Evil

[Armen]

Perhaps.  But note that I can define "good" self-consistently without reference to evil.  In that system, evil is defined in reference to "good".  In other words, you can start with what you know to be good (i.e. what you want), and know also that the less of that you have, the more "bad" or "evil" the causes of that reduction are.

I'm not trying to define Good in the system of my choices or my needs and Evil in relation to these needs, but rather a universal concept of Evil. In this case Good can never be understood without Evil being there.

Edited December 17, 2003 by ArmenSarg

[Twilight Bark]

I not trying to define Good in the system of my choices or my needs and Evil in relation to these needs, but rather a universal concept of Evil. In this case Good can never be understood without Evil being there.

Good and evil can only exist in the context of self-aware beings and their aspirations. The extent of the "universality" we can assign the concept of good and evil is constrained by that. Inanimate objects on Venus should not come into the picture.

[Armen]

Good and evil can only exist in the context of self-aware beings and their aspirations.

But if we wouldn't know what the War is we couldn't value the Peace. It would equate to be born blind.

Edited December 17, 2003 by ArmenSarg

[Twilight Bark]

Nonetheless, if we wouldn't know what War is we couldn't value the Peace.

Oh I am sure you are right; I agree with that. The point I am trying to make is that war is lack of peace, rather than peace is lack of war.

 

Next, I will announce how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

[Armen]

... peace is lack of war.

 

OK I got you. The part I qouted sounds like a new Bushism.

Edited December 17, 2003 by ArmenSarg

[Sasun]

TB, you are saying that evil is what limits your freedom. Then you optimize (limit) a set of freedoms to achieve good. That is contradictory. I would rather call it limited freedom because in reality that's what optimization means.

 

All in all, I appreciate your mathematical definitition. I believe freedom and good are strongly correlated and closely linked but I think good (and evil as lack of it) is a more fundamental concept than freedom that we are talking about.

 

I will write more when I have a chance....

[DominO123]

Sasun, TB is not contradicting himself, both of you have a different conception of freedom, your view is that evil exist no matter if humanity exist or not, his conception is that Evil exist as a consequences of self-awarness...

 

His view of freedom is a limited freedom only when you consider that absolute freedom exist as a total and absolute freedom, this is a question of conceptions, he can replicate and answer you that absolute freedom can not exist. If we refer to Socrates, he believed that there was the devine truth and human truth, and it is the absolute human truth that we as humans shall achieve and not devine truth, because as humans we can never achieve it.

 

From what I understand from what he wrote, what he consider as absolute freedom is a maximization, an analogy in mathematic would be that you have x, y, z, lets suppose that x + y + z =< a(a being a constant) you want to find a value to those variables (x, y, z) that would give the highest results when you multiply those variables with eachothers(x*y*z) but you must respect the first equation which is that when adding those three variables(x+y+z) you can not obtain more than value "a"

 

This value "a" is the limit that we have as humans that could grow more and more we become evolved.

[DominO123]

I think this thread is hignly linked with this one.

 

http://armenians.com/forum/index.php?showt...l=morality&st=0

[Sasun]

Domino, this is one of the few instances that I udnerstand all of your post

 

From what I understand from what he wrote, what he consider as absolute freedom is a maximization, an analogy in mathematic would be that you have x, y, z, lets suppose that x + y + z =< a(a being a constant) you want to find a value to those variables (x, y, z) that would give the highest results when you multiply those variables with eachothers(x*y*z) but you must respect the first equation which is that when adding those three variables(x+y+z) you can not obtain more than value "a"

 

That is the way I understood too. This only means relative freedom. If there is a, then that is not freedom for me. You are right, there could be difference in concpets. So what is freedom?

[Sasun]

By the way, how does this definition work for abortion?

[Armen]

Christ in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman

 

A Lecture by

Rudolf Steiner

Linz, May 18, 1915

GA 159

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

The Linz lecture, which is here translated, presents the group in a world-historical context and relates the significance of the Lucifer-Christ-Ahriman configuration to the events surrounding World War I. Steiner sees a parallel between Christ's central, but equalizing position and Central Europe's mission in World War I. He implies that Germany's and Austria's militarism and political intransigence alone did not lead to war against the world powers in the East (Russia) and the West (France, England and, since 1917, the United States). According to Steiner, World War I was the earthly expression of a struggle between luciferic forces in the East and ahrimanic forces in the West, and it was Central Europe's destiny to mediate between these forces.

