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Evil...

kelly1

I'm wary of starting this thread but anyway I want to ask the question;

Why are humans capable of so much evil?

What is it that makes people capable of killing another human being? Or rape an innocent child and sell the photos on the internet for profit?

I'm not talking about self defense here. I'm talking about the guy who deliberately plans a brutal murder and fantasises about it beforehand. The guy who derives sick pleasure from torturing and killing another human being and still the lust isn't satisfied and he plans his next victim.

What gave rise to Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot etc? What do people here think? Is it genetic, is there some chemical switch that gets flipped? Is there an evil gene?

I don't think so. In the same way that we can be filled with the Holy Spirit and do good, we can also allow evil spirits and the devil influence over us. For this reason, there is no limit to the depths to which we can sink. We can be driven for the forces of evil and lose control of ourselves.

Thoughts?

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kelly1

LaVidaLoca wrote: »

If you as religious beleiver for example are 100% convinced that abortion is murder, then it makes perfect sense to bomb an abortion clinic and kill the doctors performing the murders. It is usually people that are 100% convinced of their rightness that kill the most people: Stalin, Pol Pot, The Spanish Inquistition, Suicide bombers and so on. None of these guys are moral relativists.

I'm 100% opposed to abortion but I don't think that murdering an abortionist is right.

LaVidaLoca wrote: »

Moral Relativism is a philosophy we all agree with whether we know it or not, because the world is not a theoretical place. Do you beleive in Murder? "No", you would say. What if you walked in to the kitchen to see a burglar about to murder you wife, would you shoot him? If you answer "Yes" you're a moral relativist: Morals depend on the situation.

I see your point but I still think there are absolutes. e.g. Adultery is wrong, paedophilia is wrong etc.

LaVidaLoca wrote: »

Moral absolutism simply leads to evil behaviour like the Church's muderous ban on condom usage in AIDS ridden africa.

The Church can't enforce a ban can they? People are free to ignore their teachings/rules, aren't they? The Church also recommends abstinence and faithfulness to one's spouse.

stereoroid

kelly1 wrote: »

You can't be serious? You really think those who commited acts of genocide saw no wrong in their own or others actions?

If we think that, it's because that's what those perpetrating the genocide actually said. We have no need to make any of this stuff up. I have a suspicion (i.e. opinion) that part of the reason for the slow response, by the West to both the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide, was something like: "no freaking way! That has to be an exaggeration! People are better than that, surely we're past such Stone Age tribalism?" It wasn't exaggeration, was it?

Kinda makes it had to not be a cynic about human nature. Are we somehow better? If Dr. Milgram's experiments are any guide... we're not. It doesn't even take religion, but religion certainly fuels the fires, as it did in Salem. :mad:

Dades

kelly1 wrote: »

I see your point but I still think there are absolutes. e.g. Adultery is wrong, paedophilia is wrong etc.

In Spain the age of consent is 13, which would constitute pedophilia in any other European country. So even something as "absolute" as that doesn't appear to be.

CerebralCortex

kelly1 wrote: »

....The Church can't enforce a ban can they? People are free to ignore their teachings/rules, aren't they? The Church also recommends abstinence and faithfulness to one's spouse....

Sometimes its possible in Africa that two married people one with hiv and one without well have intercourse without protection just down to what the church says so even the church has problems with morals and moral consistency.

Tigger

kelly1 wrote: »

I see your point but I still think there are absolutes. e.g. Adultery is wrong, paedophilia is wrong etc.

one of those is an absolute the otrher isn'ty

i'll give you a clue

bible people all over the world:

What is adultery? Technically there are differences in the original Biblical language as there is in the English between adultery and fornication, but as used in this brief study, adultery is illicit sexual intercourse between married or unmarried persons

which do you thisnk

Ruskie4Rent

I agree with most of the people here. Alot of 'evil' acts occur when the people doing them are able to to justify them with some sort of twisted rationality.
It is often the case, with atrocities, that the people commiting them are guided by some sort of devotion to an ideology/nation or, of course, religion.

