Dateline: St. Patrick's Day, 2006
Good and Evil
The Water Test
Can you tell the difference between good and evil?
The standard bill of fare for most of us is that we live life in a quandry deciding what is good and what is evil. Often, we rationalize the choices and somehow we muddle through it.
What drives human beings to do evil things? For that matter what drives us to do good things?
Here is a word that you probably never thought of that would relate to it -- Addiction. People are addicted to either good or evil. Some would like to think that they pick and choose and even ride the fence. In reality, they are addicted to one more so than the other.
Consider this little revelation. In quantum physics, they are playing around with the notion that if we are negative, we have a tendency to become addicted to that negativity or that EVIL. It could be in how we relate to other human beings, ourselves, or to the things we say and do to others. We literally wrap ourselves in what we want to be like.
To prove the point, scientists have studied effects on water and when it is influenced by outside positive or negative forces. Specifically, the human body is made up of 90% water. To see if there was a correlation, they observed the characteristics of free standing water molecules under conditions of tranquility and stress and wrapped the water in various containers illustrating positive or negative moods. These microscopic critters being observed are essentially formless and, under the microscope, shapeless. They remain in this state until affected by outside influences. For example, when a container of the water is wrapped with the words love or peace, the water tranforms and the observed water molecules turn into beautiful and unique mosaic designs. When negativity is introduced and wrapped around the containers with words, including hate, ill will, or other negative feelings, the molecules turned into ugly, formless, and grotesque images.
How we are as humans beings may well evolve, as these observations of water demonstrate, an identical reaction in us --What we wrap ourelves in determines who we are as human beings.
Immanuel Kant, an 18th century deontological philosopher noted in his landmark book on ethics, Critique of Pure Reason, that all human beings come to know the differences between right and wrong and good and evil at an early age. We refer to it as the age of reason and it occurs at the ripe old age of seven. Simply, according to Kant, all of us know the differences from our early youth. We understand these opposing forces instinctively and we are able to discern when our actions and self are either good or evil at a young age.
Thus, if we are determined to be good and loving, chances are we will. If we care not to be good or desire to be less than that, we will. The most interesting thing of all is that we have a conscious choice to either change from one to the other, at will. We decide if our life addictions are to be good or evil. The more we follow one chosen path over another, the more addictive it becomes in us. In effect, the mosaic designs inside of us change from beauty to ugly and vice versa depending on how addicted to good or evil we eventually become. The packaging of ourselves is everything. The longer we are in one state or the other, the more addictive it becomes and the more difficult it is to reverse it.
Kant noted that free will gives us a choice. Modern science suggests we choose according to addictions and our body molecules react accordingly. Negativity begets more negativity until nothing positive remains. Ironically this modern explanation of what goes on with water parallels the Middle Ages thought and practice of a Saint named Benedict. He is best known the world over for founding of the Benedictine Order and for his method of staying good called today the Rule of St. Benedict.
Benedict could not possibly know quatum physics or what occurs in water influenced by positive and negative events. However, he did write that absolute evil destroys absolutely. He also said that if there was but a sliver of light remaining (goodness) in a human being, there was hope. He opinioned, we can change and create for ourselves a new life in the light.
Any addiction can be broken and replaced with others by shear force of will. The human choice to be good or evil can go one way or the other. Along the way many of us flip-flop, back and forth. It seems, one thing is definitely certain though; the final choice to be good or evil is ours alone. It's in the water.
Good and Evil
The Water Test
Can you tell the difference between good and evil?
The standard bill of fare for most of us is that we live life in a quandry deciding what is good and what is evil. Often, we rationalize the choices and somehow we muddle through it.
What drives human beings to do evil things? For that matter what drives us to do good things?
Here is a word that you probably never thought of that would relate to it -- Addiction. People are addicted to either good or evil. Some would like to think that they pick and choose and even ride the fence. In reality, they are addicted to one more so than the other.
Consider this little revelation. In quantum physics, they are playing around with the notion that if we are negative, we have a tendency to become addicted to that negativity or that EVIL. It could be in how we relate to other human beings, ourselves, or to the things we say and do to others. We literally wrap ourselves in what we want to be like.
