Evil Exists

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sartresue
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01 Apr 2008, 12:11 pm

Sargon wrote:

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Evil does not exist in a vacuum. We need a baseline for it. I wish this baseline was universally accepted by all humans, but unfortunately no. Experience and history have taught most of us what evil is, and yes, it is subjective. Evil is manifested in an action, behaviour. I certainly know what evil is, and how I would define it:

Intentional harmful interference of a sentient being's enjoyment of life by the infliction of pain and suffering, whether directly or indirectly, and leading to maiming or death. Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad Evil or Very Mad

So, if I know you plan to interfere with a sentient being's enjoyment of life by inflicting pain and death on that being, and I stop you by interfering with your enjoyment of life by inflicting pain and causing death, I'm now evil? Also, by that definition, pretty much any nation that got involved in any war ever fought would be considered evil (so, soldiers who fought for the Allies are evil because they killed Germans who were having fun killing the Jews). Even if you edit your definition to say responding to an "evil" act is not considered evil, I think your definition is still somewhat lacking. Why were/are the Jews killed/oppressed? According to some Nazis it was because they planned to destroy the German way of life and were participants in the some vast Zionist conspiracy and must be stopped before their plans reach fruition (the Jews were planning the evil act and so they must be stopped).

As long as it is subjective (which you agree it is) then you cannot define it in such a way (even if everyone agrees that is the correct definition, it cannot be applied realistically for the above reasons).

Sargon, this is what I think evil is. The recipient of this evil is a victim, in that the person had no chance to defend him/herself. I do not include war and soldiering in this definition at present. It almost sounds random as when someone is a victim of a crime. I admit also that I my definition is existential, in that I derived it after studying the most terrible forms of evil for many years, including the oppression of the Jewish people throughout history.

You have to have an idea of evil and then look for existential clues to clarify it. Evil is an experiment. You try something, and then you think it can be more. It is a conscious act, intentional. In other words, evil evolves, changes. This is why psychopaths may not become serial killers. This is why the final solution did not happen overnight. I will continue to analyze my idea of evil. The final definition may never be written.

The idea that there has been a Jewish conspiracy of evil was fabricated to justify the perpetration of evil on the Jewish people. It is strange as to why hatemongers would even want to justify harm.

Do evil doers know they are evil? Probably, but they will never admit it, because in their twisted logic they feel justified to fight what they term evil. But when confronted, their logic falls apart.

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Legato
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01 Apr 2008, 3:00 pm

I voted true because evil, while indeed being a purely human concept which varies from subject to subject, person to person, situation to situation, is a common psychological and societal construct. There are many groups of people large and small that share a common belief in what is evil and what is not.

If the question was clarified to, is evil a spiritual\supernatural force that can corrupt humans, I would rule False, even though it seems that way at times.

Sargon
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01 Apr 2008, 6:41 pm

Quote:

So, as longer as the victim does not strike first, it is ok? If I believe a rival group/tribe plotting against my own, and they are vocal that they would prefer destroy my group, my group could not strike first, or else I would now be evil? The problem with saying, "Well, you can strike first only if you know they are plotting against you" is many people/groups irrationally believe other groups are plotting against theirs (grand Jewish conspiracy), providing justification for them to strike first.

Quote:

The idea that there has been a Jewish conspiracy of evil was fabricated to justify the perpetration of evil on the Jewish people. It is strange as to why hatemongers would even want to justify harm.

Do evil doers know they are evil? Probably, but they will never admit it, because in their twisted logic they feel justified to fight what they term evil. But when confronted, their logic falls apart.

It does not seem too terribly strange that hatemongers would on some level need a reason to justify harm. They could hate the Jews for example, but then if someone asks them, "Why do you hate the Jews?", they'd need some arguments that they at least try and justify to themselves as to why they hold such a belief and attempt to convert others to hold such believes. This applies on the individual level as well as the macro level (the Jews were blamed for pretty much all of Germany's problems by Nazis).

The reason people you label as evil-doers would not call themselves evil is because in most cases, they genuinely do not believe they are acting evil (or they believe they are acting out of necessary evil); I would recommend watching a documentary on the KKK or the American Nazi Party to see how fanatical their members are despite confrontation and ostracization (interestingly, in religious groups, the more weird, socially costly belief tends to strengthen the person's belief despite factual evidence and encourages a greater sense of community). Do you think the Palestinian suicide bombers who blow up buses with children on them think they themselves are evil? Was it evil for the United States to drop the atomic bomb on Japan to end World War II (some say yes, others say no, in reality, its more of a grey area)? People's perception of what evil is differs, but this perception does matter if you wish to define evil (unless you want to say "Our culture is the best, and so our sense of what evil is is the correct one").

