Unsettling. I can't imagine what was going through the head of the New Age friend of yours. I have a hard time identifying with that kind of mindset.

The (not close) friend in question is an elegant, tall, single, postgraduate-degreed professional woman. Perhaps she was just trying a bit too hard to defend her point (one can hope, anyway).

The example I chose was deliberately sub-criminal: serious lying, if I recall. "What if person X were running around spreading lies about person Y. Would that wrong?" Her immediate response: "It depends: is Y a friend of mine?" "Huh? So lying about someone is okay as long as Y isn't a friend of yours?" Yes, it was. I asked about the general rule just to make sure it wasn't something specific about lying. (Something like: "So the wrongness of a behavior depends on whether you like the person its being done to?" Yes, apparently it did!)

Stuff like that blows my mind. I did everything I could not to blurt out: "How can you think that way???"

Small-minded guy that I am.

(I honestly think her New Age beliefs had a lot to do with this: she was always going on about the evils of seeing things in black & white. There's a lot of emphasis on things being what you make of them, and determined by our response.)

Not the worse case though: I had a classmate in college (an atheist) who said it wasn't immoral to murder people. (For the record, I don't think he'd ever do so.) Later, at his wedding he publicly vowed to serve Christ, etc. I don't think he changed religions (he looked rather uncomfortable while saying the vows, and hesitated a bit) — rather more a case of doing something for a woman.

Thankfully, there's often a large difference between people's stated philosophies and their actual behavioral values. But I still find that kind of thing a bit disconcerting.

On a whim, since I know Chopra was an author she read, I thought I'd look up his views on moral absolutes.

While I agree with most of what you've written, about the very last quote;

If one believes moral absolutes exist, then "beyond good and evil" tends to end looking a lot like "evil."

There is some support for Chopra's assertion that God is transcendent;

Ryan, you should know that there are good and bad translation of different passages in the Bible. I must admit that I don't know Greek and Hebrew, but the KJV is certainly not the best version of the Bible and almost no other version translates that God 'creates evil.' Calamity would seem to be the closer translation and it very well correlates with the God we see in the Bible. He is described as our only comfort for salvation and indeed our great terror if we work against his will. Much like a parent who nurtures but also punishes.

"Or there's the book of Job, where God has the authority to prevent Satan from doing horrible things to Job, things that would be evil if a human did them, but he does not do so."

The fact is that the things that Satan does do to Job is evil whether they were done by a human or not. But God allows it to happen. And that is what happens throughout the Bible and, if you believe God to exist, it is what he allows in this present day. Why does God allow these things to happen? I don't really understand, but I do recall that Matthew 13:24-30 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=mathew%2013:24-30&version=NIV does seem to provide some revelation. My view of the God of the Bible is that God creates man good. Man with the help of Satan goes bad. God hatches a plan to redeem man to Himself without destroying them all, but man must come back willingly and Satan, already fallen, is content to spoil as much of God's plan for us as possible... I try to be on the side of God. Partly because I know He is good, and partly because I know His is the winning side.

Hey Austin. quick HTML note;
to make a link, type this; <a href="insert_url_here"> link text </a >

Regarding the passage you cite; I think it reinforces my point that Satan, in Christianity, is viewed as an enemy of God. Why else use him as an excuse? The passage explicitly goes beyond the notion that "a good free-will gone bad" is the source of evil and actually posits a kind of lopsided dualism with a strong God and a weak Satan. And it posits a type of time-based limitation on God, since any serious and industrious gardener would take care to pull up weeds while they were small and not wait for them to grow large enough to choke their neighbors.

Rightly or wrongly, I've been trying to map biblical concepts onto some kind of conceptual framework that makes sense to me. As best I can see, much of what is called 'Satanic' corresponds either to chaos or to a morality which evolved when humans lived in small tribes but which doesn't apply to the modern day.

The antithesis of "Satan" is humans morally transformed to live by a different set of principles which are more democratic and productive, which are undergirded by a set of rules that apply equally to all people, which scale better and which are less self destructive. In other words, a set of principles appropriate for an age of nations, money and other things that didn't exist when people evolved.

By this account, "Satan" would be an older spirit that may have had a purpose when people lived in tribes, but which has outlived his usefulness and will eventually pass away along with those who can't be turned from that weaker organizing force. Many non-religious moral instincts seem to conform to a kind of tribe-oriented morality, even when there's a lot of intellectualization to back them up or obscure the fact. What I'm describing here is not exactly the biblical narrative. (I suppose it bears a similarity to some forms of gnosticism or new-ageism, except regarding the need for moral transformation and the sacrifice of ego and intinct.) But it's the best I can make sense of things so far.

And it posits a type of time-based limitation on God, since any serious and industrious gardener would take care to pull up weeds while they were small and not wait for them to grow large enough to choke their neighbors.

Yes, it certainly does. And rightly so, I'd say.

Let's say God somehow knew that if you lived, you would have committed murder. But you died in a car accident before you did so, or even thought of it. Then judgment day comes: God says: "Well, you're guilty of murder." Would that be just? In our understanding of it, no.

It's not enough for God to simply 'mentally' run the simulation ahead of time, and convict each soul. He must, in time, let the "good" be shown (meaning by actions) to be good and let the bad shown to be bad. Otherwise, he would be (at least as I understand it) unjust in his judgments.

"Time" is the media necessary in which to grow a culture of moral choices. (Which I believe to be God's purpose in making this place.) So yes, just as I believe God is "limited" by logic, so also, at least as far as I can grasp such things, it seems that "time" IS a necessary attribute for moral choice. You have to have some sort of spatial and temporal framework in which said choices can be manifested.

One might respond: Well, couldn't God know ahead of time who was going to be rather bad, and have them die at a younger age, before they could commit evil? Not to judge them for evils they didn't yet commit, but just to keep the world a bit nicer?

Okay, let's run with that. First question: how do we know he doesn't do this already? Ever read about Stalin's "Doctors Plot"? He was on the eve of carrying out a plot to kill about six million Jews in the USSR (yes, a remarkably similar number to Hitler's) when he suddenly keeled over dead. Looks to me like God said: "Well, I'll allow one holocaust, but not two."

Well, why not prevent the first one too?

Okay, fine. God prevents the Holocaust. In the alternative universe, isn't someone still asking a similar question? After all, God didn't prevent the massacre of Armenians!

Okay, well ask him to prevent that one too.

Great... let's carry this to a conclusion shall we? If we only live in a universe where the human beings' worst crimes are just murdering one person, wouldn't God still be open for criticism?

So we keep going until we posit a universe where we inhabit padded plastic bubbles, and where we're fed by absorbing a warm goo — and our only interaction are looking and talking. And then, in that universe, some atheist is complaining that Bob, over there, still yells obscenities at Barry, his neighbor (which is the WORST THING known to our society!) and how on earth could a loving God permit such an atrocity to go on!

Really, where do you draw the line? I think it's been drawn already: 70 years isn't that long, and the pain we endure here, though excruciating, is quite frankly nothing compared to the pain or pleasure which could potentially follow.

---

BTW, while analogies are always going to be imperfect, I'm told that the industrious farmer in the story could not pull the "tares" ahead of time, as the particular weed he was referring to (forgot the name) tended to look to look almost exactly like the wheat until harvest time. Likewise, God must allow time for people to actually be something or another.

(I'm speaking of this on an individual level, of individual lives, but I also believe there's a sense in which God must judge the world, run without him, as wicked before he is justified in stepping in to run things. So just as lives must run some period of time, so "the world", under the domain of humans, must also run for some period of time.)

---

Austin's right about that verse being a poor translation — a bit like KJV's poor choice of "kill" where the word was "murder." The parallelism should hint that "evil" is the opposite of "peace" — meaning turbulent times, not moral choices of which God disapproves.

I'll be blunt here: People tend to confuse "evil" and "Satan." No. I don't believe in a "conceptual" Satan — although I was very attracted to the idea when younger. After many years of pondering the question, as unsophisticated as this may sound: I've come to believe in a "real" Lucifer, who's sort of like an invisible Saddam Hussein (indeed, Hussein being conformed to his father's image) only classier, smarter, and more tasteful. But Satan is evil, not the source of evil. (Evil being a necessary attribute of free will.)

And I don't see Satan as "chaos". Indeed, in the book of Job (as in the New Testament: Luke 22:31-32) Satan is on a bit of a leash, and must "ask" before he can do certain things. (Though his "asking" may simply be an anthropomorphic way of expressing that God already limits Satan's actions (see above) in some fashion.)

