October 14, 2024 • 58 mins
Have you ever wondered if evil is simply the absence of good? On this episode of the Telos Initiative podcast, Angelo , Chris , and Matt tackle this profound question. Together, we traverse the intricate landscape of morality, dissecting the role of intention in our actions. From natural disasters lacking malicious intent to the moral weight of historical deeds, we explore the fine line between being morally good and merely effective. The conversation also takes a critical look at moral responsibility and the complexities of involuntary actions.
Moving forward, we explore the spiritual dimensions of morality, delving into how our inner light or darkness shapes our impact on the world, echoing biblical wisdom and personal insights. With reflections on spiritual practices and the evolution of religious traditions, we contemplate the cultural distillation of ethical principles and the origins of goodness. This engaging exchange not only grapples with the role of spiritual orientation in daily life but also examines how historical and cultural contexts influence our moral compass.
Finally, we engage with philosophical heavyweights like Thomas Aquinas and Plato on the nature of the soul, contemplating its journey through life and its relation to the body. Our exploration doesn’t stop there; we also discuss the balance between mercy and justice, the interconnectedness of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, and the transformative power of life’s challenges. Through thought-provoking reflections and examples, we navigate the duality of human nature, emphasizing the conscious choices that shape our moral landscape. Join us for a journey through the spectrum of good and evil, and perhaps discover new insights into your own moral journey.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Angelo (00:01):
Hello everyone.
This is the Telos Initiativepodcast.
I'm Angelo Cole,
Chris (00:06):
I'm Chris Vigil.
Matt (00:07):
And I'm Matt Maes.
Angelo (00:09):
Today we're going to do an episode on good and evil, and
this is our first podcastofficially with video.
So bear with us.
We're still somewhat amateur atsome of this stuff, but we're
figuring things out as we go.
Chris (00:24):
It's okay because we know all of the knowledge in the
universe.
Angelo (00:28):
But now you get to see what our beautiful faces look
like that's right and so okay.
So good, bad and the ugly.
Which one are you?
Chris (00:43):
I think it's pretty obvious
Angelo (00:45):
the ugly Anyway.
I guess the obvious question tostart with is we have to define
our terms, so what is good?
and evil
Matt (01:05):
are good and evil.
Chris (01:06):
I've heard that evil right is the absence of good.
Okay, I mean, if that soundsfamiliar to me, I can't remember
where I heard that exactly.
Angelo (01:14):
It's probably something out of Christianity, most likely
.
I've heard something similar,most likely.
Um, I've heard somethingsimilar.
I want to say good hasnecessarily has to do with
action, so good is often what weought to do, and evil is
(01:40):
intending to do the opposite ofthat.
I would say evil is the trickyone because it's not necessarily
something that's just wrong.
It's something that has to beintended to be wrong.
So I wouldn't classifysomething that causes suffering
(02:01):
as evil.
So like a tornado tornadocauses a lot of damage, it
wreaks havoc, causes a lot ofsuffering, but tornadoes aren't
evil because they have nointention to harm it's um.
Chris (02:17):
It's a natural phenomenon , right, even if it does all
that damage and causes all thatsuffering, it's a natural thing
acting of its own right that's.
Matt (02:26):
I think you're touching on something as well in terms of
human motivation, like in termsof something that's it's good,
we could say is well ordered andwell intended, we could say
well executed, intelligent, allof these right qualities.
Angelo (02:46):
Right.
Matt (02:46):
And then on the flip side of that is say, like the
unconscious, the unconsciouscoming out, like, say, when
someone is very angry andspilling out their anger on all
kinds of other people, wouldthat person consciously choose
to be angered versus a higher,better motivation if they could?
(03:11):
Right, because if you have thatanger and it's coming through
you, you're just like you know,it's like you're being overtaken
by some possessed by somethingthat then comes out on on other
people
Angelo (03:27):
yeah, that's fair.
You don't have controls of someof your impulses, so I guess
that calls into the question.
Perhaps there's a degree ofgood and evil,
Matt (03:38):
oh, most definitely
Angelo (03:39):
perhaps, however much moral responsibility you could
attribute to a certain action,that determines how good or evil
that action actually is and interms of degrees, say we have
(04:00):
two ways of talking about good.
Matt (04:03):
We have the morally good, have two ways of talking about
good, like we have the morallygood, and then we have something
that is good as in well-orderedor considered like, if you are,
if you have these two clans andone of them and both of them
are attacking each other and saythis one is able to take down a
lot of warriors on this sideand ends up producing a lot of
(04:25):
more resources and things likethat, more leverage for them,
you could say that that isrelatively good, although it's
not morally good although it'snot morally right to be
destroying all these otherpeople.
Right so say if both of themwere to work together towards a
greater aim like they were ableto, to team up and find a way to
(04:49):
produce even more resources,create even greater flourish
together, wouldn't that be evenbetter than the relative good of
attacking each other andmeasuring?
Chris (05:00):
in this, um, it's kind of zero-sum game between each
other are you kind of sayingthat, something like the nazis
were good soldiers but they weregood like not.
They were evil, an evil army ofpeople.
Matt (05:18):
Yeah right, yeah, like good, like good.
That's a great way, that's agreat example, like great in
their capacity for what they'redoing, like well executed in the
way in what they're doing,while being morally
reprehensible right, right.
Angelo (05:35):
So there's levels to it.
Yeah, so that you can be good,complex, good in the immediate,
bad for a larger group of people, which also calls into question
at what level does moralitycount?
Almost, you know, we criticizethe Nazis for their evil because
(05:57):
they committed a genocide, sothat's on the level of like a
national atrocity or aninternational atrocity.
A national atrocity or aninternational atrocity, so the
level of being a good soldier iskind of a more localized, so
you could almost say the largerof the group that you're
affecting, perhaps the more goodof the, the action or evil the
(06:22):
action can be.
Perhaps that's a tough one.
Chris (06:27):
So is it just a numbers game then?
Right, that's kind of whatyou're purporting.
So if, whatever, if I move myhand and there's like a
butterfly effect across thataffects hundreds of thousands of
people, right, but it's thataction way more.
Angelo (06:46):
But it would have to be intentional too, right?
You would have to consciously.
Oh, okay, right, because if youaccidentally do something and
it kills a bunch of people, Ithink people are less likely to
hold you morally responsible.
They might still be like hey,you did something, you messed up
, but you didn't intend to dothat, so they'd forget.
(07:07):
Be a little more forgiving thanif you intended to hurt a lot
of people.
Chris (07:11):
Well, we do charge people with involuntary manslaughter
right, right, I think.
Angelo (07:18):
I think the reason that that counts is because you
should be, you should take acertain amount of care in your
actions so you would also chargesomeone for neglecting their
child.
There's a degree to which youare responsible for your actions
, and so, even if you un, anunintentional consequence
(07:41):
happened, you, if you'reresponsible for making sure
those things don't happenalready, then you're held more
accountable than you know.
If it wasn't your child and youdidn't even know about them,
and then Right.
Chris (07:58):
I know that sounds like a tough situation.
Angelo (08:01):
Got to come up with a better analogy.
Matt (08:03):
But now we get to accountability, like there's the
intention and then there iswhat came out of it Right.
And when you recognize that,then there's the capacity for
adjustment Because, say, youerred on this side accidentally.
But then being able to torecognize that and to own that
(08:28):
and not to just say, oh, youknow, making, making excuses,
and say like, oh, I didn't know.
Therefore, you know, just sweepit under the rug, you know,
because what does that do?
That?
Just well, writes it off asthat was all right.
And so then what stops you frommaking that happen again?
Angelo (08:50):
right.
Matt (08:50):
Right.
Because, then you just repeatthe same exact cycle.
But then when you own that,when you have that
accountability, you can, you canadjust and you can create
greater action in the future.
Angelo (09:06):
Yeah, I think if you pay attention to a lot of uh the
legal system and the defensecases that you see for people
who do atrocious things, a lotof the defenses are trying to
take accountability and onus offof the uh the perpetrator right
.
So, for instance, you mightplead insanity.
(09:29):
Well, insanity means that youweren't in your right mind and
you clearly didn't have enoughcontrol or awareness of the
situation to truly understandwhat you were doing.
Chris (09:42):
So the intention is kind of taken out of the equation, so
you didn't have good orderedcognizance if you're insane,
right but if you don't have thatright, good order does not mean
you mean you had bad order, Imean you know, it's different
(10:04):
when you're right talking aboutinsanity during a case, but Well
, I think we also need to becareful when using the word good
, because good isn't alwaysnecessarily the opposite of evil
.
Angelo (10:16):
when you use it in that sense, good can just mean good
versus bad, like you know, canhave a poor judgment versus good
judgment.
Good just means you're um, it'sa qualitative, qualitative
element, element, yeah, so um.
(10:36):
I think that's where thesemantics of it gets a little
tricky.
But Good in a moral sense is alittle bit different.
Matt (10:47):
Well, that'd be like noble , Like nobility Right, like
morally ordered Mm-hmm Right.
Chris (10:55):
Well, we think so In the right path.
So Well, when you think aboutnobility, how would you define
that?
I mean just because, yeah, takeus through that.
You think about nobility, howwould you define that?
I mean just cuz, yeah, take usthrough that like nobility yeah,
well, well, and I would alsopair that with integrity.
Matt (11:14):
Right, so you are your, your words, your thoughts and
your actions directed towardsmoral good.
Right, where, when we say good,like we've shown we can go in
all these different directions.
You could be good in yourcapacity of doing a morally
reprehensible thing.
(11:34):
Then you're.
It's like you know, doing doingyour job that's not exactly
ethical, doing that in a waythat is effective but not
morally right.
You're not looking out forother people.
Actually, there's a verse inthe Bible that really speaks to
(11:55):
this.
I think it's Matthew 6, 22.
It's the eye is the light of thebody, and when that eye is
light, then your whole body isfilled with light, but if that
eye is darkness, then how greatthat darkness is.
Now that's that's, that's acompass and that's also a
(12:17):
warning.
It's like if you, you knowyou're filling yourself with
what is good, then, like all thethings that your eye shines
upon, you can make good rightthe world around you, the good
shines through you, right.
But if you have that darkness,and that darkness is consuming
(12:40):
you and pouring through all ofyour actions, then that's the
lens through which you're goingto see the world, that's the
lens through which you're goingto affect the world, right?
So?
So the quality of your soul andthe quality of your, your eye
determining the impact that youhave on the world, whether
that's positive or or negative
Chris (13:02):
right and that's just not just like a
state of being in the here andnow.
