Lemme see. Lemme see. Lemme see.

go to mod talk, brother.

That's perfect. A montage of naked ladies underneath the words "Free and Open Intercourse."

Why are people such assholes?

I hate it when people can goad me into an argument, but that guy who works just down the hall did just that. You'd think I would have earned by black belt in masterbaiting tactics by now. But nope. Still pretty stupid in so many ways.

But this guy is just a real piece of work. I came in asking for a possible favor from the charity place that is upstairs from us, and I get this explosion of gunk about how so-and-so didn't seem to appreciate the last favor that he had given them. He's nearly screaming at me. And, of course, I know nothing of these other happenings. I was feeling these guys out for a very small possible favor. Christ.

So anyway, that married couple I was talking about that broke up are now apparently back together. She definitely wears the pants in the family and he is the more passive one. This is all third-hand information. There's no way I have a good view of this story (and I can't help viewing it like a story). But the pieces are coming together.

When a guys splits up with a woman whom he has known since kindergarten and with whom he has several children, and when he does it by letter, while at the same time moving in with another woman, you've got (at least in my mind) three clear possibilities: He wants out of that marriage (and this other woman is just a stepping stone), he's really in love with this new woman, or he is trying to get someone's attention. Well, now that they are apparently getting back together, option C seems to be the one.

Everyone is probably all cheers when two people who have three small children decide not to break up. (I have met one of these kids, and he's a nice kid, but he seems already a bit messed up and shell-shocked if I had to give a diagnosis.) But I see the real trouble on the horizon. Some have commented to me that they think, for professional reasons mostly, the lady wants to get back mainly for appearance's sake. This doesn't seem illogical given what I know and what profession (religion) she is involved in. But clearly the sexual roles are reversed here. It's the mousy little man who runs off in a hissy fit because he can't seem to bring himself to tell his wife what he's really thinking. And so he does this passive-aggressive manipulative shit. And I do know that one of her biggest concerns was what other people were thinking about her because her husband had left and moved in with another woman.

The thing is, all this is probably fairly normal shit. This is the social life of homo sapien sapien. If it's a little crazy, you know you're seeing truth.

One of the hardest things about "Free and Open Discourse" is that it inevitably means that people's pet theories get challenged or even destroyed. Everyone has pet theories, philosophies, principles, ideals, and beliefs. Some are not really subject to discrediting. Who cares if your favorite color is red and mine is blue? Does anyone ever really argue that one is actually better than the other?

But it's likely we all do carry around a number of beliefs that are as irrelevant to truth as a color preference, and yet we will actually argue that our color is better. This, I think, is truly what free and open discourse brings us to. We might as well advertise that idea instead as "Your crank ideas challenged or debunked" because I think that's pretty much saying the same thing. I was asked to narrow the focus of my opinion at Shalom Place because I was challenging people's beliefs (not good for business). And MFI's OS X Talk forum was neutered, renamed, and eventually closed because we seriously challenged people's beliefs. And that wasn't good for business either. If it had been, we'd probably still be there. But the thing is, none of those people over there had either the brains or the guts to admit that they were doing what they were doing for business reasons. Instead, they gave a bunch of other bullshit reasons. And, heh, maybe on second thought they weren't being stupid because it was a way to get what they wanted while making everyone else think they were doing something progressive.

As all of you know only too well, saying what's really on your mind in this world can cost you a bundle. It can cost you your career and your reputation -- and in many places your life. It happens all the time. Think about that. People must grasp the enormous value of truth and facts in order for this to be the case. And this is why one heartfelt spoken truth here is worth more than an entire forum full of delusion, ass-kissing, and conformity. We get enough of that in the real world. I'm a bit surprised, myself, that thalo.net does not have 5000 members. But I think I understand now that hand-in-hand with free and open discourse comes that other thing: Your Crank Ideas Will be Challenged or Debunked. And given the power of ideas, even delusional or wrong ones, that is a lot to put on the line anywhere.

