Can ideas be evil?

Quantum Windbag

Gold Member
May 9, 2010
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There are some posters here who insist that only human action can make something evil. They point out that guns, in and of themselves. are not evil, and they somehow think that justifies their assertion that religions, in and of themselves, are not evil. Apparently, the only thing that is evil is doing evil in the name of a religion.

I think ideas, and even religions that are based on ideas, can be evil. I think the idea behind the Holocaust was evil. I think eugenics is evil. I think that the idea that you can reach paradise if you kill people is evil. I think a religion based on any of those ideas would be evil through and through.
 
Some ideas are evil. I agree with you that genocide and involuntary sterilization are evil ideas. Slavery is an evil idea. Racism is evil.

Thinking that killing is noble is an evil idea.
 
Ideas are not evil.

actions can be evil.

I would never condem someone for having pediphilic urges but I sure as fuck would condem them for acting them out.
 
Ideas are not evil.

actions can be evil.

I would never condem someone for having pediphilic urges but I sure as fuck would condem them for acting them out.

I disagree TM. Some thoughts are evil. There is karma with certain thoughts. It's of course worse if you act it out.

We don't have control over all thoughts. We even accrue karma with dreams.
 
I can sure as shit control my thoughts, especially if they are going in a direction I don't like.

You people need to practice some self control, for God's sake.
 
I taught myself to do it because I suffered from night terrors and recurring, extended nightmares (the kind that you'd wake up screaming from, then fall asleep and sink back into..and have repeatedly, on different nights).
 
I taught myself to do it because I suffered from night terrors and recurring, extended nightmares (the kind that you'd wake up screaming from, then fall asleep and sink back into..and have repeatedly, on different nights).

Are you saying you have lucid dreams? You dream and know you're dreaming and can control your dreams?
 
Yes.

Not so much any more, once I learned how to control them, I stopped having the really terrifying ones so frequently. Now I rarely have them at all.
 
God said that even the THOUGHT of adultry (leering at another woman with sexual thoughts) is just the same as actually committing the act. Hating a person is evil....hating is just thoughts. So yes, i believe ideas can be evil.
 
Yes.

Not so much any more, once I learned how to control them, I stopped having the really terrifying ones so frequently. Now I rarely have them at all.

I'm impressed. If you can do that you'd make a helluva meditator.
 
Ideas are not evil.

actions can be evil.

I would never condem someone for having pediphilic urges but I sure as fuck would condem them for acting them out.

I disagree TM. Some thoughts are evil. There is karma with certain thoughts. It's of course worse if you act it out.

We don't have control over all thoughts. We even accrue karma with dreams.

trama can cause people to have thoughts.


those people are not evil if they do not act those thoughts out.


They are in fact some very special people to have to bare such a burden.


i would hate to have to bare what some bare.
 
Ideas are not evil.

actions can be evil.

I would never condem someone for having pediphilic urges but I sure as fuck would condem them for acting them out.

I disagree TM. Some thoughts are evil. There is karma with certain thoughts. It's of course worse if you act it out.

We don't have control over all thoughts. We even accrue karma with dreams.

trama can cause people to have thoughts.


those people are not evil if they do not act those thoughts out.


They are in fact some very special people to have to bare such a burden.


i would hate to have to bare what some bare.

I agree. Trauma can affect your mind and your thinking. I've had nightmares and PTSD flashbacks, homocidal, suicidal thoughts while in recovery.
 
Yes.

Not so much any more, once I learned how to control them, I stopped having the really terrifying ones so frequently. Now I rarely have them at all.

I'm impressed. If you can do that you'd make a helluva meditator.

When I was a girl I used to be able to pick a spot and stare at it until I was no longer aware of my surroundings and would be in different surroundings..black, with a white ball, and a white bat that would hit the ball. Just abstracts, but I'd be removed from my surroundings completely.

Don't ask me why a white ball and bat, that's just the image that always came. Pure white, and pure black background.

I should have been an aesthetic, it's true. I wanted to be a nun from a really young age..and we weren't Catholic. I just liked the whole idea of immersing oneself in prayer and meditation, depriving the flesh, and poring over the Bible eternally.

Down side to having that degree of control....you train your brain to opt out like that, and it will sometimes do it on its own if it perceives a "trigger". Which you might not perceive as a trigger. So that can cause issues with things like memory and hyper reactivity, all that stuff.

Fascinating stuff. It's all about control.
 
I rarely even remember my dreams.

I pretty much live in reality all the time.
 
Some ideas are evil. I agree with you that genocide and involuntary sterilization are evil ideas. Slavery is an evil idea. Racism is evil.

Thinking that killing is noble is an evil idea.

Was Mohammed thinking evil when he said "Behead the infidels"?
 

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