<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">All:<BR>
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I tried my best to ignore this question. The answer I think most likely is the truth has in the past sometimes led to the stake. But now that we are such a modern and enlightened culture I need not worry? Ha, ha, ha!<BR>
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Joan wrote:<BR>
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So, tell me, what's always and everywhere good? And what's always and everywhere evil? <BR>
And why?<BR>
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I will try to be concise.<BR>
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Consider that the universe is likely populated by numerous species of intelligent beings on a variety of planets, deriving the energy that sustains life from stars of one sort or another, unless you can offer some other source of energy that may allow life to evolve on planets or in space, in what is otherwise a very, very cold, empty universe, who find within their cultural worlds numerous versions of Ethics. Consider the unlikely theoretical scenario presented below, useful for illuminating my answer regarding the universality of Ethics as being embodied in the structure of the universe in a manner that mandates there are ultimate standards of "good" and "evil," that all of these life forms share in common that are always and forever.<BR>
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What would happen if all the stars heating and supplying energy to all these intelligent life forms went supernova, destroying these life forms totally? Skip the possibility some life forms may be so far from such a massive explosion that they survive, just for the sake of my point, please.<BR>
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Would the universe cry out in despair? Would any Mind remain to feel compassion, to feel the unthinkable sense of loss, to provide an ultimate foundation to the high and mighty sense of righteousness and judgment, the logical Ethical principles we think so "ultimate," that fuel our sense of right and wrong?<BR>
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I say probably no. The universe would not blink, except for the time it takes for these supernovas to flare out.<BR>
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Maybe life would evolve again, but in the meantime, Ethics as we know it would not exist. Therefore there is nothing always and everywhere good, and always and everywhere evil, in any sense mandated by the structure of the universe, unless you can convincingly demonstrate that the universe always and everywhere contains life forms with common Ethical standards. Ethics exists inside the nervous systems of evolved life forms, and no where else, therefore take away these nervous systems, and no Ethics exist.<BR>
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In short, Joan, people invent God or Gods or Goddesses (amazing how sexual politics invades human spirituality, a human reproductive oriented obsession no doubt connected to our primitive state of moral evolution) in part to provide an ultimate foundation in the structure of the universe for what many suspect, but do not admit to themselves very often, in part because of the cold dark loneliness they do not want to face, and because of the punishment that may be inflicted for removing the veil from our illusions, that we as life forms are alone in the universe, and our Ethics, in its various forms, has only the trembling and fearful, doubtful and confused, or arrogant and dogmatic, human heart to either affirm or destroy it (despite the logic that may be employed to "prove" otherwise), and it can be destroyed easily by the cleverness of reason, or by the violence of our fellow humans.<BR>
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Ted Moffett<BR>
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