posted August 27, 2012 05:24 PM            

So, I ask what constitutes evil?

Views on the nature of evil tend to fall into one of four opposed camps:

Moral absolutism holds that good and evil are fixed concepts established by a deity or deities, nature, morality, common sense, or some other source.

Amoralism claims that good and evil are meaningless, that there is no moral ingredient in nature.

Moral relativism holds that standards of good and evil are only products of local culture, custom, or prejudice.

Moral universalism is the attempt to find a compromise between the absolutist sense of morality, and the relativist view; universalism claims that morality is only flexible to a degree, and that what is truly good or evil can be determined by examining what is commonly considered to be evil amongst all humans.

A prominent psychiatrist, M. Scott Peck, characterizes evil as a malignant type of self-righteousness which results in a projection of evil onto selected specific innocent victims (often children or other people in relatively powerless positions). Peck considers those he calls evil to be attempting to escape and hide from their own conscience (through self deception) and views this as being quite distinct from the apparent absence of conscience evident in sociopaths.

According to Peck, an evil person

Is consistently self-deceiving, with the intent of avoiding guilt and maintaining a self-image of perfection

Deceives others as a consequence of their own self-deception

Projects his or her evils and sins onto very specific targets, scapegoating others while appearing normal with everyone else ("their insensitivity toward him was selective")

Commonly hates with the pretense of love, for the purposes of self-deception as much as deception of others

Abuses political (emotional) power ("the imposition of one's will upon others by overt or covert coercion")

Maintains a high level of respectability and lies incessantly in order to do so

Is consistent in his or her sins. Evil persons are characterized not so much by the magnitude of their sins, but by their consistency (of destructiveness)

Is unable to think from the viewpoint of their victim

Has a covert intolerance to criticism and other forms of narcissistic injury

Does your concept of evil fit an above catagory or would you define it differently? How do you recognise it?
Is Peck on target or too simplified?

note, I thought Peck`s use of "sins" odd or rather not fitting the subject.

(if this fits SPITR more aptly,send it over.)

posted August 27, 2012 06:03 PM            

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Passion, Lust, Desire. Check out my journal

posted August 27, 2012 07:24 PM            

It's when the mass of the people believe in the tree of good and evil and limitation when nothing exists but perfection, purity, love, and freedom.

It's when people have forgotten what they are, and why they are here.

It's when you use your consciousness and will for everything that doesn't represent the light of God and the love of the Mother.

It's when a life stream is completely focused on human will, completely devoid of divine will.

It's when we don't know we are creator beings, having created hell on earth.

It's only experienced on Earth, and is something we have created to be as truth. When you 'die' there is no hell, but only the planes of bliss; Heaven.

It's when people are born into slavery and don't even realize it. This is the most horrific act of evil. When the people are blind to what it is they are creating.

It's the people of Earth being asleep, having forgotten they are one with all of creation, having gotten lost in the small things, runing our planet in the process.

posted August 28, 2012 12:14 AM            

Evil is a human construct for examining behavior, it is merely a perception of someone with an opposing view in relation to what they deem "Good"

Very few Nazi's considered themselves evil. Had they won the war they would have been hero's in their culture's eyes, with none to say otherwise, no opposing perceptions -nods-

posted August 28, 2012 04:50 AM            

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quote:

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Remember, love can conquer the influences of the planets....It can even eliminate karma.

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posted August 28, 2012 09:20 AM            

Charm, good idea and sending it over

posted August 28, 2012 09:30 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Desiring Shadows:
Deceives others as a consequence of their own self-deception

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Evils is not a whole big, mega concept with all sorts of bells and whistles. If you deny something in yourself and SEE it in another person, you will attack THEM.

An example would be a person who has to be perfect and sees imperfection in someone else. The person hates imperfection in themselves so much that they have repressed/suppressed it to the point they don't even know they have it( the psychological defense mechanism of reaction formation)
However, when they see this in another person, they become a bird of prey and peck the person to death, all the while feeling justified.

That is evil. That is Scott Pecks definition of evil( and mine). If one wanted to define the kind of person who does this on a regular basis it would be a Malignant Narcissist. Sam Vaknin has a wonderful book which explains this condition in a simple yet, complete way. Vaknin and Peck are saying the exact, same thing.

I think people complicate things too much with too many esoteric words and concepts. Then, they get no help.

I had evil foisted on me at a very young age because my mother molested me. Hence, my journey is to make sense of evil.

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Passion, Lust, Desire. Check out my journal

posted August 28, 2012 04:08 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Yin:
Big fan om M. S. Peck here and I completely agree with him on deception and manipulation.