I think that's over time, right,that's, that's your
oh yeah
The way I see it, because I had that, um, well, matt, I
shared with you a few weeks ago,I had that vision of the toroid
emerging from the human spiritand I kind of had this.
(13:27):
I analyzed what that meant forme and how, like, once you know,
it was like my time compoundingin on itself.
Compounding in on itself in oneside represented all of the
(13:47):
time that I spent orientedtowards the good and the other
half, you know, whatever amountof time I'd spent oriented
towards the evil, um, and thatwas kind of like the final
judgment of my own soul, likekind of what it looked like in
terms of a diagram, um,interesting, but I do agree,
like you know you, you can'tshine, you can't let that
(14:09):
goodness shine out from you,unless you spend time oriented
towards it.
You know, and since we'rephilosophy, spirituality podcast
, I would say, like looking atgood things, like jonathan
peggio and the christian iconsof jesus, mary and the saints,
or spending time in prayer,that's really important to
(14:32):
orient yourself, to take time toorient yourself.
Matt (14:34):
That way then you can take that orientation out into the
world right, you know, I foundthis, this, really fascinating
too, in terms of different, um,like different religions, by the
way, thank you.
Thank you again for sharingthat, the vision that you have,
tori, that's amazing.
Um the self, the, theself-awareness of different
(14:58):
faiths.
Over time, it might be morespecific.
Like like with christianity, wehad the crusades right we can
all look back at that and say,hopefully, hopefully, all of us
can say, well, probably goingaround and killing people who
weren't christian may not havebeen the best thing, may not
have been the best approach,even though the intention of
(15:22):
christianity, the good, thegood-naturedness that we hold at
the center of christianity, weknow as good right now.
I would also look at, you know,like norse religion.
Look at it's a, it's verycomplex, like if you look, if
you look back, if you look backat like all of the, the lore,
(15:44):
there's a lot of stuff that isin there that's like not, it's
kind of morally reprehensible aswell, you know.
But if you talk to people todaywho celebrate that and hold
that, you know, like I do, wecan look, we can, we can look
back at and see what is valuablethere, like what is relevant
(16:05):
now, what endures over timethat's good right.
So there's that self-awareness,right, being able to look at
that and be like, hey, you knowwhat, being able to look at that
and be like, hey, you know what, we don't have to buy into a
thing just because it waswritten down by all these people
(16:30):
a long, long time ago and justhold tradition just for its own
sake.
We can look at it and say,really, what's the straight dope
, like what was valuable therethat we can still hold on to
well, discarding what is notreally relevant or is morally
reprehensible I really like thisnotion of uh carrying this
(16:53):
through time and uh learningthings through tradition.
Angelo (16:57):
um, I think, uh, it calls into question this idea of
objective versus subjectivemorals, where, if you're not
basing your morals on this sortof collective democratic process
and we're all just subjectivelykind of coming up with these
(17:18):
things arbitrarily, what is thesource of goodness, what is the
source of where this idea ofwhat we ought to do coming from?
I think a good place to startis to think about the idea of
(17:40):
what's passed on throughcultures and how you can almost
take a moral outlook from oneculture and then compare it to
another, and when they unite,you throw some things out, some
things are kept over time andit's sort of distilled, and then
(18:04):
you do that with anotherculture and you do that with
another culture and over time,um, you kind of through trial
and error, get a sense that, um,some objective morality is
(18:29):
based on this distilling processacross time.
Um, that's just one idea thatI've had.
Chris (18:37):
I know, jeez, I mean you know, I mean humanity has come a
long way, I mean right.
So we're on this virtualpodcast right now where we have
these recording devices, cameraand mic, and we're talking about
these heavy ideas that havethousands of years of history
behind them, like the idea ofthe good, the idea of the evil,
(18:58):
ethics, um, the soul, right.
We wouldn't have a concept ofthe soul right now if it weren't
for, um, the ancient egyptians,right, doing their death
rituals and mummifying theirpharaohs and their kings, and
and um, I mean, we're stilldoing that and hopefully, you
know, doing this, as wecollectively do things like this
(19:19):
together, we can continue thatprocess and hopefully it
continues after our death too.
It's just I, you know, we justwonder where it's all kind of
going.
Matt (19:31):
Right.
Chris (19:32):
Cause we're constantly distilling and recreating.
Angelo (19:36):
Yeah, like this idea of the soul.
The soul is the part of youthat's that moves you, the
invisible breath, so to speak.
It's also in Greek psuche,which is the root word for
psyche.
It's the part of you.
I like to think of it as thepart of you that chooses, the
part of you that expresses ontothe world, expresses onto the
(20:07):
world and um.
I always, like, am fascinatedby the notion that the soul
lives on after the body dies.
It's, uh, interesting to thinkabout where that comes from.
Why do we think this part of usthat chooses and and um does
things in the world?
Why does it?
In what sense does it remainactive?
(20:29):
if it has nothing to expressthrough.
Chris (20:34):
Okay, so in what way does the soul remain active in our
reality?
Angelo (20:39):
Our present is probably what I meant the soul living on
after the body dies.
Chris (20:47):
okay, so I think you know I, I mean, I brought this up
with you guys in the past, but,um, just to offer my own
definition of what the soul is,that the soul is the element
within us that encapsulates theeternity of our immaterial being
(21:08):
.
So like, there's right, thematerial world.
But the soul is immaterial andonce you pass on it enters into
an eternal state.
Like we're not in an eternalstate now, we're experiencing
the past and the present and thefuture in a certain way,
presently, here and now.
(21:29):
But once you die, that sense ofpast, present and future ends
and it enters into the eternalstate it's a tough one to mull
over.
Angelo (21:42):
I mean, thomas aquinas would say the soul doesn't
really make sense without a body, his notion of the soul even.
Um, plants have souls, animalshave souls oh right.
Well, um, and it's just, to whatdegree do you have this?
This part of it's almost likeplatonic.
In a sense, the soul is a form,like Plato's forms.
(22:05):
So for those of you who aren'ttoo familiar with Plato, so
Plato has this idea that thereare these things called forms
that are sort of the highestideal of and purpose of what
something ought to be.
So take a circle, for instance.
(22:27):
A circle has a form and there'sa.
It's this idea of this perfectcircle, and every circle in our
reality isn't perfect, but itascribes to be that form, and
the closer it gets to thishigher ideal, the more of a
circle it actually is.
So you can say like somethingthat's a little more squashed,
(22:50):
it's not a perfect circle, it'sstarting to lean away from being
a circle, and so Thomas Aquinaswould say that's kind of what
the soul is.
The soul is the part of you thatyou're ascribing your perfect,
ideal self right.
It's the part of you thatyou're ascribing to be your best
purposeful ideal.
(23:13):
You know what is a man?
Well, a man is like a rationalbeing.
So the what's the man supposedto be?
What ought a man to be?
Man ought to encompass thefullness of his rationality and
his, the fullness of his body,the fullness of being able to
(23:35):
think and create and haverelationships and love.
All of that is sort of thissoul or form of the man, and
every man is striving to be thatyou know it's, it's on, it's
(23:55):
like.
Matt (23:55):
I love thinking about the meaning of words well, I know we
all we do.
But the word incorporate, ohyeah, corpus, the corpus, the
body, right.
So we have the potential andthe soul's desire to know itself
, to know its full self, right?
(24:16):
So then it comes into the bodyand goes through this process.
We go through the process ofliving and experiencing and
bouncing around between allthese experiences, and sometimes
we don't know the point of them.
But then we take this thingfrom over here and bring it over
here and we have to go throughthis process of dimensionalizing
(24:38):
ourselves.
So we start off from this barezero.
You know, you're a baby, youdon't know anything.
You know, all you have is thisawareness and intuition and
curiosity, and you're brand newto the world.
Right, and as you're goingthrough and you have this
(24:58):
unfolding and you're, you'retesting things, yeah, you're
testing things and you'regrowing, you're going through
and you have this unfolding andyou're, you're testing things.
Yeah, you're testing things.
Angelo (25:04):
You're growing, you're, you're evolving those little
kids are picking things up andputting them down and picking
them up and putting them downyeah, like watch a movie over
and over and over like the samemovie, yeah it's like learning
rounding yourself out you know,dimensionalizing yourself in all
of these different ways so thatthe soul inside of you can know
(25:25):
its true self through livingthat's really good.
Chris (25:29):
I like that and I loved your process of dimensionalizing
.
That was good.
Angelo (25:37):
I've got another word for you remember when you
remember something like your armis a member and you have to
read.
I've got another word for you.
What's?
Chris (25:43):
that Remember.
When you remember something,yes, you're taking it in Like
your arm is a member and youhave to read oh yeah, You're
making it a part of yourself.
Matt (25:47):
How often?
Yeah, no, that's great.
How often has this happenedwith you, where we all like to
listen to different podcasts,different speakers, and when
they say something, it's lesslike you're learning it for the
first time and more likesomething that you already know,
that that person just broughtinto awareness, something that
(26:08):
could be deep in yoursubconscious, that that person
just brought up to the forefront.
Angelo (26:12):
Yeah, it's almost like you knew it the whole time and
something about the way theyformulated it.
Matt (26:16):
You're like oh my God.
Yeah, you're like, that's right.
Angelo (26:19):
Insight, insight, insight, which is another fun
word, insight, yes.
Matt (26:27):
Yes, it is.
Chris (26:28):
Yeah, so many fun words, antediluvian, I don't know what
that one's at all.
Matt (26:35):
Plus did not want that one .
Now you gotta.
I don't know what that one's atall.
Plus did that one have on it.
Now you've got to.
Chris (26:38):
It's a fancy word that means something really old.
Whoa, that's a fun one, yeah.
Angelo (26:48):
So I guess, back on the topic of good and evil, we had a
podcast before where we weretalking a little bit about
beauty, and goodness is one ofthe three transcendental values
between truth, beauty andgoodness, I like, and we also
talked about the power of threeand I like to attribute those
(27:11):
three transcendental values tothe domains of uh, being,
knowing and doing, being beassociated with beauty knowing
being associated with truth anddoing being associated with
goodness and action.
Matt (27:28):
Okay, being doing doing so , yeah, so they're all.
Angelo (27:34):
They're all in a sense sorry, they're all in a sense
interrelated right.
So the truth is good to knowand the truth is beautiful
beauty.
There's a truth to it and it'salso good, and goodness is true
and beautiful and they roundeach other out through
(27:55):
relationship with each other.
Matt (27:56):
so this is a question I wanted to bring up with you guys
, since we're talking about goodand evil, Like what do we do
when people don't play by therules?
Chris (28:08):
Put a head on them.