In other cases, the people engaging in 'evil' acts, may be just ****ed up. This could be due to some psychological trauma in their past, but TBH I'm not well enough imformed to be able to comment on psychology.
It is an interesting topic, though, and i intend to do some reading on it. I would suggest kelly1 to do the same if he is genuinly looking a satisfying answer, instead of using his ignorance to try and challenge other people's beliefs.

kelly1

seamus wrote: »

Yes, but perhaps his ability to make rational decisions was curtailed. If someone makes a decision in the heat of the moment that they wouldn't usually make, are they still evil?

The act is evil. To say whether the person is evil is another question. I think getting angry in the first place and losing control of our anger involves a decision to do so. Anger can and should be controled.

seamus wrote: »

By and large. People can do things which contravene their own moral code, but to continually and blatantly do it indicates to me that it doesn't contravene their personal moral code, therefore they saw no wrong in their actions.

But how does one get to the point of believing the murder and rape are OK? I think this would have to involve supressing the conscience.

seamus wrote: »

They believed the jews were a threat. That's sufficient.
I find moral absolutism to be far more dangerous as it doesn't provide room for questions.

I'm going to steer clear of the moral absolutism because it's not the point of this thread and it's a complete can of worms!

MrB

kelly1 wrote:

I see your point but I still think there are absolutes. e.g. Adultery is wrong, paedophilia is wrong etc.

I would not agree with you that Adultery is always wrong, I can think of situations where it is not, for example if your partner is a violent sack of crap.
Paedophilia is always wrong alright but not because of some absolute dictate handed down from above. It is wrong because of the damage both physically and emotionally it does to children!

kelly1

Tim_Murphy wrote: »

People will justify their actions in any number of ways. If you look at any conflict throughout history you won’t find too many examples of a war where one side put their hand up and said ‘ya, we’re the bad guys in this one’, people justify their position, they justify their actions. People generally view themselves as moral, so they justify their actions as being moral. You don’t go from peace to mass genocide in one move, it happens in a step by step process. It would be comforting to think that all those who commit such acts are simply evil, but it is really just a childlike view to take. Throughout history ‘normal’ people have ended up doing immoral, evil, things. The Catholic church has a huge amount of examples of people doing truly evil things on a grand scale. No doubt many people involved were just bad b%$tards but most probably weren’t. Good people can eventually be led down a path to beating children in their care, taking children from single mothers or burning heretics. This does not happen in one step, but in lots of little steps, each one justified as being righteous or necessary.

Personally I think people justify evil as a way of suppressing their conscience. People go to huge lengths to hide the evil they do. If they felt justified, would they need to hide it? Does someone rape a woman and then tell their friends, "oh yeah I raped her because she was dressed like a slut. So my conscience is clean"? Not likely.

Galvasean

kelly1 wrote: »

Personally I think people justify evil as a way of suppressing their conscience. People go to huge lengths to hide the evil they do. If they felt justified, would they need to hide it? Does someone rape a woman and then tell their friends, "oh yeah I raped her because she was dressed like a slut. So my conscience is clean"? Not likely.

They hide it for fear of punishment. Who knows, maybe said sicko would boast to his sicko cohorts if he knew there was no law against it or punishment to be had. I know that sounds bleak, but some people are really twisted.

I know certain people* who find date rape to be 'not a big deal', citing excuses such as, "She shouldn't have drank so much anyway". Truth be told they probably do know its wrong, but are also aware that such a crime is easy to get away with.

* I make it my business not to associate for the record.

Tigger

Dades wrote: »

In Spain the age of consent is 13, which would constitute pedophilia in any other European country. So even something as "absolute" as that doesn't appear to be.

there is a difference between stat rape and peadophillia
thirteen is low tho

seamus

kelly1 wrote: »

Personally I think people justify evil as a way of suppressing their conscience. People go to huge lengths to hide the evil they do. If they felt justified, would they need to hide it? Does someone rape a woman and then tell their friends, "oh yeah I raped her because she was dressed like a slut. So my conscience is clean"? Not likely.

Because wider social morals exist. There's a difference between what society thinks is right and what we personally think is OK. And we recognise the difference. Our own personal morals are more important to us than society's morals, except where society makes laws to punish those who break society's code. There are tonnes of things that we would all do in our daily lives which we feel are OK, but which we would never admit to it public.
For example, there are people who justify not paying for public transport - we've seen it here on boards, "Ah sure they make enough money", and "I pay for it in taxes, I'm not paying for it again". They personally feel that it's OK to do, but would still never admit it in wider society.

