Talk:Evil/Archive 1

This is an archive of past discussions about Evil. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Vandalism

I can't believe nobody has changed this page back to what it was. All instances of the word "evil" are replaced with "irish evil" as per this comic[1] --69.210.150.31 05:06, 20 December 2006 (UTC)A friend

never mind. I was looking at the older version.

can a logged in person get rid of the 10 myths link i explored it it is not relevant to the topic

thanks

American bias

Why is there no treatment of evil in Hindusim, Buddhism or Confucianism? Also the nature of evil in Islam is completely subsumed under Abrahamic religions, and the differences between evil in Islam between Christianity and Judaism are not explored. This is a major weakness in the article, which is thoroughly Euro-American centric and should be re-written to include these views.

John D. Croft 07:25, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Charge ahead, Be Bold, and make the necessary changes.

Septegram 20:17, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Evil in vacuum

Terrorism is a "evil" philosophy and it has been accepted as evil by a vast majority of the world. Only ivory tower intellectuals may want to defend terrorism as not evil! It is also a concrete example in modern times of how people can get converted to an evil idea. Without concrete examples, evil becomes a philosophical idea in vacuum, not the very real thing it is for the vast majority of people who reference Wikipidea.

Is Evil Relative?

Hannibal Lecter Reference-

I don't really understand what Hannibal Lecter's admirable qualities have to to with evil here...lots of the most hardcore "evil" people in history had SOME "good" qualities (Hitler himself refused to allow his staff to employ killing mousetraps in his employ). That Hannibal has admirable qualities doesn't really have a lot to do with his inherrant 'evil', any more than Hitler's love of animals influenced his.

I removed this reference to Lecter.

Actually, jesus, thats a retarded argument. Hitler not killing mice doesn't make him unevil nor is killing mice necessarily evil. reudicto ad hitlerium?Thechosenone021 17:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Miscellaneous

I have nothing against "weasel words" when appropriate, but there actually is quite a bit of good research in this area, and there are many universals of human culture and human language; among them a concept of good and evil (and even more specific concepts like formalized marriage). Margaret Mead may have set back anthropology for decades, but she's been thoroughly debunked now, and we're coming out of the dark and realizing that there is indeed such a thing as "human nature" and it influences all cultures. I'm all for vague prose when there is a genuine lack of knowledge, but not for the sake of dogmatic relativism. --LDC

I Love Evil!whole article) because I personally don't believe in good or evil as such; perhaps I'm just a "slippery relativist" but I often notice that what is "evil" for one person is "good" for another (substitute "cursed" or "blessed" if you want). We do what we do; some things are beneficial to some people and detremental to others and calling them "good" or "evil" is trying to turn a value judgement into an absolute. --Justfred

Such relativism is a common viewpoint, which is why I mentioned it specifically. But this is an encyclopedia; our job is to accurately report what the various cultures and individuals believe. Every culture has a concept of good and evil; some are more absolutist than others, but they all have it. Whether or not we like that fact is irrelevant. To say anything else would be bad reporting. --LDC

Are you not confusing a concept of "right" and "wrong" with the concept of "good" and "evil". Right and wrong are human universals. Concepts of good and evil are arguable. I know that Australian Aboriginal cultre had no concept of absolte evil until the coming of the Europeans

217.224.139.132 09:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The following was on the article page and shows POV problems:

=== Why Evil Exists === REASONS Evil is needed in the world, sometimes more than good is. Evil counteracts good, forcing the world to remain neutral and stopping it from ending. What most people consider evil is usually done by people who would be considered good at any other time. People constantly confuse evil with unlawfulness, which is very troubling for me, since I am evil.

Does anyone else think that malicious deserves it's own article? Currently, it redirects to evil. This is problematic as it is untrue to characterize malicious as a synonym for evil (which the redirect essentially does). --Dante Alighieri 10:57 13 Jul 2003 (UTC)

While in my personal vocabulary Evil and Malicious are synonymous, I must agree with Dante that perhaps the redirect is not wise.

-FB

Yeah, its kind of a tough call, though. -戴&#30505sv 07:00, Aug 17, 2003 (UTC)

I've made the change, not only does malice have a semi-specific legal sense, but there's also a 1993 movie, Malice. --Dante Alighieri 19:31, 18 Aug 2003 (UTC)

The recent change which suggests that sociopathic behavior has "recently" been identified with "evil" is a bit weak. I'll be removing it, unless there is objection. Mkmcconn 16:37, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

To my knowledge, Judaism does not recognize evil. Judaism recognizes "bad". The difference between evil and bad, is evil is a noun, similar to a tangabile force. Bad, however, is an adjective, describing a choice presented to a person.

If a religion believe there are good and malevolent forces, they believe in Good/Evil, yet, if they believe in the power of choice, they believe in Good/Bad. Xtians believe in Good/Evil, Judaism believes in Good/Bad. I am not aware of what Muslim's believe.

