Does Evil Exist?

[TANKGRL]

Evil does exist in many forms. Bush is one of the biggest evils there is right now. There is alot of evil people who kill their friends or families or people who kill just because. Unfortunately there will always be evil as long as there is freedoms. Sad to say peace will never exist..... only peace in mind and peace with friends and family. There will never be peace in countries.

[DarkOne180]

I believe Evil exists in all of us coz when the Demons start talking we all can bring the Evil within.

[blueangel]

Evil does exist in many forms. Bush is one of the biggest evils there is right now. There is alot of evil people who kill their friends or families or people who kill just because. Unfortunately there will always be evil as long as there is freedoms. Sad to say peace will never exist..... only peace in mind and peace with friends and family. There will never be peace in countries.

 

People say so much about Bush. There's even a new show on Comedy Central to make fun of him (Lil Bush). But when he's giving speeches he seems so down to earth. So I dont know what to think except that he's a human making big mistakes. Yet you cant deny there are people behind him, who believe in helping Iraq and progressing this war. These people are the ones keeping him president. I recommend reading a book called "Where Did All The Leaders Go"

 

I believe peace does exist and it exists right now in many people. In myself as well. Some places have it, some people have it, some do not. Many do not. Yet I dont think freedom is the reason for this. I think it's the values we hold and how we live (all this consumerism and superficialness) that has blinded all of us from what really matters. And when as a nation we are that blind, of course wars are going to start. But...in many places, in many households, peace is still there. That's because many have turned their heads from the world's pain. There are too many levels of it. Some should turn their head for peace for the sake of their children and day to day wellbeing I suppose, but that's the only reason I can muster.

[TANKGRL]

He vetoed a law that was trying to be passed to get out of over seas..... he's useless and making bad mistakes. I am sure daddy had some help in his decisions. He is making BIG bucks off of the war...that's all he cares about. He doesn't care about this country. I really hope the next President opens his/hers eyes and starts taken care of OUR country first!!! Screw everyone else. WE NEED HELP!!! Our countries has starving people just as much as those third world countries. We need to stay out of everyone else's business and attend to our own!!! There are sick of us intervening!

[DarkOne180]

I am no American but I hate Bush and his ways he is Evil next to Hitler but evil in his mad greedy way stealing oil from Iraq with Blair well what ever way you see him and the new war.

[Cimmie]

Things like the Holocaust and the Rwandan massacres are proof positive of the existence of evil. These things are not just the absense of good, but examples of human beings putting themselves out to devalue, degrade, and extinguish other human beings. Hannah Arendt said 'evil is banal', and there is something in this. There is nothing spectacular or out of the ordinary about it: no black-bearded gent in a red cape with horns on his head. Evil is all around us.

 

There is some debate about whether the psychopath is evil or ill. Many of these people have no indentifiable mental illness, in fact they are noteworthy for an absense of 'normal' neurosis. Yet they don't feel empathy as other people do, they are shallow, manipulative, lacking remorse and so on. Some neuropsychiatrists think their brains are actually wired differently. Does this obviate the 'evil' of their behaviour? Or are they actually impaired in some way? They don't seem to fit easily into these categories...

 

BTW, I haven't read it, but isn't 'People of the Lie' about psychopathy?

[Miss Firecracker]

Cimmie,

 

I know a sociopath very well. And the questions you are asking yourself is the very reason I am unable to hate this man. I honestly think he was born with something wrong in his brain. And how can you hate someone who is mentally disabled?

[Cimmie]

Cimmie,

 

I know a sociopath very well. And the questions you are asking yourself is the very reason I am unable to hate this man. I honestly think he was born with something wrong in his brain. And how can you hate someone who is mentally disabled?

 

I know, MF. It's a peculiar place to be...

[Miss Firecracker]

Cimmie,

 

I can finally say that I do love this person, even though he has caused my family untold pain and misery over years. I am beginning to heal.

[Daddy Bear]

I believe that atrocity arises when men step into the vacuum created by the absense of love. I do not believe that a metaphysical, subliminal force that we could name "Evil" exists in reality.

 

The Einstein vs. professor conversation never happened; the story is a hoax.

[mgirl]

Hi blueangel...I know you are a fan of Neale Donald Walsch...but have you read anything by M. Scott Peck?

