the root of all Evil/ Philosophy

We are to life as air is to wind.

A semantic accident leads most people to the following logical fallacy: that "one can't know everything" should imply that there are things that cannot be known. I respect that the multitude of abstractions and concretions in life present too many questions for them all to be answered, but I'm a Romantic at heart, and I think that we can say, in plain English, what Love and Hate and Beauty and Truth are. That's why I call myself a metaphysician (and why my name here is Epipsychologist). But if you are of the school of epistemologists who believe that we can't ever know a whole truth with certainty, see if you disagree with the below. 

The root of all evil is ignorance, or: the mind in action against itself, and opposing that which it was created to do: recognize and appreciate the good in others. Such an appreciation accrues (with interest) the good in oneself, so I cannot believe that it is not the reason we are alive.

This is the most important thought I've ever had, so let me deconstruct it. It works backwards, and I divined this wisdom from Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Defense of Poetry," wherein he explains, in a few sentences, The root of all good:

"The great secret of moral good is Love, or a going outside of oneself and an identification of the beauty in thought, action, person, not one's own. To be greatly good, a man must imagine intensely and comprehensively. He must put himself in the place of another, and of many others, the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own. The great instrument of moral good is the imagination." (This may be slightly misquoted).  

Look. Right there. These words just explain it. And this is just part of an essay that explains what art is, what logic and imagination are, and why poets (used in a more general sense to mean poetic artists) are the "unacknowledged legislators of the world." But I want what I'm writing now to be an offense. I want it to be an attack on Ignorance, and (in my dreams) a breaking of the mentality that some things cannot be known through reason. That's too defeatist. 

I'm not talking about excepting myths as the answers for the questions that we don't have the tools to answer yet. Religion is a particular kind of ignorance, and thus, evil. It is a spiritual bigotry. It strikes me sometimes that most of the world finds comfort in believing that because other people worship a different false idol, they will be prescribed an indescribable amount of pain for an eternity. I think this is where the evil of religion can be found. It is insidious, but it has the same effect as hoping and believing that people of a different ethnicity or gender, or area, are less human than you are. Even if religion encourages people to act in pro-social ways, it sows the potential antipathy that becomes an unfounded hatred of other people. It shows itself in disagreements as disrespect. This is interpreted as indignation and leads to wars.

Doesn't that make sense? When people of different faiths disagree, they each perceive the other party as 1) a mistaken ignoramus and 2) entirely disrespectful to something sacred. The result is that the next religious war may involve nuclear weapons and apocalypse, and this because rather than think our way to the answers, we accepted myths. We, as humans, have invested ourselves so heavily in these myths that most people could not, ever, no matter what, shake their beliefs. Even the suggestion that they are wrong implies that praying is delusional, of course religious people don't want to admit that God might not be real, and is certainly not real in the way they believe he is. But, for the reasons described above, and because life has taught me that we can discover the great truths of the universe, and distill those into quotes, I feel a moral obligation to speak up as an Atheist. 

Author's Note

I'm interested in your opinions, or any arguments that might present holes in mine.

Reviews

[A love for poetry]

wooo! Check out all the comments below! ^_^ interesting discussions.

[A love for poetry]

Hmm, interesting,

Heres a transcription I took from a video which I thought was interesting, this is in regards to the whole post modern thinking of todays popularised social scientists:

It is a move against truth, it is move against meaning and it is a move against certainty, Theres no such thing as truth, you can not find meaning in logic you have to manufacture it yourself; and you can't be certain about anything; but you can be obvious about being certain about no meaning and certain about no truth so they bring in that certainty to suit them selves; now theres no truth no meaning no certainty. There's another aspect to this--They take away from the author the prerogative of using words of his or her own meaning; so if you write a book, a post modernist will read it and deconstruct it to reinterpret what they think what you have ought to have said, or what they want to make you actually say.

This was from a youtube vid called, The Power behind the NWO, the last 16 minutes I don't agree with but the rest of it was very interesting.

Oh nice write up here; by the way.

[Epipsychologist]

Thank you Isaac B,

I partially regret including religion as part of the argument because it subdues, in a large way, my point which you touch on; just because we experience life subjectively doesn't mean that we can't hone in on and identify the objective truths. And I think that excerpt you share points out a couple of the flaws in that thinking.

