Is doing evil a necessity of life?

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Is doing evil a necessity of life?

Did the ancients know this and Is that why we are all named as sinners?

I think nature created the potential for evil in each of us because without that potential we would not have the ability to make a free choice between good and evil or evolve to find the fittest human.

Consider. Evolution has two major components that we must do to survive; compete or cooperate, as required. Cooperation we would see as good because it does not create a victim or loser. Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim and loser.

From this view, we must do evil and to survive as that process produces the fittest. To not compete would produce the least fit and we would likely go extinct.

Do you see this conundrum of us having to do evil? If you do, should God punish us for doing what we must do so as not to go extinct?

I do not see God as justified in punishing us and that is why Gnostic Christians like me are Universalists.

I see us all as not requiring salvation. God would not do evil by punishing us for doing what we must do to survive and thrive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exsultet
“O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam”.
“in the light of paradise, even the sin of Adam may be regarded as truly necessary and a happy fault.”



If sin and doing evil is good and necessary for Adam, who represents all of mankind, then the church and I are suggesting that it is good that we all do evil.

It seems that nature, or God, if you are into the supernatural, ultimately, created a perfect imperfect world. To appreciate perfection, we must know imperfection. This knowledge frees the mind.

Regards
DL

One of the few things the Bible got right is

Romans 3:10 (NIV)
As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;

So I don't think committing any individual act of evil is a necessity, I think no one can go through their whole life without committing acts of evil.

Doing evil in your life is not a necessity but an inevitability. But try to keep commit as few acts of evil as you can.

Read Romans. And btw there is no such thing as Christian-Gnosticism. Read this https://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-gnosticism.html
(Gnosticism is based on a mystical, intuitive, subjective, inward, emotional approach to truth which is not new at all. It is very old, going back in some form to the Garden of Eden, where Satan questioned God and the words He spoke and convinced Adam and Eve to reject them and accept a lie. He does the same thing today as he “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). He still calls God and the Bible into question and catches in his web those who are either naïve and scripturally uninformed or who are seeking some personal revelation to make them feel special, unique, and superior to others. Let us follow the Apostle Paul who said to “test everything. Hold on to the good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and this we do by comparing everything to the Word of God, the only Truth.)

Last edited by Yo El on 28 Mar 2017, 8:12 am, edited 2 times in total.

I agree with the OP.

If God wanted us to understand what evil is, we must be able to know what good is and vice versa. We must be able to sin in order to refrain from it. So the knowledge of good and evil is a necessary thing in the understanding of the meaning of life.

Without it we would have remained in a state of (ignorant) bliss as we were in the garden of evil. Like a child, we were ignorant of the evil of the world but also unable to grow and learn until we experienced pain and learned what ''bad'' means.

So ultimately, God created a perfect imperfect world. To appreciate perfection, we must know imperfection. This knowledge frees the mind.

Evolution indicates necessity more than inevitability.

Regards
DL

[quote="Yo El"]Read Romans. And btw there is no such thing as Christian-Gnosticism. Read this https://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-gnosticism.html
(Gnosticism is based on a mystical, intuitive, subjective, inward, emotional approach to truth which is not new at all. It is very old, going back in some form to the Garden of Eden, where Satan questioned God and the words He spoke and convinced Adam and Eve to reject them and accept a lie. He does the same thing today as he “prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). He still calls God and the Bible into question and catches in his web those who are either naïve and scripturally uninformed or who are seeking some personal revelation to make them feel special, unique, and superior to others. Let us follow the Apostle Paul who said to “test everything. Hold on to the good” (1 Thessalonians 5:21), and this we do by comparing everything to the Word of God, the only Truth.)
So we do not exist, yet you show a description.



Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people. Eleanor Roosevelt

Regards
DL

Thanks.

Intelligent as compared to Yo El who thinks A & E should have stayed as bright as bricks and too stupid to even reproduce.