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02 Apr 2008, 11:26 am

Izaak wrote:

Ragtime wrote:

skafather84 wrote:

if you need it explained any more than i've already done twice now then you'll never understand.

Izaak wrote:

haha... what a cop out!

That's right! How dare you not explain it to him a third time, skafather84!

I am just asking him to explain it once. And don't be so obtuse Ragtime.

I wasn't being obtuse, I was being a cute.

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Ragtime
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02 Apr 2008, 11:29 am

Izaak wrote:

Ragtime wrote:

Izaak wrote:

How can one judge anything as evil if one doesn't even define what 'evil' is. On what basis do you, ragtime, base your epiphany moments of witnessing "evil" as absolute truth... when you can't even explain WHY you would define an act as evil?

Merriam-Webster defines an "epiphany" as:

Quote:

a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2): an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3): an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure b: a revealing scene or moment

All knowledge occurs through a spark of spontaneous realization -- even that knowledge which is gained through scientific experimentation. Without that "Ah-ha! I see! Eureka!" moment, there is no such thing as conscious knowledge. You could run experiments forever, but if they don't register in the conscious mind, no knowledge occurs. And that process of registering in the conscious mind is completely spontaneous. Sometimes that moment of knowledge is delivered by an unknown, unseen source, such as God, as when we see and know evil.

Such spontaneous-yet-absolute revelation is physically possible through the dimension hierarchy. When a higher-dimensional being -- say, of the 11th dimension -- reaches down into the 3rd dimension, and causes an event, it's quite natural for the event that is caused to seem sourceless, because the source is out of range of our senses. And some would dismiss the event itself solely based on its unprovable source. The event, however, is plain, apparent, solid, and undeniable to us, being deliberately imposed down into the 3rd dimension from the 11th, while the source remains untraceable since it's in the 11th dimension. I'm speaking entirely under physical laws, and am not employing any spiritual concept or construct. (Unless one defines "spiritual" as "of a higher dimension", which might just be onto something...)

Therefore, it is plain silly to believe that all unprovable things should be suspect, and are by their very nature inferior in validity to our "known" "facts". A perfect example would be the miracles that Jesus performed: the way the story goes, they were performed live, in front of plenty of witnesses. But, there was no hard evidence as to how the miracles were performed. Does that mean they weren't performed? No.

John 9:19: "And they asked them, saying, Is this your son, who ye say was born blind? how then doth he now see?"

Jopn 9:24-25: "Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man [Jesus] is a sinner. He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see."

The blind man had no idea how he was healed. He only knew that for his entire life he had been blind, and that now -- suddenly -- he could see. He therefore could not say that he wasn't healed, for the evidence could not have been plainer that he was indeed healed.
So, the "how" not being known does not diminish the fact.

Wow... what a completely irrelevant post. I did pick up the notion of your source of knowledge as being divine revelation though. And that's all I really wanted to know, so thanks. Though next time just a simple: "God tells me" will suffice.

It's just pointless to explain logical thought in great detail to someone who is biased against it.

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02 Apr 2008, 11:34 am

gekitsu wrote:

edit: the "isnt" was meant in relation to your quote of "existing whether we realize or not" and "as real as the air we breathe"... the air we breathe isnt real in an objective way.

That's why I gave the comparison, rather than stating that the air we breathe is real. In other words, I'm saying that, to whatever degree you personally accept the air we breathe as real, you should also consider evil to be real, as it is equally evidenced every single day.

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monty
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02 Apr 2008, 12:17 pm

Ragtime wrote:

gekitsu wrote:

edit: the "isnt" was meant in relation to your quote of "existing whether we realize or not" and "as real as the air we breathe"... the air we breathe isnt real in an objective way.

Scientists can measure air and make predictions about how the air responds if conditions change. Can the same be done with 'evil'.

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02 Apr 2008, 12:39 pm

monty wrote:

Ragtime wrote:

gekitsu wrote:

edit: the "isnt" was meant in relation to your quote of "existing whether we realize or not" and "as real as the air we breathe"... the air we breathe isnt real in an objective way.

Scientists can measure air and make predictions about how the air responds if conditions change. Can the same be done with 'evil'.

So you don't believe anything that hasn't been proven in a lab?

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Awesomelyglorious
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02 Apr 2008, 1:11 pm

Ragtime wrote:

It's just pointless to explain logical thought in great detail to someone who is biased against it.