To prove the point, scientists have studied effects on water and when it is influenced by outside positive or negative forces. Specifically, the human body is made up of 90% water. To see if there was a correlation, they observed the characteristics of free standing water molecules under conditions of tranquility and stress and wrapped the water in various containers illustrating positive or negative moods. These microscopic critters being observed are essentially formless and, under the microscope, shapeless. They remain in this state until affected by outside influences. For example, when a container of the water is wrapped with the words love or peace, the water tranforms and the observed water molecules turn into beautiful and unique mosaic designs. When negativity is introduced and wrapped around the containers with words, including hate, ill will, or other negative feelings, the molecules turned into ugly, formless, and grotesque images.
How we are as humans beings may well evolve, as these observations of water demonstrate, an identical reaction in us --What we wrap ourelves in determines who we are as human beings.
Immanuel Kant, an 18th century deontological philosopher noted in his landmark book on ethics, Critique of Pure Reason, that all human beings come to know the differences between right and wrong and good and evil at an early age. We refer to it as the age of reason and it occurs at the ripe old age of seven. Simply, according to Kant, all of us know the differences from our early youth. We understand these opposing forces instinctively and we are able to discern when our actions and self are either good or evil at a young age.
Thus, if we are determined to be good and loving, chances are we will. If we care not to be good or desire to be less than that, we will. The most interesting thing of all is that we have a conscious choice to either change from one to the other, at will. We decide if our life addictions are to be good or evil. The more we follow one chosen path over another, the more addictive it becomes in us. In effect, the mosaic designs inside of us change from beauty to ugly and vice versa depending on how addicted to good or evil we eventually become. The packaging of ourselves is everything. The longer we are in one state or the other, the more addictive it becomes and the more difficult it is to reverse it.
Kant noted that free will gives us a choice. Modern science suggests we choose according to addictions and our body molecules react accordingly. Negativity begets more negativity until nothing positive remains. Ironically this modern explanation of what goes on with water parallels the Middle Ages thought and practice of a Saint named Benedict. He is best known the world over for founding of the Benedictine Order and for his method of staying good called today the Rule of St. Benedict.
Benedict could not possibly know quatum physics or what occurs in water influenced by positive and negative events. However, he did write that absolute evil destroys absolutely. He also said that if there was but a sliver of light remaining (goodness) in a human being, there was hope. He opinioned, we can change and create for ourselves a new life in the light.
Any addiction can be broken and replaced with others by shear force of will. The human choice to be good or evil can go one way or the other. Along the way many of us flip-flop, back and forth. It seems, one thing is definitely certain though; the final choice to be good or evil is ours alone. It's in the water.
posted by Robert Cox - Editor at 9:05 AM
4 Comments:
My opinion is a little bit different of what Kant said about free will and how we make choices between good and evil.
Certainly, it is our choice whether we want to do good or evil but human beings are naturally tempted to do evil so we have to try harder to do good than to do evil, which makes the final choice harder. We are tempted to take the shorter way, the easy one but not always is the good one and i think many choices i've made were not exactly good but easy as for example my comment about the right to life people tend to practice abortion just to easy their lives but it is not a good choice. I completely agree with Benedict when he says as long there's a bit of goodness inside of us theres a change to the other side, the good.
This article is so true we always tend to go to the evil side, its mainly because we are only looking for ourselves and for our own good. It is better do cheat, lie, make bad things to other people, hurt someone's feelings, taking care of the felow human, etc because it we tend to go for the easiest choice that is the evil. Lets say that I have the opportunity to sell drugs and I earn a lot of money and I will be rich but that is all evil because by having all that luxury I broke the law and that is bad.
In the other hand when we are honest it takes a lot of time and effort to get the things we need thats why we tend to be evil even though we know its wrong because its just easy and zero effort.
I agree with this article because the choice to be good or evil is ours alone because as Kant said that we had the capacity to distinguished right from wrong at age seven we know what are we doing and what would happen if we make a bad choice. But I also think that one bad apple can destroy the others but the ultimate choice is ours because if wanted to do wrong we are going to do it without caring how that would affect our families because we are conscious of the actions that we are taking and assuming full responsibility of it that’s why every one know what are they doing with their and other lives is good or evil.
I think we do good or evil things according to what we were taught and our surrounding. For ex if i lived in a place where everyone around me committed crimes or rob I will think tha is ok and I will start doing it. It will become addicted but it doesn’t mean I cannot change. So it depends in the environment that we live. Also our moral values play a role in this situation, according to our moral values we act.
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