But imagine living a life and never saying what was truly on your mind. Must we always be careful? Must we always be playing social politics? Must we never go on record with anything lest it sometime in the future be used against us by the legions of people for whom this wouldn't be stooping but would be standard operating procedure? I say there is strength in numbers -- strength in the number of opinionators and truth-tellers. But it's a hard process. Because truth is so valuable there is an inevitable price to be paid for it. But it's not all about paying. You get a lot too.

So anyway, the end to this story of the yelling bout was that the guy did the same thing to his boss a day later (and this boss had been present when this employee and me were going at it). This second shouting match was unrelated to my screaming match. And he got fired. Not sure what was going on there. But he was kind of a natural hot-head. Drugs might have had something to do with that. He was paranoid and always, and I mean always, making excuses. Whatever the case may be, I'm going to breath a little easier around here.

quote:

As all of you know only too well, saying what's really on your mind in this world can cost you a bundle. It can cost you your career and your reputation -- and in many places your life. It happens all the time. Think about that. People must grasp the enormous value of truth and facts in order for this to be the case. And this is why one heartfelt spoken truth here is worth more than an entire forum full of delusion, ass-kissing, and conformity. We get enough of that in the real world. I'm a bit surprised, myself, that thalo.net does not have 5000 members. But I think I understand now that hand-in-hand with free and open discourse comes that other thing: Your Crank Ideas Will be Challenged or Debunked. And given the power of ideas, even delusional or wrong ones, that is a lot to put on the line anywhere.

That gets a standing ovation from me, brother.

I'm waving the thalo.net flag, and have the patriotic thalo.net tear in my eye.

It hit me the other day, that if I was in any business besides the creative industry, I'd have to tie a giant iron ball around my neck, and jump off of a bridge. Yes, it can be frustrating, but on one level, your job is to tell people what you think. Use your sense of taste and "what looks good" to try and make pretty pictures for them. Because pretty pictures can somehow communicate what a particular business or organization is trying to BE.

People don't always listen. Less-is-More doesn't always work. Sometimes they want wild and crazy and hip-hop... sometimes they think what you do is crap. But they were at least willing to ask for something of your personal vision of them. I think I know sometimes how Goya felt, or Degas. Sometimes your subject needs to be told the truth. Sometimes until they see visually how they appear to the world, they'll never know certain things about themselves. Sometimes they want to change after they see.

When I look at something like the design of Aqua, the OSX interface... I wonder how Apple can honestly look at themselves in the mirror and NOT WANT to change. They are, in fact, changing. Bit by bit. Thalo.net criticism by thalo.net criticism. There is stupid shit that used to be MUCH stupider in previous versions. That it took the usership's feedback to finally get rid of. Like stripes, brushed aluminum, crystal sausages, icon wells... but there's just SO much crap still in there. Drawers, very FAINT menu stripes, poor use of transparency, terrible window widget iconography, overdesigned icons, and on and on.

What it boils down to, is that the visual "story" that Apple is telling about itself with the current design, is a view of Apple that it WANTS to have about itself... trouble is, it's based on a fundamental underestimation and contempt for the user base. It's designed like catnip to attract digi-tards and casual users, and so is every bit as slanted to a niche as they THOUGHT the legacy was slanted to professional artists. I still argue, however, that when professional artists loved the interface, it was because it was designed with EVERYONE in mind. And because it looked UP to the userbase, not down its nose at it.

Art is the mirror that gets held up to the elite and powerful. Sooner or later the contempt that's built in by the aristocracy is going to surface, and people are going to say screw you to it, clean up your act. Sooner or later people will take a hard look at the happy horseshit crib toy of the Mac interface and go, wait, what, THAT'S what Apple thinks we are?

The geek aristocracy is high and mighty right now. And yet Apple was founded on putting that VERY aristocracy in its place, and creating something that thumbed its nose at it. Now, they've sold their souls back to it in some Faustrosoftian deal.

