View Full Version : Do you believe in evil?
I had lunch with a friend who explained at some length why he does not believe in evil. He believes people may act on strange priorities, have damaging perspectives, take selfish actions etc. that cause bad things to happen, but doesn't believe in any definition of the word "evil".
Do you? In what sense?
Yes, I believe there is evil in the world, although I'm relieved to say that I've only met two or three people in my 66 years that I would label as such. These are people who care nothing for other people or what damage they may do while getting what they want, and they feel no remorse for any of it. Being purely self-absorbed is evil to me.
domestic goddess
1-23-12, 8:08pm
I believe that evil exists, and I believe that some people act in evil ways, even if they are too ill to realize what they are doing. Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy and Adolph Hiltler come immediately to mind.
I think that without evil, goodness would not exist.
Simplemind
1-23-12, 9:05pm
Yes.... up close and personal, without a doubt.
gimmethesimplelife
1-23-12, 9:51pm
I do believe there is evil in the world - good question by the way - and like for domestic goddess, Adolf Hitler came immediately to my mind. OTOH I also think that evil of this sort can inspire saintly behavior in some - an example would be folks in overrun countries who hid those the Nazis wanted to send off to camps, at risk of loss of their own lives. Maybe (?) it is a bit of a yin/yang thing, that for good to exist there has to be some measure of evil? Rob
See, I would ask that friend: "Define Evil."??? He says he doesn't believe in the definition of Evil. Which definition is that?
Sad Eyed Lady
1-23-12, 10:55pm
Yes, absolutely. Not just in the past as those mentioned such as Adolf Hitler. Sometimes, you can feel it or sense it in what appears to be ordinary everyday circumstances.
iris lily
1-23-12, 11:47pm
I think the word "evil" is as good a word as any for the few deeply disturbing things in the world that humans can't explain.
I didn't believe in the concept intellectually for most of my life, but the Hitlers and Ted Bundys of the world certainly go to a dark dark place that I can barely fathom. I'm too old and jaded now to accept feeble explanations of psychological experts. Mankind is too small in the face of it to adequately explain it, for me, anyway. Evil just IS, as was Hitler and Bundy.
loosechickens
1-23-12, 11:50pm
only in the sense that it exists in all of us as a capacity, just as the capacity for goodness exists in all of us. the most reprehensible people in the world were at one time an innocent, small child. I believe more in the theory that both qualities exist in all of us, and which we choose to feed is what takes over, over time.
The very banality of evil shows its everyday roots.....those small choices at every fork in the road that lead some to behave in horrendous ways.
to me, "evil" is a series of forks in the road, a series of choices that lead in one direction or another. No one is purely evil, just as no one is purely good. Even despots often love their families, and/or are kind to animals. Even serial killers like Ted Bundy had certain people with whom they interacted, took care of and showed kindness to.
I do think that people can suffer mental conditions, or be born with some deficiency in their emotional makeup that causes them an inability to feel empathy, show psychopathic tendencies, etc., but I think that most people we label as "evil" have more likely chosen over and over small decisions that have led them to a very negative place.
Does that mean that I don't think society should be protected from such people? Of course not. But the idea that "evil" lurks out there in the darkness, waiting to attack us......nope. Don't believe in that, OR things like "the devil". And I think also that "goodness" is something that is a product in the same way of small, daily choices, over and over, that lead one to a place of love and kindness, together with empathy for others. Both are learned conditions, good AND evil. JMHO
I do. True evil is thankfully rare and I believe there are evil spiritual forces, again very rare.
What I don't know is whether selfishness or even its more pathological relation narcissism is on the same spectrum that ultimately ends up in a truly evil person.
Well, I haven't made up my mind. For a long time I didn't really believe in evil, but I read M. Scott Peck's book, People of the Lie, and it was great food for thought.
ApatheticNoMore
1-25-12, 6:08pm
Intellectually I wouldn't tend to. But I find it difficult to explain the behavior of people in power without it (they are all supposed to be psychopaths anyway right? maybe they really are ...).
Like take Japan, ok the whole country is possibly becoming a radioactive wasteland, at any rate people are becoming sick, and the government there is *still* covering stuff up. Maybe the powers that be are really just people so far above everyone else that they really don't care what happens to anyone else (if most of the planet becomes uninhabitable - oh ho hum). And maybe THAT is what evil is. Being that far above it.
