An Evil Index
 

A concept that only forensic scientists and psychologist could appreciate? And Evil Index.

From the article:

Now THAT I find as interesting as anything else. I wonder how Simon defines an "evil" act? I'll admit that I have done one or two things in my life that I'm not very proud of, but "evil"? I don't know.

I agree that we all have the capacity for wrong-doing, but I think the majority of people under normal circumstances stop short of "evil."

"Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream."

If I or any of us ( as enlightened or intelectual as we think we are ) acted on all our impulses , most all of us would be in jail or dead .
You can't tell me that when some asshat cuts you off in trafic, that just for a sec you don't just concider what would happen if you ran said asshat over , then the rational mind kicks in and says " self , thats just an asshat doing what an asshat does , let HIM put his own stupid self in the ditch " .

Impluse controll , and the realsation that fantasy is just that fantasy . Every body has weird thoughts ( don't they ???) ( though we could talk for a LONG time on just what IS normal ) , bad guys from what i have seen don't always get this seperation of thinking and doing .
Though some folks don't have any home training to know right from wrong or they are just fucked up in the head to begain with .

Just my read on things .

I also question this. I think everyone is capable of committing evil acts, but most people haven't.

Put me into Abu Ghraib prison as a guard, and there is a good chance I would have committed the same evil acts.

This article is really worth the read:
YOU CAN'T BE A SWEET CUCUMBER IN A VINEGAR BARREL

It depends on where you set the bar for when a bad act becomes evil.

As studied here at the Stanford Prison Experiment.

That is a point I made previously. Emotion is a powerful tool. A useful tool when the logical mind remains in control. Those who let their emotions, rather than logic, make decisions are either still children, or indeed dangerous (what we politely call anti-social).

Previously cited specific instances where I won competitions by channeling and empowering my emotions to defeat others who were better athletes. Again, emotions are an essential and powerful tool. But emotions cannot be permitted to be justification for a decision. Nor can emotion - what creates that 'evil' - be permitted to make those decisions.

Where in the evil index do they make such distinctions? Or does such 'evil' instead arise instead from logical thought - not from emotions? In which case, your example of an emotional impulse would not apply as an example of evil.

I agree with you about my example , but i realy didn't want to get in to an example like some perv seeing a pretty little girl and grabbing her on an impulse , or some body desides to stick up a 7/11 , the clerk laughs at them for being a looser and they rape and exacute the whole store full of folks , now you have to agree that those are evil impulses.
But you also have to agree that these 2 examples could be said to be emotional as well , dude gets wood seeing the little girl and desides to play , and other dude gets dissed so he goes off .
I guess we need to define evil , is it an act, or a whole series of acts , and if so how heinus of an act is considerd evil , or an attatude of total disreguard for human life and the property of others , or what ???

Evil can't be defined. Most everyone would say evil is worse than bad, it is very bad or it is bad to the extreme. But you'll play hell trying to get any two people to agree on the exact boundaries between bad and evil in every area.

There are people who think smoking pot is very evil and many that don't, as one example. Some areas the intent would be called into question and others only the result. :3eye:

To paraphrase one of our illustrious leaders...

I can't define evil, but I know it when I see it.

This may not be an all-encompasing definition, but I think that when a person derives pleasure from hurting other people, they are being evil. I've heard Mike Tyson say in interviews that he used to feel good when he hurt people in his youth, before he went into boxing. That's evil.

A lot of people hurt others, but it's usually a secondary thing. They lash out because they feel threatened themselves on some level. For example, a mugger who feels they need to shoot a victim to avoid being caught. I don't think that rises to the level of evil. It's wrong. It's criminal. But it's not evil. But when you go out of your way to hurt someone, when you don't need to, and you enjoy doing it, you are being evil. Torturers are evil if they enjoy what they do.

Consentual S&M sessions don't count, because it's consentual.

The problem is that those guards and CIA interrogators who were just doing their job and were harming innocent people then were not evil? These are people who did not take pleasure in their job but were also not appalled by what they were doing.