[A love for poetry]

All good ^_^

[Baby Ricochet]

Saying "the root of all evil is ignorance" is kind of like saying "you have a skin rash." It's so obvious it doesn't mean anything. That's the trouble with bold intellectual statements. Sooner or later some a*****e comes along and says "No s**t Shirlock." I don't believe in anything. Not God, not religion, not nationalism, not Obama's hope and change, not the Republican tax free utopia, not the Libertarian alternative not the Easter bunny. Not Nothing. I don't believe religion is the root of all evil. I believe it's a convenient excuse. I'm a poet. Mostly I write funny lymrics. It's a fun, cheap hobby and I must be good at it cause almost everything I write makes it's way up the popular reading list with several number ones. I have a number one right now. "OWC" It was meant to be funny and it is. Am I some kind of "unacknowledged legislator" or am I to lowbrow to count as art because what I write is popular? Even if only on the WC. A web site full of mopey emo kids and grownups with nothing better to do. I don't think the great secret to moral good is love because in the real world love is conditional because human beings have wants and agendas so the idea of unconditional love should have died off with the hippie movement cause it doesn't have a snowballs chance in hell in this solar system.
I get what your saying bro but in all frankness I find intellectual arguments like this kind of annoying. They're typically not based in reality and often come off like mental masturbation. Like the bigger the words the more right my argument has to be, even if my life and no ones life I know of reflects one word of it. It's nothing personal against you dude. I just with everything I have seen and done, I have little patience for absolute ideas and grand, sweeping statements trying to finalize the complex disaster of a world we live in.

[Epipsychologist]

On the contrary I think most people think the root of all evil is Greed, or selfishness, or money, or just Evil in the sense of some hidden force. My point is that all evil stems specifically from Ignoring others as human. I don't think that popular art is lowbrow, and if it is popular it is probably because it helps people relate to their world and each other. That's basically what Shelly means by "unacknowledged legislators," people who help us recognize each other as deserving of rights. I'm sorry if this sounds defensive, or offensive, but to say that "deep" things don't matter because they don't have any application in the real world just isn't true. The point of philosophy is to broaden your perspective by developing different lenses through which to observe the universe. I think that what you mean though, is that there's nothing wrong with making art that isn't meant to be deep, which is fine.

[Tate Morgan]

Ric life has a bigger purpose .Surviving the infancy of our aggressive nature. Sadly I suppose it is a dead argument as we will always kill each other. Then hide our regrets in the shroud of a just god Who truly doesnt give a s**t whether you live or die. We are the gods of war.!

[Baby Ricochet]

Good Response Bro. I'm impressed. Seriously, I am. I've gotten into these types of arguments before and have gotten "you're a stupid f*****g a*****e" as a comeback. To me that says they can't defend their argument. You on the other hand can and that's a beautiful thing.
When i was deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq I saw and did things that, well, you would have to had been there. Whenever someone starts waxing and waning about good and evil that's where my brain goes so what's an abstract argument to some is deeply personal to me because of that. That's why I get so worked up over certain things. I do know a thing or two having an aggressive nature since infancy. That's for sure. Someone once explained what Archetypes were to me and said I was the living embodiment of Ares, the God of war. I looked it up and they were dead on. For better or worse I am the God of war

[Tate Morgan]

I am sending you the one i think appropriate.However remember i have a son in law who i told before he was deployed ." I wish for you that you might not have to take another life.I wish you to never know what it is to know you have killed another,That said Shoot first sort it out later,. Hesitation in war is a death sentence. Ideally we would never have to take another life. War is not the ideal though . I think in reference to that Twain said what I think should be on our minds before we start a war. But once started it is essential we win.Not because we belittle them call them chinks japs kikes wops in an effort to make them seem less human.But because if you are there to press the point than you have already reached the point of no return. War being inevitable at this point save your own a*s and kiss the enemies goodbye. Twain made me laugh when he wrote this though as it makes me think of who we are

"O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it..."
(Mark Twain / 1835-1910 / The War Prayer)

[Epipsychologist]

Ricochet, Thanks for the respect. The difficulty in writing a debate, I think, is that arguing a point sometimes just seems reactionary. I like people who can defend their opinions, and your first response was a valid reaction, too.
Also, I came across a website one time that was just a bunch of pictures of authors with guns, Hemmingway, Hunter S. Thompson, and a few others I don't remember, but the caption just read something like, "There's something awesome about an author with a gun," and I think it's that, authors, by nature, are people who might use the gun to make a point, rather than a bullet hole.

