Where Do Good and Evil Come From? | 5 Minute Video
If there is a God, why is there so much evil? How could any God that cares about right and wrong allow so much bad to happen? And if there is no God, who then determines what is right and what is wrong? The answers to these questions, as Boston College philosopher Peter Kreeft explains, go to the heart of ethics, morality and how we know what it means to be a decent person.
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Script:
I’m going to argue for the existence of God from the premise that moral good and evil really exist. They are not simply a matter of personal taste. Not merely substitutes for “I like” and “I don’t like.”
Before I begin, let’s get one misunderstanding out of the way. My argument does not mean that atheists can’t be moral. Of course atheists can behave morally, just as theists can behave immorally.
Let’s start then with a question about good and evil: ‘Where do good and evil come from?”
Atheists typically propose a few possibilities. Among these are evolution, reason, conscience, human nature, and utilitarianism.
I will show you that none of these can be the ultimate source of morality.
Why not from evolution? Because any supposed morality that is evolving can change. If it can change for the good or the bad, there must be a standard above these changes to judge them as good or bad. For most of human history, more powerful societies enslaved weaker societies, and prospered. That’s just the way it was and no one questioned it. Now we condemn slavery. But based on a merely evolutionary model, that is an ever-changing view of morality, who is to say that it won’t be acceptable again one day? Slavery was once accepted, but it was not therefore acceptable. And if you can’t make that distinction between accepted and acceptable, you can’t criticize slavery. And if you can make that distinction you are admitting to objective morality.
What about Reasoning? While reasoning is a powerful tool to help us discover and understand morality, it cannot be the source of morality. For example, criminals use reasoning to plan a murder — without their reason telling them that murder is wrong. And was it reasoning — or something higher than reasoning — that led those Gentiles who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust? The answer is obvious: it was something higher than reasoning — because risking one’s life to save a stranger was a very unreasonable thing to do.
Nor can conscience alone be the source of morality. Every person has his own conscience and some people apparently have none. Heinrich Himmler, chief of the brutal Nazi SS, successfully appealed to his henchmen’s consciences to help them do the ‘right’ thing in murdering and torturing millions of Jews and others. How can you say your conscience is right and Himmler’s wrong if conscience alone is the source of morality? The answer is you can’t.
Some people say ‘human nature’ is the ultimate source of morality. But human nature can lead us to do all sorts of reprehensible things. In fact, human nature is the reason we need morality. Our human nature leads some of us to do real evil, and leads all of us to be selfish, unkind, petty and egocentric. I doubt you would want to live in a world where human nature was given free reign.
Utilitarianism is the claim that what is morally right is determined by whatever creates ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number.’ But to return to our slavery example: if ninety percent of the people will get great benefit from enslaving the other ten percent, would that make slavery right? According to utilitarianism it would.
We’ve seen where morality can’t come from. Now let’s see where it does come from.
Fo the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/where-do-good-and-evil-come
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Doesn't Isaish 45:7 say that god created evil though
Good is value transformation. I use ChatGPT, all the time. "GPT" stands for: "Generative Pre-Trained Transformer". I already clocked around 2k hours, with ChatGPT. Evil is value deconstruction. Thus, lots of evil in the modern world, is caused by Postmodernism.
Morality comes from Mother Nature and Father Reality. It's based on life and death, pleasure and pain. It exists objectively and absolutely, without need of a "god". Indeed, god destroys morality, since god can merely say: "Thou shalt slaughter the innocent." Nature forbids such an evil. God allows it.
However, going completely against morality, the Rich North are STILL oppressing the Poor South, just because they're so greedy!!
This was a weak case for morality. Also, very PC and woke.🤡🤡🤡
this was difficult to get through, its obvious that these videos are aimed at the most uneducated of our society
Moral good and evil existing does not prove god never has never will
If that was really the dumb ass case because people who don’t know anything about religion are not unable to understand what’s immoral and moral
And it’s the human brain the human brain perceives things that’s what sociopaths are
Here what moral
Anything that would cause a positive influence on someone life that you had good intentions when doing or negates something that would cause negative influence on someone life
Saying because human beings know right from Wrong never has will or can prove a god
Also normally grey
You don’t just get to say because humans are good and bad therefore god exists because that’s dumb
That’s me saying love exists therefore Cupid is real
And if god was real he is immortal and moral and would be serving eternity caught between heaven and hell or he would simply be above his own rules
You can’t just say because morality exists god exists okay
Gravity exists therefore python the mythical god o gravity exists
I made that shit up tight there and no one call tell me it’s false
You can’t claim morality exists therefore god exists
Also morality being objective isn’t something or anything you can use to show god existence
The bible condone slavery
Slavery is good by thisMan
The bible condone free will being taken away even when it hurt no one
The bible condones if you don’t love god you go to hell
The bible condones not helping others when you have power actually wait that’s god
God condones the suffering of other
God also condones the eternal suffering of others and doesn’t believe in redemption
God also makes people who are bound to go to hell like sociopaths
I can keep keep and keep on going
The bible and god and morality do not will not can not and shall not be proven together or used in context
The existence of objective morality proving god is dumb some things are bad some things are good you need to actually prove your point
That like saying well evolution is real therefore god doesn’t exist
Neither exist. These are concepts whose moral judgements depend on the context of the situation which is how our law system is organized by logic not religion.
