Thisthisthisthisthis and this.

Also, the Comedian is still an evil bastard.

I wasn't making a comparison. My comment about schizophrenia was following on from my second question, which was asking about any person, not just sadists.

Their perception is beyond their control, yes. My point was that if a schizophrenic does something that you might regard as evil, to them it's a rational choice based on the (faulty) information they have at hand.


You mean like here and here?

I wasn't disagreeing Nate, just backing you up in case someone was dumb enough to try and whip that argument out.
Nipping it in the bud, so to speak :)

Meh.. Evil doesn't exist... Only within human context.

Animals kill each other, but that neither evil or good. It's just life.

Our brains just complicate things I guess :p

Those terrorist Muslims think they are doing good by cleansing the world of anything opposing Islam. Same goes for christians who have been indoctrinated since birth. On the other hand we think we are doing good when we try to de-convert Christians, yet some Christians call this the work of the devil.

So yea.. What is truly evil, I don't know. It's incredibly subjective. I don't find sadism evil at all, unless that person hurts someone who did not consent to it.

Personally, I think acting malicious is evil. There is no excuse for maliciousness. There is no excuse for wanting to put others down in order to gain from it... And usually people do it for popularity, or some other stupid thing.

For example, I find those 'Anonymous' idiots to be evil.. Not all of them, but most of them. They maliciously join lets-ruin-someone's-life-bandwagons and they know this. They are 100% aware that they are hurting someone out there. And yea, you may say that "Internet is serious business"... But I'm not talking about normal online bullying.. More the kind where they expose their personal info and send death threats. I find it outright scary that anyone has the urge to do this.

But all in all... It doesn't really matter... If you put "outside view"-goggles on, free of any human thought, you'd realize there's no evil... Just matter... And matter interacting with matter. In the end, we have a big bang, stars, planets, and maybe the end of the universe somewhere in the future.

Well those are just my thoughts.

Edit: Man.. Now Im depressed <.<

Pretentious, moi?


And yeah, I agree with T-Nex that maliciousness is a form of evil. Knowing that you're doing harm, but doing it anyway cause it benefits you in a non-essential way, that's evil. Rape for instance. Nobody, sadist, schizophrenic, whatever, is compelled to rape, has to rape to survive. It's a personal urge thats a desire not a need, and the person doing so is fully aware they're doing harm.

I think thats the best way I can define my view of evil- something done for personal gain that is not essential, where the perpetrator is aware of harming another person but continues the act regardless.

Even though we're joking, I'd just like to clear up with anyone who has the wrong idea that I don't feel hostile towards all of the middle class. I'm basing my joke on a rather comical stereotype.
They're still a bunch of uppity tits. Especially Munch's Master. God, that Munch's Master.

Short answer: No.

Long Answer: Not in the sense that there's some invisible fuckfield telling us what to do. But combining the stupidity, greed and general shitty behavior that the vast majority of us as a species make a part of our daily lives, yes, evil exists.

Did Kastere just turn atheist?

And yeah, I guess I believe in evil as maliciousness. Since our world is what our brains make of it, I guess for us that´s a good exmaple of evil. Such as when those two soldiers in Iraq threw that puppy right over the cliff. That´s evil. Or when that group of soldiers got drunk, left their posts, murdered a family of Iraqis, raped their daughter and then set fire to her. That´s really evil.

Short answer: No.

Long Answer: The sheer absurdity of BIG BAD FUCKFIELD GOD WILL PUNCH YOU IN THE DICK isn't lost on me. I've got an amalgam of beliefs. I don't think that heaven or hell should count as an ultimate prize/consequence.
Karma, baby. That's where this streetlight's headed.

Wtf? Did this really happen? That's some of the sickest shit Ive heard lately... How anyone can even have the heart to do that is beyond me... Did they go to jail? Get execute? Go to hell??

I really wish karma was real... The world would look so different.

Edit: I guess if Karma was real, that would be the force telling you what's evil and what's not.