Their creative profile... the artwork that they hired freelancers or in-house artisans to do for them, however, speaks VOLUMES about where their head is at. The reason the interface is dysfunctional, is because Apple is dysfunctional. The reason it's not working, dated, and they can't seem to hit a home run with it... is that they're not telling the story right. They're telling the story of what they think computer use is. But they're missing the reality of it. The deeper issues. And so they keep getting crap. They're asking for the wrong things. And getting back only so much as fits the marketeer's vision.

But have hope, Mac Faithful, because I think the artistic process eventually wins. Crap and mediocrity loses out to good taste as soon as there's a backlash of scorn against the glib attitude that aristocratic downlooking art or design has toward the people who consume it. Eventually people realize that corporate propaganda doesn't have their best interests at heart. They'll realize that every super-rendered icon is BAIT to part a rube from his money, and that eventually becomes intolerable.

When the MacLash comes, people are going to be asking for power and performance, and an understated and elegant design that fits with who THEY want to be, not what Apple keeps telling them they are, which is rubes.

I'm waving the thalo.net flag, and have the patriotic thalo.net tear in my eye.

Tennnnnt---HUT! Presennnnt….ARMS. LOL. Well, occasionally I have my moments. Glad you liked it.

I do think Apple needs to sit down and consolidate what they've got. Pare it down. Change it from junk-drawer to the equivalent of one of those elegant rolltop desks with a hundred convenient pigeon holes for stuff, all within easy reach, but all out of the way when you don't need them. My dad had one of those desks. He restored it from a horrible mess that it was when he found it in somebody's barn or something. It's a beauty. All those little drawers, slots, and cubby holes are laid out so smartly you can really make use of them. They don't all look alike, if you know what I mean. There's an overall sense to it. And you can have it crammed full of stuff but it's a case of a place for everything and everything in its place. And I’m not just parroting your schtick when I say that I don't get that feeling when working with OS X. It is indeed a junk-drawer mentality that built it. I really ought to take a picture of the old rolltop desk and send it to Apple. It's so cool that you can roll that top down and lock it. And then you're left with a very fine looking piece of cherry or oak furniture.

Maybe a rolltop desk isn't the right metaphor for a computer interface. But there is one out that can work far better than what we have now. And, no, I seriously doubt if it's coverflow.

I gave blood today. I was cutting a bunch of old and very gnarly blackberry bushes. The dried-up branches are the worst. It's excruciation pain to have one of those jammed into you. Some of the branches dry out and form twists and loops sometimes. And with the pain and the blood you can't help thinking of Jesus' supposed crown of thorns. Let me tell you, that would really hurt.

Not very busy at work so I'm taking the time to trim back the blackberries that have overrun and practically covered a six-foot retaining wall made from very large boulders of black basalt. It was hell out there in the hot sun getting constantly stabbed and jabbed in the fingers and arms despite two pairs of long gloves worn over each other. But it was fun it its own way. The actual berries on the bushes are pretty much all gone now, although there are some late bloomers but they're not quite as large or succulent. I don't know what variety of blackberry these are, but they're the large variety. You find them everywhere. They're very good eating although I've always been told that the smaller so-called "wild" blackberries are the best for pies.

On sunny, warm days such as today you can almost imagine that everyday is like this. One can easily forget the rain-soaked overcast chill that is more typical of the area. It's a different world in the sun. It's as if someone took our city and plunked it down in a different latitude. And it was a blessedly quiet day compared to yesterday's lunacy of the fired employee from down the hall. It got a bit ugly. But today was not ugly at all, despite the loss of blood in the blackberries.

I often ask myself what I've learned from all this delving that I've done into wherever my mind will take me, no holds barred, with everything up for grabs. What have I learned from what I've read and thought over the last, say, five years or so of relatively diverse study?

First off, it's true. The more you know, the more you know you don't know. At times I've never felt so stupid when you realize just how many brilliant and talented people there are in this world chugging way, doing what they're doing, producing the most amazing things. I find the more I know, the more that I can't sum everything up in a nice, neat paragraph or two. There are just so many angles, so many perspectives, so many possibilities.