Look at the whirls and eddies in a stream: They are chaos. Are they "Satan"? I wouldn't think so. God is quite comfortable with complexity beyond human's beings' ability to predict outcomes.

As best I can see, much of what is called 'Satanic' corresponds either to chaos or to a morality which evolved when humans lived in small tribes but which doesn't apply to the modern day.

Huh? In the bible? Are we reading the same document? How does 'Satan' afflicting Job with disease "correspond either to chaos or a morality which evolved when humans lived in small tribes"? Where does 'Satan' taking Jesus to a high mountain and offering him the world match with "chaos" or a "tribal morality"?? Or read the Revelation to John: Where does the entire world being subsumed, in a very orderly fashion, under a 'Satanic' world government fit with either of those options?

These are biblical starring roles for 'Satan', and I don't see how they're even close to what you're suggesting (though I can think of a way to torture them into such a form).

The passage explicitly goes beyond the notion that "a good free-will gone bad" is the source of evil and actually posits a kind of lopsided dualism with a strong God and a weak Satan.

The wheat and tares? I could see making that argument, in an (again) somewhat tortured way, but I think the answer is closer to: "No, not at all."

The question being answered in this parable is: "What is God's plan for the earth?", not "What is the origin of evil?" There's nothing at all in the text suggesting the "enemy" exists from eternity, just from somewhere around the time the earth was initially "planted" with human beings. You seem to be adding that. (Indeed, we're not told anything about the relative age of the "field" versus the enemy.)

Or if you're going to say it's a "dualism" where one bad player (God) comes along before other (Satan), that's a fairly trivial definition. Then we could even take criticism of Hitler as "a kind of lopsided dualism with a strong God and a weak Hitler."

Re-reading this, I see you might be assuming that since there is "farmer" and "enemy", both (in the parable) humans, that puts God and "enemy" on the same footing. Yet only if you're willing to do so in other cases: Are the "harvesters" who pull up the weeds also on the same footing? Does saying "bride" (church) and "bridegroom" (Christ) make Christ and the church the same age, or the same kind of being? Does "owner of a field" and "tenants" (Mark 12) imply the same? Jesus regularly rendered all actors (divine, earthly, Satanic) as humans in his parables.

So it appears you're either injecting extra meaning (in a way which, it seems to me, does unnecessary violence to the plainest reading of the rest of the context), or it seems you're really stretching to pull a "dualism" out of the passage as it stands.

Rightly or wrongly, I've been trying to map biblical concepts onto some kind of conceptual framework that makes sense to me.

I guess I'm hampered by the fact that what I'm saying already seems to make sense to me. Indeed, it seems to account for reality better than anything else I've found. (Even most minimally, it certainly seems internally consistent.)

Look at the number of conspiracy theories out there: Details differ, but there are large number of people who feel that someone very high up is pulling the strings to make life worse than it needs to be. (The Illuminati / Karl Rove / International Jewish Bankers / the Council on Foreign Relations / The ComIntern.) "Satan" would fit that bill quite nicely. It's hard to look something like the Holocaust in the face (and WWII, breaking out on all sides at once), and wonder if it wasn't all coordinated a bit too nicely. I know many people who have come away from certain things like Auschwitz or other harrowing encounters changed, remarking on a palpable sense of evil.

When I look at 100 million dead in the 20th century, the idea of a "Satan" doesn't somehow look significantly less likely than in some distant tribal past.

But nor do I need some overarching force to explain why human beings individually do smaller bits of evil: I see, in my own heart, my desire to put down even my own loved ones to make myself appear "right" or somehow blameless. I don't need to say: "The devil made me do it!" Evil originates even my own need to see myself as good, or do good to me without regard to harming others, devil or no.

What I'm describing here is not exactly the biblical narrative.

You don't say! :-)

Look, I'm not against trying out other options, but why need to shoehorn it (uncomfortably, it looks to me) onto the bible? Just admit it's something different. Nobody wants to buy a horse while being told that it's really a kind of oat-powered SUV with four 'wheel' drive. ;-)

It always strikes as an odd compliment, akin to a Hollywood director doing a classic: the bible is really valuable, and I want to be associated with it, but I think I can really improve it on points X and Y. It's really good, but boy does it suck! I'm not saying that's your motive for such (feel free to say, or not) but that's what I've sometimes thought about other attempts. (New Age mis/appropriations, for example.)

So what is it, precisely, about all this that makes so little sense, for you? What's so impossible, per se about the idea of personal, supernatural forces which aren't good? Or that evil is a side effect of free will? Or that free will has to manifest itself in time? What's the underlying objection which leads to all the rest, above? Why must they be "mapped" onto a completely different set of concepts? What is all that effort buying you?

(When my software sucks, I rewrite it. I don't carefully "map" in onto what I hope will be a working version. That's far more than twice the effort of just making something new.)

Would that be just? In our understanding of it, no.

I'm told that the industrious farmer in the story could not pull the "tares"
ahead of time, as the particular weed he was referring to (forgot the name)
tended to look to look almost exactly like the wheat until harvest time.
Likewise, God must allow time for people to actually be something or another.

Ah, that makes some sense that the plants were indistinguishable. Don't get me wrong. The story makes reasonable sense in terms of how humans should behave. (Though it seems we do see fit to identify and tear up some bad crops prior to the harvest.)

And I don't see Satan as "chaos".

Satan kills Job's daughters via a tornado, not via immoral actions sown in the hearts of their neighibors. Thus, the OT seems to equate
some chaos (or things that we humans would see as indistinguishable from chaos) with Satan. No?

Pictue a Venn diagram. Is all of chaos satanic? No. Are some of Satan's actions apparently (from a human perspective) sometimes chaotic? That seems to be the view put forward in the OT book of Job.

How does 'Satan' afflicting Job with disease "correspond either to chaos or a morality which evolved when humans lived in small tribes"?

Well, you might say that there's a moral element to disease, vis a vis sexually transmitted disease.

But in the world, some people are killed, seemingly randomly, by illness. The OT attributes (some of) that to Satan. I don't know how possible it is to reliably distinguish that chaos which is to be considered 'Satanic' from that which isn't.

Where does 'Satan' taking Jesus to a high mountain and offering him the world match with "chaos" or a "tribal morality"??

Many humans have a desire for power. Why does this desire even exist? Maybe those who had power would have better access to mates and resources, could protect their mates and children better, etc. I could think of a number of plausible scenarios where political power might be a thing to be desired by humans in a tribe.

More significantly, power isn't just an individual temptation but a force with the potential to organize groups.
It was the axis mundi around which some societies voluntarily organized. (a rule of men, not laws.)
We can see this in chimps, for instance, where some chimps are leaders and take responsibility for defending their packs. Weaker chimps support them in this. Instincts organize behavior in a hierarchy in nature. And there are some natural checks on this hierarchy in small tribes.

If it wasn't for this instinctive human desire for power, which was depicted as contrary to God in this instance, why would Satan taking Jesus to a mountaintop even be called a temptation.

Where does the entire world being subsumed, in a very orderly fashion, under a 'Satanic' world government fit with either of those options?

See above. The 'single world government' is a matter of people organizing as chimps might.
And Christianity doesn't seem to entirely pass this notion by. Why else refer to evil as "The Beast?"

though I can think of a way to torture them into such a form

To be clear, I'm not saying that Christianity is proposing exactly what I'm suggesting, but that
the model put forward does a decent job of explaining the phenomenon that Christianity describes.

There's nothing at all in the text suggesting the "enemy" exists from eternity, just from somewhere around the time the earth was initially "planted" with human beings.

Okay. I can accept a 'young Satan' theory of biblical evil. ;-)

Or if you're going to say it's a "dualism" where one bad player (God) comes along before other (Satan), that's a fairly trivial definition. Then we could even take criticism of Hitler as "a kind of lopsided dualism with a strong God and a weak Hitler."

Where did I say God was bad? My point here was to emphasize that the biblical view emphasized three entities; God, Satan and Human Free Will.
If it were only God and Hitler, you'd only have two entities; God and Free Will.

Tim: Jesus regularly rendered all actors (divine, earthly, Satanic) as humans in his parables.

Okay, very fair. But how do I square this with;

Tim: I don't believe in a "conceptual" Satan — although I was very attracted to the idea when younger. After many years of pondering the question, as unsophisticated as this may sound: I've come to believe in a "real" Lucifer,

Do your views on this topic square with the New Testament? (And if Jesus routinely cast Satan as a human actor in his parables, why do you feel the need to graft your views onto Christianity? :-p Just call what you believe 'Timism' or something like that. )

It's hard to look something like the Holocaust in the face (and WWII, breaking out on all sides at once), and wonder if it wasn't all coordinated a bit too nicely.

