does evil exist?

[Quill01]

Hi, not sure where this question goes to on this forum but I think it most likely belongs here. This might be or sound like a silly question but does evil exist? Is there any evidence or proof that evil exists? Is that supported by science? 

When I was in college taking a course in philosophy 101 the professor said if evil exists, then everyone is evil if I remember right. When most people think of evil, view evil or what is evil to them, it's always things like lieing, stealing, cheating, killing and things of that sort. To others it is simply just things or people that they don't like or their own bias. It can also be to others, things or people that just upsets them and/or makes them angry as well as just someone they hate. They will call the person or people they hate evil. Some define evil as simply just doing bad actions and knowing what they are doing is bad. If evil exists, the closest thing I can think to that is the history of the bad things that the catholic church did over the centuries or living under sharia law and that sort of society.

I defenantly do not balieve that it exists in the mythical sense or in fiction. For example In the biblical revelations in christianity or in christian circles(probably the ones that hold up "god hates fags" signs), they balieve satin will spawn up from hell or the anti christe with super powers to take over the world with his demon army and then rule the world as a immortal dictator or emporer for 1000 years before Jesus comes back to life or returns to the world to save the world, kill or defeat satin. Then after that Jesus and/or god creates a permanent worldy or heavenly peradice for everyone free of death and suffering for eternity. Also in comic books or fiction as well as in movies where you get the classical black and white hero vs bad guy or villian. The hero always wins and is the good guy where as the bad guy is always the villian or the evil one who always looses. Thats just silly and rediculous to me however what people might baleive or think is evil in a more realistic way like for example, crime, corruption espeashally in governments, lies, deception, abuse or abuse of power, childhood neglect, wars for profit, out casting or astrosizing people in social groups, taking advantage of people, keeping people poor or in poverty Is more of what I am questioning here.

In reality of course the good guy doesn't always win nor is the good guy always considered the good guy. What might seem bad or evil to someone might not be bad or evil to someone else and what might be good to someone might not be good to someone else if its subjective.

The amazing atheist made a video a while back basicly calling the real rulers in power in America evil and also made a video calling them degenerate scum bags if I remember right.

[onlinebiker]

My SO insists evil exists....

She says it resides in the bathroom after I eat burritos with extra cheese........

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Define ‘evil’, then we can decide if it exists.

Boru

[The Grand Nudger]

A persistent and voluntary pattern of bad actions undertaken with explicitly malicious intent?

I think that's probably a workable one - that makes it distinct from doing a bad thing, or being wrong about what was right, or being incompetent, or sick, or temporarily incapacitated by any of the many known and well understood mechanisms of duress in human decision making.

Stealing might be bad, but not evil. A rich man stealing from a poor man for sport and giggles...on the other hand? I'm willing to give em the qualifier.

[Neo-Scholastic]

In the Scholastic tradition evil as viewed as any kind of privation...the lack of a good that ought to be there. In my mind, it is the moral equivealent of holes, ontologically speaking.

[Angrboda]

[Silver]

Evil exists as a four letter word.

[Ahriman]

Those thugs who broke into my apartment were definitely doing something evil, all matter of "opinion" aside, and I'm sure they knew they were doing something evil, but they just didn't care. Some people are just born evil.

[Angrboda]

Those thugs who broke into my apartment were definitely doing something evil, all matter of "opinion" aside, and I'm sure they knew they were doing something evil, but they just didn't care. Some people are just born evil.

Nah. They were doing you a favor by providing you with motivation to work harder.

[Fake Messiah]

Well, I guess people in the past called some people and deeds evil, but today we try to understand the source of the problem and thus avoid it. Like, Charles Whitman shot all those people because he had a brain tumor. Or Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK because he had a terrible childhood and thus had mental diseases.

So if we explain their evil deeds are they still evil or "just" ill?

Then there are societal evil deeds where for example JFK ordered Agent Orange to be thrown - was he evil? He didn't seem evil but he did evil things.

Or the great evil that we all do - pollution. We are killing ourselves and our descendants with evil deeds that could be curbed if we were more reasonable or should I say "more good". So does this mean that we are all evil?

Maybe it all means that notions of evil and good are too simplistic and that the world is more complicated.

But we still use the term evil when something is an immediate threat and there is no time and means to understand that evil - like let's say Putin right now.