What is your definition of "Evil?"

[Eel O'Brian]

just curious

[Greatness Gone]

Vagina.

[demi]

Protestants

[MCD]

demi

[demi]

Black people

[TVC15]

I don't think it's a particularly useful term for real discussion. Maybe if we were talking about religion or philosophy or something.  If you're using "evil" to describe an act, there is almost always a better descriptor, whether it's "selfish" or "self-serving" or "psychopathic."  Evil as a concept in and of itself does not exist.

[Eel O'Brian]

humor me

[brawndolicious]

From my own personal experience, I thing that you have to have a religious reason behind having a your own hard and fast definition for a word.  Maybe this is more serious of a response than what you were looking for..but  a lot of religions have people or things associated with certain words like that "christ is love" or "satan is evil".  I'm guessing that the reasoning behind that is to make people view the world in a more black and white way to make them have more faith in the religion but I doubt that works on more than 1% of the believers.

I mean if you think about it, every word is a theory so having a definition, especially for something as extreme and overly applied as "evil", is pretty useless.

[Darunia]

[FatalT]

Unwanted pain. Hatred. Anger.

[TVC15]

[youtube=425,350]YY1ku4q2CkU[/youtube].

[Eric P]

evil is a self serving term used as shorthand by intellectually lazy individuals to provide a degree of moral superiority towards ones own actions or thoughts

[demi]

uncircumsized dicks

eugh

[Van Cruncheon]

evil is fiction: it's bogeymen and demons and monsters and satan. it's an occult fantasy.

[archie4208]

George W. Bush 

[bagofeyes]

I guess the closest human equivalent of 'evil' would be someone devoid of empathy, compassion, pity and sympathy. But is it evil if you are this way not by choice but through mental illness?

[Flannel Boy]

Like beauty and good, evil isn't an objective feature of universe; it's a subjective judgment of human beings. When we judge things to be morally bad, harmful, or merely disagreeable, we call them evil. Furthermore, when we call something evil, we are also saying that thing shouldn't exist. So, for instance, when we refer to cancer as an evil, we're saying that cancer causes us harm and should thus be eliminated. When we say that rape is evil, we're saying that rape is morally bad and shouldn't exist.

Even though evil doesn't objectively exist, the "Problem of Evil" argument still effectively shows that an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God is a fiction. Just replace the word evil with some milder terms, like harm, pain, suffering, etc.

[Eel O'Brian]

well, i just bought a wii, and for a second there i was actually excited about the purchase

i think that tingling ripple across my skin when i realized i was getting jazzed about buying a wii might have been a physical manifestation of evil

interesting answers, by the way, i might incorporate some of this into a story i am working on

[Flannel Boy]

well, i just bought a wii, and for a second there i was actually excited about the purchase

i think that tingling ripple across my skin when i realized i was getting jazzed about buying a wii might have been a physical manifestation of evil

Your excitement sounds more like a temporary delusion, than something outright "evil." However, the actual act of buying a wii--and consequently helping kill gaming--was "evil!"

[Eel O'Brian]

if i mostly rent games for it, where would i be on the morality scale

[Van Cruncheon]

if i mostly rent games for it, where would i be on the morality scale

you'd be fine. rentals prevent purchases, thus reducing npd sales, thus causing gaffers to suicide, and a dead gaffer is the greatest good the world can conceive

it even says so in deuteronomy: "and should thou partake of the neogaf, lay thyself down on thy bed, and neither eat, nor drink, nor breathe; let the devil come and take thee, for thou art a total fuckin' pudrick in the LORD's sight."

[Flannel Boy]

I disagree with Prole. Nintendo still makes a very large profit on every wii sold. Simply by purchasing the system, you are funding evil. And by renting games, you are increasing demand for wii titles; thus encouraging rental stores to purchase even more shitty wii games.

In short, you are the 21st century's Hitler.

[Eel O'Brian]

i wanted to push that toys r us ninthing into an oven, though

[MrAngryFace]

I guess the closest human equivalent of 'evil' would be someone devoid of empathy, compassion, pity and sympathy. But is it evil if you are this way not by choice but through mental illness?

That would make a large percentage of the animal kingdom evil.

[Flannel Boy]

I guess the closest human equivalent of 'evil' would be someone devoid of empathy, compassion, pity and sympathy. But is it evil if you are this way not by choice but through mental illness?

That would make a large percentage of the animal kingdom evil.

To be fair, he was restricting his definition to humans.

Many animals do show signs of pity and empathy. Generally, however, we consider animals amoral or nonmoral, and thus the terms good and evil are not applicable.

[inoperative]

World of Warcraft.

[laesperanzapaz]

Marriage

[MrAngryFace]

I guess the closest human equivalent of 'evil' would be someone devoid of empathy, compassion, pity and sympathy. But is it evil if you are this way not by choice but through mental illness?

That would make a large percentage of the animal kingdom evil.

To be fair, he was restricting his definition to humans.

Many animals do show signs of pity and empathy. Generally, however, we consider animals amoral or nonmoral, and thus the terms good and evil are not applicable.

Someone who never had a capacity for those things can never be evil, they would have had to encountered those concepts and done things in spite of them. That is what may be considered evil.

[Brehvolution]

NPD threads.