Things like genocide and ideas about private property have analogs in chimp and tribal behavior.

Of course, you could say "that's still Satan." Perhaps. But my point is that the instincts which make these things happen appear a bit more functional (which is not to say moral) in a tribal setting. Which may explain their origin and account for their manner of manifestation.

To give a rough analogy; there was once a Mesopotamian custom of cutting meat from a living calf and cooking it in its mother's milk.

Judaic law banned the practice, forbidding a person from cooking a kid in its mothers milk.

Understanding the origin of that phrase helps illustrate the reason for the ban of mixing milk and meat.

Understanding the origins of things and the reason for their existence helps give us insight into their nature.

In a tribal setting, genocide might make sense in terms of evolutionary fitness (but not morality.)
People who look like you are your relatives.

When I look at 100 million dead in the 20th century, the idea of a "Satan" doesn't somehow look significantly less likely than in some distant tribal past.

I'm not sure this addresses my point, though, which is that tribal instincts ARE an organizing
force. Lacking any other culture (and sometimes despite it) it seems like there is an instinctive organizing force (or forces) that governs people. It does just fine in explaining Nazi Germany and why people might have such a high affinity for socialist ideals despite their history.

But nor do I need some overarching force to explain why human beings individually do smaller bits of evil: I see, in my own heart, my desire to put down even my own loved ones to make myself appear "right" or somehow blameless.

I can see someone saying how a person's desire to see themselves as good might possibly "be a part of God's plan." How do you propose that the desire of some men to sleep with as many women as possible fits into "God's plan?" What rationale is there for a good God creating such instincts? Is your thesis that God put them there solely to trip people up, so that they would see themselves as imperfect, be judged and accept him? Sounds like God is stabbing people in the back. Is it less plausible that God is doing the best he can and such desires are an unfortunate, necessary and temporary artifact of creation?

Details differ, but there are large number of people who feel that someone very high up is pulling the strings to make life worse than it needs to be. (The Illuminati / Karl Rove / International Jewish Bankers / the Council on Foreign Relations / The ComIntern.)

I would note that some of those beliefs have led people to do rather unpleasant things. "A large number of people feel, even though many of their beliefs may be inaccurate or lead them to immoral actions..." is a stronger argument for a misplaced instinct rather than a reified thing.

I think people are naturally paranoid about things they don't understand and the concentration of power in the hands of people they don't identify with. Also, you have to hate a group before you can steal from them (such as those bankers who were bankers because for centuries few other professions were legally allowed to them and who had their assetts in gold or foreign currencies, which held value, after the German Mark was devalued.) I don't think such feelings are inherantly either functional or moral in the modern day, but the harm people do has a rather distinct pattern to it. In any case, the argument you're making here doesn't seem to argue for a "real" Satan vs. a misguided instinct. Though there may very well be other good evidence.

Look, I'm not against trying out other options, but why need to shoehorn it (uncomfortably, it looks to me) onto the bible?

Because I agree with the dataset that the bible presents. I agree with many of the problems that it describes. I even agree with many of the solutions that it puts forwards. (equality before the law, say. Or people's sacrificing their own instinctive desires for the sake of some higher order.) But the bible doesn't really give a detailed answer of 'where does evil come from and why did a good God allow apparently evil instincts to exist.' "Tribal morality" seems to accurately describe the nature of organized evil, in my view. It provides a mechanism for it to be created. It accounts for the particular ways in which it manifests.
It allows for the possibility that the creation of evil was a necessary artifact of creation. Which answers the age-old question "Why did God allow actual, highly organized evil to exist, and not just chaotic, delusional, misguided free will?"

This is why I've tried to make very clear where I agreed with the biblical account and where I departed from it. What I thought the bible said, what I agreed with, what I disagreed with or was often misinterpreted and where I thought a more detailed model could be put in place.

Nobody wants to buy a horse while being told that it's really a kind of oat-powered SUV with four 'wheel' drive. ;-)

"Compare and Contrast" seems a perfectly honest type of sales pitch. Besides, the first cars were called "horseless carriages."

So what is it, precisely, about all this that makes so little sense, for you? ... Or that evil is a side effect of free will?

If Satan exists and God is Good then evil is more than a 'side effect of free will.' Which is exactly my point. You could say it's a necessity for judgment, perhaps. But that's a distinctly different argument.

What is all that effort buying you?

A more accurate model of why evil manifests in exactly the way that it does and the material reason for its existence.

When my software sucks, I rewrite it. I don't carefully "map" in onto what I hope will be a working version.

And yet, looking at apologetics in the New Testament, I think you could find quite a few examples of attempts to "map" Christianity onto other belief systems, and adopting a few of those beliefs in the process. The Ten Commandments bear some resemblance to passages in the Egyptian book of the Dead. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of a belief system of any sort whose origins are even slightly exposed to history that didn't do this to some extent. Natural law is not a concept native to Christianity, to give another example.

Would that be just? In our understanding of it, no.

I'm told that the industrious farmer in the story could not pull the "tares"
ahead of time, as the particular weed he was referring to (forgot the name)
tended to look to look almost exactly like the wheat until harvest time.
Likewise, God must allow time for people to actually be something or another.

Ah, that makes some sense.

And I don't see Satan as "chaos".

Satan kills Job's daughters via a tornado, not via immoral actions
sown in the hearts of their neighibors. Thus, the OT seems to equate
some chaos with Satan. No?

Pictue a Venn diagram. Is all of chaos satanic? No.
Is some evil apparently (from a human perspective) chaotic?
That seems to be the view put forward in the OT.

How does 'Satan' afflicting Job with disease "correspond either to chaos or a morality which evolved when humans lived in small tribes"?

Well, you might say that there's a moral element to disease, vis a vis sexually transmitted disease.
But in the world, some people are killed, seemingly randomly, by illness. The OT attributes (some of) that to Satan. I don't know how possible it is to reliably distinguish that chaos which is 'Satanic' from that which isn't.

Where does 'Satan' taking Jesus to a high mountain and offering him the world match with "chaos" or a "tribal morality"??

Many humans have a desire for power. Why? Maybe those who had power would have better
access to mates and resources, could protect their mates and children better, etc.
More significantly, power isn't just an individual temptation but a force with the potential to organize groups.
It was the axis mundi around which some societies voluntarily organized. (a rule of men, not laws)
We can see this in chimps, even, where some chimps are leaders and take responsibility for defending their
packs. Weaker chimps support them in this.

If it wasn't for this instinctive human desire for power, which was depicted as contrary to God,
why would Satan taking Jesus to a mountaintop even be called a temptation.

Where does the entire world being subsumed, in a very orderly fashion, under a 'Satanic' world government fit with either of those options?
See above. The 'single world government' is a matter of people organizing as chimps might.
And Christianity doesn't seem to pass this notion by. Why else refer to evil as "The Beast?"

though I can think of a way to torture them into such a form
To be clear, I'm not saying that Christianity is proposing exactly what I'm suggesting, but that
the model put forward does a decent job of explaining the phenomenon that Christianity describes.

There's nothing at all in the text suggesting the "enemy" exists from eternity, just from somewhere around the time the earth was initially "planted" with human beings.

Okay. I can accept a 'young Satan' theory of biblical evil. ;-)

Or if you're going to say it's a "dualism" where one bad player (God) comes along before other (Satan), that's a fairly trivial definition. Then we could even take criticism of Hitler as "a kind of lopsided dualism with a strong God and a weak Hitler."

Where did I say God was bad? My point here was to emphasize that the biblical view emphasized three entities; God, Satan and Human Free Will.
If it were only God and Hitler, you'd only have two entities; God and Free Will.

Tim: Jesus regularly rendered all actors (divine, earthly, Satanic) as humans in his parables.

Okay, very fair. But how do I square this with;

Tim: I don't believe in a "conceptual" Satan — although I was very attracted to the idea when younger. After many years of pondering the question, as unsophisticated as this may sound: I've come to believe in a "real" Lucifer,

Are your views on this topic extra-biblical?

It's hard to look something like the Holocaust in the face (and WWII, breaking out on all sides at once), and wonder if it wasn't all coordinated a bit too nicely.
Things like genocide and ideas about private property have analogs in chimp and tribal behavior.
Of course, you could say "that's still Satan." Perhaps. But my point is that the instincts which make these things happen
appear a bit more functional (which is not to say moral) in a tribal setting.

