Do you believe there is such thing as evil?

[Forever]

True.

I think there's a difference between practical reasoning and abstract reasoning, I see lots of abstract reasoning on this forum to be honest, people might type a lot of stuff but I expect how they live their lives and the decisions they make five minutes away from keyboard are not that closely linked with the sorts of things they write.

Humans evolved for reputation, not for truth fortunately and unfortunately. We lie to survive and belong.

 

[Tellenbach]

And you sir, side with the divinity morality.

Close. It's Tellenbach morality.

 

[Punderstorm]

Morality is subjective. A concept of evil exists, but the definition varies between people. Most would say that an evil person is a sadistic, selfish psychopath with no moral boundaries or responsibilities. When I think of evil I think of those who take away people's ability to control their destiny, that is a high form of evil to me.
Like a person who kills another, he takes away the other persons choice to continue life.

 

[Mole]

In the West we came as close to absolute evil as we have ever come in the holocaust.

As a result of our introduction to absolute evil we wrote and ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights enshrined in the United Nations.

So we know those who openly and publicly reject the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are doing and want to do evil.

Since 1969 one powerful global group has openly and publicly rejected the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

That group consists of 57 Islamic nations, called the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

 

[Mole]

Believing magical thinking tells us the truth, is evil.

Both astrology and mbti practise magical thinking.

 

[highlander]

Just post your thoughts. What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word 'evil?'

ISIS

 

[free electron]

Just post your thoughts. What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word 'evil?' What's your thinking process and conclusions regarding the word?

I do believe there is such a thing as "evil" for I believe in the right and wrong. One can only exist if the opposite is here to balance it (kind of like the yin and the yang ideology).
When I hear the word evil, the first thing that comes to my mind is Satan (charming I know but you can't fight easily many years of religious education ). Well really something evil, regardless of society norms and cultural differences, is something harmful for yourself or someone else, physically or mentally.
Now about my thinking process and conclusion about the world, haha I am still working on it. I'll tell you on my deathbed what will be my conclusion, certainly it will be something like "now I know that not matter what we're all screw... "

 

[entropie]

sure:

evil, god, religion, capitalism, socialism

all true inventions

 

[Flâneuse]

People perceive evil as being whatever negates what is most sacred to them. Because people's values differ, they naturally have different ideas about the exact definition of evil. However, I do think there are some things that are pretty much universal - most people, even across different time periods and cultures, would agree that some states are more desirable than others (i.e. freedom to live one's life in a way that is personally meaningful, happiness, peace, knowledge/wisdom, connection, and trust, is better than oppression, misery, isolation, ignorance, mistrust, and chaos.) Certain actions are more likely to lead to states universally experienced as desirable (happiness and meaning), and certain others are likely to lead to undesirable states (misery and oppression).
Basically, I don't think there's some cosmic or absolute code of good and evil, but I think if you understand human nature, have compassion and value life, it's clear there are certain ethical standards that should always be upheld.

 

[Mole]

I have just seen a 19th century Norwegian play, brought to the movie screen as The Daughter, delineate evil.

The evil is interesting as it consists of spoiling the joy of others.

Finding his own joy spoiled, the protagonist takes more than a few drinks, and successfully devastates the joy of those closest to him and their child.

Click on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMxLs9-ReEY

 

[Kho]

Evil is the archetypical dichotomising example of a dangerous, terribly employed social construct.

 

[LovecraftianMonstrosity]

Evil is a biochemical process that is measureable by neural firing in the amygdala and other brain regions associated with anger, fear, etc. Good is what gets our brain acting harmoniously and using higher order thinking states (long term planning, self-care, higher order reasoning, etc). I am somewhat being facetious of course, but if we were to take our ideas of ethics, morality, etc and ground them in something that is subject to experiment then we could likely become more deeply aware of this aspect of ourselves and use the knowledge we gain for productive ends like minimizing negative functioning and maximizing the higher order functions.

 

[Galena]

Yes.

Not all, but I think most of it is very quiet.

 

[Mole]

Yes.

Not all, but I think most of it is very quiet.

Yes, the National Socialists of Germany hid their evil, and the International Communists of Russia also hid their evil, but the Islamic State boasts about their evil.

And it is the open evil of the Islamic State that attracts tens of thousands of followers from countries throughout the world.

So boasting about evil is a new force in the world, and many thousands of young muslims find it attractive and flock to join it.

 

[Masokissed]

I'm evil.

 

[ceecee]

but I think most of it is very quiet.

This is how I have experienced it too - in the most quiet places. Dachau felt like that to me. Even if it had been an open field with no evidence of anything, the evil is overwhelming there. But there is always quiet around evil - it's just harder to keep it that way now.

 

[Lark]

Evil is the archetypical dichotomising example of a dangerous, terribly employed social construct.

If you buy that sort of thing.

Instead you could suppose that there's universal capacities and drives experienced by any human being, the fact that individual life is comprised of the contact between these and the social matrices of any given social order, leading to some variety or diversity, does not mean that everything is relative and all simply social constructs of the moment.

Its possible to discover an objective ethics, derivative from psychology, its difficult but not impossible.

 

[Lark]

Yes, the National Socialists of Germany hid their evil, and the International Communists of Russia also hid their evil, but the Islamic State boasts about their evil.

And it is the open evil of the Islamic State that attracts tens of thousands of followers from countries throughout the world.

So boasting about evil is a new force in the world, and many thousands of young muslims find it attractive and flock to join it.

All of those forces are nihilistic, they dont believe their actions are evil, they just believe that since evil is whatever they say it is they have licence to do whatever they please.

Its a grossly perverted version of freedom.

Which is one of the most powerful human psychological drives there is, if its blocked that drive doesnt disappear it just gets perverted and re-emerges as a deviant version of the original, ie licentiousness and evil.

 

[Bush]

We define it and work with it ourselves, but it's nonetheless useful.

At the very least, we can toss very general ideas and concepts into a nebulous, ill-defined bin to give us a general idea of what to stay away from. The definition of "evil" varies so goddamned much that we'll never get it completely sorted out.

 

[Lark]

We define it and work with it ourselves, but it's nonetheless useful.

At the very least, we can toss very general ideas and concepts into a nebulous, ill-defined bin to give us a general idea of what to stay away from. The definition of "evil" varies so goddamned much that we'll never get it completely sorted out.

Although is it necessary to? There's so many ideas or concepts which are fluid but agreed enough upon to work.

Consider language, we can all attribute as many individual meanings to a word as we like, maybe have friends who understand that in group use of the word but by and large there's no such thing as an individual language, what would be the point? Its one of the ultimate examples of how society and social interaction are ontological to individual development and possibly even the self.