 

He has an interesting discussion of evil in "The Road Less Traveled" and wrote an entire book on evil called "People Of The Lie." If you are pondering such things, you might find his books interesting. He also wrote a book about exorcisms, but I cannot recall the title of it right now. It was one of the last books he wrote before his death. You should be able to find all of these easily at the library.

 

At any rate, I liked one of the things he said about evil in "The Road Less Traveled."

 

Evil does exist...but as a force, it is ultimately ineffective. It was evil that raised Christ to the cross thus enabling all the world to see Him.

 

Yes, i think evil exists, but it's like Shes2Smart says, it is not as bad as we think.

[CreedBratton]

Hey I didn't check to see if anyone said this ... but that has been debunked. That is not to say that someone other than Einstein, did this ...........

 

I do believe in what it is saying though, and I am glad you posted it because I have been looking for this for a long time.

[blueangel]

Yes someone else showed me it wasn't Einstein.

 

 

Hey check this stuff out, people and tell me if you think it's bogus or enlightening:

 

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[HealingHandsWarmHeart]

hey thanks for the link...i loved these books...

 

i loved the part where he talked about what happens to a baby that isn't baptized... where does it go "limbo" ..what the heck is limbo...lol

 

i just love his frank aprroach ...

 

when i was a young girl in catholic school.. my mom accidently packed me a bologna sandwhich on no meat fridays...and i seriously thought i was going to heck.

 

You reminded me to pull his books out again and reread them..its been a long time..but like i said ..i love his frank approach to god and religion.

 

I recently went to go see Depak chopra speak..and he spoke about oneness... i find that to be so comforting...and it helps to not feel so alone..to know that everyone is our brothers and sisters...it has allowed me to feel more compassion and understanding towards others.

[shes2smart]

BTW, I haven't read it, but isn't 'People of the Lie' about psychopathy?

 

People of the Lie - The Hope For Healing Human Evil.

 

This book makes more sense if you read The Road Less Traveled first...because it's an expansion of some of the concepts he starts exploring there.

 

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[This Little Lady]

I have always personally believed in the saying that man is inherently good, it is society that corrupts him. I believe it was Henri Rossseua who said that. I could be wrong. We do not seem born to kill others, born to hurt, born to inflict pain. We are taught these things in one way or another. Either by wrongs done to us, wrong we've witnessed, or wrongs we've stumbled upon.

 

I don't think evil is the absense of God. I believe it is a balance. Without it, we would not be aware of the beauty or the splendor around us. I believe evil is the absense of goodness and will. However it is important because without it we would know nothing of strengh, perseverance, struggle.

[Brooke657]

I have always personally believed in the saying that man is inherently good, it is society that corrupts him. I believe it was Henri Rossseua who said that. I could be wrong. We do not seem born to kill others, born to hurt, born to inflict pain. We are taught these things in one way or another. Either by wrongs done to us, wrong we've witnessed, or wrongs we've stumbled upon.

 

I don't think evil is the absense of God. I believe it is a balance. Without it, we would not be aware of the beauty or the splendor around us. I believe evil is the absense of goodness and will. However it is important because without it we would know nothing of strengh, perseverance, struggle.

I definatly agree. I like to think people are mainly good in the world. I was watching tv with my younger sister the other day and it must have been csi or something and someone was getting raped and murderd on the show and it didnt even phase her. I have a hard time watching it and even though i realize its not reay its like thats just horrible. I just kind of hit me that kids are growing up in a society that somewhat promotes violence. So many shows are centerd around murder and there are so many movies about just things beyond anything I can even imagine and it's scary to think that she's so used to it she doesn't care. Even when she sees things on the news it doesn't bother her and those are real stories. I think you should be at least a little but uncomfortable with things like that and shes just so numb to it and I think alot of people are.

[tmp0620]

Right and wrong, good and evil are just labels we use. Things are never that black and white.

 

For example, Bush calls the terrorists evil... but the terrorists think we're evil. It's the same as the debate over religion and faith... every religious person has the same faith in their particular religion, so which is right?

 

People do horrible things to each other, but it's not because of some magical force out there. It's upbringing, biology, concsious choice etc.

 

There's no one/nothing behind the scenes making people do these things.