A point made by the article: There is no 'black and white', 'true and false', 'yes and no' definition of evil. So-called 'good' people were listed as about 5 on the evil scale. Are they all good or all evil?

Were those prison guards all evil in the Stanford Prison experiment? Was Khrushchev evil when he created the events that caused a Cuban Missile Crisis?

I can appreciate your effort to define a border line between good and evil. But then what happens when a so-called 'good' United States commits so much evil in Iraq? Who is evil? The benchmark does not even take into account perspective. Its metric is subjective.

The one point made by those scientists is that is some people logically perform evil without any emotion. Apparently they neither enjoy nor are appalled by their actions. How then does your definition of evil apply if you define evil in terms of the emotion of joy?

If Captain Kirk beamed into a biblical village, clearly he would be considered a god. Using their perspective, they would assume such a conclusion - since the concept of god is subjective. Again, what is the benchmark upon which we define a god? I suspect the definition if evil is just as subjective. Therefore is a relative concept that exists only in fiction or in speculation. It does not have a real world concept because it cannot be defined against a benchmark. Just as those biblical villagers called Capt Kirk a god, well those scientists (in the news article) suspect there are some people who just are evil. Why? They too do not yet understand nor have definitions that would describe this heinous anti-social behavior. So they too jump to the only definition left: evil. As the article notes, they don't like the definition of evil because it is about as valid as the definition of a god - totally subjective.

I could agree that those are anti-social actions or those are acts inspired by hate. Whether I could call that evil, well, first I need a definition of evil. To paraphrase, "evil is in the eye of the beholder". IOW those who declared something as evil could be just as evil. We call that a lynching.

Maybe that is why we have courts? Because there is no such thing as evil. Even the Bible and Quran are subject to interpretation because they too provide only general and sometimes subjective standards. Instead we use courts to decide guilt using other standards such as fraud, murder, human rights violations, defamation, etc. IOW we use concepts that are defined (limited) by standards. I see no standard for the definition of evil. And this makes that article interesting. They are trying to create an 'evil index'. Why? None exists? Any yet the subjective among us would disagree.

Good... Bad... I'm the guy with the gun...

A Christian or Muslim will have a different definition of evil than a humanist, I would think. I can't speak for Islam (their book is written backwards - drives me nuts), but Christianity and Judaism hold that any rebellion against the will of God is "evil". Whether you're cheating on your taxes, raping puppies, saying something rude to your mom, murdering, it all falls into the category of "obeying your own sinful desires" instead of obeying God. There aren't levels of sinfulness, something either is or it isn't.

Evil, then, is the outside force manifesting itself in people's desire to do what is wrong in God's eyes. What people DO with evil impulses can range from murder to "taking 5 extra minutes at lunch at the company's expense". Our sense of outrage at a particular misdeed reflects the whims of whatever society/time we are living in, but don't really measure the force called "evil".

Without the subtext of God, there really isn't a standard for the definition of evil. It's all just a matter of doing what feels good and hoping no one gets hurt.

Evil is a word for people too lazy or ignorant to try and understand things, preferring instead to jump at quick emotional 'solutions' rather than looking at the deeper issues. It cheapens and kills discussion. It's intellectual soma; an active choice to block stuff out rather than confront it.

Unless people hide behind intellect to avoid having to deal with more complex emotion-laden concepts like good and evil.

He would know. The word has its uses but to simply brand something evil is a copout in the extreme. As a society we seem to be preoccupied with evil, anything that can be branded evil, like pedophiles suddenly becomes a national obsession. It's the appeal of the simple, the lure of straight path though the fog of moral relativity and complexity. It's the same simplicity that led to some of the worst atrocities in history and most of the banal ones.

Good and evil aren't that complex and emotions aren't rational.

Until some form of spiritual memo comes down defining good and evil we're stuck making up arbitrary standards.

Yeah, but how can you say that good and evil aren't that complex, then say "we're stuck making up arbitrary standards" for them?

And how many more spiritual memos do we need? I think the inbox is about overflowing by now.

