What is the root of all evil?

[Michi]

I have read many pages of stories of alien civilizations and theories of how earth could become a peaceful civilization without greed and I believe it boils down to a single word, called "responsibility".

In order for a person to come up to a point where he can really "live" the word "responsibility" he needs to have a good concept of
"ethics" (moral choices a person adopts and adheres to for the greatest good).

As long a group consists of beings who seek revenge and justify doing harmful things there will be war and famine.
And this applies to any other civilization too - no matter how technically advanced.

Unfortunately, there are mechanics in place which propagate that beings go out-ethics. Part of it is a mind that hides unreasonable ideals and makes a person doing things which the person afterwards require to justify - in order to "make sense".

When a being has become irrational, it is not working to lock him up or to suppress his detrimental urges.
So it takes some form of clearing or meditation and self-education that gets a person to a level were he really embodies the concept of responsibility for self and others.

Here I quote some text from a booklet, which illustrates what I mean:

"... a CAUSE relationship, in which both partners feel responsible for each other's acts and in which each partner feels that the
other is acting for him. If Mary burns the toast, John accepts responsibility for this action. This does not mean that he assumes all the responsibility and leaves none for Mary. It means that he assumes all the responsibility and that Mary assumes all the responsibility, too. They both assume all the responsibility. Under such an arrangement, no one can be blamed. All their attention goes into doing better with the toast, and none of it is wasted in blame."

"It may seem odd that Mary can be CAUSE if John accepts her effort as his own, but that does not mean that he takes her effort away from her — it means that he allows his BEING to flow into that effort. He validates her effort by letting it be a part of him. He does not invalidate it as itself by refusing responsibility for it. He does not invalidate it as her effort by interfering with her performance of it. He validates the effort by being responsible for it, and he validates Mary by letting her be the one to control the effort. He does not try to control her efforts, and she does not try to control his, but each of them assumes responsibility for the efforts of the other.
...
"We may be able to see more clearly how this works if we hypothesize an outside individual who is temporarily hostile to John and Mary.
Mary runs the family automobile into the neighbor's gate.

The neighbor rushes over in a huff and encounters John in the front yard. The neighbor says, "You just ruined my gate!"
John goes with the neighbor to look at the gate and at the car. Sure enough, there is blue paint on the gate and white paint on the car. The evidence is conclusive. John agrees with the neighbor that the gate has been damaged by John's car and he asks the neighbor to have it repaired and send him the bill.

The neighbor says that the damage is not very great and so he will repair it himself. John lends him the tools and helps him to repair the gate. John insists on buying a can of white paint, and the neighbor says he will enjoy painting the gate on Sunday. He apologizes for being so excited at first. They shake hands.

John goes into the house, and Mary says, "Dear, I hit the Jones's gate with the car." John says, "Yes, I know. We've already repaired it." Mary says, "I'm sorry. I was thinking about the bathroom curtains." John says, "That's all right.

What about the bathroom curtains?" Mary says, "I want to dye them blue." John says, "That's a good idea."

If nobody is to blame for the damage to the gate, a constructive subject like dying the curtains will immediately attract John's and Mary's attention, since it represents future action.

Now, the reader may say, "But what if Mary runs into the neighbor's gate every week — just like in the funny papers?"
The answer is easy: it is not necessary to live as though one were living in the funny papers. Two possibilities arise.

Either Mary has some aberration which makes good driving impossible for her, or she has not. The chances of the first are very slight.
If she can walk, she should be able to drive the car — PROVIDED she can drive the car as CAUSE and not as EFFECT. If Mary's vision is such that she cannot see the neighbor's gate, then an agreement must be reached whereby she does not drive the car. But if she merely runs into the gate "through carelessness", it is ten-to-one that someone is interfering with her self-determinism about driving the car.

John's most constructive course is to let her go on driving the car and running into the gate and to assume responsibility for her actions. Of course, he may have to pay out two or three hundred dollars for new fenders and new gates, but that is a very small price to pay for bringing his wife up the point at which she can operate the machine rationally.

The moment Mary realizes that she is CAUSE when driving the car and that no one is interfering with her, she will not hit the gate."

(mods, if the title isn't good - please change. )

[moekatz]

RESPONSE----ABILITY. One must have the ability to respond to others. Empathy plays a big part in this. If we miss a an education in empathy in our childhood, it is unlikely we succeed as adults, to have a responsibility response. Where do we get that education? We are helped or hindered by our family group. I once read that empathy is learned between 3 and 5 years of age, very early in our lives. If we miss this education our empathy levels are going to be diminished and it is very hard to regain that loss. A recent personal happening in the family has shown clearly that we either face ourselves and our lack of empathy and improve, or we suffer a diminished interaction with those we claim to hold close. Thanks for this post.

[conk]

Ignorance is the root of all problems. As awareness increases, empathy increases. Caring people generate fewer problems for themselves and others. The higher we climb the ladder of consciousness, the closer we get to the default setting of the universe - love.

[TargeT]

Judgement is the root of all evil.

If you don't judge it to be evil, is it?

What is good and evil? (I like to replacethem with good= things I like evil= things I don't like).

If we are all energetically the same thing, just different expressions... can evil exist?

Maybe Evil is just doing things you know other people won't like?