I am not atheist
everytime i see prageru content I take the time to remind every braindead individual enjoying it that it's not an actual university. Everything they share is pure BS and you have to have an IQ equal to that of a room temperature to take any of it seriously in the slightest manner..
Seriously? You dismiss evolution as a valid reasoning? Society has been evolving for untold 1000's of years, and there are various religious beliefs that have all essentially reached the same conclusions because of that, as well as secular societies. The U.S. was founded on principles of societal evolution that reached the conclusion that individual liberty is key, and one person's rights and liberties don't trump another's. Sadly, this supposed justification of morality being inherently religious falls well short of the mark and is blatantly biased, for a supposed philosopher this is just pathetic.
What? God is the moral law giver? Thou shalt not kill. THE LORD YHWH killed more humans than Satan and Satan is the evil one.
So, Im confused. DIdn't god said that he wanted the unborn child of women to be rip out of their wombs? Do throw away children unto stones? To commit genocide? When David commited a crime by conspiring to kill Bathshebas husband, part of god's punishment on David was that his daughter would be raped. Read the bible when Nathan the prophet cursed David and his household.
So, Im confused regarding God as a moral law giver?
The moden love your enemies, had USA and Allied forces applied that model of morality then the Jews would never have been rescued from the Nazis. So there are boundaries or limitations regarding loving your enemies. You cannot love or accept a serial killer, or evil people. Ther are boundaries. I would suggest reading on the Laws of Ma'at versus 10 commandments. It would open your horion on what Egyptians considered morality or reading Ethics by the Greek philophers.
God said: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
Therefore I say unto you: but because, daily, you live in fear of "good and evil" and believe and expect these more than you believe that God is abundant LIFE and UNCONDITIONAL LOVE within you, supplying you with all things necessary for health and well-being, it is your most feared "good and evil" experiences you attract into your life and body. Your beliefs in "good and evil" obscure – CLOUD OVER – all that God has in store for you if only you will believe in UNCONDITIONAL LOVE!
You judge your todays and expect of your tomorrows what you have experienced in the past. Therefore, are the ills of your yesterdays continually repeated in the future.
You are enslaved by your memories and your undeviating beliefs that what was past must return again and again to burden and wound you.
You do not need to heal your body or try to make your life better, you need to heal your beliefs!
Jesus has told you there is nothing solid under the sun.
So if you could heal your beliefs, bring your beliefs into line with the true Intention of God for you, the wrong beliefs governing your body and life, will dissolve like mist in the sun.
Your every circumstance will immediately come back to the Divine Intention behind all creation.
You will find that for every difficulty, for every lack of every kind, there is always a means to end the difficulty, there is always a filling of your basket to meet your need.
What did you think happened when the sick came to Jesus and he laid his hands upon them?
Was Jesus thinking about the illness? Was Jesus wondering if the person will be healed? Was Jesus afraid God may be sleeping or is so far away he cannot be heard?
No! If these were the disbelieving thoughts of Jesus, there will be no healing.
When a person approached Jesus for healing, he immediately rejoiced because Jesus knew that the Power which is God is within him, ready and waiting to heal the moment he asked. Jesus gave thanks because he knew that the Will of God is health, not sickness. Therefore, Jesus prayed that the Will of God be done in the sick person. As Jesus removed the beliefs in sickness from the body of the sick person and KNEW that the Will of God of health is flowing into his system, so does the appearance – the appearance – of sickness change into health and the body is made whole once more.
Sickness is nothing more than a lowering of vitality – a reduction of LIFE – within the affected part. Restore life to the true Intention and Plan of your system and the entire system functions as it should.
You have been told that God sends sicknesses, plagues, famines, destruction to nations when they do not keep his laws and that you yourself are punished by a wrathful God for sins you have committed. What is punishment but evil-doing under the guise of goodness? Therefore I say unto you: evil does not come from God. How can God be of two parts – good and evil?
It is only in your mind that you conceive good and evil, only in your heart do you think and feel it. These thoughts and feelings have nothing to do with God who is within you, bringing us every good thing if you will but believe this is so.
It is your beliefs in good and evil, and the good and evil in your heart, which brings you sicknesses.
