Good or Evil?

THEWAULRUS · 01-01-2007, 09:57 PM

Which one is it? But before you answer, listen to a few things that make me ask this question. After eating from the tree, he could tell from God and Evil, correct? So using the bible, that is out of the way. But only people can be good and evil, because if you are one of those you are incomplete. And if God is Good, then he is not complete, imperfect. You might also say that God is good and Devil is evil. But Devil was never a God, he was a fallen angel and thus already imperfect in his nature. So which one is it? Good or Evil?

Og · 01-02-2007, 10:10 AM

This would be an example of missing the point.

The story of eden is a demonstration of pairs of opposites. When he ate, he wasn't just aware of good and evil, man became aware of male and female and birth and death (this is right in genesis). They were cast out and a pair of cherubim where placed outside the gates (another pair). In the buddhist tradition, these guards to the gates are opposites, one has eyes closed, the other open.

The point is that there was another tree in the garden. The tree of eternal life. And in fact, they are the same tree. Christians with this concept of good and evil embodied in sin can not enter. Buddha, however, sits under the tree of eternal life and says, "It's ok, come on in." And it's exactly that message that christ was getting across (i.e. he died to defeat sin).

This idea of pairs of opposites permeates all mythologies of the world (for good reason given that we're male and female and that there's day and night on this rotating globe).

But what all mythologies teach you is that the way to become one with god (to recognize the kindom of heaven that is here and now, from gospel of thomas) you must transcend the pairs of opposites. It's why zen buddhist will basically never say anything. Ask them one thing and they'll tell you one thing and then the opposite so that nothing happened. It's why they sound confusing as hell, but in reality, they're living by the fruit of the tree of eternal life.

And it was yaweh's response in genesis that if we were to eat of the tree of eternal life that we would become divine as god is.

This is why agnosticism is so powerful. It transcends the pair of opposites that are theism and atheism. It says "the question of belief is missing the point". It does not say "I don't know". At least not my agnosticism.

Belief and non belief.. Existance and non existance.. God is or god is not.. It's all part of the fruit of the tree that expells us from the brahman.. Unity with the divine. God is neither good nor evil.

This is one of the powers of the buddhist religion. It really truly says that you can sit under that tree and feed of the fruit of eternal life right now. And eternal life is not everlasting life. That would be a duality again between everlasting life and death. Eternal life transcends time. It comes when you are free from desire and fear.

Jesus tells you not to fear death (for the kingdom of heaven is yours). Jesus tells you not to hate your enemy (turn the other cheek). Everything that jesus taught pointed towards eliminating pairs of opposites. LOVE, truely love, without attachment and fear.

Then we return to the garden of eden and the divine presence is one with us and we experience eternal life. And it points at you, now. Not something that will happen when you die. Not literal fact about the garden of eden as being a real place. Not literal fact about god being good or bad. God is love. Love transcends all and real love is free of desire and fear.

This is the basic tenant of buddhism and the core of what christ came to teach us.

The kindom of heaven is spread out on the earth here and now. Men simply do not see it.

Og · 01-02-2007, 10:14 AM

I used the term brahman up there. I use that generally instead of god because God is such an anthropomorphically charged word when it refers to the social structure diety that the jews identify with. Yaweh was the hebrew god and you could only be born into his chosen people.

Brahman is a hindu/buddhist word that expresses what I mean by God.

Brahman - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Quote:

is the concept of the Godhead found in Hinduism. Brahman is the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all things in this universe.

THEWAULRUS · 01-02-2007, 01:55 PM

True but when you die, can't you join the Brahman one day? But my point here is that GD has claimed that he is perfect, all powerful and that he IS only Good.(read Genesis) So if you are only Good then you have no evil in you,thus you are incomplete because everything in nature is balanced. So if you are just evil you cannot be perfect because you are not balanced, you see what I am getting at? My main point here is that God is not Perfect..

Og · 01-02-2007, 02:47 PM

Are you saying that because the bible says that Yaweh claims that he's god and that he is good that this makes it true? It doesn't really seem to work with the idea of the garden transcending pairs of opposites vs the world which wallows in the.

Point is that it's a metaphor for the human experience NOW. You don't join the brahman when you die. The term is not identified with a thing. Death is a return to silence as far as this metaphor goes. The term AUM (my avatar) is what you hear monks chanting. It's a sound that rises out of the back of your throat, fills your mouth, ends on the lips, encompasses all sounds (consonants are interruptions of Aum) and finally, the important part of the concept: AUM returns to silence out of which it arose which underlies everything.

Under this idea, god/brahman is a concept that is neither good nor evil. It is neither male nor female. It neither exists nor doesn't exist. It transcends all pairs of opposites.

This is the problem that occurs when people take mythologies and say "jesus was actually and physically and biologically born from a virgin." Or something equivalent.

The transcendent nature of the brahman (god, whatever) is beyond pairs of opposites. That's what the garden of eden story tells you. It demonstrates how this fruit of the pairs of opposites feeds us and THAT is what disconnects us from eden.

