Am I Evil?

[Janga666]

Here's an interesting topic to discuss. What is evil?

Some other questions to ponder:
Is evil the absence of good, or the opposite of good?
Can evil exist outside of what humans perceive it to be?

Discuss...

 

[Einherjar86]

We may think about merging this with the "Are humans Inherently Evil?" thread.

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/philosopher/415039-humans-inherently-evil.html

But to discuss the topic a bit...

Evil constitutes a certain moral depravity. Since morals are constructions of the human mind and don't actually exist without human cultivation and conception, it follows that there is no such thing as evil. Evil actions are things that human beings judge objectively "wrong." But there is no objectively "wrong" situation. There is only what affects you, and what doesn't affect you. Now, life isn't this simple, because we also have to take into account the fact that we are living in a world with other human beings, and it often serves our best interests to live peacefully and compatibly with our kind. So, even though "right" and "wrong" may not exist, there is still what a man should and shouldn't do from a logical, rational perspective.

I've written this as though it is the cold, hard truth. It isn't. It's just what I believe. And I know lots of people here will probably disagree.

 

[Janga666]

We may think about merging this with the "Are humans Inherently Evil?" thread.

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/philosopher/415039-humans-inherently-evil.html

But to discuss the topic a bit...

Evil constitutes a certain moral depravity. Since morals are constructions of the human mind and don't actually exist without human cultivation and conception, it follows that there is no such thing as evil. Evil actions are things that human beings judge objectively "wrong." But there is no objectively "wrong" situation. There is only what affects you, and what doesn't affect you. Now, life isn't this simple, because we also have to take into account the fact that we are living in a world with other human beings, and it often serves our best interests to live peacefully and compatibly with our kind. So, even though "right" and "wrong" may not exist, there is still what a man should and shouldn't do from a logical, rational perspective.

I've written this as though it is the cold, hard truth. It isn't. It's just what I believe. And I know lots of people here will probably disagree.

That is pretty much my view on evil as well. I think it really depends if a person is religious or spiritual. A religious person may see evil as something outside of human perspective.

 

[razoredge]

I gigure its a matter of choice

 

[Norsemaiden]

"Evil" always sounds superstitious to me. "Good" is opposite to "bad" and those are useful everyday words, but "evil" is too much of an exaggerated emotional discription for anything other than an overdramatised exclamation. People usually apply it to deliberately harmful and somewhat insane behaviour, and it gives such behaviour a certain air of glamour which is just nonsense in reality.

 

[Janga666]

Agreed.

Do you think "good' and "bad" are objective words or something that can only be perceived?

 

[razoredge]

"Evil" always sounds superstitious to me. "Good" is opposite to "bad" and those are useful everyday words, but "evil" is too much of an exaggerated emotional discription for anything other than an overdramatised exclamation. People usually apply it to deliberately harmful and somewhat insane behaviour, and it gives such behaviour a certain air of glamour which is just nonsense in reality.

Yes but then isnt there a point where you hear about something, or see something where you nearly stutter in trying to put words on what just occured ? At that point "evil" seems as appropriate as any word that comes to mind.

 

[Norsemaiden]

Yes but then isnt there a point where you hear about something, or see something where you nearly stutter in trying to put words on what just occured ? At that point "evil" seems as appropriate as any word that comes to mind.

Yes, it's just another way of saying "very very bad" in that context, and there's no harm in saying it to make a point, but it doesn't become a whole other thing entirely the way religious people use the term "evil". They use the word as if "evil" was some kind of demonic force!

 

[Norsemaiden]

Agreed.

Do you think "good' and "bad" are objective words or something that can only be perceived?

There can only be degrees of objectivity since you can only evaluate anything from your own perspective, trying to be as fair with the evidence as you can be. We can only perceive. We can simply believe something unquestioningly, on the one extreme, or we can try to gather as much knowledge as possible and attempt not to let prejudices and emotions cloud our judgement on the other extreme. The latter is usually best. However, since we are creatures evolved by Darwinian evolution, we have to evaluate good and bad from a standpoint of: what is best for our own kind = good ( be it family, tribe, ethnicity, species or ecosystem). Because of this, there will be differences of opinion in which what is good for one person may be bad for another.

Some instinctively behave in a biologically correct manner, some have to figure it out since they don't function by instinct alone, and others behave in a biologically incorrect manner (eg politically correct or psychopathic selfishness).

A wealthy gangster who goes to whores and makes lives miserable for others may well feel what he does is "good" and congratulate himself on his success, but really he is just as much of a failure as Mother Theresa of Calcutta was.

 

[razoredge]

Yes, it's just another way of saying "very very bad" in that context, and there's no harm in saying it to make a point, but it doesn't become a whole other thing entirely the way religious people use the term "evil". They use the word as if "evil" was some kind of demonic force!

yes, that is their belief, but evil is still a word others can use as well.

 

[BloodSword]

Norsemaiden, would you please define why you say that Mother Teresa of Calcutta is a failure? And in what way? As you know, I've always valued your insightful comments. Thanx.

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

I'm well-mannered and cool-headed in person, I work hard and will avoid causing a fuss at all costs. By all accounts, the things I do for and/or in relation to humanity and society are all good and good-natured.

That being said... I DESPISE my family and close friends. I wish everyone I know would just die so that I don't have to worry about pleasing them anymore and I can self-destruct through drug use before killing myself. I daily fantasize about a beautiful world where everyone I know is dead. I also masturbate to incest porn and consider myself a pedophile (though that's only a small part of my sexual fancy). I frequently encourage young people to do drugs, break rules and drop out of school. I also give people the run around sometimes because I prefer to be alone but they insist on trying to get me to do things with them. Have I mentioned how filled with hate I am?