Matt (28:09):
Right, put a head on them.
But so to the example from thelast podcast we kind of touched
on this a bit where you have theguy in the show who had the
evil guy at his throat with thesword.
He spared him, he turned around, he dropped the sword and then
(28:31):
he gets stabbed in the back.
He gets stabbed in the back.
So the guy who was morally gooddid the maybe not smart thing
to do and ended up paying for it.
Now he can't live anymore.
Chris (28:45):
Now he can't do any more.
Matt (28:46):
Good, he got stabbed in the back because he was he did
the right thing right because hedid the right thing.
So what do you do?
So they have to be able tobalance each other out so that
the evil is brought intoequilibrium.
Right, there has to be learning, there, there has to be like
what's the place of justice andjudgment that brings goodness
(29:10):
and equilibrium.
That's the intelligent thing todo.
Chris (29:15):
So I live in a paradigm right that says I have to do the
right thing, um, even if thatmeans I get stabbed in the back
because I am not the equalizer,I am not the one who dishes out
justice, you're not the judgeand, and you know, I can dish
out mercy accordingly, likehuman to human, but not true
(29:38):
justice, not the beautifuleternal justice I do think there
is a balance there too betweenjustice and mercy.
Angelo (29:46):
Yes, the christian is called to forgive.
So and turn the other cheekyou're supposed to when you get
stabbed in the back, not justforget about it and just say, oh
yeah, stab me as much as youwant, but you're not supposed to
hold it against them.
Chris (30:05):
You're, you're supposed to move forward you, you need to
learn to right.
So like oh, you stabbed me inthe back.
Maybe I survived that, maybe Idon't, who knows.
If I do, I can come back andsay can't let you do that again.
Yeah, can't let you do that toanyone I love either.
Matt (30:22):
Right, that's right.
You gotta have that.
You gotta have that capacityfor fierceness, right, right,
even if you're not just goingaround swinging your sword at
every single person just out ofpossessed aggression towards
others.
It's a controlled capacity foraggression.
Angelo (30:44):
In the, our Father, you say forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespassagainst us.
I think that tells you a lotabout Christ's message, about
how we're called to forgiveothers, not just for our own
(31:05):
sake and our own paradigm, butalso how can you expect to be
forgiven for your ownmistreatment if you can't even
do the same for your brother oryour enemy?
So there's a lot of wisdompacked in there, I think, but
it's probably the hardest thingto do because your sense of
(31:28):
justice wants to take over.
You want to say, hey, I've beenwronged, where's my comeuppance
?
Chris (31:42):
wronged.
Where's my comeuppance?
You know so we've said on thepodcast before right you, you're
um.
What, how's it go?
Your branches cannot reach upinto heaven unless your roots go
down to hell, into hell.
It's young right yes, yeah, um.
Yes, yeah, I would say, you know, for better or worse, right,
I've had some really darkexperiences and it is really
(32:05):
sobering when I look at someoneelse you know who I feel is
wrong to me in some way and Iget that sense like, oh, I need
justice for this thing that wasdone to me was wrong to me in
some way, and I get that senselike, oh, I need justice for
this thing that was done to me.
But it's extremely sobering totake a second and be like you
know what?
I haven't done so many goodthings before.
In fact, I've done some prettyterrible things behind certain
(32:30):
people's backs and I should keepthat in mind, you know, lest
that double sided sword startswinging the other way.
Well, it's a double-sided swordof justice well it's.
Matt (32:45):
It's interesting like I'm gonna go in another dimension,
dimensionalize this.
Chris (32:50):
Yeah, like when dimensionalize the heck out of
us living heck out of us.
Matt (32:58):
So so in the on the subject of magic, right, you
have different types of magicand specifically talk about like
black magic, like if you, ifsomeone is like trying to cast a
spell on somebody and do harmto that person, there is like
what you do to that person thencan end up coming back to you,
(33:19):
oh, right like it's karmic sortof thing exactly right.
So like, if you're trying toput a hex on this other person
or whatever, then you, you knowthere's, there's a duplicity to
that.
Maybe that maybe your main,maybe not that's the right word,
but like a reflectionreflection, yeah reflection yeah
(33:43):
, a good karmic reciprocationyeah, that's a good word, right,
but if we're thinking to themotivations behind someone doing
evil to someone else, like what, what is it that is lacking in
that person that has caused somerot within them that if there
(34:07):
were flourish there then thatwouldn't exist and in fact, that
would transmute that into good.
So then if you're doingsomething good to that, like you
know, have you ever noticedthis where you could have
someone coming at you in anaggressive way or they're, you
know they may be very angry andthey're just spewing stuff off
(34:28):
or whatever, and you end up youtreat them with class and
kindness and good regard.
It's kind of disarming, becausethen it's like the fight
doesn't exist, there's no rightyou know it's like why?
why are you trying to fight mewhen I'm trying to do good for
you?
You know why are you trying tofight me when I'm trying to?
You know I'm, it's actually toyour benefit to befriend me.
(34:52):
Sometimes you learn that as akid, right?
Angelo (34:55):
Uh-huh, you get bullied on the playground and then the
bully is disarmed.
Matt (35:03):
When the kid kind of does something nice for them or
doesn't react negatively totheir bullying, they're kind of
like this isn't working the wayI want it to and it elevates you
above that zero sum game too,because then the whole thing,
(35:23):
and for you know, for peoplewatching the zero sum, is the
idea um, it's a thing calledgame theory, where say, the idea
is, if I do something, ifsomething good happens to you,
then that is bad for me, or ifsomething good happens for me,
then that's bad for you, andit's you know you end up in this
.
Angelo (35:43):
Nobody wins.
Matt (35:44):
Yeah, I mean, there are certain games that are like
chess there can only be onewinner of a chess game, right?
But I would dare say that mostgames are collaborative games,
right?
So it actually ends up workingout better for you to work
together towards something sothat's I think, that that can.
(36:07):
Maybe, maybe that's a lot of it.
The differentiation betweengood and evil is, in terms of
evil, everything is a zero-sumgame there was this with good,
you have the capacity forcollaboration right and so then,
oh my god, maybe that, oh, wow,maybe that is the conflict
(36:29):
right there, maybe that's somuch of the conflict.
Right is for this side.
Everything is competitive forthis side.
Everything is competitive Forthis side.
You can see collaboration.
But in the conflict, you end upgetting caught up in this
zero-sum game by default.
Angelo (36:49):
Well have you heard of.
I think it's called the Parableof the Long Spoons.
Have you heard of that?
Matt (36:57):
Oh, I think you've mentioned it one time.
Oh yeah, Probably mentioned iton one of our former podcasts
I've definitely heard this fromyour voice before.
Chris (37:05):
Absolutely, and I remember I was weirded out by it
.
Angelo (37:08):
Yeah, if you didn't hear one of our last podcasts.
Basically, there's a circle ofa bunch of people and they all
have long spoons.
And there's a circle of a bunchof people and they all have
long spoons and there's a bigchasm in the center and then a
tiny pillar with a bowl of foodand their spoon.
If you they reach in and try tograb some of the food, they
(37:31):
can't feed themselves becausethe spoon is too long, but they
could reach in and feed someoneelse.
And so the idea is, if they canall work together and cooperate
, everybody can eat.
But if even one of them startsfighting, there's a chance that
nobody gets to eat.
(37:51):
There's just too much chaos and, yeah, maybe someone knocks the
bowl over game over, yeah, soit's a.
Matt (38:01):
It's a parable about cooperation yeah, well, and then
through the problems, you cansee where, where you may need a
solution to right.
So, and there there's thesilver lining of issues actually
existing, because then you know, going back to the bumping your
(38:22):
head against all theseexperiences in life, now that
you've encountered that, now youcan conceive of a way to
approach it in the future.
You can even teach that way toothers so they can say you know,
hey, have you ever dealt withthis?
This is what I did, this iswhat my friends did that helped
us to get past this.
Angelo (38:41):
And then there you go there was this website from a
long time ago that I went to.
It had like a little game on it.
It was a game where you had twocharacters walking up to this
machine and they would both haveto put a coin in and you would
(39:03):
get to choose whether you put ablue coin or a red coin in.
If they both put blue coins in,they both got two coins out.
But if one of them put a blueand one of them put a red, the
blue one would miss out and thered one would get two coins, and
(39:24):
if they both put in red coins,then they both lost.
So it was kind of a test onmorality where you would play
with you know, the computer orsomebody else and you would both
.
If you both could justcooperate, you would both make a
(39:46):
bunch of money.
But if one of you puts in a redcoin, even once the trust is
broken and then you're bothlosing money or trying to see if
you can get the other person tolose money or something, and it
depends on the temperament ofthe people you play with.
So it's kind of a game in trust.
Now, the rules of the game werenever stated that you had to
(40:11):
out-compete the other people.
The idea is you can make asmany points as you want and
everybody can get all the pointsif you just cooperate.
But if one person makes itcompetitive and tries to get
more out of the other people,the game breaks down it's like
(40:31):
what I was also think of is thechinese finger cuffs, like what
happens?
Matt (40:37):
you get both your fingers in there and you try and pull it
apart, you know, and what, aswe all know, happens?
You're stuck, you know.
But if you release the tensionright, then it can loosen up and
(40:58):
then with that you can removeit, you can remove both your
fingers from it.
Chris (41:02):
I liked your.
Spirituality is a collaborativegame, I think.
Okay, so back to your exampleof the Hex caster, the black
magic user.
Right, we want our spiritualityto be away from that.
Right, so we want ourspirituality to be good, true,
(41:28):
beautiful.
So we could say that trinityright, that's the holy trinity
of things.
So we could say thatTrinitarian spirituality is a
collaborative game, and Iwouldn't give honor to the
darkness by giving it such agood name like that.
So I would say, like, darkspirituality is a zero-sum game.
(41:52):
Yeah, you know, the whole thingactually kind of reminds me,
and I forgot where I read it.
Maybe it was Theology forBeginners by Frank Sheed, I
don't really, but he saidsomething like material
possessions divide when they'reright, divided amongst other
(42:16):
people, but Spiritual gifts andgraces they multiply as they're
shared with others.
Angelo (42:28):
I mean, if you think about it, going back to the idea
of beauty, truth and goodness,it all seems that there are
things that we collectivelyorient around.
So when you pursue truth, forinstance, truth is like the
ultimate goal of epistemologyright it's?
We're all aiming to know thetruth and ideally you're never
(42:53):
going to individually knoweverything.
But if everyone is orientedtowards truth, they're all going
to be on the same page andmoving towards, um, the best
thing that they can be movingtowards epistemologically right.