Karma, just like the fuckfield, doesn't exist in some tangible sense, but it's there. If you think about what you do really hard, you'll be able to discern the consequences of it. I skipped a day of co-op three weeks ago and didn't get a job because of it. If I'd gone to work, it's possible that my actions there would have affected X, who affected Y, who ended up doing something to make Z give me a job.
I don't mean in the sense of them saying "OH HEY THIS GUY WHO SOMEONE ELSE KNOWS IS PRETTY COOL AND ALSO HE APPLIED HERE."

One of the reasons I stopped shoplifting was because something was going to happen to Milo if I didn't. Just this little buzzing in my head one night; "Keep it up and you'll leave the gate open by accident and he'll be run over."

I can't believe in Traditional Karma, Quantum Karma now, that'd be something.

I believe in QUARMA, babeh!

~This is all offtopic IMO anyway.
Enchilado

But that's not really Karma in the sense that something actively causes bad consequences for bad action(which is what I was hoping for :p)...
It's just actions = consequences. Whether they be good or bad... And even if they are bad, negative consequences don't always come out of it.. Like people who murder to conceal something bad they've done. Or what about the many rapists in this world who never get caught or put to jail... or what about all the evil corporate owners who cheated and hurt lives in order to get such a big status?
The world has forsaken us, and we're all just here to fend for ourselves :(
I really wish Karma would come and kick some serious butt, but some people lead a perfectly happy life, despite being fucked up and evil... And no.. they don't regret it in their soul or die unhappy like we'd like to think. They die peacefully without regrets,

Yea I'm just pissed off by these things. But in the end it really doesn't matter what we do... We live, we die and that's it... Unless you're Christian. I'd rather let afterlife surprise me though.

You have to consider these things in the long run, and understand that the consequences for their actions might not be some public display.

Yes, I believe evil is real (hi, Nexy!)
As for the more pressing question of what evil is, it's quite simply anything that goes against the nature of God. Whatever people have defined the word as since, this is what it really means.

If you boil down all of the rules God gave us it comes down to, "Be good to the planet,", "Be good to God," and "Be good to other people." Boil it down further and you get, "Don't be selfish; take care of others." (For the sake of this discussion, that's what I mean when I say 'good'.)

Evil, quite simply, is any selfish action.

Some of you might have heard of the apostle, Paul, from the Bible. Paul was one of the earliest Christians and to put it simply he did more good than a lot of other people. This was a guy who was humble, who devoted his home, his money, his power, his freedom and ultimately his life to doing good things for other people. He was about as good as you could hope. I wish I could be as humble and as selfless as this guy. And yet when he wrote to a man he loved as a son, he called himself the most evil of all people (1 Timothy, 1:15).

This is a guy who was doing so much good and calling himself worse than murderers and rapists! Worse than the pagans who raped and murdered children because it seemed like a good idea! He called himself worse than Everyone's Favourite Evil Uncle Adolf!


You guys have all accepted one opinion; people aren't evil, but they do things that might be considered evil. You're afraid to say any one person is evil.

This couldn't be further from the truth! Here's what I believe with all my heart; all people are by nature evil! We have the capacity to do good, selfless things, but we are inherently selfish. We spend our lives saying "What can I do for myself? How can I make myself look good? How can I help myself?"

You draw a line between "What can I do to help myself?" And "What can I do to bring someone else down?" But there isn't a line there! As evil beings, we want to make ourselves look good so we say, "I can't possibly be evil! I might do evil things but that doesn't make me evil!"

So many Christians don't see this. So many people think that if they can call themselves Christians then they can call themselves better than non-Christians. But I am as evil as anyone, as murderers and rapists. In Paul's letters he goes on and on about his own evilness. He talks about 'inner groanings that words cannot express'. He is repulsed by what he is; he hates his evilness, and I agree with him. I hate what I am; I wish with all my heart and soul that I could go a day without getting it wrong! In Romans 7:24 Paul writes, (paraphrase) "How wretched am I! What can possibly save me from this evilness that infects me?"


