What is Evil?

They're not evil in their mother's eyes. Just confused, or ill.
 
Jozen-Bo: Can you imagine your father raping you for 23 years, keeping you underground, and making you have 3-4 children?

Well at least then we'd know where he is. No. JOKING, JOKING.
Ok, I have heard of some psychopaths engaging in ritual but there could be other reasons for such behaviour that doesn't have anything to do with 'conjuring up' evil or trying to manifest evil. These personality profiles seem motivated beyond good and bad, meaning they have no conscience so their actions though it may give them pleasure doesn't mean they are invested in the notion of evil such to say 'I want to be evil. I'm going to conjure evil and become evil'. We can see their actions as evil, or sick, a perversion (and no the three are not inherently associated) but a psychopath, sociopath, narcissist is INDIFFERENT they are not TRYING to BE evil, they are being themselves. As for the story of the father who kept his daughter in the basement there are far worse incidents than that.

JZB: Have you never felt such a presence or seen its possibility

Well it could be possible I guess but I have never felt its presence, I dont believe evil is a separate entity or energy form, I believe we all carry the possiblity of heinous acs to varying degrees, some more apt towards such behaviour if pushed (or nurtured) than others. Since moving abroad I have had the opportunity to meet a few strange people who it turned out were capable of some surprisingly violent or twisted behaviour. What I find interesting is that those whom I have in mind are actually quite ordinary by all accounts, nothing at all astonishing, frightening, nothing to set them apart. One in particular was a school teacher, nice English guy, everyone liked him up until the Khmer police finally arrested him for peadophilia. As a community we were all shocked, his best friend who worked with him for years in an orphanage thought he was the salt of the earth. Just goes to show you. On the other hand I have met a few military contractors who exhibit a vigorous elan when on time off, and yet you know they are going to go back to Iraq or Afghanistan and would engage in wholesale slaughter IF a situation warrants such action. Once I asked one how he felt about killing innocents, maybe even woman or yougsters and the response was quite simple: "The problem with civilians is that they are always in the way". Evil devils I have yet to meet, only humans beings.

Do you have trouble with the notion that people can commit senseless acts without the help of an evil entity?

JZB: 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

What do you mean by 'manifest in the mind where form is encountered'? If its in the mind it takes on no actual form. Do you think one must believe in the devil to have thoughts you consider evil?

JZB: 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

Buddhism and Hinduism do not have the same concept of evil or a devil as they do in occidental religions. Have you ever heard of an animist tradition that shares the occidental view of good-bad, devils-saints? I haven't. Non-occidental religions tend to view things in a totality, without division. Occidental religions tend to view things in opposition god vs. man, man vs. nature, nature vs. god, devil vs. god, etc.
The notion of evil has no place in science and that's as it should be.

JZB: 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...

Not in Cambodia. As a matter of fact if you did do something like that and belonged to the right family, have enough money representing power you can walk right back into your SUV and drive away and the police would sit around and say 'What gunman?' It happens here all the time.

Two examples:

"Rey lives in Phnom Penh, studies at Notion Universality, drives a Honda Wave motorcycle and likes to wear fashionable clothes. To all the world, Rey is a typical, 21-year-old middle-class Cambodian youth, though he’s a little stockier in build than most. In his free time, Rey likes hanging around with his friends. But there is nothing more he enjoys than gang raping prostitutes – a shocking new phenomenon that is apparently on the rise in Phnom Penh. "One girl, six boys, with no wife, it is OK,’ says Rey, in chilling matter-of –fact voice, during a recent conversation at his school.
Gang rape is common in Phnom Penh and Rey and his friends are not the exception, according to new research that suggests Cambodia’s youth are growing up in a world starkly different to previous generations. The research, titled "Paupers and Princelings: Youth Attitudes Toward Gangs, violence, Rape, Drugs and Thief," paints a grim picture of gangs, drug use, gang rape and young people’s tolerance for violence and impunity by the powerful. Most disturbing in the survey, carried out by the Gender and Development for Cambodia NGO, is the "common" occurrence of gang rape that targets, but is not strictly limited to, prostitutes. Asked how popular gang rape is, Rey says, "I’m not sure. But I can say all my friends [do it]… maybe 50 boys."