If they're oriented away fromtruth, it becomes diabolical.
(43:14):
Diabolical means to break apart, it means they're all going to
individually have their ownideas.
They're all going to beseparated, they're all going to
decay and and it's the same forbeauty and it's the same for
goodness.
So, beauty, we are all orientedin, towards this sense of uh.
(43:38):
I like to link beauty with life.
We're all oriented towards ahigher order and higher um being
um, higher, higher living.
We're all trying to uh,ontologically be, be closer to,
to living our best life and uh,goodness is action, right.
(44:02):
So we're all trying to do theright thing.
If we're all oriented towardsgoodness and helping each other,
it's collective yeah okay,you're oriented away from
goodness.
It's diabolical.
You're going to break apart.
You're going to have your thisis my moral sense versus your
(44:22):
moral sense, and there is no, uh, homogeny.
Yeah, what do you think aboutthat?
Matt (44:35):
so I think that's a lot of information so it's being able
to being able to see the goodwithin people.
I want, I want to go even deepera statement earlier about doing
a good thing for someone who'sbeing aggressive.
When, when you're able torecognize what is treasured
(44:58):
within somebody and say, whenyou're evil and you're
aggressive and you're, you'recallous and like you feel like
no one has seen the true me, noone has seen the true values
than myself, no one is shining alight on that.
And then you come along and yousee that you see the good
within that person, you see thatthat person has inherent worth
(45:21):
with them.
And even going back to thearchetype conversation, where
that's, this sovereign, is likeyour true essence, that's,
that's like your true self,where you hold the truest best
intentions, your greatest wisheswithin yourself.
(45:42):
And you come along and youshine a light on that Right.
You say I see, you see thatlike there's you know this word
that Is flung around andspirituality, but it's actually
very deep the word namaste.
What that actually means isthat I see the light inside of
you.
You know Like I see that, likeI look, and I see the light
(46:04):
inside of you.
You know Like I see that, likeI look and.
I see the inner you Right Iswhat that actually means.
So it's actually very deep.
When you say that, you shouldsay that with intention, you
should say that when youactually mean it and that person
can tell that you regard thevirtue, you regard the essence
(46:26):
within that person.
Chris (46:28):
I think that's great.
I also think that's a reallydifficult thing to do, yeah,
unless you are well-versed inorienting yourself towards the
good, like we spoke of in thebeginning.
Sure, yeah, the good like wespoke of in the beginning, sure
you know?
So, gosh, make sure you'repracticing good orientation uh,
you know, towards the good, thetrue and the beautiful yeah oh
(46:51):
now work hand in hand, right?
Angelo (46:52):
so you, in order to be able to do good, you have to
understand how to do good.
So you got to know the truthand then, yeah, you gotta, you
gotta be alive to be able to doany of those things, so you
gotta orient yourself in in alldimensions of course, yeah, and
here's.
Matt (47:11):
I love thinking about the origin of villains, like in, you
know, in some stories we get weget to see how that person
became who they became, and itpretty much always starts from a
place of innocence.
That person started out, as youknow, as pure and blameless and
(47:40):
then something atrocioushappened to them and they
weren't able to process it andit carried with them.
And then they take that, theytake that, they take that wound
and they push that out as painonto other people.
Right, and there's I love um,what's this video?
This this guy pointed this outthis really profound, like they,
the difference between the thevillain path and the hero path,
(48:03):
being at the intersection ofwhat you do in those moments of
pain.
Right, because you could takethat pain and you could say,
like this happened to me and I'mgoing to take this pain and
push it out and make it otherpeople's problem.
Right, then that's uncontrolledaggression.
That's you taking this eternalwound within your Well, you're
(48:26):
self-perpetuating that woundright, and pushing it out onto
other people.
Or you can say that thishappened to me and you process
it and you say I don't want thisto happen to others, if I can
help it Because I know what it'slike.
You know, like people end upbecoming addiction counselors.
More often than not have gonethrough that themselves, they've
(48:52):
gone through right themselvesand been able to come out on the
other side, and you can thenspeak to that person who's going
through that same experience,because you yourself has passed
through.
Angelo (49:04):
Yeah, I think that speaks to the idea that you can
transform something negative orevil in the past into something
positive.
So someone who's been a drugaddict, that was a horrible time
in their life and probably whenthey were in the thick of it
they didn't know how to makesense of it and they struggled.
Once they made it through, theyknow the way through and they
(49:26):
can pull someone else out ofthat or at least help them and
in a way that someone who'snever been through that could
ever understand.
And so that's, that's, uh, thebeauty of, uh, the beauty of the
, the fallen world, I guess, ishow I would put it and and
(49:48):
looking at the different shadows, like going back again to the,
the archetypes, where you havethe inflated and the deflated.
Matt (49:56):
Sometimes it's good to listen to what those voices have
to say, just so you can get asense of what they sound like.
So when you encounter someonewho is in one of those polls you
can say I've heard that voicebefore inside of me.
Angelo (50:10):
True Right.
Matt (50:10):
You don't have to embody that voice, but you can at least
know what it sounds like.
You can at least know how tospeak to it, because you've
spoken to it yourself and beingable to find that center within
yourself.
Angelo (50:24):
I think it's good to maybe touch on this problem of
evil.
A lot of people fall away fromtheir belief in God because of
the problem of evil.
They say how can a good andloving God allow so much of this
evil stuff to happen, so muchof this evil stuff to happen?
(50:48):
And I think you know, nobodyreally has um the answer.
But I think a good response tothat idea is this notion of
perhaps the evil in this worldis opportunity.
Perhaps when you see someoneelse suffering, or you yourself
have been through suffering,that can be used to bring people
up and bring people closer togoodness.
You know, an innocent childdies, their family is suffering.
(51:13):
What is the response from thecommunity in that situation
where?
Where where's the goodness andthe hope that comes out of that?
And that's what've got to payattention to.
There's a lot of tragedieshappening.
You know hurricanes and warsand things like that, but if you
pay attention, there's alwaysgoodness and light shining
(51:35):
through each of those situations.
Matt (51:37):
I was so hoping we would get to this question as well.
Get to this question as welland so we have these.
So we have the, the poles ofwhat is good and what is evil,
and we have duality in thisworld, where we're in the middle
and we think of this world as aspectrum of possibility, a
spectrum of things happeningright, but there's, but there's
(52:00):
an order to it.
There's a, a direction, there'sa, there is a higher and a
lower.
There's a, there's an order toit, there's a direction, there
is a higher and a lower, there'sa dark and a light, and we can
choose to go through thoseexperiences and move towards
ascending towards the good,while having an awareness and
(52:22):
having our having our roots inthe you know, knowing of the
fallen world.
Right, we can, we can choosewhich one of those that we want
to feed into.
We can choose which one of the,you know, which one of those we
want to, we want to movetowards.
(52:42):
Yeah, well, there, there's atension there and I think
there's going to be a tensionthere.
Chris (52:45):
Choose which one of the.
You know which one of those wewant to, we want to move towards
.
Yeah Well, there's a tensionthere and I think there's going
to be a tension there presently,right for all of us in this
time and space, and that tensionis going to be there till our
last breath, whenever that'sgoing to be.
But there's always a callupwards and there's a call
downwards.
And I've've noticed, and I hadthis thought fairly recently,
(53:06):
when I was, let's say, engagingwith the darkness right, that
was like falling.
That was fairly easy.
I could just fall from oneplace to the next and it was, it
was easy um answering that calluh to to transcendent goodness.
That's more like climbing amountain, you know, um
(53:31):
interesting, and sometimes it'sit's it's really difficult,
sometimes it's just a nice hike,but it's it's an effort, nice
hike this is good this is, thisis so easy, it's good.
Yeah, sometimes, like you know,hey, there you go, it can't all
be.
Angelo (53:47):
Uh, no, I totally agree and I like your use of the
analogy of the mountain yeahthat's a common theme in.
Matt (53:53):
Uh, yeah, in symbolic representation of journey yeah,
and our, our perception ofexperiences like this too,
because, say, say, you're in asituation where this person, say
, outclasses you in a lot ofways, or they're just upskilled
in a lot of ways and you have torise up to meet that right Now.
(54:18):
on one hand, you can feel like,oh, you know, I feel put under
by this person and like, oh, Ijust can't sit, whatever.
But the benefit of that is youhave a model of a higher
standard In your immediate sensethat you can learn from, you
can reach up and you can pullyour damn self upward To meet
(54:39):
the standard of that person.
Right, if they're generous,they could even be trying to
teach you.
Angelo (54:45):
Yeah, be a mentor.
Matt (54:47):
They could be teaching harshly perhaps, or come off as
harsh, but you know they couldbe trying to make you aware too,
because really it's just idealif you have two people who are
very upskilled and very, youknow, very competent and good at
things, that are operating intandem together.
And there's disjointedness whenyou're you know, when you, when
(55:11):
you're like trying, you'retrying to come up at you and
you're just getting, you knowyou're trying to meet this
person but you you seem to befailing, but you're learning,
you're bumping your head againstmistakes and all those kind of
things, but you know you stillkind of keep that true north of
upward ascension right, but thenthat person has to have the
(55:35):
empathy that you are on thatjourney of upward ascension, you
know.
So there can be that.
Know you have to have at leastan alignment of intentions and
values so that you know you can.
Angelo (55:50):
Right.
Matt (55:50):
We got to have a framework first.
Angelo (55:53):
You got to have a framework in order to even
recognize that that person isupward from you, or else what
wears up.
Chris (56:01):
Exactly Right.
Angelo (56:03):
So, and that's the truth , right, the great magnetic pole
that your compass is aligned to, that's right, gotta have a
compass, gotta have a direction.
Chris (56:26):
So how about cause?
Since we set out to define whatgoodness was at the beginning
of the podcast, we could try.
Goodness is the eternal patternof transcendent moral ascension
.
Transcendent moral ascension.
Angelo (56:45):
Transcendent moral, ascension, hmm.
Matt (56:50):
Hmm, like good.
Like good in the face of thecircumstances around you.
When you hear transcendent, Ithink in not necessarily in
spite of, but, but regardless ofthe circumstances around you
that your compass, that yourorientation is good yes, it
(57:17):
reminds me of um a line from theancient one from dr strange
Strange, where she says we nevertruly leave our demons behind
us.
Angelo (57:34):
We only learn to live above them.
Alright, well, I think our timeis just about wrapping up.
Yeah, that was good.
That was a good podcast.
That was really good, reallygood.
Chris (57:48):
That was like the best good, the goodest good, the
goodest good.
Angelo (57:54):
The good the true and the beautiful.
