Greetings Seshata
selassielives, when you state:

"But many chose to try to remain at the extremes." , does freedom of choice exist? how does enviroment and education dictate 'choice'?

because, 'even the separated nazarite' is dependent on his/her enviroment and education.

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I posted before on this thread on whether free will was really "free' will. If good and evil existed unto themselves, then free will would not make any difference. Good and Evil would still exist regardless of whether one has a choice to commit 'good' or 'bad/evil' acts.

I also asked whether nature(environment) or nurture was responsible for shaping ones idea of good and bad/evil?

But if they existed independant of anything, none of that would matter either.

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it is near impossible to be in the world and not of the world.

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I agree. But that is what asceticism is all about. But one has to be careful of self mortification.

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selassielives, when you ask:

"Should order and chaos be equated with goodness and badness/evil respectively?", try plugging "order/chaos" into the original post on 'evil' by bantu-kelani in exchange for "good/evil".

is a cataclysm evil or chaotic? timing is everything.....relative.

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Chaos and order has no value judgements placed upon them. Chaos brings forth order. So Chaos is neither good nor evil..it just is. The universe was said to be created out of chaos, but was that evil?

Im my opinion, "good" and "bad/evil" are value judgements.

Therefore it is relative because ones have different values and cultures.

Give thanks for the reasoning.