What is evil?

What is evil?

Evil Prevails When Good Men do Nothing,
Edmund Burke

Deliver me from evil takes on a whole new meaning when the evil I am faced with is myself, deliver me from myself.

Let me not be an instrument of hate.


Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is error, truth;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Prayer of Saint Francis

You can leave out Lord and master it offends you, it still works.



Peace out

reply to post by Stormdancer777


Religion is evil...it makes good people do bad things.

boymonkey74
reply to post by Stormdancer777

 

Religion is evil...it makes good people do bad things.

Try again.

It also makes bad people do good things, not all people that believe in a creator are evil

Boymonkey will you give me another example of evil, please?

There are two kinds of evil: moral and natural.

Moral evil is sin such as things like murder, rape, abuse e.t.c
Natural evil is what causes suffering and unpleasantness; it is the result of moral evil.

Evil is a result of peoples' choices made with free will.

Nothing. Evil is a construct made up by men to shun certain behaviors of people. Some of those behaviors are probably best to be shunned (stealing, murder, etc) while others were shunned because the people in power didn't like them or benefited from them being shunned (drugs, prostitution, gambling, contraceptives, public indecency, etc).

reply to post by Stormdancer777


Anyone who makes a living by telling others about someone elses version of God. Then expect money from them, Priests, Vicars etc.
Also the clergy who have abused their power (no one should have spiritual power other others) and messed about with kids.

reply to post by Stormdancer777


Evil may be that point that a priest/preacher/rabbai/imam passes - where he / she is no longer lying ... but , actually believes.
Evil is what you do wrong ,( and if you have time to judge ) what others do wrong . IMO.

Bazart
reply to post by Stormdancer777

 

Evil is what you do wrong ,( and if you have time to judge ) what others do wrong . IMO.

You just defined evil with another vague term, "do wrong." So now define what it means to "do wrong."

I personally don't believe in evil.
I think people can do awful and unspeakable things and people can be crazy and/or mentally disturbed and we can label them with words like evil because it helps us make sense of them, helps us try and sort and organise them.
I know somebody will say "well if you have good then you must have evil" and similar things but I don't think so.

I prefer the Yin-Yang (Taoist) way of seeing things.

Yin and yang can be thought of as complementary (instead of opposing) forces interacting to form a dynamic system in which the whole is greater than the parts. Everything has both yin and yang aspects, (for instance shadow cannot exist without light). Either of the two major aspects may manifest more strongly in a particular object, depending on the criterion of the observation.

In Taoist metaphysics, good-bad distinctions and other dichotomous moral judgments are perceptual, not real; so, yin-yang is an indivisible whole.

Nothing is either just "Good" or just "Evil" ...everything is both light and dark.

reply to post by Stormdancer777


Evil is when you willingly harm others.

Harm could include:

-Sadness
-Physical harm
-Influence for selfish goals
-Coercion

reply to post by blupblup


Evil does exist. Only a man of evil will deny that evil does exist, for men who do not profit from others are not evil, and thus have nothing to lose from exposing evilness throughout the World.

reply to post by swanne


Can evil combat evil?

reply to post by swanne


No being a bad person or not caring how your actions affect others exist, but the idea of a person being evil is non-existant. Blupblup is right evil doesn't exist. See my first post in the thread for what I mean. After all, evil is just a label invented by humans to dehumanize a group of people.

swanne
reply to post by blupblup

 

Evil does exist. Only a man of evil will deny that evil does exist, for men who do not profit from others are not evil, and thus have nothing to lose from exposing evilness throughout the World.

Yes... I'm evil because I don't believe in your Biblical concepts of Good and Evil.
Do you know how utterly stupid that sounds?

Evil

There must be evil it's in the dictionary.

One of the five paintings of Extermination of Evil portrays Sendan Kendatsuba, one of the eight guardians of Buddhist law, banishing evil.





e·vil (ē′vəl)
adj. e·vil·er, e·vil·est
1. Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
2. Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects of a poor diet.
3. Characterized by or indicating future misfortune; ominous: evil omens.
4. Bad or blameworthy by report; infamous: an evil reputation.
5. Characterized by anger or spite; malicious: an evil temper.
n.
1. The quality of being morally bad or wrong; wickedness.
2. That which causes harm, misfortune, or destruction: a leader's power to do both good and evil.
3. An evil force, power, or personification.
4. Something that is a cause or source of suffering, injury, or destruction: the social evils of poverty and injustice.
adv. Archaic

reply to post by blupblup


I posted a Buddhist picture, why does it have to be about Christianity?

Krazysh0t
Nothing. Evil is a construct made up by men to shun certain behaviors of people. Some of those behaviors are probably best to be shunned (stealing, murder, etc) while others were shunned because the people in power didn't like them or benefited from them being shunned (drugs, prostitution, gambling, contraceptives, public indecency, etc).

What word should we use?

reply to post by Stormdancer777


Evil is what makes good possible...

The distinction is a line in the sand that can be moved about depending on the culture that makes the distinction there is no "natural" evil all actions can be open to justification and rationalization to define any static line is as hard as to define madness one needs to seek the accepted the median of those involved in the discussion, for as anything it is in the center that stability finds its place.

The professor of a university challenged his students with this question. "Did God create everything that exists?" A student answered bravely, "Yes, he did".
The professor then asked, "If God created everything, then he created evil. Since evil exists (as noticed by our own actions), so God is evil. The student couldn't respond to that statement causing the professor to conclude that he had "proved" that "belief in God" was a fairy tale, and therefore worthless.
Another student raised his hand and asked the professor, "May I pose a question? " "Of course" answered the professor.
The young student stood up and asked : "Professor does Cold exists?"
The professor answered, "What kind of question is that? ...Of course the cold exists... haven't you ever been cold?"
The young student answered, "In fact sir, Cold does not exist. According to the laws of Physics, what we consider cold, in fact is the absence of heat. Anything is able to be studied as long as it transmits energy (heat). Absolute Zero is the total absence of heat, but cold does not exist. What we have done is create a term to describe how we feel if we don't have body heat or we are not hot."
"And, does Dark exist?", he continued. The professor answered "Of course". This time the student responded, "Again you're wrong, Sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in fact simply the absence of light. Light can be studied, darkness can not. Darkness cannot be broken down. A simple ray of light tears the darkness and illuminates the surface where the light beam finishes. Dark is a term that we humans have created to describe what happens when there's lack of light."
Finally, the student asked the professor, "Sir, does evil exist?" The professor replied, "Of course it exists, as I mentioned at the beginning, we see violations, crimes and violence anywhere in the world, and those things are evil."
The student responded, "Sir, Evil does not exist. Just as in the previous cases, Evil is a term which man has created to describe the result of the absence of God's presence in the hearts of man."
After this, the professor bowed down his head, and didn't answer back.
The young man's name was ALBERT EINSTEIN

reply to post by Stormdancer777




Because this

swanne
reply to post by blupblup

 

Evil does exist. Only a man of evil will deny that evil does exist, for men who do not profit from others are not evil, and thus have nothing to lose from exposing evilness throughout the World.

Sounds like Biblical waffle to me.