In addition, even when something is against someone's moral code, they can come up with reasons to justify it to themselves. If someone else doesn't know about your mistakes, you don't need to justify it. So long as you're satisfied within yourself, then what else do you need? So it's very plausible that someone who forced themselves on a woman thought to themselves afterwards, "oh yeah I raped her because she was dressed like a slut. So my conscience is clean".

kelly1

stereoroid wrote: »

If we think that, it's because that's what those perpetrating the genocide actually said. We have no need to make any of this stuff up. I have a suspicion (i.e. opinion) that part of the reason for the slow response, by the West to both the Holocaust and the Rwandan Genocide, was something like: "no freaking way! That has to be an exaggeration! People are better than that, surely we're past such Stone Age tribalism?" It wasn't exaggeration, was it?

It can be hard to separate truth from propaganda so this could be part of the reason for the slow reaction. There is also the fear of damaging our own interests. e.g. don't upset them because they buy arms from us.

stereoroid wrote: »

Kinda makes it had to not be a cynic about human nature. Are we somehow better? If Dr. Milgram's experiments are any guide... we're not

How many people here despair for the future of the human race when they see the violence/corruption/greed that goes on around the world? I don't see things getting any better. We're supposed to be evolving but it's certainly not happening at a moral level.

To be honest I'm not seeing much here concern about the state of human nature (sorry if I've missed it). What do we do about it? Accept that we're seriously flawed and live with it? Build more jails?

Tigger

kelly1 wrote: »

To be honest I'm not seeing much here concern about the state of human nature (sorry if I've missed it). What do we do about it? Accept that we're seriously flawed and live with it? Build more jails?

its better than believing in an interventionist god

there is no one else to fix the world and rember evolution isn't about better its about getting laid and making it possaible for your kids to get laid

the fact is that better educated more enlightened people have less children shows the skewing of the survival of the fittest section of natural selection

Galvasean

Tigger wrote: »

there is no one else to fix the world and remember evolution isn't about better its about getting laid and making it possible for your kids to get laid

I have read many books in my time but have never come across an analogy which puts the world in such perspective. :cool:

CerebralCortex

kelly1 wrote: »

....To be honest I'm not seeing much here concern about the state of human nature (sorry if I've missed it). What do we do about it? Accept that we're seriously flawed and live with it? Build more jails?

In fairness I think your seeing the state of the world in a negative light and use it to convince yourself that the world needs religion to fix it (which it certainly does not need). I suggest you read this.

LaVidaLoca

You've admitted to that when it comes to some things you are a moral relativist.

But then you say there are somethings which are absolute. You are either a moral relativist or you aren't, there's no two ways about it. You are a moral relativist. Welcome to the 21st century! Sit down, relax, have a drink! Remember that just becuase you're a moral relativist doesnt mean you cant beleive something to be bad. It merely means that with most things you decide whether the thing is bad on the basis of the context it is in, you know , like modern educated people do. You're still free to be anti-abortion, for example, because that's a position that can be argued for rationally. But you might have to give up some 1st century beleifs about eating meat on a Friday.

The Church can't enforce a ban can they? People are free to ignore their teachings/rules, aren't they? The Church also recommends abstinence and faithfulness to one's spouse.

Of course they cant, but they have power over the hearts and minds of millions of people, most of whom are poor and illiterate. Remember the sort of power the Church used to have in Ireland?

The reason preaching against condom use is wrong, is because, sex being the most basic of human impulses, whether you preach against it or not, people are going to do it anyway. The Catholic Church's attitude to this is simply to put their hands over their ears and pretend this isnt true.

Its analogous to heroin use: Of course we must preach against heroin use, but we must also make clean needles available to those who do use it. This is simply common sense. It's abandoning common sense and getting your morals from a book written in the late Bronze Age, that leads to ridiculous morality such as "Its a sin to put a peice of rubber on your penis."

It is sort of like Prohibition Era America: Fundamentalist Christians tried to make alcohol illegal, cause their morally absolute beliefs told them it was. The chaos of organised crime and profiteering that followed, led the US congress to roll back the law. The consequences of making it illegal to do something that people are going to continue to do anyway, was worse than the consequences of just admitting that human beings have failings.