 

The fundamental polarization of East and West that Rudolf Steiner saw emerging more than six decades ago is now a political reality. While most historians today concede that World War II was in part caused by the circumstances surrounding World War I, few would accept Rudolf Steiner's statement from his Linz lecture that World War I was “destined by the European karma” or, to state it more concretely, that it was unavoidable. If the war could not have been avoided, then the question of who was to blame or who caused it is, as Steiner says, irrelevant. Based on this position, Steiner suggests that only one question has relevancy: “Who could have prevented the war?” This question seems to contradict Steiner's statement that World War I was destined by the European karma. A quick glance at the historical record may help to clarify what Steiner meant.

 

In suggesting that the Russian government and possibly England, could have prevented the war, Steiner simply deals with possibilities outside the realm of what had to happen according to European karma. Russia's instigation of the two Peace Conferences in the Hague (1899 and 1907) was indeed self-serving and hypocritical, for it was Russia that, in 1914, mobilized its armed forces without considering British proposals for peace negotiations. Under these circumstances and considering the political immaturity of the German leadership, it was not surprising that the German Raiser and his generals over-reacted to the Russian mobilization and interpreted it as a declaration of war. Kaiser Wilhelm II and Czar Nicholas II, who were cousins, frantically exchanged telegrams in which one beseeched the other to preserve the peace, but to no avail. The war machinery was already overheated by the forces of chauvinism and materialism so that even from this vantage point Steiner was correct in maintaining that war was unavoidable.

 

Regarding the possibility of preventing the war, a glance at the major Western powers involved in the controversy, and at Germany, reveals the following historical facts. France, for thirty years an ally of Russia, did nothing to prevent the war because she did not attempt to delay the hasty Russian mobilization. Her representatives said later that France regretted the Russian action, but there seems little doubt that France was more interested in presenting herself as the innocent victim of an attack. On the other hand, England's foreign secretary, Sir Edward Grey, could have prevented the war if he had taken earlier measures to discourage Germany's militarists from asserting themselves in their country, but in view of the English tradition and the English Constitution, this was probably not possible. Finally, the confusion in Germany itself was caused by a lack of understanding of who had legitimate authority to make decisions. Eventually, the political decisions were made by generals who managed to spread the belief that the fatherland was in peril and that Germany herself was not the attacker, but the attacked. Thus, theoretically, any one of these three powers could have prevented the war but that, as Rudolf Steiner points out in the lecture, is not the real issue.

 

Furthermore, the war did not emerge out of a French or Russian moral conviction that was responsive to Germany militarism. Rather, the goal of crushing German militarism emerged well after the war had begun. The war could be interpreted, in this sense, to be inevitable because it was not generated from a goal, but exploded and then developed its goals. In this war of attrition, materialism camouflaged itself with nationalistic sentiment and strove for absolute expression and triumph.

 

It is against such a background of perplexity and misguided fervor that Rudolf Steiner's message to Central Europeans must be read. In rejecting the question of who had caused the war, Steiner dismissed as equally irrelevant the question of who was to blame for materialism. Materialism was there, as was Ahriman. Steiner admonished the Central Europeans to counterbalance materialism by adopting a spiritual perception of life and by striving for an encounter with the Christ.

 

This profound spiritual responsibility that Steiner put on the Germans in 1915 was disregarded and the challenge passed by. After World War I it was not the Christ, but Adolf Hitler who, under the guise of “savior,” emerged as Germany's Nemesis and was thus catapulted into a central position. When Hitler was finally destroyed, Central Europe broke up into two parts, one of which disappeared behind the Iron Curtain, while the other aligned with the West.

 

As it stands today, Rudolf Steiner's call to instate the Christ in His central position has yet to be fully received and responded to not only by the people living in what is left of Central Europe, but also in the rest of the world.

