What is evil?

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I like your answer. I would add this: although I don't like the religious (thus superstitious) connotations of the word "evil" it still speaks of behaviors that all humans are capable of at one time or another. But your answer makes clear that the "evil" part is the prolonged, sustained, deliberate effort to deceive someone and to rejoice in their ultimate pain of having been deceived and played with. That is truly "evil". Thanks for your thoughtful comment.

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New King James Version Matthew Verse 7:12:

"Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you,
do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets."

AKA And Related as the 'Golden Rule' ACRoSS The Ages;

Among Religions, Cultures, And Wisdom of Ancient Sages too;

Oh Dear Lord,

The Problem

With Aphorisms;

Often Short Sighted,

BLaCK And White THiNK,

AND AWFULLY SHALLOW;

AND GOD YES EVEN EVIL;

SUCH AS MARITAL RAPE; OFTEN
ASSESSED AS GREAT, BOTH IN RELIGION
AND POLITICS, MOSTLY BY DUDES OF COURSE;

Yet Folks Will Accept Great Harm And Associated Evil according
to the Scales of Justice Outside of Their Cultures And Or Religions;

And Politics and Philosophies too of Course. Another Example Is 'Female

Genital Mutilation;' The Amputation of the Female Pleasure Organ in the Act
of Sex Promoted As Religious Censure to Prevent Women from Straying More to Greener Male Pastures;

Already Treated As Only Cattle to Breed; Often Sold Off in Child Marriage as Basically Sex Slaves Still too;

Yet Depending on the Culture/Religion/Politics/Philosophies at Hand, Perfectly Acceptable And Even Warmly

Embraced By Many Women Undergoing Female Genital Mutilation for Grand Social Esteem Based on Cultural/
Religious Practices in Foreign And Abhorrent Ways to Us; Yet of Course, There is the Amputation of Part of the

Penis at Birth

to Separate Us

From the So-Called

Lower Animals Yet

of Course Removing

Part of A Protective Sheaf
From Environmental Elements
For Those Who Commonly Go Around 'Commando' AS Such...

Yes, the Golden Rule is Rather ILL 'Conceived;' as It Doesn't Take 'Cognitive
Empathy' into Actual Affect and Effect That We All View/Do the World Differently;

And One Person's

Experience of Life

They Name Heaven is Another
Person's Literal HeLL ON Earth...

And Yet Even Another Example; While We May
See Arranged Marriages As Basically Institutional
Justification For First Night Date Rape; In India, A

Recent Survey Showed A Full 90 Percent of the General
Populace Supports the Practice of Arranged Marriages;

Yet the Fact Remains, 10 Percent Do Not; So Yeah What About them...

It's Like The Biological Fact That Transgender Humans Are All Natural And Real;

Yes, What About the 1 to 3 Percent of them too; Even Though the Other 'Moral Majority'

Doesn't Experience Life that way;

Oh Dear As Neuroscience Shows, Humans

Are Not Particularly Rational as Our Emotions
'Normally' Precede Our So-Called 'Reasons' For What We Do;

And We Even Basically Hallucinate Our Realities Based on the
Hallucinated Realities We and Others Co-Create Before that Becomes

The Stories of Cultures/Religions/Politics/Philosophies that Are Spoon Fed
And Narrated to us Almost From the Beginning of Life; Both in Talk And Actions too;

And Now of Course
A Vast Ocean
of Increasing
Complex Technology

We Rely Upon New, Also Replacing
The Face-to-Face Human Warm Touch.

And i Saved the Best For Last; The Fact

That Humans Have 'Helped' to Erase Around
50 Percent of the Diversity of Living Nature So Far;

And Forecast to Eliminate 1 Out of 8 Animal and Plant

Species Just in the Coming Decades too; God Yes, All

Stuff Considered;

Evil And Morality

Is Indeed Only Relative,

Depending on What You
Are And What You Become;
Depending on The Environment

We aRe Born into Indeed FOR REAL.

