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Visit http://www.garcabranca.com for details/booking/confirmation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Mario, Your disdain for fellow posters knows no bounds. First off is your assertion, that evil has nothing to do with God. Actually incorrect. The concept of evil as a separate entity came into common ideology with the Abrahamic religions, which separated evil from God, thus creating "God" and the "Devil". (Former polytheist religions encapsulated both in one God. Hence you have Zeus who didn't think twice of raping women and Shiva who is both the destroyer and the regenerator.) The modern ideological concept of evil is closely tied to religion and its tenets. Secondly, enough with the compound sentences that manage to obscure the meaning of every post. My premise is simply that all that we define as evil, is redefined when more information comes to light. My father once told me only "immoral girls smoked cigarettes". Growing up, I was a terrible asthmatic. He should have told me the truth. That smoking would kill me. Luckily, I found that out for myself. In the world he grew up in, his version WAS the truth. At one time homosexuality was considered "evil". Then psychologists labeled homosexuality as a sexual aberration. Much money and time was spent in "cleansing" this evil from oneself. Fortunately, we know more about homosexuality to be accepting of it without labeling it. Many "thought disorders" such as paranoia, schizophrenia, bi-polar, were considered to be manifestations of the "devil" in people, and they were said to be possessed. Today, we rightfully treat this dysfunction. Other dysfunctions such as kleptomania are now treated by therapy rather than punishment. As our knowledge grows even pedophilia is being treated as a disease and addressed through measures such as chemical castration. Sometimes, we are painfully aware of what is right and wrong, but compulsions are so over-riding, that we clamp down on that part of the brain which sends out signals of caution, remorse,empathy etc. In this respect too, there is work being down on brain circuitry and there is evidence that some aspect of criminal brains are different from that of more functional human beings. Far from absolving people of their "evil", I place the entire onus of their dysfunction on themselves. They are either the victims of mental dysfunction or cultural conditioning (such as bigotry) that leads to mental dysfunction of sorts. The original purpose of prisons is lost on our modern societies. It was to remove the dysfunctional person from society, hence offering society protection from him, and secondly to provide the person an opportunity to meditate on his crime. Elisabeth --------------------------------- --- Mario Goveia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Mario observes: > > > Don't you just LOVE this wand-waving brand of > atheism > or agnosticism? Doesn't it prove what I have been > saying on this forum, that there are no reliable > standards when it comes to the moral codes of > unorganized individual atheists and agnostics? > > > This is the most comical version of evil I have > heard > in a long time. The communist totalitarian > dictators > must be smiling in their vinegar. > > > Actually, evil has little or nothing to do with the > concept of God. The concept of God simply > highlights > the difference between good and evil. > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list Goanet@lists.goanet.org http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org