Don't misunderstand me; being born evil doesn't make me guiltless. If a plague of locusts was eating all of a farmer's crops would he stand there while they removed his livelihood because it's their nature to eat? No way; he'd call in the exterminators! We are guilty for what we do! And punishment has to be paid!


As someone said, people used to pay for their evil deeds by sacrificing animals. Quite horribly, the animals suffered so that people didn't have to, but God cares about people more than he cares about animals and was willing to accept the sacrifice.

In the end He Himself took the punishment we deserve. (Paraphrase again) "Christ died for our evil once for all; he was good and perfect but he paid the price for the evil acts we commit." 1 Peter 3:18. He took the punishment for all the evil of all the people in the world so that the people who committed evil could be free of evil. I hate being an evil being, but I can't deny that it's what I am; I see myself doing evil all the time. But the punishment for my daily selfishness has already been taken, so one day I know I can be free of it.

That was captivating.

Read the book of Leviticus. "God's" rules do not boil down to "Be good", at all. "God's" rules are the ravings of a madman.

Levitical laws were generally telling people how to live longer and/or better. Kosha (yeah, I spelled that wrong) is a list of foods that won't give you food poisoning for example.

Man OANST, you were doing so well in this thread...

I prefer my argument, I don't need page citations.

There are pages and pages devoted to what sort of offerings God will accept from his people, what to do with adulterers, what to do with the family of adulterers, so on and so on. They are not just health tips.

And I don't know what you mean by "you were doing so well".

i find that to sound quite disturbing. when i read it i felt like i had shot back through time and was being told i was evil and needed to beg for forgiveness by my mother. not being 'funny' either. i genuinely think that its a bit extreme to have to hate yourself for committing sins and then levelling yourself out with rapists, murderers and the like. hate is a very strong word.

and to me that sounded like Paul was suffering mentally. i'm sure if someone obsessed over them self in that fashion nowadays they would be forced to seek help, and it would be for a good and legitimate reason.

I don't hate myself, but I hate what I do and I wish I could change.

OANST, I fail to see what your problem with Leviticus is, and I meant you seemed actually interested in having a discussion and hearing people's comments rather than making witty remarks in an attempt to make people laugh at the expense of someone else.

That's not what I was doing at all. I honestly feel that your interpretation of your god's laws are way off base. I don't blame you. Modern Christians tend to view the bible through rose colored glasses, and ignore the really crazy bits. This is a lot better than the old style of Christianity, which was to take the really crazy bits seriously, and wreak havoc with people's lives.

Sad to say Splat, but I actually agree with this >_<

I think it's sort of always bugged me that people just pick and choose from the bible.

What bugs me about Christianity's definition on evil, is that it doesn't have a lot to do with the actual person and what he's done. If Hitler had asked God for forgiveness, then he'd suddenly been salvaged, and wouldn't have to fear the consequences of his bad actions.

Yeah OANST, right now it sounds like you're someone who doesn't know what they're talking about but just trying to be contrary. Sorry if it's not like that, and if you'd like to point out any particular part of Leviticus, I'd be willing to use my knowledge to answer your questions.
But there is no doubt in my mind that those laws were written by God for the good of his people, and not some crazy guy. Those laws were applicable in their day. When Jesus died, the whole world changed, though I don't know that this is a discussion on the verification of the Bible.

I just wanted to post my opinion on the topic; I didn't want to end up feeling attacked for what I believe.

except for china

those godless monsters

Hey! China has plenty of Gods!

like

uh

Taisui Xingjun, the god of Calamity?

And let's not forget Sun Wukong, the most awesome god in all mythology.

But we're debating evil, you can't really expect to be able to post what you believe without it being scrutinized the way everyone elses views are, specifically you're not relying on rationality or empirical evidence but written law.

I'm sorry if my little jibe offended you, but I was a little miffed at having my very considered philosophical opinion dismissed out of hand like that.