 

— Peter Mollenhauer

[Armen]

Luciferic Beings activate illusions in our thinking and emotions, which are strongly oriented to the past and which try to keep things as they are – reactivity, likes and dislikes etc.

 

Ahrimanic Beings activate soulless abstractions in our thinking, wanting to organise social life in the way you would build a machine – commands, rules and formalities.

 

The Luciferic-nature can only approach the blood, through the breath.

The Ahrimanic-nature, the nervous-system, through the senses.

[Armen]

The Ahrimanic Deception

A lecture by Rudolf Steiner

Zurich, October 27, 1919

GA 193

 

Excerpts

 

- Lucifer is the power that stirs up in man all fanatical, all falsely mystical forces, all that physiologically tends to bring the blood into disorder and so lift man above and outside himself.

 

- Ahriman is the power that makes man dry, prosaic, philistine — that ossifies him and brings him to the superstition of materialism.

 

- And the true nature and being of man is essentially the effort to hold the balance between the powers of Lucifer and Ahriman; the Christ Impulse helps present humanity to establish this equilibrium.

 

- Thus these two poles — the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic — are continuously present in man. Viewed historically, we find that the Luciferic preponderated in certain currents of cultural development of the pre-Christian age and continued into the first centuries of our era. On the other hand the Ahrimanic influence has been at work since the middle of the fifteenth century and will increase in strength until an actual incarnation of Ahriman takes place among Western humanity.

[Sasun]

There seem to be more evil beings besides Ahriman and Lucifer. There are tons of crooked gods, demons, etc. floating in the universe. According to Hinduism these were spiritually evolved men who were tempted in one way or another and became un-free yet powerful beings. I wonder if Steiner has studied them. Ahriman and Lucifer could be chief among them, perhaps they are known with other names as well.

[Armen]

Sasun, Lucifer and Ahriman have different names in other faiths but they are present in all religions. The important point is the description of their influence on human being. Steiner has lectures that cover the evolution of Evil in the history of humankind. However, his works on Luciferic and Ahrimanic creatures deal with their infulence on human being's present development.

To put it short, the validity all other creatures has expired

[Sasun]

Armen, does that mean all kinds of evil are combinations of A. and L. types? Suppose a man is simply evil, such as a serial killer, he is neither fanatical about any ideas nor has material gain. Is he under Ahrimanic influence or Luciferic influence, or both in measures?

[Armen]

Armen, does that mean all kinds of evil are combinations of A. and L. types? Suppose a man is simply evil, such as a serial killer, he is neither fanatical about any ideas nor has material gain. Is he under Ahrimanic influence or Luciferic influence, or both in measures?

Sasun, it will be very hard for me to explain this to you by simply quoting Steiner. And it will not be a good idea to present you isolated pharagraphs if you want to grasp the whole thing. And it is not good to quote his writings on the Evil first

 

I suggest to read these:

 

Anthroposophical leading thoughts

 

The philosophy of freedom

 

A road to self-knowledge

 

He doesn't have comments on serial killers specifically. However, his lectures on Lucifer provide understanding of this. I would suggest you to read the "Parfume" by Patric Suskind. His general idea is that a serial killer accumulates a specific pattern of evil insticts of the society he lives in. I think Suskind is familiar with Steiners works.

[Sasun]

Armen, thank you for the links. I hope I can find some time to familiarize with Steiner's works. From the little that I read he seems to be largely in tune with Eastern spiritual philosophies.

I wanted to know whether Steiner meant that all kinds of evil in societies and individuals are influences of A and L, the example of a serial killer was the first thing that came to my mind that does not seem to have the influence of neither. The same thing can be said about malicious computer hackers I think, or any evil acts that do not come from any ideology and are not motivated by materialistic gains. I am just curious, normally I don't care about studying evil, its evolution, etc. it is not a worthwile thing to do. I believe if one can focus on good that's the best way to be rid of evil (gradually).

[Armen]

I wanted to know whether Steiner meant that all kinds of evil in societies and individuals are influences of A and L, the example of a serial killer was the first thing that came to my mind that does not seem to have the influence of neither. The same thing can be said about malicious computer hackers I think, or any evil acts that do not come from any ideology and are not motivated by materialistic gains. I am just curious, normally I don't care about studying evil, its evolution, etc. it is not a worthwile thing to do. I believe if one can focus on good that's the best way to be rid of evil (gradually).

