Without attempting to be too profoundly definitive in my description of what I perceive evil to be and in doing so overstate my position, I would simply say that it is the malicious manifestations of lacking a moral compass.
For myself... I do believe in Good and Evil. I believe in right and wrong. I believe in Love and Hate and even Indifference. I also believe in the freedom to choose any one of these as a personal precept knowing that with our choices often comes a price.
My own personal mantra is reflected in Philippians chapter 4 verse 8 of The Holy Bible.
"Finally, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
It's all in your teachings as a child from a baby ,if you are taught its right to kill as nastily as possibly...you will think there is nothing wrong with it... Doing evil deeds too poor people in far off lands has never been deemed wrong if your own government sanctions it...Jts just business and when there is no money left in it ,you can then feel guilty about what you've done...
This post was edited by Nice Jugs at January 29, 2020 3:30 PM MST
I would only offer a succinct answer here. I believe that it's rebellion against God taken to its most extreme, so it's a spiritual as well as behavioral condition. And, yes, I believe in its existence and its active influence in the world today.
Yes, I think it does exist. I would say the definition of evil would be Charles Manson, for one. Able to kill or harm another person with no feelings or regret.
He did order them to do that. He had a lot of control over the people who did the killings for him. He took advantage of their weaknesses instead of doing it himself. Another kind of evil IMO.
Yes, I suppose it is a type of evil too, but where is the fun if you don’t get to experience it yourself? It’s so easy to just bark orders or push a button to harm people, but it is different when it is up close and personal.
I think the more one learns about human history and human psychology, the less easy it becomes to define the concepts of good and evil.
Example 1: World War I was a horrid world-changing conflict which produced millions of deaths, at least one genocide, and such massive suffering that Winston Churchill called the war (quote may not be exact), "An endeavor that, had the combatants know the outcome ahead of time, even the victors would not have engaged in." Monstrous evil, right?
Yet every major participant in WWI could (with some legitimacy) claim that they entered the war as a necessary self-defense effort. Self-defense is "good", right?
Example 2: Canadian citizen Ken Parks left his home, drove 20 kilometers to his wife's parents' home, bludgeoned his mother-in-law to death with a tire iron, then attempted to strangle his father-in-law to death (he survived). Parks then got back in his car, drove to a police station, and surrendered to officers while admitting that he probably killed two people.
Monstrous evil, right? Or, as it turned out, Parks was sleepwalking during the entire incident, and Canadian courts eventually exonerated him of guilt for the deed. We can't be evil if we aren't even conscious, right?
Those are but two examples. The more you know, the blurrier the boundaries around "good" and "evil" become.
A defination of evil would be torturing to death children while the parents were forced to watch. i've heard this kind of thing happened quite a bit during the Korean War.
As opposed to parents in Dresden, Hamburg, and Tokyo being forced to watch their children burn alive because American bombers turned their cities into firestorms?
Aren't American bomber crews supposed to be the "good guys?"
Please note I am not claiming torturing of children while parents watch is a good thing. What I am saying is that when you define "evil" in terms of methods of violence, you quickly run into the problem that plenty of "good guys" have employed similar or identical methods.
Then you either have to accept the world is a whole lot more "evil" than you previously imagined, or you have to revise your definition. As I noted in my own answer to the question, this is a difficult subject.
Evil is ultimately subjective. It isn’t really a force that exists so much as a subjective value judgment. We typically define things that harm us or seem antisocial to be evil, but actions are really just actions.
The Chilean president use to torture peoples family members including kids in drawers on top of one another...parents would be locked in the bottome on while their kids werein the one above....that was in the 1970s 1980's I think....
Evil is subjective and bound by social contracts across groups. I have seen acts which would be adjudged to be evil by Western standards that are completely normal for a group.
Honor killings would be in this discription. A honor killing is the murder of a young woman who her brothers or family feels she has dishonered her family. To wit:
1. A women goes out in the Mideast with someone from a different clan or marries them. He brothers/family then kill her. Mideast/India/Indonesia 2. A teenage women (15) has been sold of to an arranged marriage in Egypt. She runs away, houston police return her to her family. Dad kills daughter and flees to Cairo where he cannot be extradited. 3. Letting a child from a different clan in your care starve in a Daifour refugee camp because they are not of your clan. Secondary evil the UN A__h__e did not even think this was a problem 4. Genital mutilation whether performed in village or at a Saudi Hospital 5. Gang rape and murder in NYC by youth gangs 6. Islamic males thinking it is OK to rape women at the Cologne Christmas Markets since they are dressed provocatively (for them) and they have no male escort
This is only the tip of the ice berg which I have seen,
Benedict Arnold 