In a tribal setting, genocide might make sense in terms of evolutionary fitness (but not morality.)
People who look like you are your relatives.

When I look at 100 million dead in the 20th century, the idea of a "Satan" doesn't somehow look significantly less likely than in some distant tribal past.

I'm not sure this addresses my point, though, which is that tribal instincts ARE an organizing
force. Lacking any other culture (and sometimes despite it) it seems like there is an instinctive
organizing force (or forces) that governs people.

But nor do I need some overarching force to explain why human beings individually do smaller bits of evil: I see, in my own heart, my desire to put down even my own loved ones to make myself appear "right" or somehow blameless.

I can see someone saying how a person's desire to see themselves as good might possibly "be a part of God's plan." How do you propose that the desire of some men to sleep with as many women as possible fits into "God's plan?" What rationale is there for creating such instincts? Is your thesis that God put them there solely to trip people up, so that they would see themselves as imperfect and accept him? Is it less plausible that God is doing the best he can and such desires are an unfortunate and temporary artifact of creation?

Details differ, but there are large number of people who feel that someone very high up is pulling the strings to make life worse than it needs to be. (The Illuminati / Karl Rove / International Jewish Bankers / the Council on Foreign Relations / The ComIntern.)

I would note that some of those beliefs have led people to do rather unpleasant things. "A large number of people feel, even though many of their beliefs may be inaccurate or lead them to immoral actions..." is a stronger argument for a misplaced instinct rather than a reified thing.

I think people are naturally paranoid about things they don't understand and the concentration of power in the hands of people they don't identify with. Also, you have to hate a group before you can steal from them (such as those bankers who had their assetts in gold or foreign currencies after the German Mark was devalued.) I don't think such feelings are inherantly either functional or moral in the modern day. In any case, the argument you're making doesn't seem to argue for a "real" Satan vs. a misguided instinct.

Look, I'm not against trying out other options, but why need to shoehorn it (uncomfortably, it looks to me) onto the bible?

Because I agree with the dataset that the bible presents. I agree with many of the problems that it describes. I even agree with many of the solutions that it puts forwards. (equality before the law, say. Or people's sacrificing their own instinctive desires for the sake of some higher order.) But the bible doesn't really give a detailed answer of 'where does evil come from and why did a good God allow apparently evil instincts to exist.' "Tribal morality" seems to accurately describe the nature of organized evil, in my view. It provides a mechanism for it to be created. It accounts for the particular ways in which it manifests.
It allows for the possibility that the creation of evil was a necessary artifact of creation. Which answers the age-old question "Why did God allow actual, highly organized evil to exist, and not just misguided free will?"

This is why I've tried to make very clear where I agreed with the biblical account and where I departed from it. What I thought the bible said, what I agreed with, what I disagreed with or was often misinterpreted and where I thought a more detailed model could be put in place.

Nobody wants to buy a horse while being told that it's really a kind of oat-powered SUV with four 'wheel' drive. ;-)

"Compare and Contrast" seems a perfectly honest type of sales pitch.
Besides, the first cars were called "horseless carriages."

So what is it, precisely, about all this that makes so little sense, for you? ... Or that evil is a side effect of free will?

If Satan exists and God is Good then evil is more than a 'side effect of free will.' Which is exactly my point. You could say it's a necessity for judgement, perhaps. But that's a different argument.

What is all that effort buying you?

A more accurate model of why evil manifests in exactly the way that it does and the material reason for its existence.

When my software sucks, I rewrite it. I don't carefully "map" in onto what I hope will be a working version.

And yet, looking at apologetics in the New Testament, I think you could find quite a few examples of attempts to "map" Christianity onto other belief systems, and adopting a few of those beliefs in the process. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of a belief system of any sort whose origins are even slightly exposed to history that didn't do this to some extent. Natural law is not a concept native to Christianity, to give just one example.

"Satan." No. I don't believe in a "conceptual" Satan — although I was very attracted to the idea when younger. After many years of pondering the question, as unsophisticated as this may sound: I've come to believe in a "real" Lucifer

Christianity also seems to conflate Satan and Lucifer, incidentally. Lucifer, as I understand things, was originally a human Babylonian prince who sought to set himself up above God.

erp... Sorry for the double posting.

Satan kills Job's daughters via a tornado, not via immoral actions... Thus, the OT seems to equate some chaos (or things that we humans would see as indistinguishable from chaos) with Satan. No?

Ah, thank you. That helps me see what you're looking at.

Personally, I absolutely DO think it's fair to say that evil itself has an intrinsically chaotic aspect to it; think entropy and decay -- breaking works of art versus making them.

But, that said, regarding equating the two directly, always: me personally, I don't tend to think you can always say (or say the bible says, either way) chaos::evil / order::good. God wipes out the world with a flood and creates the universe with a bang -- two highly chaotic events (from our POV, anyway) which had a long-term positive impact. And I have no doubt that the Israeli departure would have wreaked chaos on the Egyptian economy. ;-) Conversely, "the devil" desires his own sort of order (think the USSR, or the meticulousness of the Nazis) just a very harmful one.

As far as Satan's (somewhat minimal) role in the OT, it seems he does more accusing and deceiving than creation of chaos. In Genesis, the serpent, which most think of as a stand-in for Satan, accuses Eve of having misunderstood God, and accuses God of holding out on her. In Chronicles 21, Satan tempts David to take a census of Israel. (A highly ordered, not chaotic sin.) In Job, before he afflicts Job and his family, Satan accuses Job of being God's fair-weather friend. In Zechariah 3, Satan is pointing out the high priest's sins.

So I think it's fair to say Satan is depicted as afflicting in the OT, and sometimes causing chaos (kicked out of the garden), but he's equally (or moreso) involved in accusing, tempting, or deceiving. At one point, he's explicitly depicted as wanting to bring about a larger, more powerful human government, and one might infer his interest in the same in a few other incidents with similar impact (the Tower of Babel, Israel's desire for a king...)

Again, I think increased entropy (decreased usefulness) is often part of the nature of evil, but I don't think we can just say "Satan == chaos" any more than we could say "Hitler == chaos." (Sorry for the Java/C equality symbols.) Yes, in many places, no in a few.

Are some of Satan's actions apparently (from a human perspective) sometimes chaotic? That seems to be the view put forward in the OT book of Job.

I agree you what you're saying here (not sure what you'd say about the converse), but that sounds like it diverges a bit from "much of what is called 'Satanic' corresponds either to chaos or to a morality..."

[Later:] I'm not sure this addresses my point, though, which is that tribal instincts ARE an organizing force.

Again, I'm confused then why you tried to strongly link "Satan" and "chaos". It is, except when it isn't?

I would note that some of those beliefs have led people to do rather unpleasant things...

Yes, indeed! If you believe that a group of human beings is the source of an unusual level of evil in the world, it tends to make you want to do something about them, which indeed, tends to lead to scapegoating, etc. If that perception is channeled into the belief that there's a supernatural cabal in charge, who might end up exploiting anyone who is open to doing evil, it tend to move the focus back to self-examination, doing good on the small scale, prayer, and attempting to appeal to or reach out to the deceived who function as "tools" of a larger evil.

Analogously, one might note that Christian belief is, in some sense, utopian, in that it believes in a future good world. In that most general sense, it shares characteristics with Communism, Progressivism, Statism, Nazism, Aum Shinriko, et cetera — baneful beliefs, all. But since the (orthodox) Christian believes in a spiritual cause of this utopia, one they can't control or effect, they are instead insulated from falling for political utopianism, and instead take a sceptical view of our ability to completely fix all our problems.

In any case, the argument you're making here doesn't seem to argue for a "real" Satan vs. a misguided instinct.

Why would they be exclusive? Moreover, "misguided instinct" says little: Misguided by who? Us? Society? Who configured society that way? God? Satan? Random luck?

My statement, which I tried to keep short (you'll see why in a minute), went mainly to explanatory power. I almost thought of (and apparently should have) pointed out that even if one thinks it false, it's at least internally consistent, and consistent with the evidence.

The problem with the debate we seem to be entering into here is that's largely subjective. I admit that I get an impression of a higher organization of evil than would simply be accounted for by individual debasement.

On this particular view, I also put more credibility on the bible's testimony than was used in forming my other views: that is, having found the bible right on a bunch of things I *could* test, I admit that I'm taking this one a bit more on faith than those others.

