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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Levistus's_Leviathan" data-source="post: 8843760" data-attributes="member: 7023887">The "disaster" Fizban and the other good gods are trying to avoid through the Cataclysm was one where the Kingpriest achieved apotheosis. The Kingpriest was terrible, but so are plenty of other gods in Dragonlance, and killing a ton of people and setting back the world hundreds of years through an apocalypse is hardly a measured response to another terrible god being added. The Cataclysm was an act of self-preservation by the gods. Not something that would actually benefit the people of the world. In fact, if Paladine actually thinks that the Kingpriest is good, having another good god would make Team Good have more gods than Team Evil, which would further his agenda. If Paladine truly thought "the ends justify the means, it's okay to do something bad for a good reason", then he would have let/helped the Kingpriest become a god, not actively prevent him. Paladine isn't utilitarian. He's Stupid Neutral. The concept of good depends on the concept of evil to exist. Good things existing is not dependent on bad things also existing. If good is not good, then it doesn't carry its own meaning and needs to be called something else. "Good" is good. It has to be. That's evident in its name. I've been introduced to the dilemma. I'm an agnostic atheist, and I think good and evil objectively exist in the world. The terms existence is not dependent on a god existing. Child abuse is evil. Rape is evil. Genocide is evil. Those statements aren't reliant on a godly or religious definition. Being intolerant of evil doesn't mean killing evil. It means working against its existence. Incarceration works most of the time. As for who defines good and evil? Preferably experts that study the topic and are able to come to conclusive definitions of good and bad actions. We have scientific evidence that certain styles of raising children are unhealthy physically and/or mentally (spanking kids, for example, is an ineffective and harmful form of discipline). Science can prove things are objectively bad. Steps to prevent child abuse can be taken. Eventually, as public awareness about the problem increases, things get better and child abuse becomes more and more uncommon, hopefully until it is basically completely removed. Eventually. And not all forms of evil are equal and deserve extreme punishment. You can incentivize against bad behavior, punish egregiously evil acts (murder, rape, etc) through the justice system, and reward good behavior. "Goodness" is a process. Not something that can be achieved immediately. If a god says that murder is good, the god isn't good. Especially in D&D, where evil gods exist. And Takhisis, who is Evil, supported the Cataclysm, too. If she's the goddess of evil and she thinks that an action is good, how can Paladine agree with her? He's the ultimate good god and she's the ultimate evil one. If two different gods, one Lawful Good and the other Chaotic Evil, both say that "murder is good", how can you trust either one of them? If both of them say that the action is moral, and they're of completely opposite moralities, how can they agree?</blockquote>

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