Talkback: Evil

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From:	roylandry	2001-05-29 21:48:37
Subject:	God
Comment:	Evil is a human concept, the creator of the universe has risen above the petty human trait of good and evil.
From:	reader	2001-09-27 10:16:46
Subject:	evil or good
Comment:	Humans are by nature evil. It is up to us to overcome our natural evilness and strive to do good works. That's one reason we exist is to overcome evil in ourselves.
From:	Shaun	2001-10-02 15:46:21
Subject:	Necessary Evil
Comment:	Human beings use evil as a basis for comparison for how well their lives are running. We shouldn't try to overcome the evil that is inside us, but embrace as a part of who we are. How would we know what is 'good' if we do not know what's 'bad' that's happened in our lives? Most of us on this planet whine and complain about evil, but evil is a part of humanity and shouldn't be seperated or erradicated.
From:	ex_cathedra	2001-10-03 03:22:01
Subject:	Re: Let There Be Evil
Comment:	I wouldn't say my God has an evil side.However I agree evil is a neccesary 'evil'. God would want us to freely accept his righteousness,and reject things that are of low moral character.Without it(evil)....one would never be able to excercise freewill. And it is of that freewill He would want us to come to him. Like when you go to Disneyworld and have some poor wretch dressed up as Mickey Mouse (eg) come up and give you a hug.... Is that love ? Heck no. The wretch in the perverse Mouse suit is doing it for money.He's being forced by his needs to 'hug' strangers. A real God wouldn't want love like that.
From:	stacey leeson	2001-10-15 09:59:09
Subject:	garden of eadon(evil)
Comment:	jim, very good picture u r a very good artist, ive herd alot about u.u r a very talented person and very very clever.
From:	awouldbegoodian	2001-11-19 21:13:30
Subject:	possible, not actual, evil
Comment:	Why suppose that the Goodians *can't* do evil? What if they *can* do evil, but, as it turns out, never do? Isn't that enough for free will? Your case shows that God cannot make evil impossible, but how does it show that evil must be actual?
From:	Mr Evil	2001-11-23 17:09:59
Subject:	What is Evil
Comment:	Do you want to find out? Do you suspect you know? What is an 'Evil Thing'? You should know... they are all around you... Mr Evil www.thingsareevil.com
From:	jose	2001-12-08 06:26:39
Subject:	Evil
Comment:	me studies englich langage.. What evil is? 'e-vil [i:vl] adj zly; s zlo' me undrstand not
From:	Owen	2002-06-14 12:33:46
Subject:	good and evil
Comment:	there is one problem still yet to be solved... what is good and what is evil we know killing humans is an evil thing to do so therefore it be a evil thing to the kill suicide bombers of sept 11 before they could hit the towers. even though you would be sentencing lots of people to death we know saving life’s is good so therefore it be a good thing to kill the suicide bombers of sept 11 before they could hit the towers. because in the end it would save lots of life’s from death
From:	Lucifer	2003-03-22 13:12:29
Subject:	Thesis
Comment:	Evil has gotten an undeservedly bad rap. The term 'evil' is so semantically loaded with unpleasant notions of pointless, stupid brutality that few people get beyond those images to consider the more profound, underlying philosophical issues. Evil has so frequently been equated with 'undesirable' things that most people reflexively conceive of evil as objectionable and wrong. Evil derives most fundamentally from the recognition that each person manifests different capacities and deserves different treatment within the contexts of their existence in light of those differing capacities. In some environments, pure, physical strength may be the primary attribute required for success. In other situations, great intelligence may provide the key to dominance of the local conditions. In any collection of people, in a particular context, each individual is more or less suited by native capacity and experience to succeed. Those people most well suited by ability and training are of greater value to the group and should recognized as such by their fellows. Any who can not accept that thesis can either be coerced by threats of deprivation of the advantages provided by the greater skill of the superior individuals or the recalcitrants can be permitted to suffer the lack of such benefits as affiliation with the superior person would provide. No one is supremely worthy of special consideration simply by virtue of some mythical, spiritual argument about the perfect equality of the worth of every person to deserve unlimited largess.
