Definition of good.

[meany]

What is your definition of good? No Webster. No encyclopedia stuff. Your own, personal definition. Here's mine.

Good: The doing of what is morally or socially acceptable. Preforming deeds of self sacrifice or other wise being generous and/or helpful.

Yes, I'm collecting data on you all. Mwuhahah and all that stuff.

[Jim Halisstrad]

A dream full of candy, hope, and forced sodomy

[Darkmoon]

What is your definition of good? No Webster. No encyclopedia stuff. Your own, personal definition. Here's mine.

Not me.

[Cogidubnus]

Are things that are not bad, good?

Are things that are not good, bad?

Shades of grey apply both ways, but you can only know good and evil if someone tells you what they are. Good and evil are arbitrary, or they are not good and evil at all.
That isn't to say there aren't shades of grey. That isn't to say some things can be black and white also.

I believe that good is many things. It can be how you act, or what you do. It can be how you think about a person, or how you think at all - for as a man thinks, so he is.
To name all the things that are good in this world would take more space than the character limits on this post.
Good is not unselfishness. Good things can be done for selfish reasons, although it could be said the person did not have good motivations. In the same way, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. So good is not unselfishness.

Good isn't what is socially acceptable. If that were so, slavery in the pre-war South would have been a good thing.

Good isn't acting wisely. I think that's a difficult comparison to make - is it wiser to be good or evil? Perhaps a debate in itself.
I've heard wisdom described many ways. The ability to connect the dots of information gathered. The ability to know what is best, rather than what seems best. Even so, best for what? Again, I don't think wisdom can be equated with good.

Self-sacrifice? In degrees, perhaps. Kamikaze pilots certainly did not act 'goodly', but then again, perhaps the Japanese people feel differently. Even so, it is possible to sacrifice yourself for something evil. Sacrifice to what end?
I don't think true self-sacrifice always hurts or takes from you instead of the other. Sometimes, it's just the hardest thing that you must do, at the time.

I have always held good to be that which has been told to me, to be good. Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self Control. Three things shall endure - faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love. Love does no harm to its neighbor - love is patient, love is kind, love does not demand its own way. I could be the most powerful man in the world, I could do untold good - but if I did not love, it doesn't matter.

[bill]

definition: me


thread over

[Reese Tora]

This would be the easy one: anything positive(not positive as on a linear numbered scale, but positive as in has a beneficial effect) or above average.

I, of course, and not defining good as the opposite of evil, but good as in the general term.

There is no dichotomy of good and evil, no diametric opposition, in real life.  All actions have positive and negative impacts, and any action that can be considered good can be considered bad in a different light.

I reject any implication that good is or need be the opposite of evil (which I believe is implied in the pair of definition threads which you have started.)

[superluser]

Something that benefits the universe at large.

[lucas marcone]

good is what you belive to be the right thing. the right way to live the right way to act and the right way to worship. take a look at war. both sides belive their side is the "good" side. in iraq we americans belive that we are good and al queda is bad, but let me assure you the al queda would not blow them selves up for what they thought was an evil purpose.

[Reese Tora]

let me assure you the al queda would not blow them selves up for what they thought was an evil purpose.

Very true, they blow themselves up for 72 virgins.
This is why I think that Suicide bombers are masochists.

[Eibborn]

Doing no harm.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Very true, they blow themselves up for 72 virgins.
This is why I think that Suicide bombers are masochists.

Yea verily. Give me an experienced woman who knows how to please me, any day.

[rabid_fox]

Travolta. John Travolta. What? I embrace celeb-culture.

[Dannysaysnoo]

My definition of good...

In a Person - One who helps other without benefit for themselfs

In an Object/Time - When it brings joy and is enjoyed

[Alondro]

Travolta. John Travolta. What? I embrace celeb-culture.

John Travolta starred in that awful L Ron Hubbard Scientology craptastic movie "Battlefield Earth"!   

There is NO GOOD in him!   

The definition of good is:  chocolate.

Nuff said.   

[Netrogo]

Not Bill.

[bill]

Not Bill.

[Angel]

Doing no harm.

Hard to make that one stick, I'd think. I always thought there was a difference between being good and not being bad. But if you broaden the definition of that phrase, I guess it works.

If there could ever be something that benefitted everybody, done for a selfless cause and not fame, fortune or personal gain, than that would be good in its purest form.

[GabrielsThoughts]

the pious ability one has to do things that are godlike without putting oneself in a position above god.

[Netrogo]

Not Bill.

[Reese Tora]

Travolta. John Travolta. What? I embrace celeb-culture.

John Travolta starred in that awful L Ron Hubbard Scientology craptastic movie "Battlefield Earth"!   

There is NO GOOD in him!   

The definition of good is:  chocolate.

Nuff said.   

The book, OTOH, is actually quite good (and, at > 1000 pages in paperback form, good for wierding out annoying classmates with short attention spans, too.)(hint: the best parts of the book happen after the opint where the movie ended!)

[Tapewolf]

The book, OTOH, is actually quite good (and, at > 1000 pages in paperback form, good for wierding out annoying classmates with short attention spans, too.)(hint: the best parts of the book happen after the opint where the movie ended!)

I read Battlefield: Earth some years ago, several times actually, and despite the somewhat anti-wolf sentiment in it I thought it was a pretty good book.  The way they protected the 'intellectual property' in the star drives was particularly striking.

I deliberately missed the film because I knew it would be messed up