Do you believe in evil?

[AquaAthena]

Do you think that some things/people are inherently evil, that all of us may have the seed of evil within us?

No, unless born mentally impaired, I believe we are all born with a neutral state of mind, a blank slate, so-to-speak, into which material learned can have an outcome of good or evil.

 

[Foxfyre]

Do you think that some things/people are inherently evil, that all of us may have the seed of evil within us?

No, unless born mentally impaired, I believe we are all born with a neutral state of mind, a blank slate, so-to-speak, into which material learned can have an outcome of good or evil.

That is the way I see it too. Each new life is pretty much a blank canvas. I have long defined sin as that which harms ourselves or others, and evil as sin that INTENDS to harm ourselves or others. I think we are all born with free choice which includes the choice to do that which is good, noble, virtuous, loving and choice to do that which is wrong, destructive, counterproductive, or evil. We all may be strongly influenced in one direction or another, but neither our environment nor our circumstances fully takes away our choice.

 

[G.T.]

I believe in relative evil - relative to sociological paradigms and an action's consequences and/or motives.

 

[Casjah]

I think, in the case of serial killers, rather than "evil" what we are dealing with is profound mental illness. They are sick, not evil.

^^^^ I think that most people who are doing "evil" deeds are one of the following: Desperate, ignorant (because of cultural reasons or whatever), mentally disturbed, or suffering from some kind of dysfunction but are not evil. Evil has like superstitious connotations, IMO.

Agreed. Evil is more of a label for certain behaviors rather than a state-of-being. But even the label is subjective. However, certain acts which are needlessly harmful have a universally "evil" quality. The example of the Mayans and human sacrifice would be one of them, but from their perspective, they were preventing their gods from taking wrath out on them and their families. They were also attempting to bring prosperity to their own civilization by sacrificing people captured in warfare who were basically seen as disposable. People today regularly "sacrifice" others and treat them as disposable for self gain. Therefore, evil is according to perspective. There are always extreme example or exceptions, but for the most part, this is accurate.

 

[Rick2542]

Do you think that some things/people are inherently evil, that all of us may have the seed of evil within us?

I dunno...yes I suppose. But it's more complicated than that. What is considered evil and under what circumstances? To kill is a sin, but then we have wars to end wars. I think it was all designed to be chaos.