Greater Good?

[Mexican Pie]

Okay people, lets have a try at this.

The World is in total anarchy- the end is coming. Plagues run amok, killing millions, almost billions. Wars with Gangs, Governments, and even Civilians are common, and almost 100,000 are dying every 3 weeks. Forests are forever being burned, animals slaughtered for the rich and powerful. Nuclear Arsenals are being used without any hesitation, without any thought, killing 300,000 per blast. It is over....

...
...
...

Or is it? A being of unknown origin has shown himself before you, are tells you: "If you kill the most innocent child ever born, I will whisk all the essence of evil away- no nuclear arsenals, no more evil people (they will be whisked away in their sleep, and taken to a place with no pain), and the Earth shall be healed with Holy Redemption. Will you do this deed?"

Now, is this right? A child who knows no evil and is the most pure of heart, MUST be killed for the Human Race to finally be at Peace.

Is this right?

[PoofBird]

the point of evil being eredicated is for humanity to learn and better itself. If some outside power, be it god, satan, ET or your entity, were to remove it from us, we wouldn't have learned.
If that power keeps evil from returning to our world, it must have deleted the concept from our minds, or is intervening with every action we take.

in other words, we lose our humanity... so I wouldn't.


Being a selfish bastard (in the face of extinction every human is) I probably would, but afterwards I would regret it for above reasons.

In the end your scenario is so extreme and off this world and surreal, I don't really care what I would do...

[electric gremmy]

I wouldn't do it, i couldn't kill a child even if it meant total peace

[SemiCircle]

i think the "being of unknown origin" is lying...

[I'm Jim Too]

Two glaring points undermine your premise:
1) As children ARE evil, by killing the most innocent and thereby removing all evil from the face of the Earth for all time, you would be destroying the future of the human race and we would all be doomed anyway.
2) As soon as the "alien" other turns up the whole of humanity would team up to destroy them (led by the US - obviously) and would be victorious even in the face of stupifying odds.

However to answer your question: Killing the child would be an act of evil therefore you would be volunteering yourself for a whisking away.
I'd suggest to the being that it should probably ask someone stupid.

[[murray]]

Im not a Christian as you can tell in the religion thread, but as I recall there was something in the bible similar to this, though i dont remember specifics.

Its obvious that this unknown person is God in your eyes, and as far as I can see the point of this is to test blind faith.

The occurence in the bible was something to do with someone's faith in god being tested, and if he killed his own firstborn son (i think) god would recognise him as being faithful.

To overly simplify it, in the words of my mother, "If a strange man came up to you and told you to jump off a cliff would you do it?"

[PiesInTheory]

depends on what strange man it is. I suppose blind faith is definitly a point here. If you BELIEVE that that would bring about peace (which by the way, the world sucks but I doubt on the verge of armeggedon, a few people still have some sense), then it wouldn't stop you from that. And little children are not evil, but they are naturally sinful. However if it were to die, it wouldn't be condemned for it's innate sin. But really though, bring about apocolypse, I would rather be in heaven than here.

[Norbington]

I would have to agree with PB on this.

I would also like to add that the only way to entirely erradicate evil from this world would be to erradicate everyone. Every single human being is capable of doing evil under the right circumstances. Under the right circumstances we are all murderers (this is a psychological fact and therefore cannot be argued with, I'm just not going to present all the proof because that would take literally hours)

So to remove evil from the world you would either have to alter our brains so we're no longer human or destroy us all.

[[murray]]

Originally posted by Norbington


Under the right circumstances we are all murderers (this is a psychological fact and therefore cannot be argued with, I'm just not going to present all the proof because that would take literally hours)

Hes right y'know.

Primal fear can reduce anyone to a murderous rage, hell we were all cavemen once, and cavemen were, by definition a murderous bunch.

It's in our genes.

[PoofBird]

true true,

all soldiers, in the heat of combat, we commit atrocities, will pillage and rape and kill children,

whatever side their on, whether they fight to defend democracy or to defend fascism...

also, it's proven that when we feel an authority will take responsibility of our actions (a god, parent, teacher, dictator) we are quite capable of commiting horrible things without remours.

evil is part of us (although evil is the moral invention we choose to represent this human characteristic)

eredicating evil is changing (or destroying) humanity

[Jolly Pyruvate]

Originally posted by [murray]
we were all cavemen once, and cavemen were, by definition a murderous bunch.
By definition? Who was your physical anthropology professor, 'cause I'd love to see those lecture notes.

true true,
all soldiers, in the heat of combat, we commit atrocities, will pillage and rape and kill children
Ok, so we've accounted for the men (well, those who are soldiers) but what about the women?