(September 7, 2014 at 5:33 pm)Pickup_shonuff Wrote: Every advocate of an idea, no matter how factually erroneous or morally heinous others discern it to be, thinks their method and conclusion is right or good. How does that have any bearing on the question of the actual existence of evil?The bearing it has, is the connection that there is nothing objectivelly evil. Morality can always distort to make things "holy" and others might regard as evil, but nothing is evil by itself, or rather "evil" motivated.
For every evil act, you might find an underlying dependence to survive in such acts, be it ruled by selection, instinct, moral values or simple profit, every "evil" act, as a background and a context in which it must be analysed.
You could argue that immolate false witches was and is an evil act, but the motivation behind it was actually "good" in theory, which was purging "demonic/satanist" threats on the world, which in their view was an entirelly correct assumption.
ISIS beheadings might be evil for us, but for those extremists, they're saving the world by purging infidels and satanists.
You could argue that nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were evil, but on US opinion it saved them from further wars with japan.
So it's hard to define what is an evil "intent". Evil acts are actually very subjective, and more based on what's socially undesirable, than the act in itself.
