On 01-04-98 David Martorana wrote to Day Brown... 
 DM>  We enjoy a short passage through this conscious happenstance 
 DM>  (lifetime) and many paint it out serious, not willing ....or 
 DM>  able to admit that we merely wish to make problems disappear 
 DM>  so our passing through is pleasant. We invent word games with terms 
 DM>  like morality, ethics, good, evil, philosophy, rational, insane 
 DM>  ...etc-etc-etc. Actually, if we lift the covers, there are only 
 DM>  two words in the "shadow" game (under the covers, or on a 2500 
 DM>  year old Helenated cave wall): "pleasant" and "unpleasant" 
 DM>  (sometimes in a complex mix!). Both extremes are likely goaded 
 DM>  grandly by genetic predilections, with most of us in the middle 
 DM>  80%. The late 20th century begins to serve it up in evidence and 
 DM>  the next millennium will take it more into science (probably not 
 DM>  such a good idea, but will happen anyway). Once our species 
 DM>  becomes honeybee-d into a smiling nightmare, only one word will 
 DM>  be left in the game-:>  rightness!  We will have achieved global 
 DM>  "nirvana" ...perfect unconsciousness  ..........all our sins and 
 DM>  karma neutralized..................Ommmmmmmmmmmmmm!!! 
Campbell suggested that Zoroaster outlined the world and the 
eventualy armageddon battle between good and evil. However, 
he defined 'evil' as error, misunderstanding, irrational... 
an attutude I find in Plato & Aristotle, and which, i find 
to be the most appropriate definition. 
 
Neitzsche tells me that evil is whatever the prince doesn't 
like, but that this tradition, common in prehistoric times, 
came to be a problem with the advent of writing, in which a 
rule defining evil from a previous king is foisted on his 
heirs, who because they inherited the power, must live with 
the limitations of the inherited definitions. 
 
Maybe he was aware of Machiavelli, in which the measurement 
of evil, must include the unintended consequences well into 
the future, and future rulers. 
 
All of the above seem to accept necessary evil as valid for 
determining 'good'.  Under a cosmological view of 'evil' as 
a manefestation of the devil, unintended consequences are a 
whole lot harder to, pardon the pun, *rationalize*. 
 
Like, were it not for the challenges from the dogmatic, I'd 
not likely give the concepts much thought, but having seen 
unsupportable assertions, know what one is, and have much 
better ideas of what it is all about left to consider. 
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