Just wondering what your thoughts are on this topic. I see evil as just some one else's perception. Its just there belief on a topic that may in-fact be far out there but others do not agree and label it evil. IE:
Eating Babies, evil yes? or just a culture misunderstanding.

I know bad example I hope I am not to far off topic or just wtf.

The why part is the difficult part of the question.

There is an excellent book on the reality of evil by a phychologist who wrote the "road less travelled" (I think) and he talks about evil that he has seen in his patients.

Even as banal as the family whose abused son commits suicide by shooting himself, the family give the gun to the other son as a christmas present.....

Why is there good?

There cannot be good without evil

There cannot be a positive without a negative

We wouldnt know what good was if there wasn't no bad to define the good.

[Edited on 3-21-2003 by Illmatic67]

Illmatic hit the nail on the thumb there...

According to the scriptures, God Himself *created* evil...For precisely the reason that Illmatic states. How can one know what good is if there is no evil to compare it with? How can one see the presence of dark shadows if there is no light to *define* those shadows?

There is no good. There is no evil.

Both good and evil are a way of religions to control the individual. Liberate yourself! Create your own good. Create your own evil. Do exist and do think without the need for artificially created concepts that only weaken your spirit.

Well, if you define evil as pain and suffering, I'd ask you why you let yourself get hurt.

Imagine you could not feel pain. Now you put your hand on a hot stove. You start melting. All of the sudden, you say, "does anyone smell that?" You then look down and find that your hand has just melted off. Now, if you can't feel pain, you should not be upset with the fact that your hand is gone. You had no "dissatisfaction" from it. On the other hand (hehehe), you have only one hand. You are now less of an individual (physically speaking).

What are choices? Well, you could have a body like superman and never get hurt, but then no creation would ever die. A tree would never fall, a volcano would never erupt, the earth would never shake, and movement would eventually cease as matter was continually added to the point where there was no more room for anything else. That's bad. You lose freedom of movement and therefore freedom of action.

No lets look at the definition again. Pain and suffering are usually human related. How we perceive that pain is what we deem/define as personal evil. A child falls down and cries... probably defining the instance as evil. An adult falls down and laughs that he fell over his shoe laces in front of his friends. The cases are virtually identical, but perception of the event changed.

Murder is a terrible event unless the one who is murdered enters a life far better than the one they left. How can you be upset by the fact that you went from a battered slave to a life in heaven or a life as a bird (for instance). The people left with your former body may be upset, but only because they feel personal loss by the event. If a person were to only express their feelings of joy for entering a new life, death would be seen as a pleasurable event.

One event that may cause problems would be rape. Rape can be defined as evil in nearly every aspect of the event. The intent, the action, the aftermath, everything are all seen as evil. An alternative view is what that person learned from the event. I believe Oprah was raped and look how she has changed people's lives. So it is about what you do with your form, with the events in your life, and with the knowledge you gain that really defines your views of good and evil. There is more, but I'll stop here.

Evil can be the intent behind an action, rather than the action itself. One person can do something that causes great suffering, but with the best of intentions and I'd call that a tragic mistake rather than evilness

Originally posted by MidnightDStroyer
Illmatic hit the nail on the thumb there...

According to the scriptures, God Himself *created* evil...For precisely the reason that Illmatic states. How can one know what good is if there is no evil to compare it with? How can one see the presence of dark shadows if there is no light to *define* those shadows?

And He wrote the ten commands, and when followed, evil would not be done.

Originally posted by alienaddicted
And He wrote the ten commands, and when followed, evil would not be done.

...The main point being that *everyone* would have to follow the 10 Commandments for evil to cease...

If only 1 out of every 2 people followed those Commandments, evil would still hold sway over half the population. IMO though, I think a more accurate ratio these days is 1 in a thousand...or maybe even lower.



[Edited on 23-3-2003 by MidnightDStroyer]

Evil is defined by society, and its definition varies from society to society and faith to faith.

There is no evil for most things in the world. There is pain and suffering and death among the sentients, but there's not some vast thing that's easily defined as "evil."

And following the 10 commandments won't create a society without evil. For instance, you can, while following all the commandments and believing them, take your own 10 year old daughter as your wife. The 10 commandments don't prevent you from torturing an enemy. They don't prevent you from setting your dog on fire because you wanted to see how long it would take to burn himself to death. There is no commandment that prevents you from emotionally abusing your spouse. There's nothing to prevent you from selling your babies to slavemasters. There's nothig to prevent you from selling your siblings to slavers, either. There's nothing to stop you from making war on someone. Saddam's using poison gas on the Kurds does not violate any of the commandments.

...and so on.