Christians will not acknowledge that Genesis and Eden are Jewish myths that they interpret to be our elevation and not our fall.

Christians think it a fall for humans to develop a moral sense. That is why they can follow a genocidal son murdering God.

Regards
DL

Lots of generalisations here. I consider myself a Christian and I acknowledge both the Jewish origin of Genesis and its allegorical nature. I also agree that eating the forbidden fruit is equal to acquiring moral reason. Whether that is a good thing is open for debate.

The reason why eating of the fruit may be considered as the fall of humanity is because the ability to know about evil also appears to generate the ability to perpetrate evil. This can be evidenced by two things: the evil that humans do to other lifeforms and the planet at large and the evil that humans do to each other.

Moral reasoning is one of the ways that set humans apart from other animals, but is that a good thing? It has enabled us to build complex civilisations and to make great technological advances, but we are currently destroying the planet to the point that life may become unsustainable. We have also contributed greatly to the extinction of many other species and their habitats. Now we are even contributing to our own extinction. Even though God, according to the Bible, has a special place in His heart for humanity, He is also the Creator of other lifeforms. From the perspective of these lifeforms (and God's I think) we are clearly a parasitic species.

And what about the way we treat each other? We have seen great wars, and the capacity for human greed is large. The acquisition of reason makes us ambitious and hardworking, but it also seems we are never satisfied. We always want more. This preoccupation with ourselves and wanting more may be a consequence of our pride. Pride is the price we pay for the acquistion of moral reasoning. And pride does seem to come before the fall (even our own extinction?).

Undoubtedly this perspective is but one way to look at it. But after all this can you blame God for thinking that ignorance is bliss? Rousseau for thinking that human morality at its best has humans living as noble savages? Are we and the world so much better off because humans are (or think of themselves as) special?

No, it is not.


Correct: It is never okay to do something at the expense of another.


Are you suggesting we humans need to be actively destroying "the least fit" amongst us in order to cull the herd or whatever?

I agree that doing things at the expense of other people is bad but it's an unrealistic expectation that none of us will ever do it. Which of us never sins?

Mother Theresa might be an example of someone who did not do things at the expense of others, but that would not mean she never had. Overall, however, there is no need to steal paper clips from the office, for example, since almost anyone who has some would willingly give us one or two if we might simply ask.

We don't need to steal paper clips from the office but unfortunately it's impossible to live life without winners and losers.

Sure it is: Do not compete. That does not mean all people will be successful or even survive, but my life is never dependent upon my needs being met at the involuntary expense of others.

As an argument against that, someone might ask, "What about the man who cannot feed his family unless he steals bread?"

That is the part about "all people might not be successful or even survive"...and the solution for that is not that the man steal but that the remainder of us "love our neighbors in the same ways we love ourselves" by being certain they have their daily needs: altruism.

You can't do evil without the knowledge that it is evil. A fox is not evil when it raids a henhouse, regardless of feelings of the farmer. All living things kill or benefit from the death of another living thing. It is a natural process. Willfully gratifying yourself with unnecessary wants to the detriment of other people or living things and the rules set forth by your personal deity (if you believe in such) is what qualifies as evil or sinful.

Competition makes the evilest win, the one who "kills" the other.
If everybody competes, you must compete to survive.
Then the ones who survive are the evilest.
Evil is always destructive.
Humans have done the necessary to survive but our planet is nearly destroyed.

Seeing the world as a community where you contribute to global responsible welfare
is "live" and "build", versus "survive" and "destroy".
If everybody lives and build, you must build and live to survive.
You are rejected if you destroy.
Humans may one day reach this level of consciousness that would help them respond together to life's challenges,
instead of building 3 and destroying 2... not very efficient.

^
Ants, have evolved to cooperate beautifully, working, building:
120.000.000 years on this earth, haven't destroyed the planet.

Humans, evolved as warriors, building a lot and destroying a lot:
10.000.000, have already nearly destroyed the planet.