Who is the most evil person of all time?

Answer 1

Hm... This is a tough question. Who best exemplified the ideals of Evil?
Let me preface by saying that I don't think evil as an ideal is a bad thing. I believe that evil is as necessary as good, and that the things we commonly associate with evil, (like Hitler's mass extermination of the Jews) are not evil at all, but born of mental illness and inferiority complexes. They're just sick, not evil.
With that in mind, I would have to say that Alexander the Great best exemplified the ideals of evil. He strove to destroy the world so that it may be remade from the ashes differently. Very evil, very honorable in my opinion.
Many may disagree with my perception of evil, but I wouldn't be me without that belief.

Answer 2

Concepts such as good, evil, fair and unfair are all ideas that have become embedded in our psyche through the course of our evolutionary past (a bit like sexual attraction), since it encouraged order and stability in our societies. This, along with the need for answers, is the root of all religions.

Nonetheless, we should now realise that these ideas are not absolute (and could be meaningless to an alien civilisation) and different people have various reasons for behaving the way they do.
Paedophiles do not choose to be one. They are simply born with that condition (I accept the argument that they do not need to act on it but I think they do try).
If all the world leaders of the 20th century were judged solely on their intentions to better the world, then Hitler would be among the top.

Answer 3

The "most evil person of all time" is probably too smart for his/her name to be out to the public. He or she would have to be so good at deception, negotiating, hurting and manipulating that it would be near impossible to track that person, all for the loss of others for his/her gain.

Such a person would seem a like a genuinely nice person even saintly to some.

Hitler is a good candidate, but how likely is it that there has been many more people who were behind the curtains putting on a puppet show which has caused many undocumented deaths?

Answer 4

All time evil doer?

I wouldn't really want to lock down on one, but instead offer a few for suggestion.

Many already have said Hitler.

Josef Stalin comes to mind. James Jones. David Koresh. Osama Bin Ladin. I'm sure there are people in the middle east who would put George W. Bush on this list. Josef Mengele. Adoph Eichman. There are so many, and these are just from the 20th century.

Answer 5

Having studied Hitler as a psychological case study I'd have to say; definitely NOT Hitler. Although the image created of him following the war is certainly rather evil, he himself had many noble intentions believe it or not. I'd have to say that the most evil person of all time was Torquemada, the leader of the Spanish Inquisition; whose sadistic practises overshadow any others that preceded or followed him.

Answer 6

Mengele. Hitler. Eichmann.

Mengele conducted the most horrendous 'experiments' on children and adults. Pure, unadulterated evil.

Child abusers are definitely up there in the 'evil' category too.

Answer 7

How do you define "evil"?

If you go by "has caused a truckload of deaths directly or indirectly, and is well established to have done so, by recorded history", you're out of luck - the most evil of all time is yet to come. (That's because the number of people one madman can at least indirectly affect has grown to encompass the entire world population, which in turn is constantly growing.)

If you go by anything else, odds are their name has been (or will be) lost in obscurity.

Answer 8

This is a hard one to answer as there are so many individuals who have commited great acts of evil. Is a man ho beats his wife and sexually abuses his children less evil than hitler? Hitler managed to kill millions because of the industrial capabilities he had to commit mass murder. Moses was a repugnant individual who commited genocide, Pol Pot, Stalin, the list is endless. Top of my list... the person who came up with religion because of all the damage its done.

Answer 9

Cherie Blair

Answer 10

People themselves are not evil. Sometimes their actions can be, though.

Consider when someone does something truly horrible, and the news crews are interviewing their neighbours and acquaintances. How often do you hear "I knew he/she was evil!" Hardly ever, really. In fact, I can't remember ever hearing that. Mostly, people are in shock, because the perpetrators of such acts are many times fairly quiet, unassuming types. People who've obviously got very big problems, but not evil. If you knew someone who was truly evil, if you lived beside them, or worked with them, or they were in your family, wouldn't you know??? Wouldn't you sense it from them? If your loved one was the perpetrator of violence and evil, would you love them any less? Would that one act make them evil in your eyes, regardless of what had come before it? Consider that in the eyes of many others, that one act will have made your loved one evil. Would you still be able to love that person, or would you judge them as evil as well?

Now imagine that you are the perpetrator of evil. It can happen. Anyone who thinks that they are above it or incapable of it is wrong. Those who do not act out in this way have just either been blessed enough or strong enough not to be pushed past their breaking point. Does your one act (or many acts) of evil define your entire existence?

Now consider the karmic debt that we place upon ourselves when we choose to judge a person or their actions as evil. When we do that, are we doing anything to uplift and spread love to the world? Or are we spreading more hatred and evil?

Is one worse than the other?

I personally think not.


EDIT: Thumbs down all you want, people, but the fact remains that until we learn to LOVE our enemy, we are the perpetrators of evil ourselves.