From:	Lucifer	2003-03-22 13:15:30
Subject:	Thesis (part 2)
Comment:	Enlightened self-interest, rational anarchy, and unrestrained self-honesty are the cornerstones of the effective practice of the evil orientation. Evil is no better or worse than good, if unrestrained or dishonest. Any philosophy applied without considerate understanding of potential consequences and careful election of paths by intent to maximize the utility of outcomes will generate undesirable consequences more often than not. The major difference between evil and good in the arena of decision making is that the evil individual recognizes that, in the long run, only the solipsist view of reality provides a stable platform for review of outcomes. In the evil camp, the main point by which to evaluate how well any situation has been resolved is captured by the question, 'how satisfied am I?' The proponent of evil need not be sociopathic, pretending or believing that only he has feelings or needs from the stance of solipsism. Evil admits the possibility that all sentient creatures have the same type of awareness. The difference stems from the understanding that not all sentient creatures have the same capacity to influence events. Those individuals more capable of directing the course of events are not, from the evil perspective, bound by some abstract, moral imperative to provide for the benefit of others to the detriment of the interests of the evil agent.
From:	Lucifer	2003-03-22 13:19:35
Subject:	Thesis (part 3)
Comment:	Compliance with laws, taboos, and rules is never required. Evil complies or not as suits its own best interests. Evil is neither better nor worse than good as an orientation, except as the practitioner is considerate of the interests and utilities of everyone involved. The main advantage that derives from choosing to orient from a perspective of evil is that the choices can be made honestly and even ruthlessly without self-delusion as to motive or intent. Evil is practical. It need not be selfish. It need not be coercive. It is never properly perceived as identical with cruelty or destructiveness. Evil demands unqualified honesty in the assessment of the relative competence of each person within the context of the assessment. A dominant individual in one environment may be much less able in another context. There is no ascription of perfection of value across all possible environments. Evil, as a thesis, a lifestyle, accepts no illusion about the nature of the universe. The universe is a dangerous and potentially deadly place. Reality doesn't rely on the survival of any particular individual. The probability of survival is influenced most directly by the ability of the individual to adapt to the local conditions. Those people who are most adept under the immediate conditions are the ones most valuable to the survival of the social group. There is no presumption of obligation by the more valuable individuals to extend the benefits of their superiority to anyone else without remuneration. If some less capable person offers acceptable and desirable exchanges of value to a more capable member of the group, there is a 'quid quo pro' basis for the superior to offer enhanced living conditions to the inferior.
From:	Lucifer	2003-03-22 13:24:26
Subject:	Thesis (part 4)
Comment:	This is not a hard concept. It is not unfeeling or callous. Evil recognizes the need for self-honest appraisal of value that provides a valid source of self-esteem. Each person can identify a comfortable position within a social hierarchy based on the competencies, needs, and true drives of that individual. Evil does not thrive or decline under any particular political framework. From the core principles of anarchy, evil can offer the appearance of conformance with any political model. The evil citizen protects his reputation by public appearances of compliance with the law and faithful manipulations of the letter of the law to effect social occasions to his own ends. Evil can be generous and kind and truly altruistic. The evil individual can pity his lesser brethren and simply give with no expectation of reward other than the self-gratification of temporarily alleviating the relative misery of another fellow traveler.
From:	McLain	2003-04-21 13:10:04
Subject:	What is evil?
Comment:	I believe that some things a person can do can be called good or bad (not good or opposed to good). However, most people think everything they do is good or justified in one way or another. Evil is when someone does something opposed to their idea of good with no justification other than opposing good. Ex. A cigarette company may be bad, because they cause cancer (assuming cancer is bad). If that is the only reason they run their business it is evil, but if they believe money (good to them)is worth causing cancer they are bad.
From:	Clayton Carter	2003-09-06 18:33:58
Subject:	Equivicating
Comment:	I've noticed a major flaw in almost every premise on this site. People have taken something conceptual, evil, and tried to make it a concrete set of moral values and rules. I would like you to consider this. If you hand someone a rose, is that 'love'? If you give a helping hand, is that 'charity'? If you study hard for school is that 'dedication'? The answer is no, these are ACTS of Love, Charity, and Dedication but infact are not the concepts themselves. Another concrete example is a square acre; it is in the shape or model of a square, but is infact not the true form of square, it is a representation. Society and human culture has grown to determine the value of things based on a scale. So then if there is Good and Evil in the moral sense, then there must be Less-Good and Less-evil as well as totally neutral. Yet, the classic understanding a neutral act is no act at all. An example from earlier tries to use a type of 'lesser-evil for the greater-good' argument when discussing the terrorist attacks on the U.S. If we could travel back into time and kill these terrorists to prevent the disaster he argues that an evil act must occur to maintain the good. So obviously taking life is an evil act because it is based on intentions not condusive towards the progression of the human race. But killing a cow is condusive. Have you seen the movie 'Alive,' eating people is by modern moral values evil, so at what point is it acceptable to do so? When it is condusive towards maintaining life, even in the face of losing our humanity. In this understanding Good and Evil are never totally logical, then they must be created based from the human view of morality.