There's some people with plenty of screws lose in the criminal justice system as well (speaking from some not too close experience), although they don't usually rise to the level of evil of national leaders.
Well, I haven't made up my mind. For a long time I didn't really believe in evil, but I read M. Scott Peck's book, People of the Lie, and it was great food for thought.
I don't believe in "evil" in the sense of some malevolent supernatural force.
But I also found Peck's book very very helpful in understanding some of the secularly-evil people I have encountered in my life.
i'm with bae on this one too. :)
I don't believe in "evil" in the sense of some malevolent supernatural force.
But I also found Peck's book very very helpful in understanding some of the secularly-evil people I have encountered in my life.
And this post illustrates why it matters to define 'evil'. This is a definition. What did the friend mean by it?
Are you kidding me? Its name is Rick Santorum.
My friend, I believe, meant the label "evil" in terms of an evil spiritual force, something that is inherently and incontrovertibly bent on destruction for the sake of destruction, perhaps with the backing of some higher (or lower) power. He would label people like John Wayne Gacy not as "evil" but as violent, psychopathic organisms deserving of a permanent padded cell where he can't hurt people. No backing from Satan. No original sin. Just a dangerously flawed person that needs to get taken out. That's an example.
I concur with bae as well. Humans who demonstrate the behavior some label evil are psychopathic or sociopathic, IMHO. I have met two such individuals; one with whom I was friends, until he held another friend at knifepoint all night when she broke up with him, trying to extort money, among other nefarious things.
iris lily
1-25-12, 11:50pm
Are you kidding me? Its name is Rick Santorum.
Uncalled for. Take it to a political thread.
Uncalled for. Take it to a political thread.
Agreed...
Agreed too. Yet that serves a strange purpose here: More and more, we're goaded by the media to label as "evil" anyone who doesn't agree with our ways of living and being: It's not enough, it seems, to disagree with someone else's vision of "right", quietly work toward your own, and leave it at that. It must be crushed, it must be labelled: evil, Hitler, communist, etc. Maybe that's why my friend's comments struck me funny, and I came here to discuss it. I'm becoming, in general, more turned off by labels and the emotions behind the labels. And really, more confused by how to handle it all inside my head. It was easier when I believed in Satan, and didn't have to deal with the confusing morass of human frailty and damage, and the proper ways to cope with its existence among us.
I guess it's not as simple as I used to think. But I suppose nothing is.
"Evil" acts are an outgrowth of fear, fear is an outgrowth of confusion, confusion is an outgrowth of innocence.
As I see it, beliefs are what perpetuates that which we don't want. Ergo, the belief in evil is the root of evil.
madgeylou
1-26-12, 11:25am
Agreed too. Yet that serves a strange purpose here: More and more, we're goaded by the media to label as "evil" anyone who doesn't agree with our ways of living and being: It's not enough, it seems, to disagree with someone else's vision of "right", quietly work toward your own, and leave it at that. It must be crushed, it must be labelled: evil, Hitler, communist, etc. Maybe that's why my friend's comments struck me funny, and I came here to discuss it. I'm becoming, in general, more turned off by labels and the emotions behind the labels. And really, more confused by how to handle it all inside my head. It was easier when I believed in Satan, and didn't have to deal with the confusing morass of human frailty and damage, and the proper ways to cope with its existence among us.
I guess it's not as simple as I used to think. But I suppose nothing is.
i agree with you pug. politically i couldn't be further away from the conservative right, but i understand that, in general, people who disagree with me are actually acting out of what they see as the highest moral good.
so many people don't seem to recognize this! like when my stepmom says obama is evil / the anti-christ / whatever, it's just the same thing as someone saying santorum is evil.
now of course, there are some acts that stand out as particularly heinous. but the fact is that more often than not, "evil" is a matter of perspective. like, i think that it's wrong to try to force a woman to have a child she doesn't want, but my family thinks it's evil for a woman to have an abortion. this difference is important, but it doesn't make either of us evil. at least not in my view.
and to add more complication to it, our ideas of what is evil change over time. nowadays, one person owning another person? or a man beating his wife and children? evil. but a couple hundred years ago, very few people had a moral problem with either of those things. so there's an evolutionary aspect to the whole thing as well.
goldensmom
1-26-12, 12:31pm
Yes, I believe that there is evil in the world.
Absolutely. Both physically (as in presence- all around us), and malevolent supernatural.
I do not believe in a malevolent, supernatural being.