Tate, Twain's prayer is awesome, thank you for posting it. Also you and I obviously agree on a lot of things, so I'm glad we're friends on this site and I look forward to reading more of your things.

[Baby Ricochet]

I think I've heard that before. Mark Twain that is. It's good. No wonder he's still famous.

[Tate Morgan]

hi ric yeah we all have opinions but they make little difference to the big picture. Three months before the second gulf war happened I was working in dayton ohio and the president was saying the iraqis were after a WMD we all know that was a lie.i said to my wife we are going to war she asked me how I knew I told her every day at write pat field in Dayton they were practicing urban warfare. dropping troops in downtown dayton. My friends didnt believe me but three months later the president came out with his stupid reason that all of us knew was a prelude to the reality that saddam threatened his father and he wanted revenge

[Tate Morgan]

Wonderful thoughts
India has 2,000,000 gods, and worships them all. In religion, other countries are paupers; India is the only millionaire
But who prays for Satan? Who, in twenty centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
The best minds will tell you that when a man has begotten a child he is morally bound to tenderly care for it, protect it from hurt, shielf it from disease, clothe it, feed it, bear with its waywardness, lay no hand upon it save in kindness and for its own good, and never in any case inflict upon it a wanton cruelty. God's treatment of his earthly children, every day and every night, is the exact opposite of all that, yet those best minds warmly justify these crimes, condone them, excuse them, and indignantly refuse to regard them as crimes at all, when he commits them. Your country and mine is an interesting one, but there is nothing there that is half so interesting as the human mind.

"O Lord our God, help us tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it..."
(Mark Twain / 1835-1910 / The War Prayer)

I find it sad we say all others meaning they who do not find truth in our beliefs are wrong. And yet we take great offense to them saying the same to us

[Epipsychologist]

Regarding who prays for Satan, lately I've been thinking most monotheists do. If you pray to a God who punishes those who seek to enjoy the experiential goodness in life, and a God who not only punishes those people, but punishes them infinitely beyond their offences, despite have created them knowing how they would fall, and knowing before hand the weaknesses he built into their character, you are basically praying to Satan.

[Tate Morgan]

twain on the bible
.a God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell--mouths mercy, and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules and foregiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him!

[Epipsychologist]

Yes, Man created God in his own image.

[Tate Morgan]

there is no doubt of that. Man needs to let go his idealistic foolish fears religion will always play on peoples weakness an fear,We would be so much better without religion for all it claims to do for us it truly has been responsible for the worst of us. The ships of the world could rest easy in the blood shed in its name

[Pax]

The root of all evil is ignorance…
~ this statement proves me right in my logical thoughts, we have talk about this with mr. Tate, and I said to him that: religion is another spice of life, a mixture of faith and believing. religion is just a tool man created and for man to strive for the better... maybe because religion speak too much of morality... which limits our natural Curiosity of all things. at times this curiosity makes us childish... that is why religion helps too, it keeps the darkness at bay or settled to where it belongs(in the far corners of our mind).

The great secret of moral good is Love
~ I agree but I sense otherwise… because I always believe that there is a fine balance between all things, even love. So if I may say Love also have some excessiveness. That’s why moderation comes along making it the center to balance all things good and bad. So again I think the great secret of moral good is a fine balance of things good and bad… with open minded truth of love and hate, an understanding or an self-awareness.
The great instrument of moral good is the imagination." (This may be slightly misquoted).
~ I believed that your right again about the misquote. Imagination for me is a vast information of our emotions, dreams and thoughts… so it’s neither good or bad, but it depends on how you put it….