Second, you can't swing a dead cat in this world without hitting up against the large presence of human nature. And I've already spouted off plenty of my thoughts about that, especially in regards to Pinker's various books, but this subject looms large. And, surprisingly, it seems to loom pretty much unconsidered for the most part. People go about their business perfectly fine not worrying or thinking about why they do what they do. Socrates may have been right that the unexamined life is not worth living, but it's apparently not hard at all to actually live a life without a hell of a lot of true examining going on. People are moved by forces of which they seem to be mostly unaware. And that's not to imply dullness, apathy, or stupidity. It's just that there's a sort of "need to know" basis going on. Renoir did not need to know the inner workings of his visual system in order to paint the way he painted. Mozart didn't need to understand the function of the inner ear in order to write great music. And yet there is that whole wonderful and relatively unexamined world out there of human nature

Third – yep – evolution. You guessed it. You can't talk about life without talking about evolution. Well, you can, but you'd be missing the point entirely. I think I'm pretty much like everyone else. Maybe worse, because I didn't do four years of college. I had always heard of evolution and had what I thought was a general and capable understanding of it. But I didn't. I might as well have been a Creationist for all the difference it would have made. But now I do understand. And if there is a god, I know more about him (or her) than any Creationist does because I understand His methods. And as to how one characterizes the forces or "laws of nature" that make everything go, I’m not sure. But related to that is…

Fourth – the universe is alive. Let me share some recent correspondence that is slightly altered to protect the innocent. I think it consolidates my thoughts on this in general:

quote:

I think the typical atheist is pretty squeamish about any philosophy or metaphysics that isn't extremely materialist or that doesn't have to do with things that are easily measured and quantified. Many atheists seem to think that if one doesn't hold to a completely materialist and meaningless conception of the universe, that one must be busy counting angels dancing on the head of a pin. Well, it would actually be great if the universe were as simple as meaningless materialism. If atoms were nothing but mindless billiard balls, we'd have things figured out by now. But the existence of my own consciousness tells me that we don't. But neither do I believe in magic, miracles, mysticism, or the supernatural. And yet given that we are these strangely sentient creatures, and that science can't even begin to explain sentience (or even measure it), it's reasonable, as far as I'm concerned, to consider that the ultimate answers to this world are (from the point of view of our knowledge at the present moment) going to seem a bit mystical by comparison. And I, for one, don't have a problem with taking my philosophy or metaphysics into areas that others may be uncomfortable with – as long as I think it is reasonable and logical to do so.

Although the fact of our sentience is a big clue in regards to the nature of this universe, I don't consider any state of mind that anyone experiences to necessarily have any mystical, magical, or extraordinary meaning. So in regards to shamanism, spiritualist, the Ken Wilbers of the world, new-agers of any stripe, or anyone who practices meditation or prayer to gain "special knowledge", I think none of that is of much, if any, value as a way to know this universe better. The epistemology of science is surely the way to go until someone can give a good reason why prayer, mysticism, mediation, or any other occult means of supposedly gaining special knowledge are efficacious and reliable. From our sentient experiences we can indeed gain knowledge THAT we can experience an extraordinary variety of feelings, emotions, and states of mind. But while in those states, although the feeling of having special knowledge may be strong, there is no evidence that the supposed knowledge coming from those states is reliable. No one goes into deep meditation for a couple days, weeks, or years and then comes out with a cure for cancer, for example. No religious mystic has ever predicted anything specific and unambiguous about the future such as something like "There will be things called computers running Intel microprocessors in the year 2007."

Simply by being born sentient creatures who have incomplete and limited knowledge of this world, we are thrust into a quest to discover what existence is all about. But I advise that no one take any shortcuts. And that, to me, is what religion tries to do. I think the challenge of our own time is to find a way to deepen our journey and make some kind of sense of things even while we do not have all the answers. No one particularly likes living in uncertainty. But I have yet to find any firm answers myself in regards to what it is all about. Science is one very powerful means of finding out. But science inevitably gives us only measurements and formulas. We still are left to say what that data means. We have to interpret it. For millennia, religions have tried to interpret reality without regards to facts. Now science has a plethora of facts and yet many scientific or atheistic minds are trapped by their own religious-like fixation on materialism. But clearly sentience of some type is a fundamental quality of matter and energy, just like mass and spin are a fundamental quality of particles. This is a very weird concept for scientists. It seems too religious. And yet I see no alternative. That's not to say that it leaves the door open for just any ol' religious belief. But it does leave the door open for ways of looking at the universe beyond strict scientific materialism.

