does evil exist in its own right?

[Doubting_Thomas]

Something that was said in another thread (http://atheistforums.org/thread-15088.html) made me think. The statement "Religion is the spawn of evil and the greatest cause of it." made me react. I didn't want to derail that debate over semantics.

The way I see evil cannot 'spawn' or create anything except in the loosest figurative sense because evil does not 'exist' in it's own right. Nor does 'good'. Saying evil causes things is flirting with supernatural belief.

If actions and thoughts are sufficiently nasty we call them "evil". That I'm cool with, but its only a description.

No idea what typical atheist thinking is, what do you think?

[JohnDG]

It really just depends on your perspective on what good and evil are. If evil things were considered good to you they wouldn't be evil. VinnyG actually got pissed that I said this before because we got on the topic of rape being good or evil. Keep in mind rape wasn't considered wrong for a long time in many societies.

[Napoléon]

There is no objective morality.

Period.

[Anomalocaris]

Yes. Evil exists. It goes by the name Christianity.

[TaraJo]

"Evil" is a vague term. Whether it exists depends on how you define it.

[JohnDG]

I define evil as anything related to unnatural deaths committed by people on others. It's too bad we live in a culture obsessed with war and destruction.

[TaraJo]

It really just depends on your perspective on what good and evil are. If evil things were considered good to you they wouldn't be evil. VinnyG actually got pissed that I said this before because we got on the topic of rape being good or evil. Keep in mind rape wasn't considered wrong for a long time in many societies.

I completely agree with you. Think of the biggest taboo in society and you can probably find a situation where it's been tolerated or even celebrated. Child sex? It's looked down on now, but 3,000 years ago, it wasn't uncommon for 12 or 13 year old girls to be married. Cannibalism? Tell that to a guy who is starving, stuck in a lifeboat next to his dead friend (this has actually happened). Murder? We've always had great ways of justifying that.

[Something completely different]

evil does not exist. "evil" is simply a adjective attributed to a action that that sociaty currently sees as inmoral.
my granddad generation use to throw stones through jewishs shops, beat them up, burnt down synagogs and in the end murdered them cause he believed it was the right thing to do.
the people who drove Alan Turing into suicide believed they were doing the right thing
and i am certain that the 19 guy who flew planes into the twin towers believed they were doing the best thing a human can do.

[JohnDG]

evil does not exist. "evil" is simply a adjective attributed to a action that that sociaty currently sees as inmoral.
my granddad generation use to throw stones through jewishs shops, beat them up, burnt down synagogs and in the end murdered them cause he believed it was the right thing to do.
the people who drove Alan Turing into suicide believed they were doing the right thing
and i am certain that the 19 guy who flew planes into the twin towers believed they were doing the best thing a human can do.

That's pretty hardcore, it's almost like saying you shouldn't be mad at them. But then again, we've been blowing them up since the gulf war.

Can one be judged by immoral actions they have committed if they truly believed it was the right thing to do? Or should we judge christian's and catholic's based on their past histories of mass genocide.

Holocaust=ROFL YOU CALL THAT GENOCIDE? (sorry if I offended anyone)

[Something completely different]

That's pretty hardcore, it's almost like saying you shouldn't be mad at them. But then again, we've been blowing them up since the gulf war.

Can one be judged by immoral actions they have committed if they truly believed it was the right thing to do? Or should we judge christian's and catholic's based on their past histories of mass genocide.

No. But I firmly believe that our set of moral standerds, the ones of a secular Republic, are supiror to the values of a sociaty who`s moral codex and nations constitution is a work of iron age myths.
It doesn`t matter how much you "believe" that the crimes you are commiting are moraly correct. If you are found guilty by a set of moral values wich is supireor you have take responsebility and stand trial.