[Ernie Nemeth]

That's a mine field!

Sticking my neck out - root of all evil: incomplete thought = ignorance = judgement = self delusion

[WhiteLove]

Not seeing one's self in other selves, in other words when another being is simply considered as a foreign object of no importance at all other than to take advantage of in some way, kill, or cause suffering if it is important to self. That is in my view the ultimate root of all evil. When everybody are like that, there is no love anymore, which is why we need to do our very best not to become like that, but rather to become the opposite to that.

So in other words. The root of all evil is the polar opposite to unconditional love, to hate unconditionally. Control, ownership, falsehood, manipulation, trapping, war, fear, violence etc., those are all fruits of that dark dense cold evil.

[joeecho]

Posted by TargeT (here)
Judgement is the root of all evil.

If you don't judge it to be evil, is it?

What is good and evil? (I like to replacethem with good= things I like evil= things I don't like).

If we are all energetically the same thing, just different expressions... can evil exist?

Maybe Evil is just doing things you know other people won't like?

I alluded to this very thing, just under different context.

[Deega]

Money is only what yesterday leaders created as a mean of exchange, but as everyone is aware, money contribute largely to societal conflicts that may lead to evil, only my 2 cents.

[ozmirage]

I think the question is misleading.

Let's first define morality.

Morality is simple - it is based on survival - dead things have no morality - and it depends on which law you follow.

In the most basic morality, that which is contrary to survival is immoral - like killing unborn fetuses. No civilization that kills its unborn is truly civilized, no matter what lame excuse is concocted.

Beyond the basic morality of survival, there are two sets of laws:

1. Law of love, and
2. Law of the jungle.

Under the law of love, harmless activity in support of one's "right to life" is moral / good. Harmful action is "bad". Self sacrifice is the "highest good."

Under the law of the jungle, predators are "good", and prey are "good to eat". Prey who fight back are "bad". Sacrificing others for one’s own gain is the rule, not the exception.

So when we're misled to assume that there are no real moral value systems - it's code for PREDATORS telling their PREY to stop resisting and willingly cooperate in their demise.

When you are trained to ignore civilized law - the law of love - and are trained in jungle law - you are working against your greatest good. To predators, winning is everything. However, using "evil" to defeat "evil" insures that "evil" is victorious.

Those who follow the law of love, and are harmless productive people, are what we define as "moral" and "law abiding".

Those who follow the law of the jungle, and who harmfully prey on others, are what we define as "immoral" and "law breakers".

But are predators "evil" under the law of the jungle?

Choose your law carefully...

[joeecho]

Evil is the elephant in the room in a place with no room.

[TargeT]

Posted by ozmirage (here)
like killing unborn fetuses. No civilization that kills its unborn is truly civilized, no matter what lame excuse is concocted.

Devils advocate:

Why?

what basis do you have to make a statement like that?


(For this purpose I'm guessing "truly civilized" is analogous with "not evil" )

How is that not a preference? I'm sure rabbits prefer not to die, but I do not think a fox is evil (though the rabbits may). Perception is the key to reality... but yours isn't the only key (and neither is mine).

[Peace of Mind]

Money is evil. No other creature on this planet is forced to use currency in order to survive on this planet. Humans were tricked into placing their power into silly things like paper...and will fight and support it to their death.

Responsibility is the act of leadership in action…when the awareness of the current times and circumstances are met with courage and commitment to do/have/share/and be better.

We all know the difference between good and bad. Without “the bad”…how would you recognize and appreciate “the good”?

Evil is necessary to properly test your free will, to see what you’re made of. You can’t get purity without purification, not without applying pressure or putting the fire to the tushy. You get gold from smiting, diamonds from coal, and the phoenix rises from the ashes.

Good and bad is easily defined and recognized when exercising responsibility, treating others exactly the way you would want to be treated.

Harming, discriminating, neglecting, oppression, and inequality are just some simple examples of evil…as no one really cares to experience any of these examples…yet care little when others are having that misfortune.

Humans have the highest intellect to decipher such things…but it’s always the many other species on the planet that are willing and committed to doing what’s best for the whole…. All the while, never making up an excuse not to. Excuses is just man’s way of turning a blind eye to their responsibilities, a cop out…I’ve never seen such things in any other being, only humans.

Peace

[zen deik]

Evil intimations come from your heart.from your very youth..the devil gets blamed for a whole lot of stuff he doesn't do....

[seah]

I am chiming in with power as the root of all evil...but it could easily be any of the others mentioned. I think it is a list of things.

[zen deik]

Lust for power

[amor]

When you get right down to the core, pain is the ultimate evil, lack, hunger, disease, cold, heat, blows and so on. Question: Why did God invent the nervous system? To control you.

[Michael Moewes]

The root of all evil are emotions. Once you control them less problems you've got. It's simple as that, because you can trace every evil back to the emotion it made occur.

[Sequoia]

Without a doubt I'd say Doubt. Which is followed by negative emotions it triggers, fueled by learned thought processes and unsure actions based on "not knowing" and being unaware of the truth

[picloud]

Evil has no roots, its merely another expression that will forever exist in duality with love. Therefore evil cannot simply be categorized as "bad", it is merely part of the infitite expression that is the conscious energy of the multiverse.

[Chester]

anything anti-life