But there is other evidence as well. You mentioned, once, that Christians don't automatically dismiss miracle accounts in other religions. Indeed, we don't. God loves all people, regardless of faith, and I don't think he's precluded from helping people of other faiths. But there's also a sense in which certain less positive phenomenon from those faiths intermesh with Christian theology.

Consider John-Roger's and Huffington's religion, MSIA. John (or was he just Roger? I forget which is his real name) was meditating, and encountered another personality in his mind. It said it was his "higher self" and convinced him he should take orders from it. (Same for Arianna, who turns those marching orders into political action, almost always, in my view, wrong. Far less than random chance would dictate.) Zazen-style meditation is linked with these sort of experiences: frequent practitioners sometimes meet something or someone who wants to run their life. It's an alien, or "their higher self", a reincarnated warrior, a "guide spirit" or an angel, etc. (We have whole institutions near here, in Boulder, devoted to encouraging and spreading such phenomena. "Transpersonal Psychology", etc.)

Inevitably, these people end up supporting what I consider, from an economic and political-freedom POV, very harmful beliefs and policies. I've read dozens of such accounts, usually from supporters. The entities they contact lie, change their stories, use lines about people "not being ready" for the truth, etc. Everything a used car salesman or con man might employ.

And no doubt, some of this is sham, fraud, or mental problems. But I have trouble thinking it all is, just as I don't think it's particularly prudent to dismiss all miracle accounts on a prima facia basis, because one has forgone conclusions to protect. And sometimes, for example (atheist) Michael Crichton's account of his experiences with the London Psychic Society (and a few other cases I know personally) there seems a bit too much accuracy or weirdness to dismiss it as all "cold reading."

There is a wealth of such evidence. The question is one of interpretation. As, as I mentioned, there IS a subjective element in many cases. But "mental illness" plus "fraud" doesn't cover some of the more interesting examples, and the Christian account meshes rather nicely with the rather unpleasant characteristics of such, and detrimental results which often ensue.

Now to take on your explanation for a moment:

I think people are naturally paranoid about things they don't understand and the concentration of power in the hands of people they don't identify with...

No offense, but that's a vacuous or circular statement. "Don't identify with" as an input filter automatically guarantees your output of "natural paranoia." You're just saying people distrust the people they'd tend to distrust. Which explains nothing: why is do they distrust these people? Why do they feel the need to posit their existence and power? Why are such tendencies so often channeled into baneful results?

If I had to suggest a means by which I might suspect "Satan" works in the world today, it would go something like this: Satan helps influence the creation of social and legal "engines" or "machines" for converting individual failures and sins, writ large, into concentrations of political power, which are then used to deleterious effect.

Since I've criticized your account for being insufficiently detailed: People need to see themselves as good. Rather than admit that evil is partially a result of their own individual sin, scapegoats are found, and amplified. People are brought together and justified and unified by the scapegoating process (see Rene Girard). And this unity is converted into political action, which is used to harm, kill, and destroy.

But note what the passive voice implies: "are found", "is converted into", "is used" -- are/is/is by whom? Yes, we see it a tribal level, and could possibly explain it by a chief's greed.

Again, I think increased entropy (decreased usefulness) is often part of the nature of evil, but I don't think we can just say "Satan == chaos" any more than we could say "Hitler == chaos."

I agree, of course. Thus the reference to the ven diagram. Some chaos might be good, as you've said. My point is, if we're going to reify 'x' then it seems fair to describe the ways x can manifest. Chaotic destruction is one way according to the biblical theory. Is it the primary way? It's not, I agree. Nor is all chaotic destruction Satanic.
(I assume your apology for the equality operators is for other people.)
Again, I'm confused then why you tried to strongly link "Satan" and "chaos". It is, except when it isn't?
I didn't try and 'strongly' link them. I said that some Chaotic events were, according to the Old Testament, Satanic. Some, I agree(d), is not.
But since the (orthodox) Christian believes in a spiritual cause of this utopia, one they can't control or effect,
they are instead insulated from falling for political utopianism, and instead take a sceptical view of our ability to
completely fix all our problems.

I agree that it's important to understand the problems of the world as coming from a 'spiritual' source rather than a
material, manmade one. To be clear, I agree that the Christian view of utopianism is functional.

Why would they be exclusive? Moreover, "misguided instinct" says little: Misguided by who? Us? Society? Who configured society that way? God? Satan? Random luck?

I described it previously as 'a necessecary artifact of creation' ... and as a formerly adaptive instinct which is no longer so. So I suppose the answer is "God."

To give a more concrete example, tribal life is fairly zero sum. My neighbor's gain is easily my loss. Modern life allows us to 'increase the pie' so to speak, so that our gain is another person's gain as well. You mentioned earlier that tribal societies seemed quite admirable. My point is that our instincts were more likely to be functional in that context. Especially when the tribes had to be able to respond to some kind of external threat, since those with dysfunctional cultures/instincts (like those who appared to exist in New Guinea) would then be destroyed.

I also put more credibility on the bible's testimony than was used in forming my other views: that is, having found the bible right on a bunch of things I *could* test, I admit that I'm taking this one a bit more on faith than those others.

Fair enough. I don't know much about how spirits work. My views are the best I can see, and I put them forward in part with the thought that they might be proven wrong (or that they might not.)

No offense, but that's a vacuous or circular statement. "Don't identify with" as an input filter automatically guarantees your output of "natural paranoia." You're just saying people distrust the people they'd tend to distrust.

Fair enough. I'll qualify it. People tend to be paranoid about those who they disagree with morally when such people gain power. Do you think that's sufficiently non-circular? It would explain, very simply, why a non-transformative practice would effectively organize against a transformative one.

Rather than admit that evil is partially a result of their own individual sin, scapegoats are found, and amplified. People are brought together and justified and unified by the scapegoating process (see Rene Girard). And this unity is converted into political action, which is used to harm, kill, and destroy.

I agree with this.

Nor do I think massive power grabs like "the UN" spontaneously arise out of chaos.

Again, I didn't say all (or even most) things are Satanic are chaotic.

I think you're drastically misreading my argument if you think it's primarily about "chaos" being evil.

For free moral choice to exist, harmful action must be a possibility.

Let me see if I can summarize how I see your position; A man walks into an office to sign a contract. If he is compelled to sign it, he has no free will. If he is offered the deal "we'll loan you a dollar now and you can pay back a million in three months" he still doesn't really have a choice to make. But lets say he's offered a deal "kill your neighbor and we'll give you $10,000. You won't get caught." This is an actual moral choice because he has deluded himself into the notion that he could do this thing and 'get away with it.' But for God to still be just, the "you won't get caught" has to be false. The man will suffer individually for his action, and the society which allows it will also suffer. But for him to make this choice, he has to be able to ignore that.

So lets assume this last thing is the case. Wouldn't it then follow that we absolutely couldn't be told about the true possibility that our actions might harm us because if someone believed it, it would spoil the test.
If Pascal's wager had any persuasive power, wouldn't it make a farce out of this whole belief in the importance of choice?

Don't get me wrong, it may very well be accurate. To call it a mathematical requirement, though, seems overreaching quite a bit.

I also tend to think that a lot of what you call "evil instincts" are not mainly "instincts" that "evolved" but are either characteristics intrinsic to evil itself, or are small flaws which have been amplified as described above.

I guess we have a chicken and the egg problem. Which came first? Desires which caused harm to others or the labeling of those actions as 'evil.'

Institutional evil...But then what accounts for THAT evil?
Perhaps;
1. Those who most desire power tend to dominate institutions.
2. The Millgram effect, which allows people to dissassociate from the evil of their action, given a powerful leader/social
reinforcement.

Likewise "lies" might not be the result of an "instinct", but simply the only other option left besides truth.

Of course! Nowhere did I argue that free will didn't exist.

Or are you asking why we have a propensity to prefer such?

Yes, this is exactly what I'm asking.

(Again, I'd point out saying "instinct" frames the answer already.)
I suppose. But the question is whether social organization in primates (or, more preferably, tribes) might have something to say about dysfunctional human organizational instincts in nations.

This, of course, is the Christian doctrine of the fallen nature of man. Mechanically, I don't know why our 'nature' is bent this way -- as far as I know we could have been, instead, as altruistic as bees, for example.

Yes, I think that's my question; that human kind is 'fallen' is descriptive, certainly. But do you take the story in the Garden of Eden literally?

Perhaps it refers to the fact that animals just do what animals do, and can't "sin", but self-knowledge plus the potential for moral self-government now means we have increased moral awareness and responsibilities.