To simply brand something as evil is a copout. Agreed. But you use the word "atrocity". You sense the evil inherent in the actions of those people and justifiably label it so. Are you guilty of oversimplifying? Nope.

But the old chestnut, "Christianity is for simpletons - just look at the Inquisition/Salem witch hunt/whatever!" is also a copout, as is refusing to admit that there may be such a thing as moral certainty.

It depends on what you mean by certainty. It's possible that there is an absolute definition of good and evil, outside of all frames of reference, but that only really matters if you know what it is. And it's impossible to know whether you know what it is, so from a human perspective there is no moral certainty.

There's a difference between complex and confused or self-serving.

Where?

Mine's the bible.

I know there's a difference between confused, self-serving and complex. I chose the word I intended to choose.

Your definition of God is something akin to a superior being or creature. Man is made in the image of god, as my so many years of religious training ordered us to believe. IOW that God is really a pagan god little different from those that were worshipped on Mt Olympus.

A real god is best found in the studies of god's laws - mathematics, physics, psychology, chemistry, etc. So where are these eyes in that god? No 'eyes' means god is blind? Exactly. God does not see nor does he care what we do. Therefore there is no evil as you have defined. A real god is a ‘force’ so much larger and grandeur that, as even George Burns said in Oh God, he gave us all to do as we choose. He provided the rules that we - both your good and evil - use as we please. The real god does not make a distinction between good and evil. If he did, then he would distort the laws of physics at the expense of evil. A real god does not care as demonstrated by the lessons of history.

Just down at the slaughter house where I saw the "atrocity" everywhere. Cattle being slaughtered without even any consideration for that God and his rules. You tell me. Clearly this is evil - death without even remorse - from the perspective of cattle. And yet man called the same act not evil? How can this be? There is perspective to what is and is not evil? How can there be perspective if only God can define evil? Is God so biased as to give one biological creature righteousness and blessings at the expense of all others? Or instead, the pagan God does not really exist. If the pagan God does not exist, then either does that definition of evil.

A real message from God would be recognized by everyone.

Would it? I don't see it that way at all - I think it would spawn another 100 religions based on all the different ways people interpreted the message, which of course would be diluted through retelling. People would get mad over other people's interpretations and start fights and wars and such.

I suppose an omnipotent god could just zap the info into our brains at birth so that we would have no doubts, but that's not very progressive, is it? Who would be the first one to say, "Hey, no fair, where's my CHOICE?" Maybe me.

That's just another version of, "If there's a god, why do bad things happen?" Of course your explanation is entirely plausible, but I don't think it's any more supportable than mine. I say bad things happen because of a combination of bad choices, premeditated evil, and a small percentage of crummy luck.

sermon alert

God and science aren't mutually exclusive. You're supposed to be critical, questioning, doubting, and so on. That's the thing that separates us from the cattle (who don't like being killed, but don't experience nearly the level of profound emotional trauma you attribute to them. It's not an atrocity to them, it's just getting killed and eaten. That's what they're for, ask any meat eating species).

Here's a news flash: Ward Churchill was right, in a way. He's a nut job, but he had a point buried in all his hateful anti-American spew - actions have consequences. While someone at ground zero might be cursing God because he let a family member die (how could God be so cruel?), look at the chain of events that led to that moment. A town that got wiped out by a tsunami - was it cursed? Were its inhabitants being punished? No, the town was in the path of a tsunami. That kind of shitty luck happens sometimes.

We want God to stay out of our lives until we need him to prevent something bad from happening. Everyone who says God has turned his back should maybe consider which direction they themselves are facing.

[/sermon]

Yes. Why is this concept so foreign? We assign value to people and things all the time. Does a rat living in the walls of your house envy your fancy lifestyle? If you think he does, why don't you feed him out of the same dish as your dog? For that matter, why does your dog have to eat from a dish? Your decision to make the rat stay out of your house and the dog to eat from a dish on the floor is a pretty sorry abuse of your (relative to the dog) God-like powers, if we use your model.

Bah. I don't know. I gotta get to work.