Matt (57:56):
Now we've just Thank you, we've just descended into cheap
humor.
As we do, as we do, we're sogood at it.
Chris (58:01):
It had to Chip Pumer.
Angelo (58:02):
As we do.
Chris (58:02):
As we do.
Angelo (58:03):
We're so good at it.
It had to come out sometime Allright guys Well thank you all
for joining us here andlistening to us ramble on about
good and evil, and I appreciateyou staying this long.
If you're still here, pleaselike, share, subscribe, do
whatever you can to support ourpodcast and we will see you next
(58:25):
time, all right, it's been real.
Matt (58:28):
Awesome.
Thank you everybody.
It's been really really awesome, yes.
Hello everyone.
This is the Telos Initiativepodcast.
I'm Angelo Cole,
Chris (00:06):
I'm Chris Vigil.
Matt (00:07):
And I'm Matt Maes.
Angelo (00:09):
Today we're going to do an episode on good and evil, and
this is our first podcastofficially with video.
So bear with us.
We're still somewhat amateur atsome of this stuff, but we're
figuring things out as we go.
Chris (00:24):
It's okay because we know all of the knowledge in the
universe.
Angelo (00:28):
But now you get to see what our beautiful faces look
like that's right and so okay.
So good, bad and the ugly.
Which one are you?
Chris (00:43):
I think it's pretty obvious
Angelo (00:45):
the ugly Anyway.
I guess the obvious question tostart with is we have to define
our terms, so what is good?
and evil
Matt (01:05):
are good and evil.
Chris (01:06):
I've heard that evil right is the absence of good.
Okay, I mean, if that soundsfamiliar to me, I can't remember
where I heard that exactly.
Angelo (01:14):
It's probably something out of Christianity, most likely
.
I've heard something similar,most likely.
Um, I've heard somethingsimilar.
I want to say good hasnecessarily has to do with
action, so good is often what weought to do, and evil is
(01:40):
intending to do the opposite ofthat.
I would say evil is the trickyone because it's not necessarily
something that's just wrong.
It's something that has to beintended to be wrong.
So I wouldn't classifysomething that causes suffering
(02:01):
as evil.
So like a tornado tornadocauses a lot of damage, it
wreaks havoc, causes a lot ofsuffering, but tornadoes aren't
evil because they have nointention to harm it's um.
Chris (02:17):
It's a natural phenomenon , right, even if it does all
that damage and causes all thatsuffering, it's a natural thing
acting of its own right that's.
Matt (02:26):
I think you're touching on something as well in terms of
human motivation, like in termsof something that's it's good,
we could say is well ordered andwell intended, we could say
well executed, intelligent, allof these right qualities.
Angelo (02:46):
Right.
Matt (02:46):
And then on the flip side of that is say, like the
unconscious, the unconsciouscoming out, like, say, when
someone is very angry andspilling out their anger on all
kinds of other people, wouldthat person consciously choose
to be angered versus a higher,better motivation if they could?
(03:11):
Right, because if you have thatanger and it's coming through
you, you're just like you know,it's like you're being overtaken
by some possessed by somethingthat then comes out on on other
people
Angelo (03:27):
yeah, that's fair.
You don't have controls of someof your impulses, so I guess
that calls into the question.
Perhaps there's a degree ofgood and evil,
Matt (03:38):
oh, most definitely
Angelo (03:39):
perhaps, however much moral responsibility you could
attribute to a certain action,that determines how good or evil
that action actually is and interms of degrees, say we have
(04:00):
two ways of talking about good.
Matt (04:03):
We have the morally good, have two ways of talking about
good, like we have the morallygood, and then we have something
that is good as in well-orderedor considered like, if you are,
if you have these two clans andone of them and both of them
are attacking each other and saythis one is able to take down a
lot of warriors on this sideand ends up producing a lot of
(04:25):
more resources and things likethat, more leverage for them,
you could say that that isrelatively good, although it's
not morally good although it'snot morally right to be
destroying all these otherpeople.
Right so say if both of themwere to work together towards a
greater aim like they were ableto, to team up and find a way to
(04:49):
produce even more resources,create even greater flourish
together, wouldn't that be evenbetter than the relative good of
attacking each other andmeasuring?
Chris (05:00):
in this, um, it's kind of zero-sum game between each
other are you kind of sayingthat, something like the nazis
were good soldiers but they weregood like not.
They were evil, an evil army ofpeople.
Matt (05:18):
Yeah right, yeah, like good, like good.
That's a great way, that's agreat example, like great in
their capacity for what they'redoing, like well executed in the
way in what they're doing,while being morally
reprehensible right, right.
Angelo (05:35):
So there's levels to it.
Yeah, so that you can be good,complex, good in the immediate,
bad for a larger group of people, which also calls into question
at what level does moralitycount?
Almost, you know, we criticizethe Nazis for their evil because
(05:57):
they committed a genocide, sothat's on the level of like a
national atrocity or aninternational atrocity.
A national atrocity or aninternational atrocity, so the
level of being a good soldier iskind of a more localized, so
you could almost say the largerof the group that you're
affecting, perhaps the more goodof the, the action or evil the
(06:22):
action can be.
Perhaps that's a tough one.
Chris (06:27):
So is it just a numbers game then?
Right, that's kind of whatyou're purporting.
So if, whatever, if I move myhand and there's like a
butterfly effect across thataffects hundreds of thousands of
people, right, but it's thataction way more.
Angelo (06:46):
But it would have to be intentional too, right?
You would have to consciously.
Oh, okay, right, because if youaccidentally do something and
it kills a bunch of people, Ithink people are less likely to
hold you morally responsible.
They might still be like hey,you did something, you messed up
, but you didn't intend to dothat, so they'd forget.
(07:07):
Be a little more forgiving thanif you intended to hurt a lot
of people.
Chris (07:11):
Well, we do charge people with involuntary manslaughter
right, right, I think.
Angelo (07:18):
I think the reason that that counts is because you
should be, you should take acertain amount of care in your
actions so you would also chargesomeone for neglecting their
child.
There's a degree to which youare responsible for your actions
, and so, even if you un, anunintentional consequence
(07:41):
happened, you, if you'reresponsible for making sure
those things don't happenalready, then you're held more
accountable than you know.
If it wasn't your child and youdidn't even know about them,
and then Right.
Chris (07:58):
I know that sounds like a tough situation.
Angelo (08:01):
Got to come up with a better analogy.
Matt (08:03):
But now we get to accountability, like there's the
intention and then there iswhat came out of it Right.
And when you recognize that,then there's the capacity for
adjustment Because, say, youerred on this side accidentally.
But then being able to torecognize that and to own that
(08:28):
and not to just say, oh, youknow, making, making excuses,
and say like, oh, I didn't know.
Therefore, you know, just sweepit under the rug, you know,
because what does that do?
That?
Just well, writes it off asthat was all right.
And so then what stops you frommaking that happen again?
Angelo (08:50):
right.
Matt (08:50):
Right.
Because, then you just repeatthe same exact cycle.
But then when you own that,when you have that
accountability, you can, you canadjust and you can create
greater action in the future.
Angelo (09:06):
Yeah, I think if you pay attention to a lot of uh the
legal system and the defensecases that you see for people
who do atrocious things, a lotof the defenses are trying to
take accountability and onus offof the uh the perpetrator right
.
So, for instance, you mightplead insanity.
(09:29):
Well, insanity means that youweren't in your right mind and
you clearly didn't have enoughcontrol or awareness of the
situation to truly understandwhat you were doing.
Chris (09:42):
So the intention is kind of taken out of the equation, so
you didn't have good orderedcognizance if you're insane,
right but if you don't have thatright, good order does not mean
you mean you had bad order, Imean you know, it's different
(10:04):
when you're right talking aboutinsanity during a case, but Well
, I think we also need to becareful when using the word good
, because good isn't alwaysnecessarily the opposite of evil
.
Angelo (10:16):
when you use it in that sense, good can just mean good
versus bad, like you know, canhave a poor judgment versus good
judgment.
Good just means you're um, it'sa qualitative, qualitative
element, element, yeah, so um.
(10:36):
I think that's where thesemantics of it gets a little
tricky.
But Good in a moral sense is alittle bit different.
Matt (10:47):
Well, that'd be like noble , Like nobility Right, like
morally ordered Mm-hmm Right.
Chris (10:55):
Well, we think so In the right path.
So Well, when you think aboutnobility, how would you define
that?
I mean just because, yeah, takeus through that.
You think about nobility, howwould you define that?
I mean just cuz, yeah, take usthrough that like nobility yeah,
well, well, and I would alsopair that with integrity.
Matt (11:14):
Right, so you are your, your words, your thoughts and
your actions directed towardsmoral good.
Right, where, when we say good,like we've shown we can go in
all these different directions.
You could be good in yourcapacity of doing a morally
reprehensible thing.
(11:34):
Then you're.
It's like you know, doing doingyour job that's not exactly
ethical, doing that in a waythat is effective but not
morally right.
You're not looking out forother people.
Actually, there's a verse inthe Bible that really speaks to
(11:55):
this.
I think it's Matthew 6, 22.
It's the eye is the light of thebody, and when that eye is
light, then your whole body isfilled with light, but if that
eye is darkness, then how greatthat darkness is.
Now that's that's, that's acompass and that's also a
(12:17):
warning.
It's like if you, you knowyou're filling yourself with
what is good, then, like all thethings that your eye shines
upon, you can make good rightthe world around you, the good
shines through you, right.
But if you have that darkness,and that darkness is consuming
(12:40):
you and pouring through all ofyour actions, then that's the
lens through which you're goingto see the world, that's the
lens through which you're goingto affect the world, right?
So?
So the quality of your soul andthe quality of your, your eye
determining the impact that youhave on the world, whether
that's positive or or negative
Chris (13:02):
right and that's just not just like a
state of being in the here andnow.
I think that's over time, right,that's, that's your
oh yeah
The way I see it, because I had that, um, well, matt, I
shared with you a few weeks ago,I had that vision of the toroid
emerging from the human spiritand I kind of had this.
(13:27):
I analyzed what that meant forme and how, like, once you know,
it was like my time compoundingin on itself.
Compounding in on itself in oneside represented all of the
(13:47):
time that I spent orientedtowards the good and the other
half, you know, whatever amountof time I'd spent oriented
towards the evil, um, and thatwas kind of like the final
judgment of my own soul, likekind of what it looked like in
terms of a diagram, um,interesting, but I do agree,
like you know you, you can'tshine, you can't let that
(14:09):
goodness shine out from you,unless you spend time oriented
towards it.
