What is Evil?

[airEx]

How can we describe the nazis "final solution" with one word?
Madness.

And there you have my answer.

Funnily enough you have the flag of Sweden, I suppose, in your avatar. Did you know that back in the day Sweden was reeealy big on eugenics, sterilizing disabled people or even gassing them?

Now don't take personal offence, I just think it was a bit ironic.

We didn't gas people, but we did sterilize them, which makes me think; How could we be so stupid, too do something so mad?

 

[Vitor Goncalves]

Evil in the simplest form: The Stepmother!

Evil in its most (un)popular form: the mother-in-law!

 

[Kollega]

Evil has many forms - but it's main form is when you cause harm to others for your and only your own benefit, and not in life-or-death situation (be it desire for power or just plain sadism).

From what I understand, that's called Opportunism, and is the crutch of many a politician.

So many politicans can be considered evil. Well, d'oh. Thank you very much, Captain Obvious.

 

[Popadomus Ohio]

evil is something that is distributed among various groups, including the Chav, the angry racist 11 year old on Xbox live, and various other shitty types.

 

[Turbo_Destructor]

For me the definition of evil is quite specific. it entails doing something that you know is wrong and/or causes suffering, but you do it anyway BECAUSE it is wrong/causes suffering and you like that. This can be something little - like putting crumbs in you're brother's bed, you it can be serious - like torturing and murdering someone for pleasure. Anything other than this, to me, is not evil, but rather incorrect or misguided.

 

[Danpascooch]

Evil is just a word, nothing more. If you want to get technical I'd say that evil is unbridled chaos. Anarchy. people who don't really care. People without purpose striving for nothing. Good and Evil, right and wrong. These mean nothing because each side is fighting for good, each side is fighting for right.

Chaos and Anarchy are not synonymous.

Chaos = absence of order.
Anarchy = absence of authority.

Anarchy does not imply chaos. It implies equality.

did i say they were related? i was just giving ideas of what evil is, which i think either would work

When you put one word after the first one in a one word sentence, it implies synonymism

maybe they are both synonymous with the term of evil...

Synonymism BETWEEN THE TWO OF THEM

also, you just said that anarchy is synonymous with evil, so totalitarian states and the genocide aren't evil because they weren't anarchy? go figure

Ok i'd like to point out that i spelled the word, Synonymism, correct in my post, please stop acting superior.
Second: They are synonymous... with the definition of evil =D
Third: Totalitarian states doesn't imply evil, it just implies government and military rule. Doesn't mean evil
Fourth: Genocide, through the eyes of the person, is always right. I'd love for you to revive Hitler and ask him if what he did to the jews was right or wrong, cause he'd say it's right/good. Shit the United States didn't mind it, considering we started turning away boats coming from europe filled with refugees. Britain didn't mind it either, in fact they didn't mind the ideals of Hitler and the Nazi party, it was only until they invaded Belgium did they start to give a crap. So, back to the original question, do i think it's evil? no. But morally unethical? yes

I'm not acting superior, You're the one splitting hairs, first of all, I don't agree they are synonymous with evil, and the way you put it implied they were synonymous with each-other, which is definitely not true.

So Totalitarianism doesn't imply evil, but anarchism does? Seriously?

So you don't think genocide is evil, because you want to look at it with an open mind, but refuse to think for a second that anarchism is not synonymous with evil? Dude, you're nuts. The only reason I could possibly think for you saying Genocide is not inherently evil but anarchy is is that you want to say genocide is not evil because I'm the one who said it was.

Lol, never seen someone argue that Anarchism is evil and genocide is not.

 

[Super Toast]

Evil is what "we", or "the Man", finds contradictory to his ideas.

Otherwise, there's no evil or good.

What "evil" essentially boils down to is a label that helps one demonize one's opponents to use it as an excuse to justify his or her own actions and somehow imply that objective morality exists anywhere outside one's head (Yes, it's an oxymoron, I know. ) for future furthering of goals and such.

Verbose!

On an unrelated note, one who decides to say "fuck it" and goes on to destroy the whole world for no other reason then 'just cause (hur) is my hero, whether it's Joker from Dark Knight, or Kefka from Final Fantasy.

Maybe you just like clowns? Regardless, I agree.

 

[Uncompetative]

The Catholic Church. If God actually existed, he would throw all their decadent souls into the fiery pit for the rest of eternity.

 

[Brandon237]

Evil is just a point of view. To someone a man who kills for power and manipulates others is evil. Then to someone else a Religion based on being kind and giving is evil because it teaches weakness. There is not just one Evil. Its all how you look at it.

Why do I just know that you played KotOR II. I'm actually gonna play it again and see how many times Kreia says that.

Never made it past the first hour or so.

Is that because of boredom or genuine difficulty?
I found the first two hours quite meh... but after that I was enthralled. Besides, 1 hour is more than enough time to be corrupted by Kreia.

 

[Daverson]

Evil essentially boils down to "You're doing the exact opposite of what it says in my holy book, ergo, you are not a good person".

All morality is a religious concept. A lot of people seem to think this is the other way around, but it isn't. You can look at cultural concepts of what's "right" and what's "wrong", and you'll see that they're usually pretty on-par with the local religious beliefs.

This is usually derived from empathy, simple science, or occasionally, the need for a group to impose control on another. If someone does something we wouldn't want done to ourselves (murder, rape, etc), then this is wrong, so we write rules against it. If we find out that eating, or example, uncooked pork causes us to become ill, then we write rules against it. Finally, if we notice that other people aren't following our rules, we write rules against that. Which leads us to stuff like the ten commandments.

This is why something, such as cannibalism, is seen as one of the greatest evils in cultures such as our own, however, to the Mayans, it was seen as a necessity.

Simply put: Evil is what people say it is.

 

[Queen Michael]

Selfishness is pretty good. As any reader of superhero comic books has noticed, the moment a villain starts doing anything that might be called unselfish is the moment they become "anti-heroes".

The Catholic Church. If God actually existed, he would throw all their decadent souls into the fiery pit for the rest of eternity.

Well, I'm told he does that to sinners after they die. So in that case it could be that it happens, it's just that you can't see it happen. (No offence to the Catholic church or its adherents, I just wanted to help Uncompetative understand the faith.)

 

[Mukil]

live spelt backwards