What is Evil?
- Thread starter Jozen-Bo
- Start date
evil is someone who murders someone you love. evil is anything that makes you feel a negative emotion. evil is a stronger form of bad.
in other words, evil exists.
in other words, evil exists.
only in the eye of the beholder..........?
Mrs.Lucysnow
Valued Senior Member
Jozen-Bo: Culture is made of individuals. Their collective will determines that standards.
Oh wouldn't agree with that. Culture is formed by a few exceptional individuals who impact society through art, religion, philosophy and politics and is then emulated by the collective/masses. In China foot-binding was once practiced by the rich aristocricy and the rest of society copied. Why would anyone want to systematically crush the feet of a seven year old girl just so her feet could fit into a 2 inch shoe? I am sure the majority of peasant society would have come up with a more practical standard of beauty, but then again the majority does not create the standard they simply follow suit.
JZB:What you are implying is that evil is in the perception and relative to the culture that perceives.
Yes of course it is. In the West we are bent out of shape if an adult has sex with a child, in Angola the age of consent is 12 years old. Mayans used to sacrifice humans to their gods, abortion was once illegal and considered a grave sin. The perception of evil changes as the culture changes. Slavery as you well know was protected under the law at one stage in the States and now is considered a historical evil. So yes I do see the notion of evil as relative.
JZB:The individual is granted immunity from being classified as evil by his peers if they agree on what calls for justifying killing.
Yes or if its protected by law.
JZB: Then again, there are individuals who indulge in the practice of being evil and try to obtain greater states of it.
Can you please explain what you mean by 'the practice of being evil'? I mean what are you referring to Nazi Germany? Idi Amin? Hannibal Lechter?
JZB:This is consciousness turned against consciousness without any justification at all.
Do you believe evil to be some cryptic source emanating from somewhere specific like the devil perhaps? If so why? I tend to agree with One Raven.
JZB: This seeks to promote anti-values and exert anguish and suffering. When a member of a culture turns against other members of the culture and performs cruel calculated murder, it is a general feature of all cultures that this is considered evil.
But the whole history of mankind (or rather say human nature) is rife with members of a culture turning against other members within and outside of their particular culture and it wasn't considered evil. Slavery is an example of this, war is another. You have the death penalty and abortion, there were witch burnings etc and whether one considers any of the above inherently evil or not depends on the society they belong to and where one resides in the course of history.
Oh wouldn't agree with that. Culture is formed by a few exceptional individuals who impact society through art, religion, philosophy and politics and is then emulated by the collective/masses. In China foot-binding was once practiced by the rich aristocricy and the rest of society copied. Why would anyone want to systematically crush the feet of a seven year old girl just so her feet could fit into a 2 inch shoe? I am sure the majority of peasant society would have come up with a more practical standard of beauty, but then again the majority does not create the standard they simply follow suit.
JZB:What you are implying is that evil is in the perception and relative to the culture that perceives.
Yes of course it is. In the West we are bent out of shape if an adult has sex with a child, in Angola the age of consent is 12 years old. Mayans used to sacrifice humans to their gods, abortion was once illegal and considered a grave sin. The perception of evil changes as the culture changes. Slavery as you well know was protected under the law at one stage in the States and now is considered a historical evil. So yes I do see the notion of evil as relative.
JZB:The individual is granted immunity from being classified as evil by his peers if they agree on what calls for justifying killing.
Yes or if its protected by law.
JZB: Then again, there are individuals who indulge in the practice of being evil and try to obtain greater states of it.
Can you please explain what you mean by 'the practice of being evil'? I mean what are you referring to Nazi Germany? Idi Amin? Hannibal Lechter?
JZB:This is consciousness turned against consciousness without any justification at all.
Do you believe evil to be some cryptic source emanating from somewhere specific like the devil perhaps? If so why? I tend to agree with One Raven.
JZB: This seeks to promote anti-values and exert anguish and suffering. When a member of a culture turns against other members of the culture and performs cruel calculated murder, it is a general feature of all cultures that this is considered evil.
But the whole history of mankind (or rather say human nature) is rife with members of a culture turning against other members within and outside of their particular culture and it wasn't considered evil. Slavery is an example of this, war is another. You have the death penalty and abortion, there were witch burnings etc and whether one considers any of the above inherently evil or not depends on the society they belong to and where one resides in the course of history.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
No, you didn't understand.
My first respinse was going to be, "I have never met an arrogant animal".
Then I thought about it...
Is, for example, a peacock arrogant or is that a strictly human trait?
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
No, I mean psychopaths who turn their mind and try to form an alliance with evil, to make it real. They try to manifest it on purpose, their ideas of what is desirable contorted. There are real psychopaths in this world that engage in rituals that are focused on being evil. Have you never felt such a presence or seen its possibility. Considering the population, the state of the world, there are people like this. Recently I saw there was a man arrested for keeping his daughter in a room under his house for over 23 years. He raped his daughter for 23 years, forced her to have 3-4 children, until finally he got caught. Is this evil? I find it to be. Can you imagine your father raping you for 23 years, keeping you underground, and making you have 3-4 children?
The Devil is an Idea. An idea is formless, but can manifest in the minds where form is encountered and take form in this way. This would make the devil more powerful then a real devil, who could be defeated. It would be capable of entering a mass of people instead of being just one. If ideas can take on a life of their own, then this one is no exception. Behind every word is the idea of it. Our language is an idea of defined ideas. Just how much life can that idea take form into, or how much life can it acquire? Then again, there are so many takes on the idea of the devil, religions all recognize the devil in one way or another. Science seems to dismiss the concept. Neither can prove anything.
I think you misunderstood. If I shoot you in the head in the middle of the day in the middle of the city around police and other people, there will be distress and it would not be acceptable, and justice would define it as evil. It was the same way in any culture, if in Rome I were to stab you to death in front of everyone, I would be arrested and tried. Even primitive cultures and tribes consider this off. Everything you mentioned thus far involves an inside outside relationship, master and slave, enemy and enemy, puritans and witches. When two insiders of the same group do such an act, it is considered by that inside group as punishable.
I've seen enough animals with character that my answer would be that peacocks, especially male peacocks, like to strut and show off for the chicks. They show-off and can get arrogant. Heck, I've seen mice, dogs, cats, and other animals get arrogant.
I looked it up in the dictionary and there was just a picture of me
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
No, I'm saying evil doesn't exist.
First of all it's a human contruct.
Secondly, it is a religious concept.
And thirdly, has anyone ever seriously called someone evil (apart from religious freaks) ?
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
Explain ?
Well when i was a child i stumbled upon hundreds of crime scene photos. They were picked because they were particularly depraved and untill you actually see this stuff...let me tell you that the stuff you see in the movies and t.v is a nothing compared to what i saw.
They belonged to a prominent police detective who later became FBI agent.
They belonged to a prominent police detective who later became FBI agent.
Enmos
Valued Senior Member
That still doesn't make evil objective. Sorry you had to see that though...