http://cambodia.ahrchk.net/mainfile.php/news200304/595

"investigations, protection and advocacy
Human rights abuses in Cambodia are widespread, creating sizeable challenges for human rights groups. Without a prevailing rule of law, the rich and powerful prey upon the poor and the weak and face no repercussions. Powerful and wealthy people are often able to commit acts of violence, seize property, and infringe on the rights of others, with little or no consequences."

http://www.licadho.org/programs/monitoringoffice.php
 
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OK here's my take on what is evil.

1) Evil is a conscious or unconscious act that interferes with or causes undue distress to the mind and puts it in a state of fear or disgust.

2)Interferes with pure thought and disturbs its energy ie causes ripples in an otherwise tranquill and equilibrious pond.

3)Is so sociallogically unacceptable so as to create a sense of disgust.

4)An act carried out purposely to cause chaos and distress except in cases of war.

Because people are often a victim of their surroundings and upbringing I don't believe some acts perceived as evil actually are. For example a murderer might only be expelling all of his hate in one concentrated moment due to an abusive childhood and having harboured and bottled up a lot of hate. Humans to a large extent are behavioral machines that behave according to what they have been socially exposed to and what they have absorbed. If the input/stimuli/programming of an individual is generally negative and little taught of social ettiquette and morals then the likely outcome will be an individual that is mentally damaged and so may commit damaging acts themselves and repeat the process. Because the mind is like a template and is gradually programmed by parents and society a damaged mind may be percieved to carry out evil acts. In such cases the blame lies not wholely on the individual but also lies with the chain of programmers that have all had an input in warping an individuals state of mind and psyche.

Perspective also has a hand in defining evil eg the Nazis perceiving their acts as righteous. In this scenario we have conflicting ideas of which party perceives what as evil. In such circumstances evil become a perception according to what side your on. What's good for one side is perceived as evil by the other. This makes evil a 'relative' affair ie something is evil relative to my upbringing, state of mind and social acceptance.

Lastly because evil is largely a judgemental suposition it might be said that evil can only be deemed evil by those in a position of power and influence eg leaders of a tribe etc.
So for eg if I were a cult leader and declared advertising as evil then all my subjects would change their mindset accordingly. Similarly if Jesus Christ had said that eating meat was evil then many of us would have changed our behavior accordingly. The likely outcome in this scenario is that any meat eaters would be perceived as evil.
 
It is very difficult to be an evil person.
Most people doing wrong, delude themselves that what they are doing is justifiable or right. These people are simply bad.

In order to be evil, you must know that what you are doing is wrong, and do it anyway because it achieves something that you want.

An evil person is much more dangerous than a bad person.
 
Ian Bradey for example. All there, absolutely no sign of mental illness. Appears really clear minded and fully justified in his own mind. A true sociopath. Cold and calculated. And yet ask Mira and she'd completely deny he was evil at all.
 
EmmZ said:
Ian Bradey for example. All there, absolutely no sign of mental illness. Appears really clear minded and fully justified in his own mind. A true sociopath. Cold and calculated. And yet ask Mira and she'd completely deny he was evil at all.
Click to expand...

I think they were peas in a pod. Both evil.
Mira also had the ability to change her personality in order to manipulate people, and she would have got out of prison had Brady not deliberately released information which showed her to be more culpable.

Have you ever seen the TV film about Lord Longford?
A very good and clever man, but she wrapped him round her little finger.
 
Oddly enough, it is easy to watch.
It is more about Lord Longford than Myra, and Jim Broadbent plays him superbly.

Longford was a marked man in the UK media because of his attempts to rehabilitate Hindley, and
his attacks on Pornography. They used to call him "Lord Porn"

This film treated him sypathetically, and changed my views about him.
 
War, greed, avarice, elitism, religious extremism...
All these have their roots in self-important arrogance.
 
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