From:	Clayton Carter	2003-09-06 18:35:07
Subject:	part 2
Comment:	Our moral values differ from person to person, so therefor in this definition Good and Evil are independently variable and an act could be viewed as both good and evil... which make no sense at all. So there must be an idea of the 'ultimate good' to base all judgements against. Does this imply then that there must be an idea of 'ultimate evil' value as well? How good or evil can an act be? In my opinion a 'good' act is completely logical, it is a truthful act. An evil act is then determined to be a decision either illogical or a.k.a. based more on moral prejudice than logical intuition. Humanity has grown into a moral community and our ideas of what is a good or evil act has become warped; we have forgotten how eternal the concepts are and tried to relate them to our understanding of the world. So when considering god consider him as the logic, as the good, and as the truth. God is as inanimate as these concepts because 'he' is the form of the universe, the constitutant of their meanings. God isn't subject to the same moral codes as humanity, because he is a free form, not bound by the same rules of perception. This exlplains the logical workings of mathematics. Another example I would like to use is energy flow. There is not actually a 'cold' - it is just less hot. So how hot can something get (*hint*-it can't be infinately hot)? Reality is condusive to maintaining a circular continuation. Essencially bound to trying to evenly balance it's finite amount of energy in an infinate amount of space. So, this implies there is be an absolute void of energy which will never be quenched, an infinate cold. I think I could replace good with energy (hot) and still maintain truthful statements.
From:	Clayton Carter	2003-09-06 18:36:10
Subject:	conclusion
Comment:	Evil is like the cold, it is an infinite truth, an unalianable, and truly unatainable concept. Logic is that limit on how 'good' an act can be. Good and evil are relative to animate objects only. A rock will never be evil. It is simply the gauge to justify a free-willed action through logical (or illogical) conclusion. The continual search for neutral balance while never ignoring the essence of our moral society.
From:	chumbly	2004-01-27 09:45:23
Subject:	evil
Comment:	i belive that evil is not a subject that should be talked about because my mummy says its bad.my mummy says that if you talk about it to much or even say the word you will be sent to hell. i dont wont to go to hell so i will never say it again. i am still worrying about the time when my buddy said it and he ended up giving birth to a little bubby. i wish all who reads this to be safe because i love you.
From:	Phil	2004-03-18 20:45:04
Subject:	Nature of evil
Comment:	Evil is simply the opposite of the good. Where's the confusion? If we can agree on this simplified definition, we can argue with a concise direction. Good is NOT being polite when you really want to shout and clench your fist. This would be restraint, which is practiced to become good. We have learned well enough that shouting is not helpful, and is only satisfying for a moment. (The talent attained from such practice may be called virtue. A virtuous person is happy, by its very definition which is explained through the sequence of aforementioned rhetorical truths.) Evil cannot be generalized as the act of impulse, which is well known to be the primary beneficial factor for creativity. Not all impulses contain evil, only evil impulses contain evil. (An example of a vice of excess, which is an evil impulse in a small way, follows: Bethoven dwelled on sad emotions and expressed them beautifully, but just because he was creative didn't make him happy, or fulfilled; he was dangerously depressed.) The artist typically understands creative works to be the ultimate human achievement, understandably, but doesn't know a thing about how to be happy, and so consequentially doesn't formulate the most productive interpretations on morality in my opinion...
From:	Katie	2004-05-09 19:03:01
Subject:	View of Evil
Comment:	Humans are by nature evil. It is up to us to overcome our natural evilness and strive to do good works. That's one reason we exist is to overcome evil in ourselves. Evil is a human concept, the creator of the universe has risen above the petty human trait of good and evil. Human beings use evil as a basis for comparison for how well their lives are progressing. We shouldn't try to overcome the evil that is inside us, but embrace as a part of who we are. How would we know what is good if we do not know what's bad that's happened in our lives? Most of us in this society whine and complain about evil, but evil is a part of humanity and shouldn't be separated or eliminated. I wouldn't say my God has an evil side. However, I agree evil is a necessary “evil”. God would want us to freely accept his righteousness, and reject things that are of low moral character. Without it (evil), one would never be able to exercise freewill. And it is of that freewill He would want us to come to him. I believe that some things a person can do can be called good or bad. However, most people think everything they do is good or justified in one way or another. Evil is when someone does something opposed to their idea of good with no justification other than opposing good. Our moral values differ from person to person, so therefore in this definition Good and Evil are independently variable and an act could be viewed as both good and evil. So there must be an idea of the 'ultimate good' to base all judgments against.