This is what the myth MEANS, not what it PHYSICALLY DESCRIBES. When you get caught up on what god is or that you'll somehow be living forever looking at him when you die in some bizarre other world and when you give god a label like "good" or "exists" or "doesn't exist" or whatever, you miss the point.

The finger points at the stars. It is not the stars itself.

When you're young, you're told that santa exists and that it's a concrete fact. When your brain develops and you join the human condition, this changes. You are told that santa is a spirit of the season. This, is a perfect example of myth because no one is really grasping at it and killing people over it as a fact (as is done with western religions).

The original question of Good or Evil nature of good demonstrates our dissociation from the divine. Answer. Neither good nor evil. Transcending pairs of opposites.

Jesus said, "The kingdom of heaven is here now, Men simply don't see it" (gospel of thomas)

Jesus transcended this fact "I and the Father are One" (John 10:30). There were no pairs of opposites. His act was exactly that of the buddha 500 years before. All the stories tell you that jesus died to save us from original sin. Sin was the discovery of pairs of opposites (i.e. that fruit of the tree).

Buddha and jesus both sit under the tree of eternal life and say "it's ok, come on in." How? Dissolving your internal conflict between opposites by escaping from desire and fear. How? Awareness. Self observation. Education. Open-ness.

And by this I don't mean they still are alive and somewhere sitting under a tree in some garden with a physical location. I mean that this speaks to the human condition NOW. Which is the power of myth. Connotation, not denotation.

Og · 01-02-2007, 03:40 PM

This image demonstrates the concept beautifully (and I'm sure you've seen it)

All along the pyramid as you climb you always find an opposite side. Pairs of opposites wherever you are on the pyramid. When you reach the top, you find the eye of god. The Brahman. There is no opposite side at this point of the pyramid. No good or evil. No death or birth. Transcendent consciousness.

It transcends pairs of opposites. This is the adam and eve myth in a single picture. It's a religious symbol. Very powerful idea.

Don't get caught in the denotations of the myth! You are dead to life if you do! They are all fingers pointing at the stars. See through them. Make them transparent.. Transcend to what the symbol describes. The connotation is everything. Myths are creations of man to point at the indescribable.

THEWAULRUS · 01-02-2007, 03:53 PM

See I understand brahman to a certain point. And I know of AUM...but i was talking about the Christian/Jewish/Islamic God. They all claim to have one side of the puzzle. I see for a god to be perfect he then must have both pieces or be neutral.See I think we are arguing from the same standpoint here. As for the garden of Eden, did God himself not create it? For what purpose did he create a garden and then caused us to eternal suffering, since he is all powerful and all seeing he should have known that man will defy him. But yet, he placed the tree there, forbidding man to eat from it but still knowing that we will defy him. Why?

Og · 01-02-2007, 04:23 PM

You're doing it again. You are not describing brahman.

You are talking about pairs of opposites again. Did god create eden? Did he not create eden? This question misses the point entirely. CONNOTATION not DENOTATION. God is not neutral in evil/good.. He is neither and both or maybe just... BLAAHHHH. Language doesn't work when describing the transcendent Brahman. That's what myth as metaphor means. That's what poets are for.

Yahweh is a deity in the story. He's not transcendent consciousness that is braman. Yahweh is the glue that holds the hebrew people together. He's a social concept and a very effective one at that job!

Don't start trying to cast him in any form. It just don't work

Don't miss the forest for the trees so to speak. Myths point. They connote. They don't denote.

THEWAULRUS · 01-02-2007, 05:18 PM

BibleGateway.com - Passage*Lookup: Genesis
If you read the beginning of the Genesis you shall see the emphasis put on Good. Also later on it says that God was good. I am not talking about Brahman, that's a whole different religion. Here is my main point in this whole conversation. Christians look upon their God as a perfect being. No flaws, nothing. But how can something that is only made up of good be complete? And if it is incomplete then it's imperfect.

Og · 01-02-2007, 05:38 PM

I'm sure the hebrew book casts the hebrew god as good. These are people using it as a unifying social concept, not a path to enlightenment. It was identity for them against the world.

Trying to apply that in today's globalized society just don't work.

Also, the passage you linked (i.e. chapter 1 of genesis) is not refering to yaweh (hebrew god).

It's refering to Elohim. Hebrews used this word, but chapter one of genesis is from an old polytheistic religion of the caananites in the bronze age. Elohim describes their entire pantheon of gods.

The plurality of elohim is demonstrated here:
"Then God said, "Let us make man in our image" Gen 1:26

You can look this up. Two separate texts for genesis 1 and genesis 2. Generally refered to in academia as E and J texts (for elohim and yaweh). They are separated by something like 700 years in time.

As for the use of "good" at the end, I'm not sure, but wouldn't be surprised if it meant something like in harmony.

Trying to cast these spliced together books as a single unit into today when you're not a hebrew from 3000 years ago is a tough undertaking. It's like the definition of a square peg in a round hole.