You know, and since we'rephilosophy, spirituality podcast
, I would say, like looking atgood things, like jonathan
peggio and the christian iconsof jesus, mary and the saints,
or spending time in prayer,that's really important to
(14:32):
orient yourself, to take time toorient yourself.
Matt (14:34):
That way then you can take that orientation out into the
world right, you know, I foundthis, this, really fascinating
too, in terms of different, um,like different religions, by the
way, thank you.
Thank you again for sharingthat, the vision that you have,
tori, that's amazing.
Um the self, the, theself-awareness of different
(14:58):
faiths.
Over time, it might be morespecific.
Like like with christianity, wehad the crusades right we can
all look back at that and say,hopefully, hopefully, all of us
can say, well, probably goingaround and killing people who
weren't christian may not havebeen the best thing, may not
have been the best approach,even though the intention of
(15:22):
christianity, the good, thegood-naturedness that we hold at
the center of christianity, weknow as good right now.
I would also look at, you know,like norse religion.
Look at it's a, it's verycomplex, like if you look, if
you look back, if you look backat like all of the, the lore,
(15:44):
there's a lot of stuff that isin there that's like not, it's
kind of morally reprehensible aswell, you know.
But if you talk to people todaywho celebrate that and hold
that, you know, like I do, wecan look, we can, we can look
back at and see what is valuablethere, like what is relevant
(16:05):
now, what endures over timethat's good right.
So there's that self-awareness,right, being able to look at
that and be like, hey, you knowwhat, being able to look at that
and be like, hey, you know what, we don't have to buy into a
thing just because it waswritten down by all these people
(16:30):
a long, long time ago and justhold tradition just for its own
sake.
We can look at it and say,really, what's the straight dope
, like what was valuable therethat we can still hold on to
well, discarding what is notreally relevant or is morally
reprehensible I really like thisnotion of uh carrying this
(16:53):
through time and uh learningthings through tradition.
Angelo (16:57):
um, I think, uh, it calls into question this idea of
objective versus subjectivemorals, where, if you're not
basing your morals on this sortof collective democratic process
and we're all just subjectivelykind of coming up with these
(17:18):
things arbitrarily, what is thesource of goodness, what is the
source of where this idea ofwhat we ought to do coming from?
I think a good place to startis to think about the idea of
(17:40):
what's passed on throughcultures and how you can almost
take a moral outlook from oneculture and then compare it to
another, and when they unite,you throw some things out, some
things are kept over time andit's sort of distilled, and then
(18:04):
you do that with anotherculture and you do that with
another culture and over time,um, you kind of through trial
and error, get a sense that, um,some objective morality is
(18:29):
based on this distilling processacross time.
Um, that's just one idea thatI've had.
Chris (18:37):
I know, jeez, I mean you know, I mean humanity has come a
long way, I mean right.
So we're on this virtualpodcast right now where we have
these recording devices, cameraand mic, and we're talking about
these heavy ideas that havethousands of years of history
behind them, like the idea ofthe good, the idea of the evil,
(18:58):
ethics, um, the soul, right.
We wouldn't have a concept ofthe soul right now if it weren't
for, um, the ancient egyptians,right, doing their death
rituals and mummifying theirpharaohs and their kings, and
and um, I mean, we're stilldoing that and hopefully, you
know, doing this, as wecollectively do things like this
(19:19):
together, we can continue thatprocess and hopefully it
continues after our death too.
It's just I, you know, we justwonder where it's all kind of
going.
Matt (19:31):
Right.
Chris (19:32):
Cause we're constantly distilling and recreating.
Angelo (19:36):
Yeah, like this idea of the soul.
The soul is the part of youthat's that moves you, the
invisible breath, so to speak.
It's also in Greek psuche,which is the root word for
psyche.
It's the part of you.
I like to think of it as thepart of you that chooses, the
part of you that expresses ontothe world, expresses onto the
(20:07):
world and um.
I always, like, am fascinatedby the notion that the soul
lives on after the body dies.
It's, uh, interesting to thinkabout where that comes from.
Why do we think this part of usthat chooses and and um does
things in the world?
Why does it?
In what sense does it remainactive?
(20:29):
if it has nothing to expressthrough.
Chris (20:34):
Okay, so in what way does the soul remain active in our
reality?
Angelo (20:39):
Our present is probably what I meant the soul living on
after the body dies.
Chris (20:47):
okay, so I think you know I, I mean, I brought this up
with you guys in the past, but,um, just to offer my own
definition of what the soul is,that the soul is the element
within us that encapsulates theeternity of our immaterial being
(21:08):
.
So like, there's right, thematerial world.
But the soul is immaterial andonce you pass on it enters into
an eternal state.
Like we're not in an eternalstate now, we're experiencing
the past and the present and thefuture in a certain way,
presently, here and now.
(21:29):
But once you die, that sense ofpast, present and future ends
and it enters into the eternalstate it's a tough one to mull
over.
Angelo (21:42):
I mean, thomas aquinas would say the soul doesn't
really make sense without a body, his notion of the soul even.
Um, plants have souls, animalshave souls oh right.
Well, um, and it's just, to whatdegree do you have this?
This part of it's almost likeplatonic.
In a sense, the soul is a form,like Plato's forms.
(22:05):
So for those of you who aren'ttoo familiar with Plato, so
Plato has this idea that thereare these things called forms
that are sort of the highestideal of and purpose of what
something ought to be.
So take a circle, for instance.
(22:27):
A circle has a form and there'sa.
It's this idea of this perfectcircle, and every circle in our
reality isn't perfect, but itascribes to be that form, and
the closer it gets to thishigher ideal, the more of a
circle it actually is.
So you can say like somethingthat's a little more squashed,
(22:50):
it's not a perfect circle, it'sstarting to lean away from being
a circle, and so Thomas Aquinaswould say that's kind of what
the soul is.
The soul is the part of you thatyou're ascribing your perfect,
ideal self right.
It's the part of you thatyou're ascribing to be your best
purposeful ideal.
(23:13):
You know what is a man?
Well, a man is like a rationalbeing.
So the what's the man supposedto be?
What ought a man to be?
Man ought to encompass thefullness of his rationality and
his, the fullness of his body,the fullness of being able to
(23:35):
think and create and haverelationships and love.
All of that is sort of thissoul or form of the man, and
every man is striving to be thatyou know it's, it's on, it's
(23:55):
like.
Matt (23:55):
I love thinking about the meaning of words well, I know we
all we do.
But the word incorporate, ohyeah, corpus, the corpus, the
body, right.
So we have the potential andthe soul's desire to know itself
, to know its full self, right?
(24:16):
So then it comes into the bodyand goes through this process.
We go through the process ofliving and experiencing and
bouncing around between allthese experiences, and sometimes
we don't know the point of them.
But then we take this thingfrom over here and bring it over
here and we have to go throughthis process of dimensionalizing
(24:38):
ourselves.
So we start off from this barezero.
You know, you're a baby, youdon't know anything.
You know, all you have is thisawareness and intuition and
curiosity, and you're brand newto the world.
Right, and as you're goingthrough and you have this
(24:58):
unfolding and you're, you'retesting things, yeah, you're
testing things and you'regrowing, you're going through
and you have this unfolding andyou're, you're testing things.
Yeah, you're testing things.
Angelo (25:04):
You're growing, you're, you're evolving those little
kids are picking things up andputting them down and picking
them up and putting them downyeah, like watch a movie over
and over and over like the samemovie, yeah it's like learning
rounding yourself out you know,dimensionalizing yourself in all
of these different ways so thatthe soul inside of you can know
(25:25):
its true self through livingthat's really good.
Chris (25:29):
I like that and I loved your process of dimensionalizing
.
That was good.
Angelo (25:37):
I've got another word for you remember when you
remember something like your armis a member and you have to
read.
I've got another word for you.
What's?
Chris (25:43):
that Remember.
When you remember something,yes, you're taking it in Like
your arm is a member and youhave to read oh yeah, You're
making it a part of yourself.
Matt (25:47):
How often?
Yeah, no, that's great.
How often has this happenedwith you, where we all like to
listen to different podcasts,different speakers, and when
they say something, it's lesslike you're learning it for the
first time and more likesomething that you already know,
that that person just broughtinto awareness, something that
(26:08):
could be deep in yoursubconscious, that that person
just brought up to the forefront.
Angelo (26:12):
Yeah, it's almost like you knew it the whole time and
something about the way theyformulated it.
Matt (26:16):
You're like oh my God.
Yeah, you're like, that's right.
Angelo (26:19):
Insight, insight, insight, which is another fun
word, insight, yes.
Matt (26:27):
Yes, it is.
Chris (26:28):
Yeah, so many fun words, antediluvian, I don't know what
that one's at all.
Matt (26:35):
Plus did not want that one .
Now you gotta.
I don't know what that one's atall.
Plus did that one have on it.
Now you've got to.
Chris (26:38):
It's a fancy word that means something really old.
Whoa, that's a fun one, yeah.
Angelo (26:48):
So I guess, back on the topic of good and evil, we had a
podcast before where we weretalking a little bit about
beauty, and goodness is one ofthe three transcendental values
between truth, beauty andgoodness, I like, and we also
talked about the power of threeand I like to attribute those
(27:11):
three transcendental values tothe domains of uh, being,
knowing and doing, being beassociated with beauty knowing
being associated with truth anddoing being associated with
goodness and action.
Matt (27:28):
Okay, being doing doing so , yeah, so they're all.
Angelo (27:34):
They're all in a sense sorry, they're all in a sense
interrelated right.
So the truth is good to knowand the truth is beautiful
beauty.
There's a truth to it and it'salso good, and goodness is true
and beautiful and they roundeach other out through
(27:55):
relationship with each other.
Matt (27:56):
so this is a question I wanted to bring up with you guys
, since we're talking about goodand evil, Like what do we do
when people don't play by therules?
Chris (28:08):
Put a head on them.
Matt (28:09):
Right, put a head on them.
But so to the example from thelast podcast we kind of touched
on this a bit where you have theguy in the show who had the
evil guy at his throat with thesword.
He spared him, he turned around, he dropped the sword and then
(28:31):
he gets stabbed in the back.
He gets stabbed in the back.
So the guy who was morally gooddid the maybe not smart thing
to do and ended up paying for it.
Now he can't live anymore.
Chris (28:45):
Now he can't do any more.
Matt (28:46):
Good, he got stabbed in the back because he was he did
the right thing right because hedid the right thing.
So what do you do?
So they have to be able tobalance each other out so that
the evil is brought intoequilibrium.