Hey, like a lot of people, I long to live in a universe where I can snap my fingers and every wish is my command. But that's not how this works. And I see no reason to waste a single brain cell on any standard conception of god. Let Him send a damn telegram to clear this whole mess up. It surely wouldn't cost Him much to do so. So it's safe to say that whatever this universe is about, and however we characterize the forces involved, it's not like it says in the Bible. But that doesn't mean it ain't a hell of a lot better. Have you actually read the Bible, particularly the Old Testament? Believe me, you wouldn't want that to be the reality.

Yes, the universe is alive. And conscious – or some equivalent of that. The universe is full of information, and I think it's a certainty that information itself is one of the very primal things of existence. Information probably also implies a certain kind of intelligence. Maybe it's not one we can talk to, or that can even talk. Or maybe it can. And maybe we do. Like right now. Me to you.

Fifth: Morality. Yep, the big "M" word. It exists. It's a factor. It's less of a factor for simpler, less conscious things (I'm guessing). We don't think a wolf evil for killing a lamb. But we do think a man evil for killing, at least in certain circumstances. But I don't believe anyone has ever seen a circumstance of a wolf killing anything where they didn't just put it all down to "the laws of nature." One thing complexity (which is another word for thousands of innate instincts instead of hundreds) gets you is a totally different level of consideration and therefore of responsibility. We humans are on the cutting-edge cusp of doing truly moral acts – and immoral ones as well. That is because of our intelligence, awareness, and ability to act in highly complex ways. Who the heck knows what kind of actual free-will choices we have. But there most definitely is a level of consciousness that then allows for the consideration of the feelings and state of being of others. There is a state of consciousness that can take this into account. However it works, it can and does work. And it doesn't take religion to make it work. Frankly, I'm not sure what it does take. But it is possible to be moral in some highly complex ways.

Number six: Fucking jump off the bandwagon of cultural coercion if you can and breathe free air, if only for a while.

More bradology for your reading pleasure at SurveySays.net.

I'm just dicking around there for the time being. But once in a while I like to sow some wild philosophy and see what happens. More bradology at SurveySays.net.

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bradology:

quote:

The board requires you to be registered and logged in to view this forum.

Fuck that.
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I know, I can understand having people log in to POST, but read? Come on. Weak.

Yeah, I don't know why that is. It sucks that you have to register in order to just read. Oh well. If no one wants to bother with registering, I'll post some highlights. I'm having a most interesting discussion with someone who I could best describe as an anti-globalist. Hell, he's got a whole litany of complaints. It's hard to pin him down. And when I *did* ask him to summarize what the heck the core of his message was, he started getting all pissy. There seems to be a lot of yutes out there just like this guy. A nice guy but seems to think that the entire world is going to hell in a handbasket. Or something. Crap, his posts almost rival thalo's in length.

Anyway, I'm certainly not hawking for membership at Dawkins' site. But I admit that it's not very tightly moderated. And that's a very good thing.

I spent some more time yesterday and last night posting over at SurveySays.net. I made some good points, but forums like that where there are tons of people are pretty much a zoo. It reminds me that when the Maclash comes, and when this forum is just teaming with people, I will find a nice place to hide in some obscure thread in some obscure corner of the forum, and I will be glad. It just seems to always be the same mix of opinions and people. It doesn't ever go anywhere. Not for me, anyway. There's a part of me that really does want to understand where some people are coming from. But it's often analogous to standing in front of an oncoming train in order to try to find out where it's coming from. That train never slows down. It never changes direction. It just toots that same note from that same steam whistle and runs right on through. And, no, I guess I shouldn't pretend that I'm any more flexible. But some people get the strangest notions in their heads and that is that. There is no discussion, really. They're just there (like me, for sure) to prove that they are right and everyone else is wrong. People seem to get notions in their heads, and it's as if these notions, analogous to an Alien facehugger, wrap themselves around their vital organs. Try to pull them off and you nearly kill them. Certain notions apparently become a part of their emotional makeup, not their intellectual makeup. The intellect can easily be shown that 2 plus 2 does not equal five and will readily adapt to the concept of four. But boy, howdy…if a person develops some kind of emotional attachment to the number five, then forget about doing any short addition problems with them, let alone long division.