Am I Evil? Just something I consider from time to time. I think it depends on whether you consider someone's status to be based on their actions or on their feelings.

But I agree with those saying good and evil do not exist and cannot be objective. I don't believe in good & evil. All actions benefit someone and hurt someone. You could try to assess it based on the number of people something hurts or harms, and the extent, but those are judgment calls which cannot be objectified.

 

[Norsemaiden]

I'm well-mannered and cool-headed in person, I work hard and will avoid causing a fuss at all costs. By all accounts, the things I do for and/or in relation to humanity and society are all good and good-natured.

That being said... I DESPISE my family and close friends. I wish everyone I know would just die so that I don't have to worry about pleasing them anymore and I can self-destruct through drug use before killing myself. I daily fantasize about a beautiful world where everyone I know is dead. I also masturbate to incest porn and consider myself a pedophile (though that's only a small part of my sexual fancy). I frequently encourage young people to do drugs, break rules and drop out of school. I also give people the run around sometimes because I prefer to be alone but they insist on trying to get me to do things with them. Have I mentioned how filled with hate I am?

Am I Evil? Just something I consider from time to time. I think it depends on whether you consider someone's status to be based on their actions or on their feelings.

But I agree with those saying good and evil do not exist and cannot be objective. I don't believe in good & evil. All actions benefit someone and hurt someone. You could try to assess it based on the number of people something hurts or harms, and the extent, but those are judgment calls which cannot be objectified.

You are not "evil" except in the use of the word to mean "bad" or "negative". Basically you are screwed up and a threat that needs to be removed. Dangerously insane people have no place in Nature's scheme and are only there thanks to tolerance by equally dangerously insane people. [Of course I doubt you are serious in your description of yourself!]

Bloodsword - Mother Theresa of Calcutta is a failure because, in this overpopulated world, she was partaking in promiscuous altruism and this kind of charity literally multiplies misery in the world. More people born to live in squalid conditions with nothing to add to the world and a source of exploitation for those who want a supply of child prostitutes and sweatshop labour as well as immigrants to bring to the west. Mother Theresa was more concerned with spreading Catholicism than with alievating poverty anyway.
To be a success she should be a healthy intelligent woman concerned with the welfare of her own people and not with Indian untouchables. It disgusts me how unconcerned Indians are about the extent of poverty in their country - and how some bleeding heart foreigners who shouldn't (but do) allow their own nations to fall into such a dismal state feel they should go and help these losers.
Poverty is increasing in the west because of the immigration of that sort of people, their high birth rate, and our policy of breeding the most sorry helpless criminal useless scum we can in a deliberate dysgenic programme.

There is also a lot of criticism about M Theresa being a hypocrite and a fraud such as this:

This returns us to the medieval corruption of the church, which sold indulgences to the rich while preaching hellfire and continence to the poor. MT was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God. She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction. And she was a friend to the worst of the rich, taking misappropriated money from the atrocious Duvalier family in Haiti (whose rule she praised in return) and from Charles Keating of the Lincoln Savings and Loan. Where did that money, and all the other donations, go? The primitive hospice in Calcutta was as run down when she died as it always had been—she preferred California clinics when she got sick herself—and her order always refused to publish any audit. But we have her own claim that she opened 500 convents in more than a hundred countries, all bearing the name of her own order. Excuse me, but this is modesty and humility?

http://www.slate.com/id/2090083/

 

[BloodSword]

Norsemaiden, thank you for the insightful and comprehensive response, From you I would expect nothing less. That being said, you have made me aware of flaws in MT that I never have heard. I apparently, like many others viewed her as a "complete saint". America always has taken a person and depicted him/her through the hideous media as how they wanted the audience to understand said person through their construction. Lesson to be learned is, do your own research into something. And formulate your own solid theory. The media wants you to believe what they are spewing out, which is bullshit covered up and dressed as truth. Anyway, I don't want to derail the origin of this thread, once again, thanx for some "food for thought."

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

I'm "dangerously insane"? Fucking kvlt.

Nature's scheme has no place in an enlightened society. According to nature's scheme, we shan't use soap, we shan't fly planes, we shan't cure diseases. Nature is all well and good, I'd support a return to it. But it encompasses a lot more than just natural selection.

I agree with you about Mother Theresea though.

 

[Janga666]

So it sounds like everyone here is agreeing that Mother Teresa could be described as "evil"? That's not the direction I thought this thread would go...lol

 

[SouthernTrendkill]

I remember back in highschool we had a philosophy club. One day we were discussing the subjectivity of good and evil, and we pretty much all agreed that the holocaust was a good thing, for population control reasons. In conclusion, people are strange. It's not like we were a bunch of skinheads or anything, it was mainly a bunch of semi-preppy sophmore girls. I, of all people, I think was the one who said "Guys, you do realize you just agreed that the holocaust was a good thing, right?"

 

[Sisyphus's Struggle]

Here's an interesting topic to discuss. What is evil?

Some other questions to ponder:
Is evil the absence of good, or the opposite of good?
Can evil exist outside of what humans perceive it to be?

Discuss...

I see Good - Evil as a continuum, (the good or evil) being perceived from a specificall point of view (x individual), thus not being objective.

 

[Vimana]

Evil to me is intentional conscious unnecessary negative action towards another being of value.

So it's subjective. I think killing a cat for no reason is evil. But not killing a cockroach.

 

[DeadlySinners]

To me, Evil is anything that harms the human race physically.
None of the so called "7 Sins" harm the human race physically.
In fact, they all lead to Instant Gratification.