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View Full Version : Is good really good & bad really bad ?



devotee
06 February 2009, 05:07 AM
Right from our childhood, we are told what is good & what is bad & we are also told to watch our steps to ensure we must do what is good & must not do what is bad.

If garbage bin filled with filth was bad, then why dogs, pigs & flies like it so much ?

Is pain bad ? If pain were not there, could we know when we would cut ourselves ... & if pain were not there, why would we try to remove the malady ? Isn't it true that Pain is one of the best teachers ?

Is light good ? Then why does it kill the bacteria or scare cockroaches away ?

Is telling a lie bad ? Shall we tell the Truth to killer to help him find his victim ?

Is life good ? How do we know for certainty that life is good when we don't know what lies before or after the event we know as "life" ?

Is eating meat bad ? Then what would happen to millions of people who survive on meat because there is not much vegetation around them to depend upon ? ... and what would happen to carnivorous animals ?

So on & so forth ...
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Can we say that :

Good & Bad are just mental concepts which have only relative meanings within a given environment / a set of parameters ... they don't have any absolute meaning. ... and that it is all in our mind.

simex
06 February 2009, 10:13 AM
All attributes rely on a subject, a point of reference, and are therefor as fleeting and tenuous as we are. As you've aptly pointed out, whether something is decided to be good or bad relies on who is making the decision, and under what circumstances.

My most favorite hot sauce might be the cause of a traumatic experience in another subject. Is the sauce pleasurable or painful? It is neither, the pleasure and the pain exist in the subjects.

Good and bad exist, but they are not absolute and they are not in the things we attribute them to; they are concepts in our minds. The concepts in our minds are still real things, but not objective or universal.

The reason we find it so hard to accept that things like good and evil are not "out there", is because so many of us accept their existence. Normally we can differentiate between objective and subjective phenomenon by comparing our experiences with others. Everyone agrees that water makes things wet, so I'm fairly certain it's not a projection of my mind. However, we are all human beings, and we share more in common than we like to admit. So when a concept occurs to nearly the entire population, it seems real and tangible.

Viveka is one of the most valuable things I have taken away from Sanatana Dharma.