[Spugly Fuglet]

1: I would like to know where you go the text from, its more like a fable than true history

 

2: Albert Einstein did not believe in a personal god in fact he rit a paper in it

 

Einstein's is quoted as saying often 'Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.'

 

But Einstein also said

 

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it"

 

 

 

3: "Evil" like all human language exists only in human brains.

 

See

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[CreedBratton]

"I would like to know where you go the text from, its more like a fable than true history"

 

It is not a true story, go to link removed

 

""I believe that atrocity arises when men step into the vacuum created by the absense of love. I do not believe that a metaphysical, subliminal force that we could name "Evil" exists in reality.""

 

This is true, but calling it evil gives it a name we can all recognize isntantly.

[Cimmie]

Psychopaths are very interesting. Some psychiatrists even think they are like a different category of human, evolved to operate out of pure self-interest. Where survival is concerned, you can see how this might be an advantage. They run into problems in a complex society though, since they seem to be hard-wired as predators: financial, sexual, or as with the worst ones, to inflict pain and to kill.

 

One of the most obvious things about them is the absense of values. I think this links to what somebloke says about the absense of love. Having love at the root of the personality guarantees compassion, empathy, self-sacrifice--all of the qualities that make up goodness. If that basic love is absent, you have evil. P's have NO social values or sense of morality AT ALL. They think people who do subscribe to these values are 'weak' or 'naive', because they simply do not understand it. It's almost as though they have been born without a soul.

 

Psychopaths *can't* love. It is a language they do not understand. Neither do they understand the concept of 'goodness' in another person's character. In their world-view, other people exist to give them what they want. In order to get what they want (money, sex, or a self-deceiving notion of 'love') they will lie, cheat, manipulate and use force. The tragedy of the psychopath is that they have no insight into what they really are. They know they are different from other people, but often they attribute that to an innate superiority, because they are not hampered by conscience, sexual neurosis, or scruples like the rest of us. In fact Robert Hare says that psychopaths are the most sexually well adjusted people on the planet...sex is no big deal for them, it's as devoid of emotional depth as every other aspect of their lives. They have no ability to know that these tensions, and 'working through' them, are what give human personality strength and depth, and the capacity to develop. Psychopaths NEVER learn from their mistakes. They trip blithely through life, leaving destruction and pain in their wake, and blaming everyone else for this, like a kind of holy fool. Psychiatrists term this 'lack of specific insight.'

 

Having observed one of these people at close quarters, I'm still at a loss to know whether it is 'innate' or fostered by family dysfunction, or a bit of both. I've thought a lot about it and in my case there's evidence for both. But family dynamics are so complex it's hard to know.

 

BTW psychopaths are many: it's thought that one person in every 200 displays characteristics. The trick is avoiding them. The basic red flag is a lack of empathy. If you notice this in a person--RUN.

[itsallgrand]

I think that somewhere along the line people started to see death as unnatural and bad.

 

And the words 'Evil' and 'Death' got all twisted up together.

 

Very handy for keeping the social lines of the day!

 

If life isn't sacred then evil has no meaning.

 

Pyschopaths seem to understand this more readily. That life is only sacred and loaded with meaning if a person feels and believes it to be.

 

Strangely, they also seem bloated with a self importance that has no basis. A predator plain and simple, a highly evolved large brained predator. Equipped with an ego like no other animal.

 

There are no saints without sinners.

 

There is no evil without good. And 'good' is just another way of saying "I want to live!".

[Cimmie]

I think that somewhere along the line people started to see death as unnatural and bad.

 

And the words 'Evil' and 'Death' got all twisted up together.

 

Very handy for keeping the social lines of the day!

 

If life isn't sacred then evil has no meaning.

 

Pyschopaths seem to understand this more readily. That life is only sacred and loaded with meaning if a person feels and believes it to be.

 

Strangely, they also seem bloated with a self importance that has no basis. A predator plain and simple, a highly evolved large brained predator. Equipped with an ego like no other animal.

 

There are no saints without sinners.

 

There is no evil without good. And 'good' is just another way of saying "I want to live!".

 

This is very thought-provoking, itsallgrand. And I agree with you. It reminds me of a line by WB Yeats: 'man has created death.'

 

What it doesn't explain, however, is why a psychopath *enjoys* manipulation and lies. Their drug of choice is putting one over on you. That seems to be a purely evil characteristic, in my view. It's about power, power being the only thing that matters.