That's when you have to subject those emotional attachments to scorn, satire, and humor. Because people who do take things too seriously are pretty fucking funny to watch squirm.

This is sort of an interesting thread. Does Evil Exist?. Yours truly has taken a shot or two. And, of course, I won't shoot the religious fish-in-a-barrel just because I'm at some atheist-dominated site. I do here because it it just naturally progresses from the subject matter. But I take some nice shots at atheists here and there in other thread. They have their little Mickey Mouse Club of safe religion bashing going on. All the world's problems would disappear if only people didn't believe in god -- even while many of these same people believe some quite preposterous things themselves. And, of course, yours truly has told them so.

They've got some screwy forum software over there. It seems to always be stalling and going TU. Right now it's not behaving well. So let me just put my recent posting here too:

quote:

I have an abstract view of evil, but I still believe in the devil, whom I believe is pure evil. This means that evil must exist not only as a social construct, but also as a force of nature (much like gravity). Yet, unlike gravity, it is separate from the physical world (yet still connected, in some way). As I said before, my view of evil is a bit abstract.

Congooo, I think pleasure and pain, and probably consciousness, may be fundamental components of reality. How else could these things arise? But the problem I have with saying that evil exists as some inherent fundamental entity, force, or component of the universe is that there is no easy way to describe what is evil and what it is not. It's very situational. Heck, it's usually very arbitrary. If someone were to take a knife and slice apart a baby, hell, I would consider that an evil act. I don't need to nuance that a bit. But what about when somebody takes a knife and slices apart an animal? Or what if someone kills a five-month-old baby in a womb via abortion?

If there were truly intrinsic evil in the universe (whether personified in the form of the devil or as some kind of force of nature), we should be able to quantify it unambiguously. But nobody can. And that is why we get into such trouble sometimes by throwing around the terms good and evil as if they were absolutes. It's just not that simple or easy. But on the other hand, I think it's true that throughout human history there have been some moral ideas that have been fairly consistent, such as injunctions against murder and stealing, for instance. And because of the fact of pain and pleasure, because of the fact that we are fragile beings who can be harmed or killed, and because of the fact that most people have hopes and dreams and want to live, a natural and logical set of morals stem from that. Prohibitions against murder pop up as an obvious moral law because we understand that most creatures want to live and that life has value to people. It can be taken away and there's no known way to give it back. The logical nature of this is going to lead to things like laws against murder. But because society has a whole jumble of interests, they might not consider it murder to wage a war of aggression against a neighbor. Situational, again.

quote:

in my abtract mind i was thinking if there was a evil force(thats if we are believing that a force has its own desires) then it would try to destroy gravity,because it is against it.

I think that's a very clever notion, congooo. You would expect that is there were some evil force, it would be doing something like that. We might see the moon plunge into the sun perhaps. Or we might see gravity countermanded locally here and there just to cause havoc. The pyramids, for instance, might easily be lifted into the air and thrown into the Mediterranean. But all we ever see, in my opinion, is what we call "natural laws." And we, of course, have our senses. We feel things. But one can't simply call pleasure good and pain evil, can one? If so, then the dentist is evil. But it is, at least to me, interesting to note that evolution had these ingredients (pleasure and pain) with which to work. Sometimes it is advantageous for an animal to feel pain. Sometimes it is apparently not, because we humans don't have any feelings in our blood vessels, for instance. But we do have feelings in our toes, and it hurts when we stub them. And so there must be an evolutionary advantage, at least in some instances, to feel pain.