Our standards for "evil" are changing as our society changes. At one time it was not evil (but rather expected) for the lord of your land to rape your virgin daughters. You would have felt it an honor then. Now you would say it was evil and would prosecute him fully.

"evil" is a moving target. If you look at the universe, it is simply neutral and there really isn't any humongous Evil Concept out there.


(a refresher course in the commandments in case you forgot them
And God spoke all these words, saying: 'I am the LORD your God�

ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'

TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'

THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'

FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'

FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'

SIX: 'You shall not murder.'

SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'

EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'

NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'

TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'

Tricky question: one that will not yield much without a philosophical approach and crystal-clear language.
While it is true that the Early Church Fathers drove themselves to distraction on the iissue: the Bible itself has little if anything to say on the topic as it is posted.
If it is of any help: the Christian approach generally singles out three facets or types of evil that could be addressed:
physical evil: things in the world: diseases, death
Moral evil: the evil that man wilfully does
Metaphysical evil: what its bname suggetss: that there may be some sort of "force" in constant dialectical struggle with "good" (search Manichaeanism)or that life itself is inherently evil (not far from the central doctrines of Buddhism)

O man you guys have gave me a wider perception on the subject thanks.

Byrd, I admit that there's still room for interpretation...But you should also consider that you've only used the *first* statements that are listed for each Commandment. Also, you neglected to mention that there's a logically-derived "spirit" of intention behind the literal words...In a nutshell, the "spirit" of the words carry more meaning than the mere words themselves.

For example, Thou shalt not kill: How far does this need to be carried? Considering that our human bodies are designed to be omnivorous, we must kill plants & animals merely to survive. But does our survival justify killing? IMO, that particular type of killing, to ensure survival would be justified...Otherwise God would have designed us without the need for food.

Yet, what about suicide? Is it permissible to take your own life? IMO, the anser to that would be no, because even though its your own life, you'd still be killing.

See?...Room for interpretation, but stated clearly enough that the "spirit" of the words can still be taken to a conclusive literal meaning.


[Edited on 25-3-2003 by MidnightDStroyer]

No man can be evil, for Evil is inhuman, all that we aren't.

It has nothing to do with "eating babies" or what not, it has to do with intelligence.

The learned human, will do no wrong, because he knows good, an ignorant human will be a tool of evil.

But it is of his own ignorance, not of his own will, evil is not "human."

So if you want to know "Why is there Evil?"

Then you must first ask "What is inhuman?"

Well, the most basic answer, is ignorance, but it's clearly not that, for ignorance is not the fault of the Human, he must be taught, and taught to learn.

Evil you can say is undefinable to us, we see its effects, though barely, because Humans simply can not fathom it.

We can be led to do some inhuman things, like killing everyone (genocide), but no human, has ever been to the degree of "evil", just ignorant, arrogant, insane, what have you.

All humans have an excuse for such things, because to be "inhuman", is to not exist. Or to be an alien//robot, something that is sentient or not human. And these things, these could be evil.

But if we can't be, then it is arguable that nothing living, or maybe nothing of this Universe, can be Evil, so maybe nothing made or concieved or whatever, by God can be Evil.

So it would be whatever God did not plan, but that has happend. Be it a force, or an event, or a physical trait in the universe.

There, think about that.

evil is a word.it has 4 letters. people use it in protest at anothers acts.i once had a woman stop me in the street to listen to a young goat bleating on a backgarden in the house next to hers.she told me the asian family(i dont know what religion) who lived there had bought it so they could sacrifice it.she had complained to the local authorities and petitioned everyone she met which is why she was talking to me.she saw this as an evil act.she had tried to set it free and i think she had an injunction served on her to stay away from her neighbours property.as she told me the details of her story she refered to the people living their as monsters and only had pure hatred in her feelings towards them.she wanted to slit their throats to see how they liked it.i could hear the goat myself.it sounded a few months old.ive often thought about the family in the house(i never met them)and about what they thought about the old woman.the goat was part of a religious ceremony and they were being faithful to their religion.the woman had turned most of the street against them,burgled their property and tried to commit something which to them must have been the most evil crime of all.stealing their sacrifice and preventing them following their beliefs.i wondered if the man in the house had thought of slitting her throat to stop her evil acts.both believed they were doing the right thing and both believed the other to be wrong.both believed the other to be evil both believed they themselves were good.you could say evil is a word created by society to describe acts that are not practiced in that society.

is another man's good....

Evil is (just like beauty) in the eye of the beholder...

True "Evil" can also be argued to exist, which, by definition, is that which is deemed "evil" to all. Only with total agreement, can true evil exist.

Evil is live backwards... Therefore you must aquit...