Define Evil?

Question

And what it means to you

Answer 1

I think this little story tells a good answer:

Did God Create Evil?

The university professor challenged his students with this question: "Did God create everything that exists?"

A student bravely replied "Yes, he did!" "God created everything?" the professor asked. "Yes sir," the student replied. The professor answered, "If God created everything, then God Created evil since evil exists, and according to the principal that our works define who we are, then God is evil." The professor was quite pleased with himself and boasted to the students that he had proven once more that the Christian faith was a myth.

Another student raised his hand and said, "Can I ask you a Question professor?" "Of course," replied the professor. The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?" The professor replied "Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The students snickered at the young man's question.

The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider cold is in reality the absence of heat. Everybody or object is susceptible to study when it has or transmits energy, and heat is what makes a body, or matter, have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (- 460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat.

The student continued. "Professor, does darkness exist?" The professor responded, "Of course it does." The student replied, "Once again you are wrong sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light, we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."

Finally the young man asked the professor. "Sir, does evil exist?" Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course, as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the multitude of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil."

To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold, a word that man has created to describe the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat or the darkness that comes when there is no light."

The professor sat down.

The young man's name --- Albert Einstein

Answer 2

Good question.

Evil is a total lack of concern for the feelings or well being of anything else. Evil is when pleasure comes from inflicting pain.
Evil is in the soul, in my opinion. Many bad people are that way because of a physiological reason. Some are inherently evil.

Answer 3

Evil is subject to the individual. To the cow, getting slaughtered is an evil. For plants he eats, the cow is the evil. The poisons the plants produce to destroy the bugs that eat them is an evil to the bugs. Earthquakes and tornadoes are an evil to humans. I do not beleive in anything that is intrinsicly evil. A person who is insane and derranged and goes on a killing spree is, in my humble opinion, a malfunctioned human who should be removed from society, but no more evil than an animal who might do the same.

Answer 4

EVIL is the opposite of and the backward spelling of LIVE.

In the original Bible it means sickness. really in the 23rd Psalm

The original Hebbrew word for illness is the same word for evil.

"Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil."

It means that "The Lord is my shepherd, and even though I will be around diseases of death, I will not fear getting sick."

I know, I know, The Churches and movies have associated "evil" with the Devil/Satan and other "bad" things. But only since the growth of Selfish Religious Empires who twist everything in the Bible in order to maintain and grow their empires.

Answer 5

Cute story someone posted, but complete bunk if your theologizing from a Christian perspective. Absence of God as evil? They are probably answering another question trying to argue God's omni-presence with another cute story. From the Judeo-Christian perspective evil existed in the mind of God before He created. Just read Genesis.

In the ecology of opposites that God has created, heavens and the earth, light and dark, evening and morning, life and death. The ecology of good and evil is among them. I think humanity has issues with God because all of it comes from Him. We don't accept the ecology nor Him who created it (as graphically seen in the image of the cross). But it has always been part of the design because it has always been a part of Him.

Answer 6

Evil is something fools find pleasure in and it is what the world will be punished for. (Proverbs 10:23 and Isaiah 13:11)

Answer 7

Evil is the presence of negative or malicious thoughts, feelings, or words. It means to me an absence of Godliness.

Answer 8

A thing which does more destruction than construction is evil from the view point of the individual, the future,group,species, life,
or matter,energy,space and time that it destroys.(SOS,Bk2,p.34)

To me is s/g which-hidden or overt- minimizes survival around us. S/g that tends to break the harmony of elements around.
S/g that tends to hinder (the) life enhancement.-

Ciao.......John-John.

Answer 9

Evil doesn't actually exist, some people might think raping someone is evil but obviously to the people who do it, it isn't. Who's right? No one.

Answer 10

Evil is the enemey of Human.
hated Humans and all times try to push Human to hell.
it is folish and worest thing in our life