Religion is a particular kind of ignorance, and thus, evil.
~ I am not disagreeing with you here but I believed it’s not at all evil. A thing can be an evil tool if you believe it so. So if you believe religion is a tool of evil then its evil, but if you believe religion is a tool for good then its good, am I making any sense.. :) ..my point is that the power of believing and faith depends on the person on how he/she perceived it.
~~~ why I said this because: I see too much people using religion as a tool for creating destruction. Some people use it wrongly for their own selfish and greedy nature. And some people understand it poorly that they attack each person’s other belief making a feud between each other’s perspective, the respect is totally gone…respect comes a long way…like you said: , they each perceive the other party as 1) a mistaken ignoramus and 2) entirely disrespectful to something sacred.

I truly respect your perspective. I myself is a catholic, and I believed what I believe. I have faith even though on some parts I don’t agree but I believed it is real in my state of being…and that makes me human, being one makes us capable of doing mistakes and my religion helps me realized that…forgiveness and letting go is part of life like religion is part of our history…

This is such a brilliant thought-provoking essay.
I salute you for speaking up…
And thanks for sharing…
I’m glad I found this write…

[Epipsychologist]

It's a valid point that maybe these are over generalizations, but to prove that point, can you 1): name an instance of human evil that do not involve consciously or non-consciously disregarding natural sympathy for another person, or 2: cite an instance of inter-human goodness that does not involve a recognition of the goodness in others (which requires the ability to assimilate the beauty in others' character to one's own goodness, hence the imagination)?

[Pax]

Sorry if it takes too long to reply to your complex question…. I did find some help understanding it for I find it hard to understand… maybe because of language problem, u know very well it’s hard to express when it’s not your own dialect… so thanks to mr. Tate…

Human are weak in nature(I mean about this that we are born innocent and pure without any knowledge of anything around us), in a sense that our innocence is vulnerable to any darkness or any stain….all in all we are free to learn anything around us as we grow so were totally ignorant on things when we are still a child… and it depends on the situation of the community or family were we grow up as a good nature being or bad…

1): name an instance of human evil that do not involve consciously or non-consciously disregarding natural sympathy for another person,

(There is an instant that a person can be cold as stone, I call them stone hearted… they are like that because experienced makes them so, the hardship of abuse or of any kind of mistreatment they suffered makes them feel something of the opposite of a normal good behavior)

or

2: cite an instance of inter-human goodness that does not involve a recognition of the goodness in others (which requires the ability to assimilate the beauty in others' character to one's own goodness, hence the imagination)?

Hmm… is there any kind of goodness that does not recognize the goodness of others??? How can you recognize a goodness of a person: you see it by observing, you hear from it by listening, and you feel it by understanding… and all that you process in your heart…with the help of the brain… then they will work together on whether it’s good or bad, right…

Goodness/badness is a particular human nature that we learn around us. It’s either its taught to us or its shown to us…. I’m far off the topic again… now back to my point: we cannot unrecognized what all of our senses felt, see, hear, taste or even touch… we all see or felt it, it’s up to us to choose to ignore or recognize these facts whether its good or bad after the situation is shown..
hope i get your point.

[Epipsychologist]

Okay, but I would say this is a round about way of agreeing with my ideas.
What I mean by ignorant is not unaware, or uneducated, but actively resisting understanding. It is like choosing to side with bullies, rather than sympathize with a victim. Like you say, people can be "stone hearted." That is basically what I mean by ignorant, perceiving that someone deserves sympathy, but ignoring that sympathy for selfish reasons.

I like your point that recognition (or perception) is not a choice. we sense the good/beauty/truth in others whether we choose to or not. So I say it is a "recognition AND appreciation of the good in others." To be morally good one must recognize the good in someone else and appreciate that goodness exists outside of oneself, as a separate thing.

[Pax]

now i get what you meant by ignorant... i guess it depends on the country or community your in... because in my family we were taught or shown how to respect others belief... the world is a diverse place, but that doesn't hinder us to make friends with others... yet the reality is that some people don't understand totally erasing respect with each others perception and beliefs... making a certain person close to any opinion and putting a sea around us making a group of island if people... meaning separating us to make friend or we choose to ignore this person because we don't have the same belief..having a barrier of once self to understand other people....