Well, no, the issue is that your argument is pretty literally "God tells me". The source of knowledge does matter. Sources which can be validated through some form of other knowledge are the most acceptable but morality does not carry such a burden unlike scientific progress or other places where epiphany can occur. So, you receiving knowledge of evil through an unfindable source without it being findable through any other source is by nature suspect, especially given that conflicting knowledge on good and evil is rather common and that most people claim to know good or evil through some source. Given this commonality of knowing evil, but a lack of ability to really prove such insights, it would seem that knowing evil is more of a psychological or existential issue than one of knowledge. Not only that, but a "higher-dimensional being" is probably not something that could conceivably interact with our world, but a being that detects information we cannot is conceivable, however, the issue is whether or not the P(FoS) > P(C), and I think that a number of WP readers would say that P(FoS) > P(C) is true because of the improbability of P(C) vs the relatively higher probability of P(FoS).

It is not silly to believe that all unprovable things should be suspect, if it is not provable then why should we accept it? The miracles were provable things to their audiences though especially given the improbability of shared delusion, the source was not so, but Jesus also assigned the miracles to a being that others had historically ascribed miracles to. The current argument as to whether they were performed leads to questions on how many reasonably valid claims there were of miracles, because as David Hume states: "no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish". That is the role that evidential apologetics often takes, but still going back to the issue of morality, your source is not verifiable and because it is suspect due to its claims on things that seem otherwise unknowable, we do suspect your mind rather than suspect our limits.

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02 Apr 2008, 1:13 pm

Ragtime wrote:

monty wrote:

Scientists can measure air and make predictions about how the air responds if conditions change. Can the same be done with 'evil'.

So you don't believe anything that hasn't been proven in a lab?

Why should he believe things that aren't logically or empirically verifiable? I believe he implicitly believes in some form of moral order, but that is an existential issue.

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02 Apr 2008, 2:24 pm

Ragtime wrote:

So you don't believe anything that hasn't been proven in a lab?

I don't believe in anything that cannot by any means be quantified by science. This doesn't necessarily mean it has to empirically proven in a lab setting.

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02 Apr 2008, 4:49 pm

matsuiny2004 wrote:

Evil is a human concept and does therefore not exist, people are jsut as capable of doing good as they are at doing bad. They have a choice.

Evil exists, as sure as the nose on your face. Evil with a capital E, evil pure unto itself. There's also the lower-case kind, much more common. The abstract concepts of good and evil may be limited to humans, but that does in no way negate their existence. People have free will and by that token are able to distinguish good from bad, wrong from right.

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02 Apr 2008, 4:54 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

Ragtime wrote:

monty wrote:

Scientists can measure air and make predictions about how the air responds if conditions change. Can the same be done with 'evil'.

So you don't believe anything that hasn't been proven in a lab?

Why should he believe things that aren't logically or empirically verifiable?

Because most things we believe to stay alive through the course of each day aren't logically or empirically verifiable. Everyone uses faith in countless ways an instances to get through the day. If you had no faith, you wouldn't ever voluntarily move a muscle. Therefore, the power of faith is life. There is no such thing as absolute proof that any specific future event will occur -- it's all faith, based on past observations. But none of it is guaranteed. You don't know your side of the Earth will rotate into the light of the sun tomorrow -- you believe it will, based on lots of inconclusive evidence.

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monty
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02 Apr 2008, 5:18 pm

Ragtime wrote:

Scientists can measure air and make predictions about how the air responds if conditions change. Can the same be done with 'evil'.

So you don't believe anything that hasn't been proven in a lab?[/quote]

No, I do believe things that are not proven in a lab. But I believe them in a different way. I would classify evil as a metaphor or construct that is sometimes useful, but is value laden and not objective as some people suggest.

Was the massacre of Native Americans evil? I would say so. Did the people that engaged in such massacres believe that they were doing evil or good? For the most part, they believed they were agents of good. So where does the evil exist? How is proven and measured?

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02 Apr 2008, 5:24 pm

Ragtime wrote:

You can call the reason to live a faith, but nobody calls to prove it or can prove it. Not only that, but for the rest of your argument, it really falls down to comparative probability. There is no proof that the world won't explode tomorrow, but there is no reason to suspect that, and given a lack of reason to suppose that the future will be much different than the past we will default to assume that the future will be like the past because that is rational. It is still a matter of logic, and although you may point to an issue of induction and a lack of absolute knowledge, we still are not stumbling in the dark as we do with morality. Frankly, you need to find some way where actual man is different than economic man or some other logically based approximation in order to make this argument strong as otherwise you are trying to build a city in a strand as thin as a reed.

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02 Apr 2008, 5:45 pm

Humans can be so evil. No wonder aliens don't wanna meet us. :alien:

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