Right, there has to be learning, there, there has to be like
what's the place of justice andjudgment that brings goodness
(29:10):
and equilibrium.
That's the intelligent thing todo.
Chris (29:15):
So I live in a paradigm right that says I have to do the
right thing, um, even if thatmeans I get stabbed in the back
because I am not the equalizer,I am not the one who dishes out
justice, you're not the judgeand, and you know, I can dish
out mercy accordingly, likehuman to human, but not true
(29:38):
justice, not the beautifuleternal justice I do think there
is a balance there too betweenjustice and mercy.
Angelo (29:46):
Yes, the christian is called to forgive.
So and turn the other cheekyou're supposed to when you get
stabbed in the back, not justforget about it and just say, oh
yeah, stab me as much as youwant, but you're not supposed to
hold it against them.
Chris (30:05):
You're, you're supposed to move forward you, you need to
learn to right.
So like oh, you stabbed me inthe back.
Maybe I survived that, maybe Idon't, who knows.
If I do, I can come back andsay can't let you do that again.
Yeah, can't let you do that toanyone I love either.
Matt (30:22):
Right, that's right.
You gotta have that.
You gotta have that capacityfor fierceness, right, right,
even if you're not just goingaround swinging your sword at
every single person just out ofpossessed aggression towards
others.
It's a controlled capacity foraggression.
Angelo (30:44):
In the, our Father, you say forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespassagainst us.
I think that tells you a lotabout Christ's message, about
how we're called to forgiveothers, not just for our own
(31:05):
sake and our own paradigm, butalso how can you expect to be
forgiven for your ownmistreatment if you can't even
do the same for your brother oryour enemy?
So there's a lot of wisdompacked in there, I think, but
it's probably the hardest thingto do because your sense of
(31:28):
justice wants to take over.
You want to say, hey, I've beenwronged, where's my comeuppance
?
Chris (31:42):
wronged.
Where's my comeuppance?
You know so we've said on thepodcast before right you, you're
um.
What, how's it go?
Your branches cannot reach upinto heaven unless your roots go
down to hell, into hell.
It's young right yes, yeah, um.
Yes, yeah, I would say, you know, for better or worse, right,
I've had some really darkexperiences and it is really
(32:05):
sobering when I look at someoneelse you know who I feel is
wrong to me in some way and Iget that sense like, oh, I need
justice for this thing that wasdone to me was wrong to me in
some way, and I get that senselike, oh, I need justice for
this thing that was done to me.
But it's extremely sobering totake a second and be like you
know what?
I haven't done so many goodthings before.
In fact, I've done some prettyterrible things behind certain
(32:30):
people's backs and I should keepthat in mind, you know, lest
that double sided sword startswinging the other way.
Well, it's a double-sided swordof justice well it's.
Matt (32:45):
It's interesting like I'm gonna go in another dimension,
dimensionalize this.
Chris (32:50):
Yeah, like when dimensionalize the heck out of
us living heck out of us.
Matt (32:58):
So so in the on the subject of magic, right, you
have different types of magicand specifically talk about like
black magic, like if you, ifsomeone is like trying to cast a
spell on somebody and do harmto that person, there is like
what you do to that person thencan end up coming back to you,
(33:19):
oh, right like it's karmic sortof thing exactly right.
So like, if you're trying toput a hex on this other person
or whatever, then you, you knowthere's, there's a duplicity to
that.
Maybe that maybe your main,maybe not that's the right word,
but like a reflectionreflection, yeah reflection yeah
(33:43):
, a good karmic reciprocationyeah, that's a good word, right,
but if we're thinking to themotivations behind someone doing
evil to someone else, like what, what is it that is lacking in
that person that has caused somerot within them that if there
(34:07):
were flourish there then thatwouldn't exist and in fact, that
would transmute that into good.
So then if you're doingsomething good to that, like you
know, have you ever noticedthis where you could have
someone coming at you in anaggressive way or they're, you
know they may be very angry andthey're just spewing stuff off
(34:28):
or whatever, and you end up youtreat them with class and
kindness and good regard.
It's kind of disarming, becausethen it's like the fight
doesn't exist, there's no rightyou know it's like why?
why are you trying to fight mewhen I'm trying to do good for
you?
You know why are you trying tofight me when I'm trying to?
You know I'm, it's actually toyour benefit to befriend me.
(34:52):
Sometimes you learn that as akid, right?
Angelo (34:55):
Uh-huh, you get bullied on the playground and then the
bully is disarmed.
Matt (35:03):
When the kid kind of does something nice for them or
doesn't react negatively totheir bullying, they're kind of
like this isn't working the wayI want it to and it elevates you
above that zero sum game too,because then the whole thing,
(35:23):
and for you know, for peoplewatching the zero sum, is the
idea um, it's a thing calledgame theory, where say, the idea
is, if I do something, ifsomething good happens to you,
then that is bad for me, or ifsomething good happens for me,
then that's bad for you, andit's you know you end up in this
.
Angelo (35:43):
Nobody wins.
Matt (35:44):
Yeah, I mean, there are certain games that are like
chess there can only be onewinner of a chess game, right?
But I would dare say that mostgames are collaborative games,
right?
So it actually ends up workingout better for you to work
together towards something sothat's I think, that that can.
(36:07):
Maybe, maybe that's a lot of it.
The differentiation betweengood and evil is, in terms of
evil, everything is a zero-sumgame there was this with good,
you have the capacity forcollaboration right and so then,
oh my god, maybe that, oh, wow,maybe that is the conflict
(36:29):
right there, maybe that's somuch of the conflict.
Right is for this side.
Everything is competitive forthis side.
Everything is competitive Forthis side.
You can see collaboration.
But in the conflict, you end upgetting caught up in this
zero-sum game by default.
Angelo (36:49):
Well have you heard of.
I think it's called the Parableof the Long Spoons.
Have you heard of that?
Matt (36:57):
Oh, I think you've mentioned it one time.
Oh yeah, Probably mentioned iton one of our former podcasts
I've definitely heard this fromyour voice before.
Chris (37:05):
Absolutely, and I remember I was weirded out by it
.
Angelo (37:08):
Yeah, if you didn't hear one of our last podcasts.
Basically, there's a circle ofa bunch of people and they all
have long spoons.
And there's a circle of a bunchof people and they all have
long spoons and there's a bigchasm in the center and then a
tiny pillar with a bowl of foodand their spoon.
If you they reach in and try tograb some of the food, they
(37:31):
can't feed themselves becausethe spoon is too long, but they
could reach in and feed someoneelse.
And so the idea is, if they canall work together and cooperate
, everybody can eat.
But if even one of them startsfighting, there's a chance that
nobody gets to eat.
(37:51):
There's just too much chaos and, yeah, maybe someone knocks the
bowl over game over, yeah, soit's a.
Matt (38:01):
It's a parable about cooperation yeah, well, and then
through the problems, you cansee where, where you may need a
solution to right.
So, and there there's thesilver lining of issues actually
existing, because then you know, going back to the bumping your
(38:22):
head against all theseexperiences in life, now that
you've encountered that, now youcan conceive of a way to
approach it in the future.
You can even teach that way toothers so they can say you know,
hey, have you ever dealt withthis?
This is what I did, this iswhat my friends did that helped
us to get past this.
Angelo (38:41):
And then there you go there was this website from a
long time ago that I went to.
It had like a little game on it.
It was a game where you had twocharacters walking up to this
machine and they would both haveto put a coin in and you would
(39:03):
get to choose whether you put ablue coin or a red coin in.
If they both put blue coins in,they both got two coins out.
But if one of them put a blueand one of them put a red, the
blue one would miss out and thered one would get two coins, and
(39:24):
if they both put in red coins,then they both lost.
So it was kind of a test onmorality where you would play
with you know, the computer orsomebody else and you would both
.
If you both could justcooperate, you would both make a
(39:46):
bunch of money.
But if one of you puts in a redcoin, even once the trust is
broken and then you're bothlosing money or trying to see if
you can get the other person tolose money or something, and it
depends on the temperament ofthe people you play with.
So it's kind of a game in trust.
Now, the rules of the game werenever stated that you had to
(40:11):
out-compete the other people.
The idea is you can make asmany points as you want and
everybody can get all the pointsif you just cooperate.
But if one person makes itcompetitive and tries to get
more out of the other people,the game breaks down it's like
(40:31):
what I was also think of is thechinese finger cuffs, like what
happens?
Matt (40:37):
you get both your fingers in there and you try and pull it
apart, you know, and what, aswe all know, happens?
You're stuck, you know.
But if you release the tensionright, then it can loosen up and
(40:58):
then with that you can removeit, you can remove both your
fingers from it.
Chris (41:02):
I liked your.
Spirituality is a collaborativegame, I think.
Okay, so back to your exampleof the Hex caster, the black
magic user.
Right, we want our spiritualityto be away from that.
Right, so we want ourspirituality to be good, true,
(41:28):
beautiful.
So we could say that trinityright, that's the holy trinity
of things.
So we could say thatTrinitarian spirituality is a
collaborative game, and Iwouldn't give honor to the
darkness by giving it such agood name like that.
So I would say, like, darkspirituality is a zero-sum game.
(41:52):
Yeah, you know, the whole thingactually kind of reminds me,
and I forgot where I read it.
Maybe it was Theology forBeginners by Frank Sheed, I
don't really, but he saidsomething like material
possessions divide when they'reright, divided amongst other
(42:16):
people, but Spiritual gifts andgraces they multiply as they're
shared with others.
Angelo (42:28):
I mean, if you think about it, going back to the idea
of beauty, truth and goodness,it all seems that there are
things that we collectivelyorient around.
So when you pursue truth, forinstance, truth is like the
ultimate goal of epistemologyright it's?
We're all aiming to know thetruth and ideally you're never
(42:53):
going to individually knoweverything.
But if everyone is orientedtowards truth, they're all going
to be on the same page andmoving towards, um, the best
thing that they can be movingtowards epistemologically right.
If they're oriented away fromtruth, it becomes diabolical.
(43:14):
Diabolical means to break apart, it means they're all going to
individually have their ownideas.
They're all going to beseparated, they're all going to
decay and and it's the same forbeauty and it's the same for
goodness.
So, beauty, we are all orientedin, towards this sense of uh.
(43:38):
I like to link beauty with life.
We're all oriented towards ahigher order and higher um being
um, higher, higher living.
We're all trying to uh,ontologically be, be closer to,
to living our best life and uh,goodness is action, right.
(44:02):
So we're all trying to do theright thing.
If we're all oriented towardsgoodness and helping each other,
it's collective yeah okay,you're oriented away from
goodness.
