hope you won't mind my copying your form of response.
"Positive and negative means something very different when discussing atoms rather than ethics":
the point i was attempting to make here is: we don't know for certain, if they are different in reality. the difference is just a label we put on them, from our current state of knowledge. they may very well be different. on the other hand, it is a possibility that they are just two aspects of the same issue.
"Good and evil are imaginary concepts for the field of ethics" & " Good and evil are veils we drape over perceived stimuli":
this was exactly my point. what is defined as good by one entity - from its point of view - could be defined as bad by another entity - from its own viewpoint. on the other hand, if an action causes suffering to a single, minute entity, i would think that action is harmful - even if it benefits many other beings.
"Even if pain and suffering can create a migrating energy we can't detect, I don't see why that energy would be drawn the killer":
perhaps i misunderstand your meaning here; but, this is the basic concept of the operation of karmic results, in Buddhist teachings.
quotes from the Buddhist Dhammapada:
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.05.budd.html
69. So long as an evil deed has not ripened, the fool thinks it as sweet as honey. But when the evil deed ripens, the fool comes to grief.
71. Truly, an evil deed committed does not immediately bear fruit, like milk that does not turn sour all at once. But smoldering, it follows the fool like fire covered by ashes.
119. It may be well with the evil-doer as long as the evil ripens not. But when it does ripen, then the evil-doer sees (the painful results of) his evil deeds.
Re. MLK:
according to the Pali literature -- The Buddha himself was attacked on a number of occasions by ill-wishers, including his own cousin & disciple, Devadatta; even to the point of having his (The Buddha's) leg significantly injured; he was also accused by an obsessive woman of seducing & impregnating her, in the court of the local ruler. The Buddha's own Shakya Clan & his City State, was attacked & decimated by the king of a neighboring state, in The Buddha's own lifetime. In Buddhist teaching, karmic results are only one of several possible reasons, for harm befalling a person.
"Most Buddhists, or those with sincere interests in Buddhism, don't consider themselves experts":
i am not sure if you are under the impression that i was setting myself up as an expert. if so, that is absolutely the wrong take on the matter. in the first instance, i haven't even read half of the Theravada scripts; much less those of other denominations. secondly, i would consider an expert to be someone who has -- not just studied the literature, but rather -- actually practised the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism & achieved at least some of its predicated results. in other words & in Buddhist terms, at the minimum: a Sotapanna, a 'Stream Entrant'.
hope this clarifies some of my statements -- which were not as clear as i would have wished.
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