When tribes start to form nations, they seem to become less free. Social forces can potentially govern tribal organizations break down as groups grow beyond a certain point. Agree or disagree?

This is getting closer to what I was discussing.

Again, what is this "tribal morality"? If you're using it to account for, say, International Communism, then it seems it's hardly "tribal" at all. And are you equating it with evil? "Tribal morality" could include sharing with your neighbors during hard time. "Tribal morality" could include listening to your elders. These are quite "tribal" too.

That we have some inherant dysfunctional moral beliefs that CAN be transformed itself suggests a type of instinctive morality. Agree or disagree?

How would you describe this instinctive morality?
How does it differ from JudeoChristian Morality?

My point, particularly, is this; what is good and evil in a small tribe? If a person has a great deal of wealth in a tribe, they probably got it by unfairly hoarding or stealing or similar. After all, the land is owned in common. Their hoarding does little to increase the general wealth. They should share and invest in the good will of their neighbors, because a person can do very little to increase the general welfare and also his own, and because the good opinion of others is the most secure bank in this setting. There is little economy of scale. There is little investment. It is rational to distrust a person who is very wealthy unless you are under their patronage. These things are not true in a nation, which can benefit from a free market.

Why not just call it human morality, since it persists, according to you, in whatever level of development we find ourselves?

Because the instincts seem more functional in tribes and I'm trying to emphasize that to explain why they exist.

Also, I don't see 'human morality' as identical to JudeoChristian morality. So it seems that label would be just as confusing.

There's "mapping" and then there's "mapping." What the Gnostics did (who you cited above) was attempt to alter the biblical meaning away from its plain meaning. What they came away with was often violently (and sometimes laughably!) different than the plain meaning of the text.

Natural law was the Gnostics? Maybe you're not referring to my example. ('Gnostic' to the best of my limited knowledge, seems to be a very diffuse catagory based on platonic philosophy.) I thought natural law was Aristotle and perhaps the Sophists and other heirs to it.

Okay, it looks like you're just using a really unclear and obscure way to say: "Our moral beliefs [good and bad?] exist because of evolution."

Yes, our instinctive moral beliefs, such as they are, exist because of evolution. And those moral instincts are partly dysfunctional for people in a nation.

You know how I hate hand-waving "magic occurs" explanations. "It might have been!

I don't think that my explanation is much more 'magical' than the biblical explanation, and probably quite a bit less. You've said yourself, for instance, that socialists often tend to think in terms of 'zero sum games.'

Would you agree with this description or disagree?

Now why would people be so likely to think in terms of zero sum games?

Similarly, genocide (or organizing along racial lines) offers comparatively little benefit to a nation compared to organizing along moral lines. There was at least one study by the Chicago school showing that, when the benefit of growing cotton was accounted for, slavery was not more economically efficient than hiring workers voluntarily. But feeling kinship with those who looked like you had much more significance when similarities indicated actual genetic relationships.

And so on. Political behavior which is dysfunctional in nations tends to be functional in smaller groups.

Dogs are much closer to humans, mentally.)

Interesting assertion.
In any case, I'm fine just saying 'tribes' instead. Trying to use animal models has only confused the issue.

Okay. I can accept a 'young Satan' theory of biblical evil. ;-)

Tim: Which would mean what, as you say it, beyond Satan being another created being?

That some organizational tendencies weren't evil until they became harmful.

That temptations didn't exist before those who were to be tempted?

Tim: UM, where did I *say* you said God was bad?
Here?
Tim: Or if you're going to say it's a "dualism" where one bad player (God) comes along before other (Satan),

Tim: Human free will? Satan has no free will?
I have no clue.

Chimps have an idea of property? Lovely.

They don't, particularly, that I'm aware of aside from, perhaps, immediate personal possessions. (I recall one primatologist describing a chimp trading a sort of money token for sex.) That's part of the point. But I think my inclusion of animals has done more to detract from my point than clarify it.

Bonobos have wild sex with anything that moves? Great, Gorillas don't. And?

First, bonobos are fairly unusual in that regard. And they live apart from other primates. Gorillas share their territory with other chimps and seem better at defending it. I'd argue that animals which are forced to defend their territory have to be more functional (I could give some more support for this if it matters to you.) You can find an exception to disprove almost any rule. The differences which make that exception possible are usually interesting in their own right.

And why does it matter what their origins are?

As I noted previously, the origins of a thing tell us a bit about how it will manifest itself.

This is like math, Ryan. The answers aren't just a matter of our feelings and preferences, or sense of moral outrage.

Where did I claim to be basing my beliefs on feelings? This seems like a strawman argument.

For one, I don't think it could be meaningfully a "morally free" choice if there was no way of finding a motive for picking it, ever.

If that's really the issue, then the idea of Hell eliminates free will. Because no person ever has a good motive for doing evil, ever, if it actually exists and people fully understand that it exists.

The things you've brought up (did our morality evolve? are chimps our ideal model?) don't even seem to have any bearing on why evil exists and what might constitute it.

Well, I don't agree that these things have no bearing. But I'm not sure what kind of evidence you might accept. I agree that chimps aren't an ideal model. They were a model that seems to have confused things more than clarified them.

Best to you Tim. I'll look over your links later. I don't have time now.

So it sounds like we agree. Yet earlier you wrote:
"As best I can see, much of what is called 'Satanic' corresponds
either to chaos or to a morality which evolved..."

That sounds like you were trying to say that 'Satan' is some sort of concept...

To be clear, my phrase "is called satanic" was referring to those things in the bible
which are described as Satanic, some of which are not manifestations of the human heart (tornados, for instance).

I, personally, would classify tornadoes as "chaotic." I have no way, as a human, of discerning what's behind them "spiritually."

I see particular atavistic instincts as relating to instincts which may have functionally organized tribal people.

I was trying to make explicit the set of things the bible(not me) describes as potentially being Satanic by noting that they were not all manifestations of the human heart so that I could try to paint a clear and reasonably comprehensive picture of the biblical view of Satan. I didn't think you'd take 'some satanic events are described, biblically as chaotic' (not an exact quote)
to mean "all chaos is Satanic." (not an exact quote)

if I say that when a sound is playing, the setting of the volume knob corresponds with the amount of sound coming from the speakers, I'm not positing also that sometimes when you turn it, the volume setting won't be affected, or will move the opposite direction sometimes.

Cancer typically correspond with exposure to radiation, chemicals, infections or chronic irritation all coupled with some degree of genetic succeptibility. Are there some chemicals which do not induce cancer? Yes, quite a lot of them, and I eat them every day.

Tim:To clarify: I only suspect that some problems have a "spiritual" source. Some are material problems, and some problems come from me.

If a problem comes from you, how is that not a spiritual problem? And what, incidentally, do you see as a wholly material problem? I suppose I could think of many short-term material problems. A buddy needs $50 and will pay me back at home. Or something like that. But in the long run, I'm hard pressed to think of any problem which is more a material problem than a spiritual one.

I'm just at a loss at to figure out what you're trying to make "Satan" represent. Is it a non-corporeal intelligence? An outdated concept? "Tribal instincts"? (Which ones? All of them?) And on what basis.
I'm saying that many attempts at human organization which are perceived, biblically, as
evil seem to have roots in formerly functional organizing instincts which evolved when humans were in tribes.

I can't rule out the notion of some kind of personified spirit pulling the strings. I don't even know how to adequately differentiate 'spirit' vs. 'instinct.'

And on what basis.
On the basis that some (but not all) of the behaviors described as Satanic don't show up or are not as meaningful in smaller tribes.
Some (but not all) smaller tribes seemed to avoid practicing slavery, being ruled by dictatorships and so forth. Larger non-Judeo Christian influenced nations seemed to rarely escape that fate. This suggests to me that our instincts don't scale well, and need some kind of corrective factor. I think that the situation I'm describing is very roughly analogous to 'the fallen nature of man.' (Though perhaps with some elements unaccounted for.)

I strongly disagree that there's some "level" of sophistication reached before economic activity starts being win/win.
I'm not saying people can't cooperate in tribes. Of course they can. I am saying that in tribes, (particularly what were likely the earliest tribes) you don't have many, if any, "honest millionaires."

where a whole class of citizens seems to honestly believe that economic value falls from the sky onto our leader's heads, for them to distribute.

Many tribes DO have social ownership and a collective understanding of property.

Likewise, "socialism" and other pyramid schemes become more tenable with larger, not smaller pools.

This is why i say that instincts which are functional in small tribes can be dysfunctional (or dramatically more dysfunctional) in the modern day.

