What is evil?

What is Evil?
-a definition
-example

 

That beard is pure evil and you should not go to a night club wearing it!
I am sure it may be an alien existence from another planet that has attatched itself to its victim and may be sucking the blood from the victims nostrils

 

perhaps it is the absence of good. one can be good, do good things, but it seems a person can not be evil. the evil would be that absence of good in a person-the way a shadow is the absence of light, where light is the force being observed.

 

-and the shadow is merely an absence, not a thing.

 

I never thought of my beard as evil though you are not the first to mention it. Anyway it no longer exists in the form pictured.

I think evil is a force of it's own. I am an atheist and do not believe in god or the devil. I do not know what evil is but I feel greed is evil. I feel that anyone doing intentional harm to another living thing, or even things with less apparent life is evil.

 

If memory serves, St. Augustine was the first to rationally argue that Evil is the absence of Good, not a polar opposite of Good.

The Greek philosophers argued however, that in order for a concept (such as Good) to exist, a complete opposite must also come into existence (Evil as the opposite).

Take your pick; both are valid arguments.

 

this is just my perception.

duality exists because if we didn't have relativity we'd just have Everything, which would be Nothing, because there'd be nothing it wasn't, so how can you say what it IS?

evil is a tool. it's not an intrinsic quality.

 

you've got a lot of wisdom for a 16 year old...i agree completely! and i think Kant, Nietzsche and some pre-socratics would agree with you

 

need I say more?

 

It is a word made up by man to try to explain things.

 

well, i suppose when you think about it, light and the absence of light are polar opposites.

 

well , light going backwards would be an opposite . pure light or absolute darkness both seem too unreal .

 

Well one thing for sure is its man made.

Ive never meet a maniacal deer planning to blow up a day care.

Just something to think about.

 

evil is to knowingly and uncoercedly cause unneccessary and completely avoidable suffering.
period. the only real "evil" is that simple.

(and it doesn't, 99.999% of the time, take rocket science nor saint hood, to avoid doing so. a little homework in ordering one's priorities helps. the incentive to do so is called having a consciounse.)

it is however a form of behaivour, generaly based on a poorly thought out ordering of priorities, and NOT a state of being. thus there is NO SUCH THING as BEING evil. nor for that matter good.

only DOing or not doing.

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