Then He wouldn't have communicated effectively.Choice about what? Seeing reality? We don't have a choice about seeing trees or rocks, etc. If God made Himself as apparent as the physical world, that wouldn't remove anyone's choices.

if God was standing in front of you so that you couldn't deny who he was, then that would no longer be faith, but fact. There would then be no choice but to believe in the existence of God. Choice removed.

So what? That's not a real "choice", that's a guess. If I have a closed box with a marble in it, when I open the box you no longer can make a choice about what color the marble is, but that's because you now have more information. You haven't lost any free will. Having more and more experiences doesn't make you less and less sentient. The real choice would be how to react to a personal meeting with God.

People just aren't that smart. We make dumb choices all the time, despite what we know to be right. "I can beat that train," "I know I'm married, but who will ever know?", "Yes, the volcano's going to erupt, but I'm not leaving my house dammit."

So God appears to everyone, completely erases all doubt of his existence, and manages to convince us that we're not hallucinating. Hell, maybe even Radar is convinced. Then what? When you have kids, and you tell them "God appeared to me," they'll look at you like you've just gotten off the bus from Mars. A thousand years go by, and people reading our record of what we saw God do (our Bible, so to speak) will have the choice to believe it or not. Cue wars, biblical theme parks, blogs, ad infinitum.

Unless what you're saying is that God has to personally appear in Technicolor to every member of his creation at whatever point they decide they want to see him or else they're not going to believe. That wouldn't be a God, that would be your own little dog and pony show. Maybe after the first couple thousand years of people saying, "Oh yeah? PROVE there's a God," he just got a little bored with the whole thing.

Would that be too taxing? The rest of the physical world is available for every generation, not just once every 2000 years or so near the Mediterranean.That sounds more like a Greek or Roman god, ruled by whims, than one of infinite love, compassion, and patience. I'm not particularly impressed by "but God is too big and important and busy to show up to you, just take the word of people 2000 years ago." arguments.

So only WE can make demands? That's kind of arrogant. I think God is compassionate and loving, but I don't think he has a duty to us to be infinitely patient. How convenient it would be if God was like a pay-as-you-go cell phone. No contract, no hassle, just a little gadget to have at your disposal when you felt like it. Come to think of it, if God was a cell phone, we'd be demanding free service with no roaming charges, and if we didn't get it we'd switch back to smoke signals just to make a point.

Maybe this isn't a good analogy, but here goes: If you had a kid who told you every day how much he hated you, did everything against what you taught, ran away from home and refused to come back, would you force yourself on him?

I'm still waiting for the first demand from him.

If I loved him? Yes.

If I had given him free will to see if he could be taught. No. I'd just try again.

As someone who's seen it happen in my own family, I have to say that eventually you reach saturation point. No matter how much love you have for someone, the time comes when their rejection of you and everything you stand for has to just....be.

I don't really care to transcribe the bible word for word, but the info is there for those who want to read it. In addition, my opinions are my own, and don't necessarily reflect those of this station, its advertisers, or its deity.

I have the same questions as a non-believer, but I guess they've been answered on a spiritual level. Why God doesn't answer them for everyone is a mystery to me. I know it's a harder position to defend than "I haven't seen it, so it never happened," and I'm underprepared in any event.

As far as defining evil, though, my point is that it's just something that exists - maybe it's an active force, maybe it's a condition, the nature of it doesn't need to be quantified as long as the effects of it are apparent. But if it's the same condition that causes both minor wrongs (saying something shitty to someone) and major (murder and rape), the only moveable part in the equation is the person's willingness to submit to it.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. If I don't even know whether God exists, how could He have demanded anything of me? If He had, I'd know.
That kid has to know that I exist in order to hate and disobey me.

Wouldn't that come under things like human nature and ego?

It could, I guess. But in my paradigm, human nature is inherently biased towards evil and ego is a manifestation of that.

HM, the 'arrogant enough to make demands' bit referred to the idea that God should be compelled to reveal himself on demand to a being that he created.