The consequences of pretending that prefectly normal human impulses are bad is about the same.

Latchy

We do live in a less caring world in the sense of human care atention and kindness. Twenty thirty years ago our hospitals were full of just that ,caring kind and more attentive nurses who with their hands on aproach and care made a big difference in a patients recovery .You cant put a price on that kind of human care.That's not to say we dont have many of the same nurses in our hospitals today ,we do but they are tied up with so much paperwork and bureaucracy of one kind or another that they dont have time anymore to sit and listen .To many it's just a job to help pay the mortgage

Tigger

Galvasean wrote: »

I have read many books in my time but have never come across an analogy which puts the world in such perspective. :cool:

books won't get you laid you know

Latchy

But looks will

Tigger

LaVidaLoca wrote: »

The consequences of pretending that prefectly normal human impulses are bad is about the same.

what like infedelity, theft, murder, hatred, .......

what makes us human is our ability to understand a need to co-exist

Tigger

latchyco wrote: »

But looks will

i see what you did there.:pac:

seamus

kelly1 wrote: »

We're supposed to be evolving but it's certainly not happening at a moral level.

I disagree. Morally, we've come on in leaps and bounds. Think about all of the thing which went on fifty years ago which would horrify us now - corporal punishment, torture, corruption. Child abuse was rampant, both among the clergy and the lay people. Families just turned a blind eye to drunken Uncle Joe and warned the kids not to be alone with him. Homosexuals and unmarried mothers faced a life of exile and even being attacked on the street.

As a society, we are light years ahead nowadays in terms of respect for ourselves and for other people. We are far more concerned about the state of the community than we have ever been. To draw a comparison, all you have to do is look at the "morals" of places like Afghanistan. They would consider our way of life to be scandalous and evil. We consider their way of life to be barbaric and unevolved.

Don't let the media fool you - we are living in a time when it's never been safer, easier or healthier to be a human being.

Latchy

seamus wrote: »

I disagree. Morally, we've come on in leaps and bounds. Think about all of the thing which went on fifty years ago which would horrify us now - corporal punishment, torture, corruption. Child abuse was rampant, both among the clergy and the lay people. Families just turned a blind eye to drunken Uncle Joe and warned the kids not to be alone with him.

Don't let the media fool you - we are living in a time when it's never been safer, easier or healthier to be a human being.

+1 hear hear

LaVidaLoca

what like infedelity, theft, murder, hatred, .......

Well if you cant see the difference between those things and slapping on a Johhny, or having a perfectly good shag with a willing partner, Im at a loss to explain it.

Tigger

seamus wrote: »

. Families just turned a blind eye to drunken Uncle Joe and warned the kids not to be alone with him.

:eek:

Tigger

LaVidaLoca wrote: »

Well if you cant see the difference between those things and slapping on a Johhny, or having a perfectly good shag with a willing partner, Im at a loss to explain it.

they are still perfectly normal impulses and continue every day
is nothing to do with me

Galvasean

Tigger wrote: »

books won't get you laid you know

Bull! A blow from a hefty book can render a human being unconscious.

kelly1

CerebralCortex wrote: »

In fairness I think your seeing the state of the world in a negative light and use it to convince yourself that the world needs religion to fix it (which it certainly does not need).

I suppose it depends on what you mean by world. There are good people and bad people and people in between. But the "spirit of the world" if I could put it that way, works against God. Those in power want to push God out of public life and relegate it to the home. If this were not so, we wouldn't have people trying to get rid of the 10 commandments from courtrooms and having "In God we trust" removed from dollar bills. The spirit of the world pushes pornography on us and ridicules such notions as chastity and holiness. What a sick world we live in. Thank God for good people.

CerebralCortex wrote: »

I suggest you read this.

Strange coming from you to be honest. I have yet to see your positive side.

Tim_Murphy

People go to huge lengths to hide the evil they do. If they felt justified, would they need to hide it?

Sometime people do, but not always. The pastor in the States who killed the doctor working in an abortion clinic for example. As far as he was concerned he was completely justified in killing that person, and plenty of other people agreed with him.

Those in power want to push God out of public life and relegate it to the home

In some countries, not all.

The spirit of the world pushes pornography on us and ridicules such notions as chastity and holiness.

:rolleyes: Any chance you could define the spirit of the world?