But what would a universe look like if we weren't simply talking about the known core ingredients such as mass, energy, the laws of nature, and whatever other fundamental attributes it might have (pain, pleasure, and consciousness, for instance)? What if there really was intrinsic good and intrinsic evil? What if, instead of what evolution shows us that it is survival and reproduction that is the measure of all, that good and evil were instead the measure of all? I would think that we would see a much different universe. Kind acts, self-sacrifice, and love would be the things that would be tangibly and immediately reinforced, rewarded, and would be the point of it all. The natural selection component of evolution (and genes and inheritance are a reality) would thus be selecting not for something as crass as mere survival, but for virtue. And after millions of years of evolution, is that what we have now? It doesn't seem like it to me. What we have now are very tightly-crafted survival and reproduction machines, but not virtue machines. And whatever virtue we do have can be shown (at least in my opinion it can be shown) to serve the needs of survival and reproduction.

This can all become very depressing, of course. As even Dawkins says in one (or two) of his books, it can take a while for the realities of evolution to really sink in. And at least for me, yeah, that can be kind of depressing. On the other hand, you realize that it becomes very unlikely that there is intrinsic good or evil. There is certainly something in the universe that gives such potency and richness to things so that we can eventually have life, feelings, emotions, consciousness, Mozart, and rainbows. But when this richness has been tried to be explained in terms of a grand battle between good and evil, it's never, ever made any sense, at least not to me. But we do live. And this is pretty amazing. And there is no doubt there is such a thing as morality. We can tend toward good even if there is not an intrinsic source of goodness. Or if there is a "goodness" source (or an "evil" source), we have to have a much more nuanced understanding of it then we do, because we're then inevitably talking about a god who must love to see people suffer. Hey, he built the laws of the universe, right? He's responsible. It could have been a universe where goodness was naturally selected for instead of survival and reproduction. And I suppose that's why religion grafts on the idea of heaven and the whole concept of intrinsic good and evil. With this supernatural add-on then everything doesn't have to seem to pointless.

I think a lot of people really want to believe in evil. I've certainly run into more than a few people who were truly offended by the idea that evil doesn't exist. That kind of floors me, because I think it would be an improvement if evil didn't exist. But many religions heavily indoctrinate that idea. And perhaps just the normal psychology of humans demands that someone be blamed for things that go wrong. But we know for sure that we do have is a developing morality. It's not one that's been handed down from on high. In fact, our morality would severely regress if we started living according to the Old Testament. So there is indeed hope in the realization that morality is in our hands. No intrinsic evil exists, but there are some intrinsic realities to being living, feeling creatures. I'm not fluent in process theology, but the best hope in my opinion of keeping god alive is to realize that everyone one of us is a piece of this universe. We ought to use our human intelligence to realize that we tend toward a very hierarchical view of things. Things like classes, kings, and categories come very natural to us, as does the concept of "god above." We're a herd (oops, I mean "social") animal. But what if instead of looking up we started looking sideways, so to speak? What if we see that we're "it" and that this is no demotion? WE can have a direct hand in what is good and what is evil. The alternative is to be a slave of some grand soap opera in the sky, of some supposed fight that we never asked if we wanted to take part in. That, to me, would be hell.

Oh that's terrific.

I think believing in evil is a way people have grown to not have to TAKE RESPONSIBILITY for evil. If there's a personification of evil, like the devil, then when humans do really egregious things like raping and killing small children... well, then it wasn't THEM that did it. Evil came into their hearts. And if evil is this big, supernatural force, wimpy little humans are more than likely powerless against it.

The fact that humans can and will do evil acts without any personification of evil pulling the strings, means that they are responsible for their actions. Nobody wants that.

I think there are battles of good and evil. But they're individual. They exist in our heart and mind and we analogize them outward into our species, but the ideas of good and evil are pretty much our own invention, with help from our culture and society. It's us who makes the individual choice to charge things with good or evil. Religion is a crutch for this.

But taking personal responsibility for what's already our personal morality is just the way it is.