Again, this went to a seemingly implied correlation between "tribal" and "Satan".
To clarify (again) I'm not saying that 'tribal' correlates with 'Satan' in a tribal environment.
I'm saying that tribal instincts are dysfunctional outside of a tribal environment. That our organizational instincts have problems. If you're going to organize thousands of people, you can't rely entirely on social forces. You need a rule-based culture.

You propose certain (unenumerated) "instincts" would be more 'functional' in such a context. Perhaps you could give an example?

A belief in mandated sharing (with social consequences for those who refuse) and that concentrated wealth equals theft. "From each according to his
ability, to each according to his need" can be somewhat functional in a tribal setting. It's dysfunctional in a nation.

And yes, I'd argue that capability is less important, or even somewhat annoying (being myself subject to such impulses), in a "modern" environment, when men and women live to a similar age. But this is one of the few examples I can think of, and I'm still at a loss as to why it would have any particular relevance to the nature of 'Satan'.

That may be an example, assuming a very warlike society. (I'd think a peaceful society would have more women die in childbirth at a young age.) I suspect that outright promiscuity (given the opportunity, which would be more common in a modern city, perhaps) would be more functional when the population was smaller since disease isn't going to be as much of an issue in a tribe of 200 people. Cleanliness or death from
disease was the fate of early cities, some of whom, it's been speculated, died because their wastes weren't far enough from the well water. Concentrated populations required cultural adaptations in terms of cleanliness.

Look at tribal societies in Africa, even today. The individual's identity and behavior is strongly subsumed into that of the tribe. People often do what their tribe tells them to, more than what they want to. Even government appointments still reflect tribal alliances, not individual ideological convictions.

Do you think that this is more functional in a tribe than it is, say, in regards to a political party affiliation? Or is it less functional?

Sigh. It sounds like you and I disagree on the basic nature of economics. Look, Bill Gates having a large house doesn't help me directly, though it does employ some people. But the incentive which allowed Gates to become wealthy helps us all.

Yes, I agree with your economic views of modern society. How modern society does or should work is absolutely not my point in that section. My point was how tribal societies worked.

(Moreover, unlike Bill's large house, a herd of cattle certainly DOES contribute, in the form of more milk and milk availability, usually produced from non-cultivatable land.)

Go back a bit further, before people began to domesticate things like cattle. There are a lot of societies that simply don't seem to have the concept of economic growth written into their lifestyle. I can't remember the source, but I think it was Vine Deloria's book "Custer Died for your Sins" where it was described how when some natives were payed by their white employers they would leave and not come back till their money was spent. Some natives cultivated corn, of course (may have been the Iriquois, I can't recall. The Hopi certainly did.) But I'm under the impression that some tribes didn't. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that the societies that didn't raise livestock or grow corn probably preceded those who did such things. Do you think that's a fair assumption? Some tribes migrated. If that's your lifestyle, there are no banks or fields or livestock. If you invest, you invest primarily in the goodwill of your neighbors. That's the safest store of value. And that, I believe, is the environment in which our instincts spent some time adapting to.

I'm curious what the economic growth of a tribe is compared to modern society. If the yearly value created each year is much smaller, and if such a tribe was still able to exist for a few centuries (back before the modern age) then perhaps these are some hints as to how such people viewed things like investing. And if there is no economic growth, then society (though not individual interactions within society) is a zero sum game.

Ryan: It would explain, very simply, why a non-transformative practice would effectively organize against a transformative one.

Tim: I apologize: I'd dearly like to pursue this thread, but the addition of "transformative" has thrown me for a loop. What do you mean?

Judeo-Christian morality reworks people's instinctive morality. So someone of that background is likely to have a different moral value set than someone not of those faiths.

Sorry I can't get to the rest yet, but I've gotta run.... best to you!

Oh, you've been quite generous! ;-)

Best to you too, Tim!

Forgive me for butting in. I've tried to follow this sprawling conversation with some difficulty. You guys must be brainy giants to keep track of all the points made in this comment thread. I do have one objection. It's to the loose application of the term instincts. I like wikipedia's definition of the term: 'Instinct is the inborn complex behavior of a living organism that is not learned.' I think a lot of what you guys describe as tribal instincts are actually tribal practices. They are learned (perhaps developed to satisfy some more basic instinct). Like many animal behaviors previously declared as instincts that are later determined to be learned. I suspect that many instincts ascribed to man are merely learned or developed practices. With regard to different instincts being declared evil, I subscribe to C.S. Lewis who states in Mere Christianity that there is no such thing as an evil instinct. All desires that are installed in a man are good and profitable desires. The issue is when we seek to fulfill those desires in the wrong way, or prioritize those desires above greater values. I doubt the instincts of tribal man and the modern man have changed as much as the their techniques for dealing with and satisfying those instincts. I don't know if this will enhance the conversation or not. But I was hoping to sort this term out.

Ryan:There is little economy of scale...

Tim:That's a term which applies to mass production.

Austin - Hey, pile on. Sorry that this thread has become so confused and hard to follow. What was it that Twain said? "I'm sorry for writing a long letter because I didn't have time to write a short one" or something to that effect? Maybe substitute some other virtue for 'time' there.

I agree that a lot of things that tribes do are 'practices' and it's an important and difficult distinction to make between instinct and culture. Tribes still have culture. It modifies their instincts in different ways than our culture does, but they (probably) have fairly similar underlying instincts.

I doubt the instincts of tribal man and the modern man have changed as much as the their techniques for dealing with and satisfying those instincts.

I agree completely. And that's part of my point that Tim may be missing. When our social and economic environment changed with the rise of cities, the introduction of money and so forth, we had to learn new ways to deal with our instincts. (Of course, our environment had to change first, which required some kind of change in human capacity but I'm leaving that aside for now.)

With regard to different instincts being declared evil
All desires that are installed in a man are good and profitable desires.

My question is whether they are as good and profitable in the modern setting as a more ancient one.

I think the question comes down to; "How do we test or give evidence for the assertion that all instincts are good and profitable?" For instance, I note that some men (and women) want to have one-night stands. Should we just say "this is a misdirected part of a healthy sex drive?" Or is it fair to note that, from an evolutionary standpoint this benefits a man's genes, to have sex with many women which may be why the desire evolved? And also that such a desire is more controlled by other instincts (Both of the individual and his neighibors) than it would be in a city, say.

Let me use a biological analogy (which may either illuminate things or confuse them further); If someone's body is unable to use insulin, they may crave sweet things. This craving occurs, not because the person needs more sugar, but because they are unable to use the sugar already in their bloodstream. But the desire for more sugar that results is not inherantly adaptive. A person does not cure diabetes by eating more sugar. The instinct (eat more sugar!), which would be helpful to a healthy person, is harmful to the person whose body cannot use sugar. But the desire to eat sugar when cells don't have enough is still a healthy instinct. My point is that identifying the problem (diabetes) gives a more accurate description of the illness than simply saying "It's good to eat a little sugar, but this diabetic person is eating too much." Both statements are true. The first is more precise and descriptive, and helps more with treatment.

I've tried to put forward two such instincts, which may have been adaptive when people were in tribes but are mal-adaptive in the modern day;

1. The persistant belief that an economy is, generally, mostly a zero sum game. Friends can help out friends, certainly, or family help out family, but little more than that. And the notion of economic growth was not something originally applicable to tribes (though some later tribes like the Hopi did grow their economies to some small extent.)

2. That a variety of sexual partners may be a desirable thing for an individual, genetically.

Please let me know if there's any reason to believe that;

1. These are learned rather than at least partly instinctive beliefs. (Environment certainly influences promiscuity to some extent, but changing culture doesn't seem to entirely remove the motivation.)

2. These traits are as helpful in modern society as they would have been in a small tribe. (Or as harmful in a small tribe as they are in modern society)

Ryan, I think we understand each other pretty well. You loose me a little when you try to apply the concepts of instincts to economics. I think of instincts as being very basic, and economics even in it's most simple form as a whole other level of complexity. Its a response to a need to satisfy a combination of instincts such as to eat, protect one self procreate, amass power, exert influence etc.

To break it down i would back track things a little and say that instincts are inherently neither good or bad. It's how we vector them.

With regard to the instinct for multiple partners, I don't think that God gives us that instinct. I think he just gives us a sexual desire or instinct. You can attempt to fullfil it with multiple people or you can try to fullfil it with one. You can fullfill the desire with a man, woman, hand, porcupine - what-ev. I don't judge... much. I think the reason why people go for multiple partners is because it seems that multiple partners can satisfy their sexual desires(It can aslo be driven by a need for status or a desire to fullfil ones ego).