 

And love is the opposite of power.

[itsallgrand]

Hmm. That's interesting, Cimmie.

 

I really don't know much about the inner working of 'evil' or psychopaths.

 

Maybe, since there is no meaning coming from love, some meaning is taken from exerting power over others and destroying?

 

People do seem to have this need to take meaning in something. And, I dunno, when pushed into a situation or living with a nihilist or otherwise 'dead end' philosophy, devoid of any conviction or feeling that there is some inherent reason to Be, violence and predatory behavior seems to be a real way to make some meaning.

 

Sticking one over on someone is a quick and efficient way to say "I am here. I exist. I LIVE."

Confirmation of life in a twisted sort of way.

 

Really interesting posts on this topic!

[Cimmie]

Here is an interesting description/explanation of the alienness of the psychopath's internal state. It's from Martha Stout's The Sociopath Next Door:

 

Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.

 

And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools.

 

Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless.

 

You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice water in your veins is so bizarre, so completely outside of their personal experience, that they seldom even guess at your condition.

 

In other words, you are completely free of internal restraints, and your unhampered liberty to do just as you please, with no pangs of conscience, is conveniently invisible to the world.

 

You can do anything at all, and still your strange advantage over the majority of people, who are kept in line by their consciences will most likely remain undiscovered.

 

How will you live your life?

 

What will you do with your huge and secret advantage, and with the corresponding handicap of other people (conscience)?

 

The answer will depend largely on just what your desires happen to be, because people are not all the same. Even the profoundly unscrupulous are not all the same. Some people - whether they have a conscience or not - favor the ease of inertia, while others are filled with dreams and wild ambitions. Some human beings are brilliant and talented, some are dull-witted, and most, conscience or not, are somewhere in between. There are violent people and nonviolent ones, individuals who are motivated by blood lust and those who have no such appetites. [...]

 

Provided you are not forcibly stopped, you can do anything at all.

 

If you are born at the right time, with some access to family fortune, and you have a special talent for whipping up other people's hatred and sense of deprivation, you can arrange to kill large numbers of unsuspecting people. With enough money, you can accomplish this from far away, and you can sit back safely and watch in satisfaction. [...]

 

Crazy and frightening - and real, in about 4 percent of the population....

 

The prevalence rate for anorexic eating disorders is estimated a 3.43 percent, deemed to be nearly epidemic, and yet this figure is a fraction lower than the rate for antisocial personality. The high-profile disorders classed as schizophrenia occur in only about 1 percent of [the population] - a mere quarter of the rate of antisocial personality - and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that the rate of colon cancer in the United States, considered "alarmingly high," is about 40 per 100,000 - one hundred times lower than the rate of antisocial personality.

 

The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our self-esteem, our very peace on earth.

 

Yet surprisingly, many people know nothing about this disorder, or if they do, they think only in terms of violent psychopathy - murderers, serial killers, mass murderers - people who have conspicuously broken the law many times over, and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe even put to death by our legal system.

 

We are not commonly aware of, nor do we usually identify, the larger number of nonviolent sociopaths among us, people who often are not blatant lawbreakers, and against whom our formal legal system provides little defense.

 

Most of us would not imagine any correspondence between conceiving an ethnic genocide and, say, guiltlessly lying to one's boss about a coworker. But the psychological correspondence is not only there; it is chilling. Simple and profound, the link is the absense of the inner mechanism that beats up on us, emotionally speaking, when we make a choice we view as immoral, unethical, neglectful, or selfish.

 

Most of us feel mildly guilty if we eat the last piece of cake in the kitchen, let alone what we would feel if we intentionally and methodically set about to hurt another person.

 

Those who have no conscience at all are a group unto themselves, whether they be homicidal tyrants or merely ruthless social snipers.

 

The presense or absense of conscience is a deep human division, arguably more significant than intelligence, race, or even gender.

 

What differentiates a sociopath who lives off the labors of others from one who occasionally robs convenience stores, or from one who is a contemporary robber baron - or what makes the difference betwen an ordinary bully and a sociopathic murderer - is nothing more than social status, drive, intellect, blood lust, or simple opportunity.

 

What distinguishes all of these people from the rest of us is an utterly empty hole in the psyche, where there should be the most evolved of all humanizing functions.