Hello EH


Perhaps we don't experience the good and what the opened heart is attracted to simply because we equate it with phenomena.

Kant: Knowledge


You seem to define good as a subjective societal standard in the phenomenal world. Those like Simone are drawn to a higher reality or things in themselves: the noumenal world. Plato call it the world of forms. The objective good is an attribute of the world of forms and sensed by man's "being" rather than his societal knowledge. I copied the following since a lot of questions are raised within this topic which may be of interest to the reader.

Pursuing Goodness or the Good in Plato's dialogues


If all this is true, objective good can only be a measure of conscious evolution and mechanical involution. evolution. Conscious evolution is the way towards ones own being. It is becoming oneself. It is the way of evolution. Involution in contrast is becoming more "involved" into creation, unity into multiplicity, and the continued loss of the possibility of evolution. Objective Good is experienced through developing quality of "being" while evil is the loss in quality of being.

The secular subjective good is defined by the relationship of parts and the needs of a part while the objective good is a quality of perspective that experiences the parts as a higher organism with the potential for conscious evolution


The non-secularized religious concern for homosexuality is concerned with evolution that requires an internal balance of forces the East calls Yin and Yang or female and male principles. From this perspective, the "lack of being" that creates a lack of either yin or yang requires consciously artificially compensating for an imbalance. However, secularism being what it is including the secularized religions made homosexuality into some sort of evil and the whole resulting lunacy that created needless antagonism. We are all out of balance as it pertains to the growth in quality of our being. Homosexuality is just a specific form of imbalance pertaining to the necessary balance of energies.

So what then is an individual? I agree with Fromm


This is individuality. It is "I Am." We are creatures of reaction lacking conscious individuality. What we call individuality is a combination of human type and external conditioning. IMO human individuality is "I Am." "I" is our potential and "Am" is the expression of it. Of course we don't have this which is why for us "I am" is followed by another quality. I Am is defined by this, that , or the other thing, but I Am does not exist for us. I Am requires us "To Be' but as Shakespeare said "To be or not to be is the question"

In order to acquire the individuality capable of being an expression of objective good it first requires awakening to the need and the efforts "To Be."

Human individuality requires us to become "I Am." We are not, so I am and the "good" is defined by expressions of this "loss of being." Many have become so accustomed to this loss of being that they are no longer attracted to the "Good" that can be experienced by our evolved being, or the transformation of the perspective of plurality into one of unity.that reconciles plurality.

E.H. It's simply....what ever you are CONSCIOUS about.....that is what you make your experience. I believe God is your very BEING. I am is the claim I exist....everything added to "I am" (this or that) is what we become.

If you want to "feel" good.....all you need to do is be it. Feel it...be it.

If you want to see good.....look for it.

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May your awareness be perfection

I'd sure like to hear something original and thought-out on this topic rather than rehash regurgitated scripture and philosophy. There is surely something to be gained by studying both, but you must take it someplace NEW rather than merely throw it on the table like poker chips.

Considering Good and Evil are completely subjective, let's hear some personal thoughts on the issue rather than what we read in school or found on Wiki. What is the goal of your vision of Good and Evil? What defines them? Do they exalt or degrade the human experience? Can you truly define Good and Evil to a world as diverse as this without robing someone of their individual freedom?

I say no.

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"The Lord can make you tumble, the Lord can make you turn, the Lord can make you overflow...but the Lord can't make you burn." - Randy Newman

If the objective good exists, it doesn't require taking it some place new but rather remembering the truth of it that always was. Our experience of subjective good in contrast often changes so can be new.

Subjective good is related to ones goal. My goal determines my good. If something is against my goal it is not a subjective good for me. Rape is good for the rapist and not good for the victim.

The idea of degrading the human condition from the point of view of subjective good can only be defined by subjective goals. One country makes war against another for subjective good. Anything seen as degrading is only a different conception of what is good.

I agree that good and evil doesn't objectively exist in the world since we define it subjectively Everyone does what they do for the sake of their conception of good. It is others that see what is done as not good in relation to their goals.