Like with food, I think people at some point recognize that there are healthy portions and will settle for them. Eating desires gone out of whack may drive you to over eat, but responsible people realize that you have to moderate. God gave us desires. Having control over them is what makes us responsible human beings. You can always go to far with them. Other times you can not go far enough. I think we spend a lot of our time suppressing our instincts and desires, whether they be food, sex, or violence. There are times however when those instincts have to be encouraged. Maybe you need to defend innocent life, physically comfort your wife when *gasp* you're not in the mood, or prevent unhealthy weight loss. There are other desires and instincts that we tend to encourage such as compassion that at times, need to be suppressed. (Conservatives preach this all the time). I don't think its a matter of which instinct is good or bad, rather what do you do with your instincts. Do you use them for good? ...or EE-vil? DUN - DUN -DUUUUHHHH!

(If you buy all this than you would agree desires don't kill people... people kill people... however people can kill desires. Doesn't seem fair does it?)

Ryan!

Forgive me for trying to group related stuff...

The Spiritual:

I don't even know how to adequately differentiate 'spirit' vs. 'instinct.'

My nomenclature, in this case: "Spirit" — think alien living in another 'dimension', with weak direct influence on this one. "Instinct" — behaviors which arise from nature, not nurture, society, or thought.

I was trying to make explicit the set of things the bible(not me) describes as potentially being Satanic... I didn't think you'd take 'some satanic events are described, biblically as chaotic' (not an exact quote) to mean "all chaos is Satanic." (not an exact quote)

Noted, certainly, about you're trying to represent what the bible (not you) depicts. But the "exact quote" was "much of what is called 'Satanic' corresponds either to chaos or..." Perhaps I'm just weird, but I read "correspond" to imply a two-way relationship. If A co-responds to B, it also means B 'responds' to A.

Some of the attempts at human organization which the bible depicts as positive could also be equally argued to have their 'origins' in tribes.

Sure. I agree. If a trait is adaptive in an old environment and adaptive in a new environment, why worry about it? (and, of course, the Bible praises some traits that may be good but not 'genetically fit.')

If it's practiced less than in larger ones, I'd tend to think that the reason wasn't that 'instincts don't scale' but simply because it's not practical to keep slaves until a certain level of organization is reached.

I think that saying "It's not practical to keep slaves until a certain level of organization is reached" is similar to what I've been saying. Increasing organization allows for desires
to manifest as problems which don't nessicarily have checks or balances against them that they did when people were just small tribes.

In fact, biblical culture itself is 'tribal'

Yes, it accounts a transformation from a tribe to a nation.

I get your larger point, but I'm a bit thrown by your use of "tribal" to mean larger groupings (which I suspect even anthropologists might use 'nation' for, not 'tribe' -- like "Zulu nation", ancient "nation of Israel", etc) -- I think of 'tribal' as relating to smaller, not larger groups.

"Nation" works well as a substitute for "large tribe." Sure.

Where do you draw the line in the continuum between "large tribe" and "nation"? I don't know.
So I tried to specify "small tribes" to indicate what might have preceded "tribal nations."

The article you link to on Native American slavery notes In fact, the word "slave" may not even accurately apply to these captive people. And it seems to go on to support that assertion. Torturing a captive and then admitting them as a full member of the tribe is hazing, not slavery. Similarly, temporary debt slavery sounds more like the goal of the Old Testament than the debased condition it was trying to reform. So even in Native American 'tribal nations' you don't seem to see real slavery till you get the Colonialists coming in.

I'm still waiting for you to name something I can understand as "tribal". You've now mentioned slavery, but then said it was most often a problem in the very same larger environments which you're now, in the above quote, contrasting with "tribal".

I don't think you're understanding what I'm saying. The organizing instincts are tribal, meaning that they are adaptive in a tribal environment and maladaptive outside of one. It's not that tribes are bad or Satanic. Quite the contrary. Our instincts are more or less adaptive in tribes. It's only in larger groups, as I've said before, that they become maladaptive in organizing people.

But, as a minor point: I don't think of "sharing" as having its roots in tribe so much as family or clan.

Well, it's a continuum. Don't you think small tribes had a fair degree of genetic interrelatedness? Even early nations were built along somewhat genetic lines.

For example, I tend to think that senior hunters earned, over time, a larger or more choice portion of the kill. Sure, I can believe that. More to the point, I'm not saying that a skilled hunter would get nothing extra for his work (and shouldn't have implied that tribes were perfectly charitable), but that his 'savings bank' did not consist of stocks or bonds or gold coins. His main store of value was to invest in the good will of his neighbors. The development of currency, say, or other inhuman stores of value undermined that system and changed the social landscape. (And currency happened fairly late in the game in some places. Islam arose about the time that large markets grew up around the Kabaa. )

So this suggestion that all you had is your good name doesn't seem to evince itself even in the stone-age societies I can think of.

But wasn't a person's "good name" a greater store of value than their possessions?

That's undermined by your earlier argument about animals having territorial notions.
I've heard of chimps with collective territorial notions. Same with dogs, if you prefer. Other than that, I'm not sure what you're referring to. A chimp might have traded something held in his or her hand, but that's a rather limited notion of property.

Yet that's the opposite of what you're saying here: Now you say it isn't the instincts which are functional or dysfunctional, it's our responses to them. Right!

How do you distinguish a dysfunctional instinct from the dysfunctional culture it informs and that facilitates it?

I also disagree with whether these unhelpful responses can be called "tribal"

I can just as easily say "human instinct evolved in small tribes" if that makes things clearer. I've said this before.

Which implies that you think "instincts" "adapt". Yet now you assert that you agree with Austin (and I) who tend to believe that "instincts" don't "adapt" at all, in the visible human history.

Instincts must evolve to some extent, obviously. A person who believes in evolution and instinct must believe this, or where else would an adaptive instinct come from? Evolution of instinct happens rapidly in, say, insects exposed to insecticide or killed in other ways. There is probably some genetic difference in human instinct within the human population, or within one group and another. But that's a whole other topic, and one I'm less able to discuss, and one tangential to my point, which I'm trying to keep clear. I do think that human instinct does and will evolve, in the same way that skin color or nose shape has obviously been selected for within the lifetime of the species. Some of it probably has the capacity to change rapidly via epigenetic means. But I'd prefer to get the issue of how old instincts impact our current society understood and addressed before trying to address the even more complex and difficult topic of how instincts might evolve over time.

and it's meaningless to ask whether said instincts are "profitable" or not.

Then it's meaningless to suggest that people even have instincts, isn't it, if they can't be evaluated by any yardstick, and the only relevant factor is moral choice. This seems like a rather strict behaviorist model.

Again, if the instincts can't change, then this statement is a contradiction, and it is our response that matters, and it's meaningless to ask whether said instincts are "profitable" or not.

So it's pointless to ask if one instinct is more likely to help a creature survive or prosper than another because everything is just "choice?" Why not just claim (not my claim) that from an objective viewpoint humans have no drives at all?

implying people mostly stole (argiculture, in your chosen example) from members of the same tribe to gain wealth.

Agricultre and livestock were your counterexamples. My point was that a lot of instincts predated the use of both of these.

You're saying the exact opposite of what I've just said. Belief in "pyramid schemes" isn't an "instinct which [is] functional in small tribes". It's not an instinct at all (as best I can see), and, further, it's based a separation from sources of economic value only possible today.

I'm not saying that people have a 'pyramind scheme' instinct. Actually, pyramid schemes, per se, are completely tangential to my point. I don't know that they have any relation to instinct at all. The pyramid scheme nature of, say, social security seems like an epiphenomenon of other choices. Rather than addressing this point, I'm just going to leave it to prevent this discussion from becoming more convoluted than it already is.

p.s. I agree that an alcoholic, say, might be perfectly fine if he chooses to avoid alcohol or in a society/environment which does not produce it.

(a mixture of environment and moral choice.)

The invention of alcohol would also, then, require the adaptive cultural knowledge that alcohol might be harmful because the person's innate desire to drink would not be helpful. Why is this knowledge needed? Because a person's physiological response ( or "human instinct", or what have you ) which is adapted to a primitive environment without lots of alcohol available is made non-adaptive by the addition of readily available alcohol to his environment.

The idea "don't drink alcohol" or "alcoholics should avoid alcohol" is like a hack to a system allowing its hardware to function in an environment it wasn't explicitly designed for.