Only if He cares whether or not they believe in Him. And "reveal himself on demand" isn't quite the right phrase. I'd say "reveal himself in order to make demands".

.......i'll take it you're the glass-half-empty type.

Not at all, I love life. I didn't say we were EVIL evil, but our natures tend to lean that way. As innocent as little kids are, one of the first words they learn is "mine." When a baby wants a bottle, do you get a polite tap on the shoulder and a pleasant smile? Nope, you get the full volume of baby's displeasure. These aren't evil things, but they do indicate that as soon as we come out of the chute, the first thing we worry about is, "what's in this for me?" and that doesn't significantly change over the subsequent 75 years.

Of course, we do lots of good things too. But during the course of a day's interaction with your fellow primates, you will probably experience their selfishness far more often than their goodwill. It's not that we don't TRY to be good, we're just not good at it.

Are you selfish for curling up tightly into the fetal position during a polar bear mauling? A baby crying when hungry is the same thing. Self defense. To call the baby selfish is really stretching it. Read a book on child development.

Read the dictionary. selfish - concerned exclusively or excessively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others

You're applying a connotation to the word that I wasn't implying. Of course the mauling victim isn't worried about anyone else, nor is an infant. I'm saying that we aren't born with a natural altruism. If you're suggesting that the only time babies cry is to answer a biological survival impulse, I'd suggest that you not read any more child development books. Kids are prone to throw fits when the mood strikes them, for no other reason than they didn't get their way.

Fair enough. I also think we aren't born with any evil in us either. You called kids "innocent" in your previous post. But you seem to think they are not. I think of newborn babies as an innocent clean slate in the good/evil department. I've never heard anyone besides you saying they lean toward the evil side of the equation.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Babies cry when they need stuff. Whether it's food, a clean diaper, physical contact, a good burping, you name it. These are physical needs. Survival impulses. I could go into more detail, but virtually any child development book written in the last 20 years will enlighten you. These books, by the way, are based on scientific studies of babies. But I know science doesn't impress you.

Are we talking about babies, or about kids? You throw these different terms around a lot and they mean vastly different things.

Let's stop the semantic tennis match. Babies cry when they need stuff, but at some point in the first year, realize that the crying thing works for getting what they want, too. Doesn't mean they're evil. Does mean that if there's a good/evil paradigm in the universe, that we are instinctively aligned with the less pure side.

Babies and kids are used interchangeably for the purpose of my argument to mean "humans at an early stage of development."

I think you knew that, though.

I am too, impressed with science

I understand that you think this is all semantics. But my basic point is that humans are innocent when they are born. They are not developed enough mentally as newborn babies to be selfish or manipulative or any shade of bad/evil. Babies don't cry because they are some shade of bad/evil/selfish. They cry for physical self-preservation.

As we all grow older, we do start to absorb those attributes, and you can start to discuss good/evil. While we may be genetically predisposed to have a particular tempermant, good and evil are learned (nurture, not nature).

the way i see it, human nature is geared around "self-first" behaviours. that doesn't mean that from birth we are sitting around plotting evil, it simply means that when choices become available human nature will instinctively direct us towards the one the benefits us the most (all other things being equal). it is the nurture side of your equation that actually teaches us to consider the effect our actions have on others before acting. consider the small child - do we have to teach them to share, or do we have to teach them NOT to share? one comes naturally, the other is taught.

Ok, we're starting to get closer to one another's points now.

"evil" can have two connotations, at least for me. One is the kind you're talking about - malicious, premeditated, harmful or wrong-thinking actions.

The other one, which is what I'm referring to in this thread, is part of a yin-yang kind of equation. In sci-fi and fantasy books, the metaphor is "order vs. chaos" or something like that. Replace good and evil with order and chaos, and I'd be saying that we are born chaotic, and have to work to achieve order. Same thing.

So I still disagree with you, glatt, but I'm not sure we're talking about the same definition of "evil"...

lookout, i think we are saying the same thing, but i'm not being as clear about it....

Babies are completely selfish, but that selfishness only gets a negative connotation when they're old enough to know better.