From:	Katie	2004-05-09 19:08:36
Subject:	Opinion of Evil
Comment:	In my opinion, a 'good' act is completely logical, it is a truthful act. An evil act is then determined to be a decision either illogical or based more on moral prejudice than logical perception. Humanity has grown into a moral community and our ideas of what is a good or evil act has become warped; we have forgotten how eternal the concepts are and tried to relate them to our understanding of the world. So when considering God, consider him as the logic, as the good, and as the truth. God is as inanimate as these concepts because He is the form of the universe, the consultant of their meanings. God isn't subject to the same moral codes as humanity, because he is a free form, not bound by the same rules of perception. Evil is simply the opposite of good.
From:	Cassie	2004-12-06 13:38:08
Subject:	Good and Evil
Comment:	If anyone has any ideas of a thesis comparing and contrasting Good and Evil please tell me.
From:	John	2005-01-25 00:17:23
Subject:	evil
Comment:	You cant have a thorough discussion of evil without mentioning its eternal counterpart, good. The good-evil framework has been overused throughout history to explain phenomena. It has come to be merely a means of providing a quick and superficial synopsis of a person, occurance, or idea. It has always been somewhat obsolete in relation to the complexity of the world's phenomena that it supposedly explained. Evil is a concept that originated out of superstition and religion to quell the anxiety and bewilderment of not being able to explain or understand things that yielded grand consequences. It is most often anchored in some subjective understanding of what is favorable or non-favorable as oppose to universal truth. Consequently the good-evil framework has conventionally become a means to describe favorable, and non-favorable phenomena but only superficially. It is used to describe the action as opposed to the motive. Evil is a concept that describes an orientation that wishes to do harm for the sole purpose of doing harm. While the 9/11 terrorists wished to do Americans great harm, that was not their ultimate purpose. There ultimate purpose was probably revenge, and/or to send a message. Likewise, while the U.S. aid to the tsunami-battered region sri lanka and surrounding areas can be considered an act of good will, it was done not for the ultimate purpose of good will but rather more so for political purposes. Of all the phenomena that evil is used to explain, I suspect that only a very small portion is actually evil. And the same goes for good. The more information we have, and the deeper we look into a situation, the harder it will be for us to use the concepts of good and evil
From:	Laura	2005-03-24 20:01:10
Subject:	Natural
Comment:	If evil is a natural impulse in all humans, then why is it bad? 'God' created us, gave us evil tendencies, and then taught us that our desires are bad and must be denied. What a dirty trick. What we consider evil, may just be evil, because we've been taught that it is evil. hmmmmmm
From:	artemis entreri	2007-02-02 16:12:17
Subject:	grammar
Comment:	you all should learn to use proper grammar before posting things in an intellectual forum kthxdie
From:	Anna	2008-01-09 07:21:19
Subject:	Part 1: Subjective Truths
Comment:	Anyone who has taken philosophy (and most others, I'm sure) will recognize there is <b>subjective truth</b>. Something I do might seem to be the Good thing to do to me, while decidedly Evil to you -- either because I'm ignorant, or simply because our morals are different. <br /><br /> An example is this: In Sweden, we get a lot of immigrants from Islamic countries. Their women go clad in scarves and whatnot, completely covered, don't show their hair or any great extent of their skin except for their face and hands. In Sweden, women go clad just anyhow -- 'skimpy'. The Islamic men then perceive the Swedish women as whores, as immoral, and as asking to be raped. 'It's wrong to rape women,' they'll say, 'but not Swedish whores.' By their morals, Swedish women are in the wrong, the evil ones. By our own morals, the rapists are the evil ones. Who is right?
From:	Tom	2008-05-12 05:18:13
Subject:	Evil?
Comment:	What is evil? Is evil but not an opinion more than anything. One person could say that hunting is evil, while the other says it's a way to keep living. Is murdering evil? When we kill other animals for food isn't that evil, but yet it's good, because it keeps us from starving. What is good and what is evil, is nothing but an opinion.