Sasun, from his describtions of the true Evil computer hackers may prove to be some of the good inocent guys

Anyway, the third and the most dangerous one is Azul (Azazel, Azazail), the evil that hurts the human beings "I" feeling. E.g. the Bolsheviks practiced that. Before they shot someone they made sure, with a number of despeakable tortures (Slozhenitsin "Arkhipelag Gulag") that person truly and sincerely believes that he/she is guilty although he/she was not.

I think we should idetify evil to deal with it.

[Sasun]

Anyway, the third and the most dangerous one is Azul (Azazel, Azazail), the evil that hurts the human beings "I" feeling. E.g. the Bolsheviks practiced that. Before they shot someone they made sure, with a number of despeakable tortures (Slozhenitsin "Arkhipelag Gulag") that person truly and sincerely believes that he/she is guilty although he/she was not.

Yes indeed, for me too it has been the most disturbing type of evil - twisted representation where good is belived to be evil, and evil is believed to be good. In most cases it is easy to tell good from evil, but sometimes it is really hard to tell. It is not a matter of intelligence, a very intelligent person may be equally blinded as a fool to take evil as good and good as evil. It comes from spiritual ignorance. In my opinion the only way to sort out is practicing utmost spirituality.

 

I think we should idetify evil to deal with it.

 

Agreed, at least for the reason of not confusing good with evil. And focusing on good should set the standards for identifying evil.

[Armen]

http://wn.elib.com/Steiner/Lectures/BalWor...lWld_index.html

 

The Balance in the World and Man, Lucifer and Ahriman

The World as Product of the Working of Balance

by Rudolf Steiner

 

Three lectures given in Dornach,

20th-22nd November, 1914

GA 158

 

Lecture II

 

.........Now the working of Lucifer and Ahriman is not the same in all parts of the human organism, and it is interesting to observe its gradation. Beginning from the head, we find that there Lucifer and Ahriman have thrown up fairly equal fortifications; the left and right halves of the head are very similar. This means that the forces of left and right have in the head not much possibility of interplay and the surface between them is left comparatively undisturbed. There in the middle is the surface, with Lucifer on the left and Ahriman on the right; and because the left and right halves of the head are so similar in form, Lucifer and Ahriman spring back from one another, and in between them man is able to develop a quiet surface activity. Thinking, pure thought as such, is very little disturbed by Lucifer and Ahriman; because in the head they recoil from one another. ..........

 

......Let us try to make a picture of it in our minds. From the left the Luciferic being fights his way through and throws up, as it were, his fortifications, and from the right Ahriman fights his way through and throws up his fortifications. And all that you can do is to stand in the middle between the two. The left part of you — your left man, as it were — is the fortification set up by Lucifer, and your right man is the fortification set up by Ahriman. And the whole art of life consists in finding the true balance between them. We do it unconsciously whenever we perceive with the senses. When we hear with the left ear and with the right ear, and then unite into a single perception the impulses that reach us in this way, or when we feel with the left hand and with the right hand and unite the two perceptions, we are placing ourselves into the surface that lies on the boundary of the conflict between Lucifer and Ahriman. As narrow as — no, narrower than — the blade of a knife is the space that is left to us in the middle, where we have to play our part. Our organism does not really belong to us; we are a battlefield for the Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers — and for other powers too, of like nature with them, but into that subject we cannot enter now. ............

