themself would be "Is there an absolute good and an absolute evil?" Personally, I don't think so. But, now you ask yourself "Well, what about people like Josef Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler on the one side and Mother Theresa, the Dali Llama, and others like them on the other side?" Don't they qualify as absolutes of good and evil? ... Nope.

Good and Evil are where you find selflessness and selfishness. Good is not the sole province of the faithful just as evil is not the sole criteria for the faithless. Life has to be a balance between those things. For example, being employed is a necessary evil because it allows us to obtain the benefits that allow for the comforts we enjoy. Technology is a necessary evil because it allows us the comforts we enjoy, but the cost sometimes comes in the form of pollution, social inequality, and even death and dismemberment.

The biggest problem I see with Good and Evil, and the absolutes that are used to define those states by the faithful, is the notions of Salvation and Damnation. Topics of which we will discuss soon.