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Lumpy-Passenger-1986 t1_isptx07 wrote

If someone does something you view as bad, but in their mind it is without a shadow of a doubt doing good, do you still consider them evil? Or just misguided? Many places around the world have different, often conflicting beliefs. What seems like a normal every day part of life to someone on one side of the world may seem like a heinous crime to someone on the other side of the world. But if they have been taught that it was just normal, or it’s just what you do since birth to adulthood, can we really call them truly evil when to them it’s just how it’s always been? It’s what they were taught to believe? Or take someone who grew up in a different time period. They were raised on specific values and beliefs since birth, let’s say in the 40s. Now it’s 2022, they held on to the beliefs they were raised with, but today those beliefs seem barbaric, cruel…. Evil. Does that make the person evil? Because they stuck with what they were taught? Because they held on to those beliefs that at the time they were young were the absolute right beliefs? Think about this and remember that no one will truly know who is right and wrong, who is good and evil, until either judgement day arrives, or the world just ends and we die knowing nothing. And reflect on the fact that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” no matter who you are. Because no matter what you believe in, no one on this earth has the answer, only the creator(s) of the world itself know for sure, or maybe their isn’t an answer and no one is wrong or right. We have wars over beliefs, and yet truthfully neither side could ever know who is truly right.

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Maker623 t1_ispylyj wrote

True. Either man decides what's right and wrong, or someone/thing else does. If man decides what's right and wrong, then "You say theft is wrong? Well I say it's right... were both men, so now what?" Sure, the collection of all humans can come up with moral codes, but does that really PROVE that things like murder are wrong? All I see are a bunch of people sharing an idea.... (this probably ties into the idea that truth {objective reality} is dictated and spoken into existence by man himself)

Anyways, great post, and this question will probably never be answered, unless we can know that a supreme being exists or not, and we don't even know if aliens exist yet...

Personally, I think there is something in everyone that really does judge their own morality, and everyone knows what is true right and wrong (like charity giving/murder). I also personally believe that someone like the Las Vegas shooter, or the WW2 bad guy deserves no excuse, and no remorse. It's one thing to be misguided or taught something wrong, it's another to defile your conscious and ignore your own judgement repeatedly.

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Gentlerwiserfree t1_it25i6c wrote

It’s not about what I say or what they say, or what anyone says, it’s about the effect that it has on others.

I don’t think 2022 standards are that much better than 1940 standards or 1840 standards, or 740 BCE standards, or Ancient Roman standards or Tang Chinese standards or Viking standards or Aztec standards or whatever else.

I think all the systems are broken — still, today, everywhere. and need to be reevaluated.

Elephant parable.

They’re all broken in a lot of different ways. Only by bringing the whole world and the present and the past together and honestly examining without bias and without discomfort, can a positive system be built.

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