thank you, I'm glad you have seen my point as well...

[Pax]

typo: island of people depending in beliefs...

[Marie]

There is a great deal of logic in what you say, and you certainly present your case well. There are people of different beliefs on this site; many are Christians (a few absolute fundamentalist Christians); some are of other faiths; some, like yourself, are atheists. I don't know how many will respond to your writing. They may try to pick holes in your argument by saying that if God did not exist the world would not have been created. Certainly no one can deny that religions have caused many wars. I am of the Presbyterian church, and I shudder to think what my own church has done.
The one thing I am curious about is the phrase "I'm not talking about excepting myths..." Shouldn't the word be "accepting" ? Or am I not reading it clearly?

[Epipsychologist]

That is a typo. Also, what I was afraid of with this piece is that it would be viewed as intolerant. I really hope it isn't, but it is an argument. I just feel that when I try to persuade people to my views, I'm usually at a disadvantage, because faith (which by definition refuses arguments to the contrary) is working against me. I am assumed to be a proxy for the devil's trickery, and thus literally demonized. But then I felt like a coward for letting that stop me.

[Marie]

You cannot persuade people to your views. You can pesuade them to UNDERSTAND your views.

[Epipsychologist]

I agree. Understanding is key to my philosophy. Let's say that understanding entails respecting the differences and the similarities between things, and that because there are differences and similarities between things, things have a certain truth to them, an Essence. If things have an essence the implication is that there are in fact correct analyses and incorrect analyses of Things. In other words, I believe that one person can be right about a thing and another person can be wrong. If one can understand a thing more comprehensively than someone else, that person has a moral obligation to help others UNDERSTAND (Plato's Cave). I'm arguing that Gnosticism is an impeding shadow on the wall, and that if people consider religion in the terms I've expressed, a necessary conclusion is that Gnosticism is a form of ignorance (in the sense that it is a refusal to admit to oneself truths) and is by extension a form of Evil, and there are visible examples of this.

[Marie]

You will not convince a staunch Christian (ror Hindu or Muslim, etc.) to become an atheist. I cannot see that you have any moral obligation to do so. You You can only persuade someone who has no beliefs, and is, in effect, a vacuum to be filled. My father was an agnostic, and so is my daughter. I am neither Christian nor agnostic, but a free thinker. I never speak one word of my views to anyone unless I am pointedly asked for them. This is saying nothing against your essay, which is both enlightening and interesting.

[Epipsychologist]

Sorry in advance for the length of this comment. I understand that some mind sets cannot be changed, but that, to me, is part of the problem. My argument that there is a moral obligation to try to dissuade people from gnosticism is based on my philosophy that Love is a kind of understanding and Ignorance (objectively defined as an active refusal to recognize/understand a thing). . Religion encourages people to accept certain acts as being inherently right or wrong. Once accepted, people don't question (as often) the circumstances of a person's "sin" and are encouraged to judge the person, rather than sympathize. While religion also preaches forgiveness, the non-conscious effect of defining one's life by "God's rules" is the creation of stigmas (e.g. sex is a sin--> fornicators are sinners--> promiscuous women are s***s/ unmarried mothers are w****s etc.) Even if some people are reasonable enough to never outwardly state things like this, the notion of Hell, or that God intends for sinners to be punished, suggests an implicit assumption that people who "sin" are less human (or too human compared to practicing people). That is why there is a moral obligation to attempt to prevent Faith, even if most people are unlikely to ever come around.

[Marie]

Idon't see why you care. I don't care what people believe or if they believe anything or not.I am not an athiest but I accept that you are, and I certainly feel no obligation to try to get you to believe in God. I don't think God cares all that much either...

[Epipsychologist]

Well, I care because lately I've been seeing the attitude "everyone has a right to their own opinion" as a bad thing, philosophically. It seems reasonable because often times trying to change people's opinions is perceived as rude. It is uncomfortable to argue, but there are negative consequences of not trying to challenge people to think more critically about life. People may be taught to practice judgement rather than sympathy, and that's something worth preventing. To say that it is insensitive to argue spirituality does not mean that it is not right to try to persuade people, if you a have an ethical reason for doing so.

[Epipsychologist]

Upon rereading this I think there are a couple of jumps that are a bit abrupt, but there's still some solid logic, I think.