Good equals Evil.
Plato believed that there was a natural goodness in the universe, from which humans had fallen. He also believed that this natural goodness could be reachieved by these fallen humans through prolonged contemplation and clarification of their thoughts. Once that realm of perfect goodness was reached again, Plato also assumed that whichever human achieved that goal would be, from that point on, always good. Socrates took this concept of perfect goodness even one step further, believing that this state of perfection was somewhere beyond human grasp, uninvolved in the affairs of the universe and the affairs of humans, but nevertheless responsible for all that happened in the universe. These philosophies are discussed in detail by Richard Taylor in his book on good and evil. Although those discussions are elucidating, they still leave us wondering: “What were they thinking?”
Christians were not shy about adopting some of this Greek thought into their system of theology. They took whatever they thought would make their religion appealing in order to entice as many followers as possible. The result was that they adopted the Jewish belief in a personal God who was up close and intimately involved in human events, as well as this Greek concept of a distant, impersonal, perfect, almost unreachable God. Then they took the entire mythology of Mithraism and emptied it on their hero, Jesus, to create a marvelously multicolored mythology, which had something in it for everyone. The mythology of Mithra, as accounted by Barbara Walker, is virtually word for word the accounting of the Jesus story. There is no doubt that Christianity is the champion copycat religion of all comers. It has everything, and can offer comfort to most anyone, no matter what their concept of life. Unfortunately, it is also, as a religion, a bag full of inconsistencies. The lame attempt of Christian theologians to bring all these inconsistencies together into one strange deity called a Trinity, containing an intensely personal God, a distant perfect God, and a spirit God of the universe, leaves us quite bewildered. The Christians also leave us wondering; “What were they thinking?”
We are left wondering, because none of this theoretical natural goodness or natural perfection in the universe makes any sense. Our universe doesn’t operate that way. Our universe doesn’t give a doodly bat drop about what happens to humans. It operates on natural laws of physics and random occurrence. The only thing the universe “cares” about is whether we adapt or not. If we do not adapt well to our environment, we do not progress and do not survive. If we do not adapt to our environment and protect our resources, we will die off and some other form of life more willing to live under the rules of natural selection will survive in place of us. Human survival does not depend on whether we are “good” or “evil.” Human survival depends on whether we understand we are all as humans in this together, and have to accept each other with love and tolerance. Part of the reason we are currently failing miserably at that job is because we are lost in these religious mythologies of perfect good and absolute evil.
Good and evil are inventions of the human mind. These concepts have no reality or substance beyond human thought. Whatever circumstances give us greater comfort, shelter, survival, sexual advantage, pleasure we think of as “good.” Whatever circumstances take away these bits of sustenance, either individually or as a group, we think of as “evil.” To project our self-centered assessment of what exists in our minute environment, on to the universe as a whole, is a rather sad mistake. Galaxies, solar systems, planets, moons, asteroids, seas, hills, earth, valleys, rivers and most forms of life have no such value system. The only value that the universe contains is a requirement of balance. For every positive force, there must be a negative force. For every action, there must be an equal and opposite reaction. Motion, energy/mass, and electrical charge are all conserved and balanced. There is not any exception, within all of our knowledge, anywhere in the universe. There is always balance in the universe. Our universe, and us as part of it, do not exist in any other way.
The suspicion arises in our minds that this system of balance also applies to these human value systems of good and evil. If there is a great pool of goodness, somewhere, we will have to suspect that there is also, somewhere else, a great pool of evil, in human terms. We cannot expect to find a safe haven of goodness where we will be happy and protected for an eternity. The human race is currently sustained by our little cocoon of earth and its atmosphere, surrounded by a protective magnetic shield. We are also constantly under attack by the universe, and within a short time, in terms of the life of the universe, that universe will win. We will suffer greatly and die off as a species. What we can do is to put that eventuality off as long as possible, with as much quality time as possible for those inhabitants of this Earth planet home. That means learning to live with each other with empathy and tolerance, rather destroying our resources and hating each other. We are blundering through life, deceived by mythical perfect Deities, Trinities, Heavens of eternal goodness and diabolical Demons that do not exist. There is a balance of good and evil everywhere we turn. It is the human race against the universe. That’s enough evil. We don’t have to add to it with our blundering behavior, induced by theologic myths.