So, Oh Dear Lord What To Do; Before

We Do Something to Someone Else As

Elvis Presley in a Song Once Related; Do Our

Best to Walk in the Shoes of 'The Other Nature;'

Before We Give

Someone Else

Our Heaven

That is Literally Their HeLL ON EartH;

And of Course All the Chronic Grey Shades
of Purgatory That Last ACross Decades of

Slowly Dying Living Dead At the Do of Others

Who Just Can't Get the FAct, The World Doesn't Resolve Around Their View/Do.

As A Participant Anthropology Observer, Visiting A Catholic Church, i Witnessed
A Deacon Filling in, And Giving A Homily Then Relating The So-called Evil of Hurricanes

to So-Called Homosexual Behavior; Oh Dear Lord, If He Could Have Seen my Eyes Piercing

His Soul From The Shades i Wore That Day; Yet i Wasn't Gonna Turn over Any Ignorant Tables;

As i Have a Pen

That is Much

Mightier than a Sword;

And While i Understand Now

i am In An Environment Where Some

Folks on an Autism Spectrum Have Difficulty

With Metaphor (Yet Not All; Some Actually Excel;
Some Actually Get Better At It At Extreme Levels too)

Yeah, i Wrote Something Similar to This to the Priest in an
Email Relating the True Evil That Deacon Did that Day to the

Audience at Hand That Likely Included A Percentage of the LGBT

Community too; The Priest Graduated in the Top 10; A Classmate of Mine;

Which Means He Was Capable of Understanding Hurricanes Spread Life Giving

Warmth From the Ocean to Colder Climates, Necessary For Life to Thrive; Anyway,

He Didn't Let that Deacon Give Any More Homilies; Yet Sadly, He Followed the Pope

Blindly When

He Instructed

His Underlings

Not to Accept Transgender

Folks as A Natural Part of Reality;

As They Still Refuse to Come Out of the
Dark Ages of Both Science and Cognitive Empathy too...

Life is an Art; Never Perfect; There is No Such Thing As Do No Harm

or All Respect; Yet There is the Potential in Practice for Most Respect and
Least Harm as A Practice and Art of Life to Dedicate One's Self to, for Truly

Good Versus Evil For Real...

Anyway, in my Opinion,
One of the Most Evil

Actions Humans Will

Do; Both Ignorantly And
Willfully too is Reject Other

Humans Out of The Group at Hand;

Just For Their All Natural Differences For Real...

Yet of Course, to Use The Similar Potential Cognitive Empathy;

i Score 100 Percent Open Minded, 100 Percent Extraverted

or i Can Easily go the Introverted Way too; And Close to

Zero Percent in the Fears of Neuroticism; And True i

Am Surely 100 Percent Conscientious to Get What

i am Focused on Done; And True; Yes, Agreeable

Enough Yet Yes, Disagreeable When Necessary too;

This is Relatively Easy For me; For Other Folks Who

Are Extremely Closed Minded, It's Like 'A Camel Passing
Through the Eye of a Needle,' Indeed; In Other Words, i Didn't

Expect to Convince The Rest of 'The Congregation That Day'....

And i Still Don't

Wherever i Go;

And That's Okay,

Life is Never a Science Alone;

Always A Beginning Art for Change..

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I'm glad to have shared my wisdom.

To me, evil is a propaganda word used to make a personal preference appear objective and external to the speaker. If evil means anything, it means the kinds of behaviour and people that most of us hate. I wouldn't normally use the word, I'd be more likely to own up to my part in the matter and just say that I hate this or that.

I see what you mean. If you are a mouse, then cats are evil, but not if you are a human who loves cats.

I personally don't use the word "evil" very often. Where I do tend to use it, sometimes, is when talking about things I think are truly horrible, but that most people -- and the political establishment -- are either complacent about or complicit in.

A prime example is overly-restrictive residential zoning and its role in the housing crisis. On that topic I am likely to resort to religious language, such as:

Jesus said, "The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil." It today's world that would be: The love of property values is the root of all kinds of evil.

Yes people often use the term in a poetic or artistic way.