It's diabolical.
You're going to break apart.
You're going to have your thisis my moral sense versus your
(44:22):
moral sense, and there is no, uh, homogeny.
Yeah, what do you think aboutthat?
Matt (44:35):
so I think that's a lot of information so it's being able
to being able to see the goodwithin people.
I want, I want to go even deepera statement earlier about doing
a good thing for someone who'sbeing aggressive.
When, when you're able torecognize what is treasured
(44:58):
within somebody and say, whenyou're evil and you're
aggressive and you're, you'recallous and like you feel like
no one has seen the true me, noone has seen the true values
than myself, no one is shining alight on that.
And then you come along and yousee that you see the good
within that person, you see thatthat person has inherent worth
(45:21):
with them.
And even going back to thearchetype conversation, where
that's, this sovereign, is likeyour true essence, that's,
that's like your true self,where you hold the truest best
intentions, your greatest wisheswithin yourself.
(45:42):
And you come along and youshine a light on that Right.
You say I see, you see thatlike there's you know this word
that Is flung around andspirituality, but it's actually
very deep the word namaste.
What that actually means isthat I see the light inside of
you.
You know Like I see that, likeI look, and I see the light
(46:04):
inside of you.
You know Like I see that, likeI look and.
I see the inner you Right Iswhat that actually means.
So it's actually very deep.
When you say that, you shouldsay that with intention, you
should say that when youactually mean it and that person
can tell that you regard thevirtue, you regard the essence
(46:26):
within that person.
Chris (46:28):
I think that's great.
I also think that's a reallydifficult thing to do, yeah,
unless you are well-versed inorienting yourself towards the
good, like we spoke of in thebeginning.
Sure, yeah, the good like wespoke of in the beginning, sure
you know?
So, gosh, make sure you'repracticing good orientation uh,
you know, towards the good, thetrue and the beautiful yeah oh
(46:51):
now work hand in hand, right?
Angelo (46:52):
so you, in order to be able to do good, you have to
understand how to do good.
So you got to know the truthand then, yeah, you gotta, you
gotta be alive to be able to doany of those things, so you
gotta orient yourself in in alldimensions of course, yeah, and
here's.
Matt (47:11):
I love thinking about the origin of villains, like in, you
know, in some stories we get weget to see how that person
became who they became, and itpretty much always starts from a
place of innocence.
That person started out, as youknow, as pure and blameless and
(47:40):
then something atrocioushappened to them and they
weren't able to process it andit carried with them.
And then they take that, theytake that, they take that wound
and they push that out as painonto other people.
Right, and there's I love um,what's this video?
This this guy pointed this outthis really profound, like they,
the difference between the thevillain path and the hero path,
(48:03):
being at the intersection ofwhat you do in those moments of
pain.
Right, because you could takethat pain and you could say,
like this happened to me and I'mgoing to take this pain and
push it out and make it otherpeople's problem.
Right, then that's uncontrolledaggression.
That's you taking this eternalwound within your Well, you're
(48:26):
self-perpetuating that woundright, and pushing it out onto
other people.
Or you can say that thishappened to me and you process
it and you say I don't want thisto happen to others, if I can
help it Because I know what it'slike.
You know, like people end upbecoming addiction counselors.
More often than not have gonethrough that themselves, they've
(48:52):
gone through right themselvesand been able to come out on the
other side, and you can thenspeak to that person who's going
through that same experience,because you yourself has passed
through.
Angelo (49:04):
Yeah, I think that speaks to the idea that you can
transform something negative orevil in the past into something
positive.
So someone who's been a drugaddict, that was a horrible time
in their life and probably whenthey were in the thick of it
they didn't know how to makesense of it and they struggled.
Once they made it through, theyknow the way through and they
(49:26):
can pull someone else out ofthat or at least help them and
in a way that someone who'snever been through that could
ever understand.
And so that's, that's, uh, thebeauty of, uh, the beauty of the
, the fallen world, I guess, ishow I would put it and and
(49:48):
looking at the different shadows, like going back again to the,
the archetypes, where you havethe inflated and the deflated.
Matt (49:56):
Sometimes it's good to listen to what those voices have
to say, just so you can get asense of what they sound like.
So when you encounter someonewho is in one of those polls you
can say I've heard that voicebefore inside of me.
Angelo (50:10):
True Right.
Matt (50:10):
You don't have to embody that voice, but you can at least
know what it sounds like.
You can at least know how tospeak to it, because you've
spoken to it yourself and beingable to find that center within
yourself.
Angelo (50:24):
I think it's good to maybe touch on this problem of
evil.
A lot of people fall away fromtheir belief in God because of
the problem of evil.
They say how can a good andloving God allow so much of this
evil stuff to happen, so muchof this evil stuff to happen?
(50:48):
And I think you know, nobodyreally has um the answer.
But I think a good response tothat idea is this notion of
perhaps the evil in this worldis opportunity.
Perhaps when you see someoneelse suffering, or you yourself
have been through suffering,that can be used to bring people
up and bring people closer togoodness.
You know, an innocent childdies, their family is suffering.
(51:13):
What is the response from thecommunity in that situation
where?
Where where's the goodness andthe hope that comes out of that?
And that's what've got to payattention to.
There's a lot of tragedieshappening.
You know hurricanes and warsand things like that, but if you
pay attention, there's alwaysgoodness and light shining
(51:35):
through each of those situations.
Matt (51:37):
I was so hoping we would get to this question as well.
Get to this question as welland so we have these.
So we have the, the poles ofwhat is good and what is evil,
and we have duality in thisworld, where we're in the middle
and we think of this world as aspectrum of possibility, a
spectrum of things happeningright, but there's, but there's
(52:00):
an order to it.
There's a, a direction, there'sa, there is a higher and a
lower.
There's a, there's an order toit, there's a direction, there
is a higher and a lower, there'sa dark and a light, and we can
choose to go through thoseexperiences and move towards
ascending towards the good,while having an awareness and
(52:22):
having our having our roots inthe you know, knowing of the
fallen world.
Right, we can, we can choosewhich one of those that we want
to feed into.
We can choose which one of the,you know, which one of those we
want to, we want to movetowards.
(52:42):
Yeah, well, there, there's atension there and I think
there's going to be a tensionthere.
Chris (52:45):
Choose which one of the.
You know which one of those wewant to, we want to move towards
.
Yeah Well, there's a tensionthere and I think there's going
to be a tension there presently,right for all of us in this
time and space, and that tensionis going to be there till our
last breath, whenever that'sgoing to be.
But there's always a callupwards and there's a call
downwards.
And I've've noticed, and I hadthis thought fairly recently,
(53:06):
when I was, let's say, engagingwith the darkness right, that
was like falling.
That was fairly easy.
I could just fall from oneplace to the next and it was, it
was easy um answering that calluh to to transcendent goodness.
That's more like climbing amountain, you know, um
(53:31):
interesting, and sometimes it'sit's it's really difficult,
sometimes it's just a nice hike,but it's it's an effort, nice
hike this is good this is, thisis so easy, it's good.
Yeah, sometimes, like you know,hey, there you go, it can't all
be.
Angelo (53:47):
Uh, no, I totally agree and I like your use of the
analogy of the mountain yeahthat's a common theme in.
Matt (53:53):
Uh, yeah, in symbolic representation of journey yeah,
and our, our perception ofexperiences like this too,
because, say, say, you're in asituation where this person, say
, outclasses you in a lot ofways, or they're just upskilled
in a lot of ways and you have torise up to meet that right Now.
(54:18):
on one hand, you can feel like,oh, you know, I feel put under
by this person and like, oh, Ijust can't sit, whatever.
But the benefit of that is youhave a model of a higher
standard In your immediate sensethat you can learn from, you
can reach up and you can pullyour damn self upward To meet
(54:39):
the standard of that person.
Right, if they're generous,they could even be trying to
teach you.
Angelo (54:45):
Yeah, be a mentor.
Matt (54:47):
They could be teaching harshly perhaps, or come off as
harsh, but you know they couldbe trying to make you aware too,
because really it's just idealif you have two people who are
very upskilled and very, youknow, very competent and good at
things, that are operating intandem together.
And there's disjointedness whenyou're you know, when you, when
(55:11):
you're like trying, you'retrying to come up at you and
you're just getting, you knowyou're trying to meet this
person but you you seem to befailing, but you're learning,
you're bumping your head againstmistakes and all those kind of
things, but you know you stillkind of keep that true north of
upward ascension right, but thenthat person has to have the
(55:35):
empathy that you are on thatjourney of upward ascension, you
know.
So there can be that.
Know you have to have at leastan alignment of intentions and
values so that you know you can.
Angelo (55:50):
Right.
Matt (55:50):
We got to have a framework first.
Angelo (55:53):
You got to have a framework in order to even
recognize that that person isupward from you, or else what
wears up.
Chris (56:01):
Exactly Right.
Angelo (56:03):
So, and that's the truth , right, the great magnetic pole
that your compass is aligned to, that's right, gotta have a
compass, gotta have a direction.
Chris (56:26):
So how about cause?
Since we set out to define whatgoodness was at the beginning
of the podcast, we could try.
Goodness is the eternal patternof transcendent moral ascension
.
Transcendent moral ascension.
Angelo (56:45):
Transcendent moral, ascension, hmm.
Matt (56:50):
Hmm, like good.
Like good in the face of thecircumstances around you.
When you hear transcendent, Ithink in not necessarily in
spite of, but, but regardless ofthe circumstances around you
that your compass, that yourorientation is good yes, it
(57:17):
reminds me of um a line from theancient one from dr strange
Strange, where she says we nevertruly leave our demons behind
us.
Angelo (57:34):
We only learn to live above them.
Alright, well, I think our timeis just about wrapping up.
Yeah, that was good.
That was a good podcast.
That was really good, reallygood.
Chris (57:48):
That was like the best good, the goodest good, the
goodest good.
Angelo (57:54):
The good the true and the beautiful.
Matt (57:56):
Now we've just Thank you, we've just descended into cheap
humor.
As we do, as we do, we're sogood at it.
Chris (58:01):
It had to Chip Pumer.
Angelo (58:02):
As we do.
Chris (58:02):
As we do.
Angelo (58:03):
We're so good at it.
It had to come out sometime Allright guys Well thank you all
for joining us here andlistening to us ramble on about
good and evil, and I appreciateyou staying this long.
If you're still here, pleaselike, share, subscribe, do
whatever you can to support ourpodcast and we will see you next
(58:25):
time, all right, it's been real.
Matt (58:28):
Awesome.
Thank you everybody.
It's been really really awesome, yes.
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