 

............There are, however, other directions in accordance with which man takes up his position in the world of space. Expressed in the language of occultism, this means nothing else than that he is placed in still other ways into the midst of the fight between Lucifer and Ahriman. Let us go on, then, to consider how man stands in space with a forward and backward orientation, looking before and behind. Instead of observing him as a being of left and right, we will now direct our thoughts to the front and back of the human form. From this aspect also we find that man is not the being of space he appears to be. For as from left and from right Lucifer and Ahriman do battle with one another across man, and what shows in space is really only the barricades they put up one against the other, so also from behind Ahriman is fighting and from in front Lucifer. From behind Ahriman thrusts forward his activity, and from in front Lucifer thrusts forward his activity in opposition. Man stands in the middle between them. In connection, however, with the forward and backward direction in man we discover that Lucifer and Ahriman do not succeed in coming so close to one another as to leave nothing but a surface between them. We find here a somewhat different state of affairs. Ahriman comes only as far as the plane which can be drawn through the spinal column, and Lucifer as far as the plane which can be drawn through the breast bone, where the ribs end and meet. In between these two planes lies a space which separates Lucifer and Ahriman one from the other, where the effects of their working are thrown together in confusion. There they stand and fight — not at close quarters, but as though shooting at one another across the intervening space. And there stand we in the midst of the fight. Thus, in respect of the direction before and behind, man is a being that has space..........

 

 

.........In the left-right direction the fight between Lucifer and Ahriman is waged principally in the sphere of thought. Thoughts are whirled across from left and from right and meet in the surface in the middle. Cosmic thoughts and cosmic forms of thought impinge upon one another here on the human surface in the middle. In the direction before and behind, Lucifer and Ahriman do battle more in the realm of feeling. And since here the opposing forces do not approach one another so nearly, in the space that is left between them we ourselves have room to be together with our own feelings. When we have thoughts that offer opposition to one another from left and from right, then we have the feeling that these thoughts belong to the world. With our thoughts we think the objects that are in the world outside. When we make our own thoughts, then these thoughts are a mere phantasmagoria; they do not any longer belong to the world. In our feelings, on the other hand, we belong to ourselves; for there Lucifer and Ahriman do not quite meet, there we have room to be active in between them. This is the reason why in our feelings we are so essentially within ourselves.........

 

...........We human beings are creatures of the beings of the higher hierarchies, and they have created us in accordance with the manner of their working. We are beings of surface between left and right because the higher beings have made us so and placed us so into space. It is they, the Gods, who do not suffer Lucifer and Ahriman to come together in man. We are in this sense creatures of the good Gods. The good Gods, working out of their creative thoughts and purposes, took as it were this resolve. “A conflict is going on,” they said, “between Ahriman and Lucifer. We must set up a wall and enclose a region which they will not be able to enter, where they will not be able to carry on their strife at close quarters.” We human beings have thus been placed into the struggle between Lucifer and Ahriman as creatures of the good Gods; and the better we stand our ground in the struggle, the more truly are we creatures of the good Gods.

 

In respect of the before and behind, there the good Gods do not allow Lucifer to enter right into us; they created a barricade in the place where the ribs meet in the breast bone. And the wonderfully constructed tower that encloses the spine and the brain is a fortification the good Gods have erected against Ahriman. Ahriman cannot pass this line; all he can do is to send his arrows of feeling across to Lucifer. There in the space between stand we ourselves, separating the two from each other. .............

[THOTH]

(Armen - in regards to this bit by Steiner that you are so obvioulsy infatuated by...) total drivel & gooblygook - what can i say? I fail to see the relevance of any of this to anything...but OK - if you get off on it - well....

 

Hope your not hurt/disapointed...were expecting some other reaction...don't know...but this doesn't at all do anyting for me - or say anything to me...

[Armen]

(Armen - in regards to this bit by Steiner that you are so obvioulsy infatuated by...) total drivel & gooblygook - what can i say? I fail to see the relevance of any of this to anything...but OK - if you get off on it - well....

 

Hope your not hurt/disapointed...were expecting some other reaction...don't know...but this doesn't at all do anyting for me - or say anything to me...

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

Thoth, Jesus was crucified by his own and did not get disapointed or hurt. If God is not getting disappointed by centuries of human stupidity, how can I get hurt by one guy fealing bad about some other guys book. I am just exchanging information. Thanks for the concern though.

[THOTH]

Thoth, Jesus was crucified by his own and did not get disapointed or hurt. If God is not getting disappointed by centuries of human stupidity, how can I get hurt by one guy fealing bad about some other guys book. I am just exchanging information. Thanks for the concern though.

style_images/master/snapback.png

 

OK - good...peace...