if God doesn't exist....

[siegfriedandroy]

then is Lestat correct to say that, if God indeed did exist, I would be in hell, and some sh*t about sklansky playing the harp? in lestat's universe, God doesn't exist, yet somehow i am still 'evil'. at least in his view. am i really EVIL, if his philosophy is truth?

[Lestat]

I remember saying something like this (probably tongue in cheek), but forget the exact context it was put in. I just did a quick search and couldn't find the actually post.

I'm sure my point was that if there really is a God, then the odds that your particular brand of religion is right and all the others are wrong is quite small.

Imagine you miraculously are right about the existence of god, but managed to get a few very important details wrong. It turns out it's some other god (and principles), you should've been worshipping. Also, that some of the stories you've been attributing to god are slightly off and in fact OFFEND the real God. With all the other religions on this planet, there has to be some chance you are worshipping the WRONG God for the WRONG reasons! If so, now who has a better chance of getting into heaven, you or an atheist?

There's also the chance that unwaivering faith regardless of logic might not be that important, whereas respecting other humans, the planet, and all His creations DESPITE not believing could be huge!

[DougShrapnel]

Evil, well it's kinda a loaded term without a God. If by evil you mean really, really incorrect. Then yes you would be evil. You place your values in the afterlife, and not in this one. You place your values in the times you are alone talking to yourself, pretending that it's God you are communicating with. You get the rest of your values from 2,000 year old hearsay, or eye witness accounts, depending on how you look at it. Are you EVIL? Perhaps your not EVIL, just really, really incorrect. But if Good and Evil actually exist independantly of God, I think Skalansky has a better shot of getting in to heaven then you do. All we have to go on for ethics is survival. In a way your whole thought process is screwed up because you want to maximize your spiritual survival, and some atheists want to maximize their factual survival. But when you start at the only survival that counts is eternity, you end up in the conondrum that David describes in his muslims killing infidels.

[madnak]

[ QUOTE ]
then is Lestat correct to say that, if God indeed did exist, I would be in hell, and some sh*t about sklansky playing the harp? in lestat's universe, God doesn't exist, yet somehow i am still 'evil'. at least in his view. am i really EVIL, if his philosophy is truth?

[/ QUOTE ]

So the difference between good and evil is whether you go to hell or heaven? In other words, a good person is defined as a person who seeks the best possible situation for himself? Because I'd be more likely to call that the evil person, while the good person helps others regardless of his own self-interest. If the good person isn't acting in his self-interest, then rewards and punishments must be irrelevant in order to provide an appropriate context. Therefore, someone who does good only in order to avoid negative consequences, but who, according to his own nature, would do evil if he weren't "scared straight," is rather a nasty person.

[Skidoo]

If good and evil exist, who created them?

If it was God, then they have an absolute quality. If it was humans, then another human can undo them.