It is because of this that those like Simone are attracted to the objective good that is not a matter of subjective interpretation and requires getting beyond our egotism that defines subjective good and evil for us

Objective Good.
Now we are dealing with absolutes.
Black and White time.
No shades of grey there.
I truly think that there is no one on earth, now or ever, who has the competence or ability to call the score on that.
You would need absolute knowledge to make such a prognostication.

Quote:
"...It is not for man to seek, or even to believe in God. He has only to refuse to believe in everything that is not God. This refusal does not presuppose belief. It is enough to recognize, what is obvious to any mind, that all the goods of this world, past, present, or future, real or imaginary, are finite and limited and radically incapable of satisfying the desire which burns perpetually with in us for an infinite and perfect good... It is not a matter of self-questioning or searching. A man has only to persist in his refusal, and one day or another God will come to him."
-- Weil, Simone, ON SCIENCE, NECESSITY, AND THE LOVE OF GOD, edited by Richard Rees, London, Oxford University Press, 1968.- ©


Thats exactly as it is and thank you Nick for posting this

Yet how can one do this when every "image" appears to show us something good or bad to judge

Jesus believe in him or not gave a very simple message

Forgive everything your eyes show you about your brothers
See the "spark" in all of them

Love all as Self (And if you are seeing a "spark" in them, then you will know the SELF Jesus spoke of and represented - You will know who YOU are)

The Kingdom is here now but we have to choose that over what we made
The world we made or the ONE God made?

Now in this present moment we can all "change our minds" and "see" the Kingdom

We presently look on the false image
That the Son of God is other than created

The Good...is like when advancing through life and something someone has tried to express or share made no sense then one day you are aware and able...and it gives you a duh moment...it is not hidden nor for any elite group but for all...and is with in us all...we make the simple complicated not by choice just our nature till we know better...till we see..

puts whole new meaning to the phrase can not see the forest for the trees...

there is so nothing to get...you got it...

Hi Tony

I appreciate your efforts and sincerity to try to come to understand all this. As Plato said: Philosophy is the "love of wisdom." You seem to be attracted to this so I cannot help but respect it. The fact that I disagree with ACIM and how it effects your understanding is not a slight on you but rather an expression of the essential difference between the theoretical ancient traditions and modern religion.

Modern day religions begin with the premise that we are God while the ancient traditions assert that we are inner chaos, asleep to reality, so essentially: "nothing." Though we have the seed of a soul within us and the potential for growth in our being to become "in the image" of a "son of God," it is only a potential. The essential error in ACIM IMO is the belief that we ARE something that in reality exists in us only as our POTENTIAL.

If you believe you are God and can create objective reality and are open to meaningful discussion, we could discuss ACIM's beliefs in the "Other Religions" board or some such place.

Accepting the human condition for what it is, that we are the wretched man" existing as a plurality so therefore in opposition to ourselves, explains to me why concepts like forgiveness, unconditional love, or other such attributes exist in us as potentials and in our imagination.

I've read imagination defined as the excess of desire over ability. People can deal with imagination by creating more desire or acquire a greater ability for conscious presence at the expense of the power of imagination and desire.

The un-secularized or pure forms of the ancient traditions seek to guide us towards conscious presence and awakening at the expense of fantasy. They seek to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear in accordance with the drive towards the objective good.. The modern religions seek to further the belief that we are our potential so simply have to believe it without any recognition of the human condition described as living in Plato's cave..

This is not a pleasant question and requires inner sincerity rather than wishful thinking. However if this question of "meaning" is really of concern, it is something we must face: "Know Thyself."

Here is a question to all partricipants for purpose of clarification and distinguishing the objective from the subjective good.

If the earth and all life upon it were destroyed by asteroid tomorrow, would objective good still exist?

The answer clarifies for me the posts made by Sendy, Shaw-n and Octavious.

I do not accept the notion of objective good. Good is always subjective, in that for something to be "good" it must be good in some way relative to something else. If anyone can provide a single example of a good which does not depend for its goodness upon a relationship to something else, I would be happy to consider it, but I am unable to come up with a single one.

(Oh, I meant a real example, by the way -- one that is ostensible.)

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.