In reality, we live within the Kingdom of Heaven, and the Kingdom of Heaven is within us, and we are governed by God, but because you believe in the punishments from God, believe that a blood sacrifice saved you, believe that you are heir to sickness, poverty and misery, you create with your mind, the very things you do not want.
But be not downcast – rejoice and be glad and know that those who experience lack, far from being "punished" and "abandoned" by God, even though they have "sinned," are truly blessed.
Outstanding
Probably the most baseless argument for the existence of god and objective morality that I have ever heard. But you tried..
I disagree with SO MANY points he's making. But, thanks for posting this regardless!
"Secular schools can never be tolerated because such schools have no religious instruction, and a general moral instruction without religious foundation is built on air; consequently, all character training and religion must be derived from faith. We need believing people."
-Adolf Hitler
First of all; he didn't say which "god" he was trying to prove existed. However; I'm assume he meant the Juneau-Christian God; which he failed miserably. Not to mention that we don't need God in order to obtain morals.
Not only that, but with every example he would actually contradict himself on the notion that morality is objective. Take the instance that he said that Himmler got his SS officers to murder Jews because he got them to believe that it was the "right thing." It can't be "objective" morality if they thought they were doing the right thing. In order for it to be objective; they would have to know; without a doubt; what they were was wrong, but he already made the statement that they didn't know that. Aside from that; we know that murder is not objectively evil because we can think of instances in which it's actually necessary and even justifiable.
4:48.
NO! NO! NO! We don't need a "moral giver" in order to have morals. That's one's of the easiest things to prove
Q: Why on earth do you deem it necessary to ‘prove the existence of God’??? And what brings you to think that it’s even possible? Epistemically, you ought to know that it is just not possible to prove (I assume you mean to imply with apodictic certainty) a Universal from the particulars!!!
Moreover, your conclusions simply do not follow from your premises (which you fail to define and merely assume, as an unargued philosophical bias, that ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are actually true… not real, but TRUE!)
And finally, even if we were to grant the validity of your conclusions (which you can’t), you make as much a case for the existence of Zeus, or Brahma, or Apophis, or Lamashtu, or the god of Spinoza or Shirley MacLaine…
Your reasoning is just NOT ‘after God’!
From self righteous people
There is no good and evil it’s just neutral
From your imagination.
Only right and wrong is a thing.
morality is a construct
From men … of course…
… not one god has ever been proven…
Take away the fake miracles attributed to Jesus,
take away the church invented fake saints,
and their fake invented church miracles,
all the Christian theology comes crumbling down, leaving Christianity and the Church completely naked.
Christianity is founded on the Jewish invented god known as yahweh and everything else about Jesus was invented
by SAUL the Jewish man known as the Apostle Paul and the Church Fathers.
Let us face the truth.
The apostle Paul (Jewish man SAUL who never ever met Jesus) and the Church Fathers,
invented and created the huge theology, dogma, story and rules etc….around a gay Jesus and became a religious figure.
Aside from the Fact that not one god has ever been proven…
This man has a degree?
Is morality proof of God? If you need proof of God then you have no faith.
Your conclusion is laughing. You say morality is not about nature , so it's definitely about metaphysics. But you Haven't proved there is something beyond the nature and you won't.
If something is good people benefit from it, if it is bad, it harm them . Morality is a concept adopted by human in order to live peacefully with other people in society. You say humankind is selfish, I admit but because of selfishness there should be morality to preserve us from others and preserve others from us. We don't want to destroy everything, because we are selfish, and it is good.
And let say one of the moral orders that is said by Allah to Mohammed, prophet of Muslims; if you have drinked wine , you should receive 80 lashes. If you have sexed with someone who is not your husband/ wife , for three times you should receive 100 lashes , for forth time you should be executed. OK, maby Christian God is not that savage, but which God is the real one?
…so just cause something is intangible like and idea means that they come from god? I dont know Rick
I have to disagree with this guy on a lot of what he says. He dismisses non-God based ideas of morality because he takes them in isolation. None of those things exist in isolation. Instead, they are additive. They are all vectors that bring about moral judgements. And that is what morals are, a judgement.
The Human mind operates on symbols. Everything we experience is and interpretation that is then converted into abstract symbols, patterns. These interpretive patterns evolve over our lives, as we experience the events of our lives. Thus the patterns that make up our morals also change. As our understanding of our environment and ourselves change so do our judgements on what brings about maximum possible wellbeing, ie morals.
Now we can go back to fighting to the death over WHICH god(s)
Evil
Comes from Zionism Israel
So it's the tribal God of Israel that is the source of morality:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xz7rKs84AD8
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hnE_Vn8NLpQ
🤯
What now atheists?