I do believe in it -- as in what splintering does and how it arises, and how people commit evil acts -- somewhat like the friend at lunch.
And I believe we all have the capacity for it.
Could you explain the idea that we all have the capacity for evil? I've heard variations of that view over the years, but I can't make sense of it.
Could you explain the idea that we all have the capacity for evil? I've heard variations of that view over the years, but I can't make sense of it.
Don't we have to define evil first? Some people might think evil is anything that thwarts their own self-interest. Other people might look at the 10 Commandments and ascribe evil to anything that opposes the ability to abide by the commandments.
Some think people can be evil; others think only actions are evil.
In my feeble, limited view, maybe, evil is subversion of growth (or even statis) for its own end. Or maybe it's a subversion of any universal moral code. Then you have to define those transcendent moral codes.
I don't know--too much brain-exploding for a Friday afternoon.
I agree; it can be maddeningly subjective. Like art--or is that obscenity?--I know it when I see it. Or do I...
In the end, it may be unknowable.
If you believe the human condition is the root of evil, then we indeed all have the capacity for evil. We are restrained only by good circumstances usually not of our own making.
If you believe that there is general run of the mill human finiteness and falleness which result in outcomes somewhere along the spectrum of pain and suffering and then there is a separate evil, we don't all have the capacity to be truly evil since that level of depravity of depends on an outside, unredeemable malevolence.
I don't think we all have the capability to be Hitler. I believe humans left to their own devices can be bad but very seldom do they achieve out and out evil. Thankfully.
Actually, that's not the perspective. I do not believe that the human condition is the root of evil.
I take the idea from the buddhist perspective, which sees human being as neither good nor evil, but capable of both. Likewise, buddhism sees none of us as individuals, but all part of the all, which means that what one of us is doing, all of us are doing. So if one of us is doing evil, then all of us are doing it (in a certain manner of thinking).
It's also inspired by the quaker perspective that it is a confluence of circumstances and choices. To an extent, an aspect of it is "There, but for the grace of God, go I." But for the grace of God, I could also be the murderer waiting for the death sentence on death row. Thankfully, those were not my circumstances or choices. But if we seek to overcome this sort of evil from repeating, what then can we do, if we are not in those circumstances? The answer is "peace is the way" -- by undoing the underpinnings of oppression that lead to circumstances where others may feel drawn to such choices, we help people avoid those sorts of choices. And there, by grace of God, go they into the natural goodness of their being.
Another aspect of this is found in The People of the Lie: The Rise of Human Evil -- which describes how both everyday people and Hitler can be working from the same perspective, but not on the same scale, and how that affects individuals and communities. It's a powerful work, and it certainly helps one take a darn good look at themselves to see how one is acting and reacting in given circumstances.
Most of us are simply humans who err, and most errors are not really evil. They have negative repercussions, but but it's not really that big of a deal in the big scheme. When we err, we are usually well intentioned and functioning from our innate goodness, but made a mistake. Errors are not at all inherently evil or even the cause of it -- but staying in error and continuing in a process that perpetuates suffering that increases and deepens and so on, without correcting ourselves may cross well into the realms of evil. And that's another way that our capacity exists. A stubborn persistence in error that perpetually causes suffering and, at that, increasing intensities of suffering (for ourselves or another or many or all of these).
OK--I can see it in that philosophical framework.
Since Hitler is the usual poster boy for evil, I'd like to take this opportunity to play devil's advocate:
Did Hitler, as the leader, ever kill anyone or was he just a cowardly storyteller? Someone who seductively created myths that were designed to 'rid the homeland of a scourge', for example?
There's an interesting video on YouTube called the Chain Of Obedience which correctly shows that the most "dangerous dictators" have no real power beyond a chain of obedience. When individuals believe in the storytelling of anyone they relinquish their innate authority and sovereignty. Weren't the atrocities of the Third Reich were made possible by widespread cooperation of all the underlings of Hitler and the persecuted themselves? How much success would Hitler have had if even half of those he intended to murder, and half of his military decided not cooperate?
Who is responsible for one's actions in war (or ultimately in any circumstances), the leader or the individual who does the deed? How was Hitler more evil than the lower officers and soldiers who committed atrocities, sometimes without direct order?
Didn't Hitler, his SS (et al), the German people and the victims all have a common quality? Weren't they all run by fear? What is evil without fear? Does it exist?
Without untrue myths and stories is there any fear?
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