Evil Exists

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DEFINE evil please......

Evil=bad

To most people, "evil" really just means "something that I disagree with" or "something that isn't good for me". People do things that we consider "evil" for many reasons: greed, lust, rage, revenge, delusion, etc. But nobody goes around rubbing their hands together thinking about how evil they're gonna be today. Even Hitler thought that somehow all the pretty heinous stuff he was doing was eventually gonna end up making the world some kinda utopia or something. Bush and Cheney probably think the same thing, or maybe they just wanna make money, but either way it's more specific than just being "evil". Thugs and inmates who have little regard for human life usually act out of rage, personal interest, or what they consider a need to appear dangerous to help ensure their own survival. And serial killers are usually seriously deluded or just sociopathic. Even if you just kill for pleasure, you're still doing it for your own benefit, not for the sake of evil. More than anything else, "evil" is just a blanket term used to dehumanize one's enemies.

So murder of an innocent life isn't really "evil"?
No wonder our world's so messed up.

Was dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or fire-bombing Dresden evil? Many innocent people were killed. But if it quickened the end of the war, and ultimately resulted in fewer lives being lost ...

Yes, it was an "evil" act.

They shouldn't have picked civilian targets for the atom bomb. That was wrong. They could have just bombed some country side or a military base, but they killed the innocent instead.

How would it have really been that different? The civilians would have fought for their country too and the military would not have more defense against this weapon either. No matter who you attack you leave lives devastated. Not only that, but "innocent" is a pointless term anyway, as we can define anyone innocent or guilty if we set up the terms right.

No, there were many civilians that couldn't control their leader's regime espeacially children. Yes, there were civilians as well willing to fight but it was evil for what they did to innocent lives. What I'm saying is there were many unarmed.

At least in the US, we get to use our bombs on other countries.

But Japan is known for its nationalism, you aren't going to have large numbers of rebels and the areas selected were done so for their contributions to the war effort as they were industrial areas. Does it matter that they were unarmed? If they had guns it would not allow them to stand up to nuclear holocaust anyway, so the distinction of gun-holding or not really does not seem valid. I mean, every soldier is somebody's son or father, it is not as if killing them by the score is really somehow sanctified as we still are doing terrible things.

Killing civilians="evil" plain and simple. I don't think you're getting the big picture unless this is for show.

I think the issue is that I disagree and consider the distinction somewhat arbitrary.

You sound like a psychotic. Do you understand the difference between good and bad?

It is true in our society, infanticide is considered "evil" or at least "immoral".

Remember the Spartans who used to kill all babies who had birth defects or disease in order to keep their race strong. This was considered a moral thing to do at the time, and I do not necessarily disagree with them because of the age they were in and what they were trying to accomplish. They also did not have modern medicine.

Besides, if a baby had a fatal birth defect or terminal disease, and we did not have modern medicine\hospitals\doctors, would you want the baby to live and suffer, or could you end the life of that suffering baby, not knowing how or why this was happening.

Isn't this entire thread about whether the distinction exists?

What's worse, slaughtering a town or capturing them all into slavery?

I ask this because one way or another, both of these were done thousands of times over by almost every civilization on the face of the planet until the 1800s. Were all of our ancestors evil, or did they just see things differently?