Like the squirrels, to us God is a time thief and a waste of time and also violates the laws of nature, because he can exist without being created. Which is actually not possible, because supposedly we cannot exist without a creator.
Right and shows how stupid some atheist and christians are witch answers nothing really.
This is very weak philosophy from someone who claims to be a professor of philosophy
Soul does not exist! afterlife does not exist! jesus does not exist! satan does not exist! God does not exist!
hope nonsense does exist!.
Can you make yourself? no! how can god make his own? can't!
proof god doesn't exist!
energy cannot be created or destroyed, that is to say, it has always existed! otherwise nothing would exist!
That also counts for space! and for time!
proof god didn't create universe!
You can prove something that exists! can you prove god? no!
then god doesn't exist!
everything has a cause! but god has no cause? what nonsense!
god making his own out of nothing! and god who makes everything out of nothing! without proving or explaining anything! is logic? no!
Soul and afterlife!
People talk about energy! and a soul! that goes to afterlife! while that energy which is nothing more than body heat!
What cannot be destroyed that's right! spreading everywhere! and perishes in everything! so what!
Is not going anywhere specific! is not consciousness either!
There is no evidence for soul! and there is no evidence for afterlife!
You have to prove something like that first before you can say that!
Evolution and origin of life!
You really think god made a man in sand blew on it and there's adam grab a rib from adam and there you have eva!
That's how it went? because that's nonsense
You never looked up origin of life!
You never looked up evolution!
Even if they don't know everything yet! they try to explain! and prove things! which isn't easy! is better than nothing!
And claim things without proof! that's the easiest thing to do, but that doesn't make it true!
Origin of life talk about blocks of life! who by circumstances! originated!
Step by step! small changes over time!
And small mutation over time!
And that counts for evolution too! they don't claim that something came out of nothing!
The bible does that without explanation! without proof!
Debate real and truth!
There is no good and bad is illusion!
There are no winners! there are no losers! everything that is made! is fake!
Is no more than I say everything people think! or make! or create! is fake and cannot be real or truth!
Otherwise we wouldn't have had to make it! and to create it! and think about it! that also means that god does not exist!
Because they have to made it! and create it! thought about it!
So that's fake! and can't be real or truth!
Burden Of Proof is for everyone!
Claim! you believe in god! why? try to explain! try to prove!
They don't know! they just believe in god!
Claim! that you don't believe in the claim! why? try to explain! try to prove!
They don't know! they just dont believe the claim!
Claim! you don't believe in god! why? try to explain! try to prove!
They don't know! they just don't believe in god!
Claim! you know god doesn't exist! why? try to explain! try to prove!
They know more! and that's why they don't believe in god anymore!
Every claim must be explained and proven! they all think they don't have to explain and prove it!
Doesn't mean they don't have to explain and prove it!
god!
you need proof first! that god exists! and has always existed!
you need proof first! that god has created something! especially what cannot be created!
you need proof first! how god made everything out of nothing!
you need proof first! what does it matter to anyone in this world!
you still have a very long way to go! for proving something! let alone explain something! before you can say anything about it!!
He didn't actually prove that morality is objective. He is just stating "Morality is objective because I like it that way." That is not objectivity, my friend.
What was the most babies you ever saw
at one time? What kind of day was it?
Outstanding explanation!
So if you dont have morality, you are a atheist
Nature is perfect. Human nature is anything but. The evil you see in the world is 100% due to human behavior.
This only works if we suppose that there are objective morals. For example if you define the meaning of life to be the continued existence and advancement (in happiness and knowledge) of the human race, then you could suppose "good" and "bad" to be a metric on if an given action works for or against that goal.
Morality is easy, good is treating ppl the way you wanna be treated, and evil is doing stuff to people what you dont want them to do to you.
This was from 2016. When we got to 3:18 to 3:23 I thought, "Oh how right you are about that!"
You have no explanation for why you are arguing on the premise that "moral good and evil" exist. That means that this isn't an argument though, this is a fiction piece. You are essentially arguing for God on the premise that God exists. This is like saying the Holocaust didn't happen because I said it didn't happen. Don't let someone tell you what your morals should be, that's what the Inquisition, Nazi Germany, KKK, and other hateful things are all fueled by. Talk to people from backgrounds you don't know and disagree with and you will see that we are all people. Aren't we all children of God?
I would like to see Professor Kreeft debate Professor Dawkins ( before I die – I live in hope ) because open respectful courteous dialogue between 2 brilliant people is how we learn ; in my case over 50 years I have transitioned from Atheism to Agnostic – To Christianity and firm belief in an Omnipotent God because it answers my 2 most fundamental questions : 1 matter could NOT have spontaneously appeared : 2 Evolutionary biology can not explain conscience or moral reason.
I think he should've said…" Atheist and/or Pantheist" near the end here in this video presentation only.