Is there such a thing as evil?

Answer 1

Sure, look at nature, animals survive by killing one another. It is cruel but necessary to survive. Good and evil is just terms given by humans to describe things they like and things they dislike. On the end of the day the universe is both good and evil and not good or evil.

It's just the way it is...

Answer 2

No. There is a quality called evil, just as there is red or crunchy or hot. Evil is an adjective describing the moral quality of an action. Even as a noun, it is an abstraction of evil acts. No actual person or thing is inherently evil. They can only be associated with evil acts.

Natural disasters have been called evil. Uncomfortable experiences have been labelled evil. But these are more properly misfortunes. True evil is a choice, a choice to take, to hurt, to place personal advantage over the welfare of others. Some evil acts can be excused by need or desperation, but evil is consistently a willful attempt to harm.

Because harm can be perceived relative to cultural standards, evil can be relative too. A crime in one culture could be an obligation in another. But some fundamental acts may be universally evil, such as killing or stealing. But evil does not exist in isolation. It requires an agent, a conscious agent, not some nebulous, overpowering, supernatural figure. The antidote for evil is responsibility. Those who perform evil acts should take responsibility for those acts, not blame them on someone else, such as the devil.

Answer 3

Ah Gomez...

I don't know about your question. My first reaction is no - things are just things and we decide what is good and bad, holy and evil by placing labels, emotion and judgement upon them. But I guess that makes it something if we put a label onto it.

I personally think of things as Light and Darkness. When we walk in the light (the sunshine, the path for enlightenment, love, correctness) we are happy and at our best. When we walk in the dark (the night time, the path of dominance or intolerance, depression, illness, hate, wrong-ness) we are not happy and things don't go well for us or anyone else we know, really. By definition the darkness would be evil, but not because it is a living evil thing. These things are all choices and they teach us different things.

Peace!

Answer 4

Charles Manson, Jeffery Dalmer, The Boston Strangler, Paul Bernardo, the Holocaust, Charles Ng, The Son of Sam, Ted Bundy. Nah, there's no such thing as evil. (What else could you call these).

Answer 5

Evil is merely a word, describing a condition. To the Creative Element good and evil are words without meaning. But to us humans evil is a word with many meanings. As there is light and darkness, so is there goodness and evil.

Here are some exaples from the book The Word And The Way.
"With the Father, evil and good are terms without meaning. He is the Whole, the All, the Supreme Standard. In and by His Presence is revealed All Truth. But to man good and evil are terms that have meaning. They have reality to him because they speak to him of the real."

"The degree, in which a man turns aside from the way, preferring the path that leads downward, is a measure of evil, as men term evil. The degree in which men persuade other men to follow the same course downward is a measure of evil. The degree in which men create conditions by which others are incited to travel downward, or hindered from travelling upward on the path of All Light, is a third measure of evil.

It will be observed, then, that good and evil are as directions of travel. All that leads or tends upward towards All Light is good, and all that tends or leads downward away from All Light is evil. Similarly, all that quickens and aids the growth of man’s interior being, of the All Light within him, so that it permeates and possesses more and more the individual man, illumining him from within, is good. While, conversely, all that feeds the individual self so that the man grows more and more closed upon himself, upon the self that is himself, closing the door against the All Light within, is evil for that man."

Answer 6

Evil is all relative. One person's idea of evil can be completely different from another person's.

Let's look at George Bush for example. Many people (I'm not going to say my beliefs) would say he is evil. However, he doesn't believe that he is evil. He believes completely that what he is doing is the exact opposite of evil.

Also, judging someone based on limited knowledge on that person may lead to inconclusive ideas that that person is evil, however, they could just be misunderstood.

There is no definition of evil (I'm not talking about a dictionary definition). Evil isn't really a thing, it's just a word people made up for emotions they failed to understand.

Answer 7

Oh yea! Evil is the person who molests babies, kills indiscriminately, without purpose, and a person without conscious is evil, in my book. If a person can straight faced cheat a widow of of her pension, he's freaking' evil. A person who abducts young ones to torture, rape, and murder is evil. The masterminds behind 9/11 is evil. Do I really need to go on here? Evil is among us in varying degrees, from the innocuous, to the obvious, even to the absurd. I have my own ideas of what is taking place before me, but will not haul out my religious dogma over this.

Answer 8

I don't know about "evil" as a "thing" or an entity, but there are definitely some bad, bad people in this world; twisted individuals that take a sick pleasure in the pain of others, not to mention people who lust for money/power and have no concern for those whom they grind into the dust on their way to their goal.

Answer 9

Yes and no (How's that for an answer?). Seriously, I believe that evil is a lack of good, but does not in and of itself exist. Think of it this way: we can perceive cold, but scientifically cold doesn't exist (it is only a lack of heat). Same with evil, we perceive evil because it lacks good. Does this justify being evil? No. So, in a sense, evil does exists, but it really doesn't.

I will add I do not believe in a devil either.

Answer 10

Evil is a relative term so you can't really say something is truly evil. A psychopathic killer will most likely have different ideas of "evil" than a well adjusted person. So, really it all depends on what a person thinks "evil" is.