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Passion, Lust, Desire. Check out my journal

posted August 29, 2012 01:29 PM            

I don't know - I see people making mistakes, I see my own litany of mistakes, I know that I can't be around certain people, but evil? I see Charles Manson as evil. Drawing in people without enough self-esteem to protect themselves from him (unless they were a bit "off" in the first place - they seemed to be brainwashed). Jim Jones, Hitler - but these are easy choices for this subject.

posted August 29, 2012 01:33 PM            

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Passion, Lust, Desire. Check out my journal

posted August 29, 2012 06:07 PM            

At some point the documentary flashed back at him and he was trying to duck and flee something which got the documentary team curious and they moved to intercept (not the best idea, but it worked out and shared one of the most amazing and mind boggling things I think I saw) and caught him as his MOTHER (and another woman) cornered him.

This was a sociopath and a pimp who had zero respect for women and was taller than his mother but looked like a cringing little boy with his head down as his mother (and mother's friend or relation, the 2 women didn't identify themselves to the camera) scolded him severely for his life and his abusing kids. And going by how differently he spoke he seemed to go from pride to shame in the presence of his mom. When he bragged about being a pimp there seemed to be no conflict, he was proud of who he was and what he did, but here everything changed and that says there was a very deep conflict about what he was doing. And I've always remembered that scene and wondered, when was that pimp an innocent boy who wasn't ashamed to be in front of his mother, and where did he go wrong and why? And was redemption (*) possible for the likes of him?

posted August 29, 2012 06:23 PM            

The instance of the kind of evil you describe is obvious evil. The hidden kind is what Peck talks about. That is the Malignant Narc. They have to keep up their image. The evil comes from trying to keep up the false facade

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Passion, Lust, Desire. Check out my journal

posted August 29, 2012 07:52 PM            

Sin is an English/Germanic word which is thought to mean "to be proven guilty".

Evil is another English word, which had a huge range of meanings from uppity, to unskillful, to exceeding boundaries, to extreme moral wickedness (the latter of these examples became the popular meaning only in modern English).

If one associates sin with evil, then I think it is important to consider the meaning of ἁμαρτία. In biblical terms, evil is the destructive result of repeatedly missing the point. When someone wrongs us and we react in the same spirit we have committed evil, because we have missed the point of the experience.

posted September 03, 2012 10:37 PM            

A particularly scary manifestation was the Satanic Panics of the mostly 80s. While fundies promoting fear of Satan has long been and still is with us they got a huge boost then from both shock TV who invited some of their speakers on (Geraldo Rivera is given some credit for getting it started for validating such messages to a gullible public that trusted him to fact check when he just wanted to attract a larger audience), but also mainstream feminists (not fringe, mainstream) who focused on the alleged sexual abuse of children (apparently more interested in gaining support for their cause more than defending the innocent). Once there was enough of a base even prosecutors and politicians (including Al Gore) were going all out to exploit it as were all kinds of con-artists. And it led to not only people imprisoned for imaginary crimes that never happened but even things like this (where children were horribly and painfully sexually molested to defend them from alleged child molesters):
http://www.loompanics.com/Articles/SatanSellers.html

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Dr. Bruce Woodling, whose testimony was crucial in many of the sex abuse cases, developed the "anal wink test" to determine if a child had been sodomized. In the exam room, he pulled apart the child's buttocks and touched the rectum with a cotton swab. If the anus came apart -- "winked" in Woodling's testimony -- this was "proof of sodomy."¯ With his anal wink test and by sticking glass tubes in kids' rectums, Woodling convinced juries and judges that Satanists had indeed abused their innocent little victims. In one case, pictures of little girls with their vaginal lips spread wide apart by Woodling's fingers were waved at a jury like placards at a football game. In a rancid-smelling theater full of scummy old men, this would be the vilest of kiddie porn; in a court of law, it is scientific evidence

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I just have to QFT:

quote:

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Satan-hunters, in short, see him everywhere because they can't bear to see him in themselves

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(Ironically, even Jesus warned of this in Matthew 7.)

We can look back on it now and see that it was evil, and that it wasn't about protecting the children but about advancing political agendas and careers, getting published, selling sensationalist news, and perhaps more fundamentally to project one's own evil outward (or at least feeling better about one's own shortcomings by seeing the chosen scapegoats as worse) and punish it outside themselves as they weren't about to tackle the evil within (and thus the evil deeds against the innocent, including children). But most people would rather forget that embarrassing episode (that wasn't restricted to the USA, btw, though I think the USA was where it was the worst in the civilized world), and certainly not learn from it.

Think how many today support Chick Fil A (and even consider themselves the good guys, sometimes even loving & compassionate!) when many of the profits go into groups antigay groups, one or more (like Exodus International) that has succeeded in getting gays killed in Africa (and ultimately showing what they want in America if they can ever get it):
http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v24n4/us-christian-right-attack-on-gays-in-africa.ht ml

I wonder what M. Scott Peck would say about it, if he were still alive?

(I could say more on CFA and its support, but I'm restricting to what I'm certain everyone can agree is evil, even today before retrospection kicks in.)

