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Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate
#1 - Interesting that he's in a room of predominantly liberals telling them to stop thinking "we're right and they are wrong" and look closer at the reasons why people on the "other team" are for the things they are for.
#2 - I don't buy this "yin-yang" philosophy. It is hard to believe that good and evil are REQUIREMENTS for the earth to go around. Change vs Stability. Left vs Right. Love vs Hate. I have trouble believing that everything needs an equal counterbalance. Yes, it is very Christian philosophy to say "X is bad, Y is good" vs eastern philosophy to say "X and Y make up the way the world works and are neither good nor bad". But when applied to certain things like "Murder is bad but giving food and shelter to orphans is good", I have a hard time saying "well, let me step outside my moral matrix and see that Bob was really, really angry with Tom for sleeping with his wife and dammit if those orphans really wanted to survive they wouldn't have let their parents die." I realize that eastern philosophy has survived thousands of years on the belief that everything is required in this world to keep it in balance. One of my comparative religion professors even suggested that the belief in balance is one reason why Europe went looking for China rather than the reverse. "If you believe in balance, there is no reason to try to improve things and throw off that balance".
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Your example, does, in fact highlight the balance... And probably in a way that you'd agree
is required to make the world go round. It's quite simple: Life vs. Death.
Giving food & shelter to orphans is encouraging their well-being and thus a part of life.
Bob murdering Tom is a part of death.
There is a spectrum for both life and death in terms of what is viewed as "acceptable" (depending heavily on the context form which it emerges); but regardless of these differing opinions, they are equally as viable in their respective spectrum. Murder is a part of death, whether we bestow upon it our acceptance or not is irrelevant.