What's scariest to me about this kind of evil is one is driven by one's conscience to do it, and the evil doer can even feel guilt at not being evil! Generally speaking, sociopaths and the like aren't actually motivated to do evil by anything other than self-gain (though those who enjoy risky behavior have a lot more options to engage in besides bungee jumping...), and their own selfish desires actually serves as a check as much as a motivation (especially if they can be kept out of the government institutions). But the evil righteousness inspires people to even engaged in acts of terrorism "for the cause" and will sometimes even gladly sacrifice their own lives (be it to spend the rest of their life in prison to literal suicide bombers) and you can't reason with that or expect any mercy because their conscience that motivates their evil won't rest until its chosen victims (and even those they "rescue") are punished for their sins. All that can be done against them is extreme vigilance (especially in allowing them access to the government) without being so obsessed with finding the evil that we fail to realize it's in ourselves.

"The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression." --Mencken

posted September 05, 2012 04:21 PM            

Firstly, one of the results of my own ongoing spiritual discipline has been my conclusion that evil does exist, except that I refer to it as dark, low, or negative energy. Although my spiritual discipline began pretty much at birth because of the family I was born into, it is only as I grew beyond my teenage years, moved away from home for college, and grew more into my discipline (as it were), that I began to hone my spiritual vigilance to a level where I could actually sense and detect evil if I ever encountered it. This honing and detection has (and still does), I believe, protected me as well as my loved ones from many situations, which could have been very traumatic, had they been allowed to play out.

I feel that the main questions surrounding evil are:
--What is evil?
--What is the source of evil?
--Why does evil exist?

posted September 05, 2012 04:29 PM            

Evil can be described mostly from its actions … many of which are subconscious because the evil person is unaware of his/her own evil and is mostly seeking to instinctively avoid the awareness brought on by the presence of goodness.

One of the most instinctive and subconscious reactions of evil (I’ve witnessed this personally … and it has nothing to do with physical appearance) is a recoiling in the presence of that which is good. Almost like an abhorrence of goodness and purity. And invariably what grows from this is a desire within evil to destroy goodness. I believe that is why evil seeks power … to destroy and extinguish the light of goodness. This point ties in with Peck’s view of evil using overt or covert power to coerce its own will upon others. High levels of control over others contribute to the power of evil, which is why I view any form of unreasonable control as the antithesis of love.

The reason evil instinctively seeks to avoid goodness is because it abhors the revelation of itself in the presence of light. This indicates the extent of self-loathing present within the evil person.

Normally, in order to move into the light, one has to put in consistent effort, which is why spiritual discipline and conscious living require effort and growth through facing personal pain. Evil cannot face this pain of emotional and spiritual growth so will try to do anything in its power to maintain its status quo. In fact evil will actively take steps to avoid the pain involved in increased self-awareness … steps that destroy anything that represents, love, light, goodness, and purity.

Another characteristic of evil is that it cannot exist by itself. It needs to spread, usually by influencing other weaker, non-discerning individuals. I believe that if left alone, with no one to influence, evil becomes harmless. Goodness, on the other hand, can exist by itself and even requires periods of solitude for self-renewal.

I believe that the way to curtail the growth and spread of evil’s power is to first and foremost, hold it accountable for its actions. This is very important. Any consistent wrong doing on the part of evil must be checked first PRIOR to taking other steps that involve guiding evil toward greater spiritual awareness (if that is possible). Without the accountability factor, evil will never stop to voluntarily take the more difficult path of facing the pain of emotional and spiritual growth.

posted September 05, 2012 04:32 PM            

In a word … or two … low self-esteem. Extreme manifestations of low self-esteem, that is. All personality and emotional problems can be ultimately traced back to low self-esteem, and lack of spiritual self-awareness. Low self-esteem gives rise to fear, which in turn, feeds the ego. Layer upon layer of complicated ego gives rise to major personality issues chief among which are self-loathing, internal rage, self deception, deception of others through pathological prevarication and misrepresentation of self, high degrees of manipulation (including being a victim), exploitation of others for personal gain, and consistent attempts by evil to muddy the waters and create confusion in the minds of others.
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Why does evil exist?

It exists to contribute to the growth and spread of goodness. Just as evil recoils in the presence of goodness, goodness also recoils in the presence of evil. Our conscious awareness of the presence of evil forms the impetus to move toward light. We become all too aware of the pitfalls of evil and seek to move as far away as possible from it. So the existence of evil contributes to our own growth in purity, spiritual awareness, and love. This is why, no matter how much destruction it creates, and it does destroy countless innocent lives, ultimately evil cannot succeed (except temporarily) because its very presence spurs the growth and spread of goodness!!

posted September 09, 2012 12:44 PM            

I think that, in general, I find fundamentalist Christians use fear to manipulate people to convert to Christianity by saying things like "You'll go to hell unless you accept Jesus as your savior," or, "Jesus is the only one who can save you."

I have nothing against the religion at all. I think Jesus was/is cool. But I find this fear mongering to get people to do what they want quite abhorrent.

And since manipulation is a huge component of what makes up evil, I equate the above mentioned practice to evil.

I do not think that Jesus meant for Christians to demean people and fill them with shame and fear in order to convert. Just some thoughts on how religion can be used in an evil way.