Because of that, the reference to Abrahamic religions is probably incorrect. If anything, it should be "Eastern Religions". -- Chacham

---

It seems the unsubstantiated assumptions about "almost all cultures" or "many cultures" are projecting Western moralism on cosmologies about which writers of this article have little understanding.

The duality of Oriental cultures is expressed as Yin and Yang. Who can tell me which of those is good and which is evil?

If that fundamental oriental division of dark and light does not align with good and evil, then what is the Oriental duality of good and evil? And if the writers cannot cite a beleivable duality among oriental populations that aligns with Western notions of Good and Evil, they have already excluded a major portion of the worlds population.

The authors are also implying a cultural cohesiveness that is erroneous. Asia can scarecly be described as one culture. It is home to a diverse plethora of cultures that include communism, capitalism, Taoism, Bhuddism, myriad divisions of each and numerous other major cultural influences.

What we have here is a personal essay by a few people who grew up in a Christian culture and who have not a clue that others don't see the world the way they do. The writers of this article are projecting their own personal beliefs about good and evil on people from other cultures, yet do not understand the actual research their own scientists have conducted to refute the niave notion of good and evil. These uninformed sophomoric projections are demeaning to those about whom the writers purport to be writing. DontMessWithThis 00:55, 16 Mar 2004 (UTC)

-DontMessWithThis, perhaps you ought to save words like 'naive' until you can at least spell them correctly, not to mention apply them in such a way as to escape seeming naive yourself. You speak of the Western slant in this article, and yet describe the concept of Yin and Yang as being 'fundamental', even though you later speak of the multiplicity of Asian cultures. Of course Asian cultures have a concept of good and evil; to deny that is simply ignorance.

Definitely one sided

While I don't think this article is bad, per say [sic], it is one sided. It is absolutely un true that every culture has a concept of good and evil, the most obvious being the Far East.

Both China and Japan, from what I know, don't have a concept of good and evil, and even with such exposure to Western culture, the idea has not much taken. As someone else pointed out, the idea of Yin and Yang is as close as you get in China to any absolute, metaphysical morality - and anyone who knows the slightest thing about Yin and Yang knows how absurd it would be to try and say, base a legal system of its goodness/evilness.

Unfortunately, I don't know my Social Anthropology well enough to edit this article, but as it stands, it's incomplete, and needs to acommodate the vast range of views there are on this topic, as opposed to the typical western ones. Alex404 21:19, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Alex....you and I must be seeing different articles. :-) The article, when you wrote the above, did not say "every culture has a concept of good and evil"....to the contrary, it only asserted "some cultures" do. That's far too limiting -- I have changed it to say "many cultures" because many cultures have a very dualistic approach to morality. I would never say that "all cultures" do or even "most cultures", and I don't see this article saying that. If it does, why not change it?

I don't see that the article suggests that China and Japan have strong concepts of evil -- where do you see this? And certainly the article doesn't say that "evil" is always something to base a legal system on. If you wanted to add a paragraph addressing why Eastern religions seem less focused on the idea of evil, I think you should. I think, though, it is fair to say that almost all religions do describe behaviors that are desirable and undesirable; that all cultures have taboos and restrictions of some kind. Whether or not we want to call these things "evil" may be more a question of semantics and definition than of substance. I think the article actually does quite well in explaining what "evil" is often used to describe, and where the definition of "evil" finds its roots in Western society.

Ultimately, I don't see any reason to leave a disputed tag on there. The allegations you make (e.g., that the article asserts that all cultures have a concept of good and evil) do not appear to be backed up by the article's text itself. If you think it lacks some information about Eastern Asian cultures, I encourage you to add it. I'm certainly not skilled enough to. But I can say that the article doesn't do anything to try and mischaracterize Eastern beliefs....it simply emphasizes that "evil" is a concept limited to a group of cultures, most notably "Western society". I think this is actually a pretty enlightened stance, though of course the article could use some work. Unless you post some examples here of a pretty blatant systematic bias, I'll take down the disputed tag in a week or so -- after all, if there are only a few instances of bias, we can work together to eliminate them. "Disputed" tags should be reserved for articles where two sides simply cannot agree on the facts, and we haven't even started talking. :-) Hope this comes across as friendly -- I think we can work together on this. Jwrosenzweig 22:43, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Nah, you're being perfectly friendly, Jwr :)

I'm just new at this whole wikipedia thing, so I don't really know all the rules of the game, quite yet.

If you want to talk down the disputed flag, go ahead, as long as we can discuss this article as well.

Upon reading it again, I realize that some of my points weren't fair - on the other hand, I do think this article is in heavy need of reorginization, and while it doesn't say that all cultures have a concept of good and evil, I think that we need to put in alternative cultural view points, because I suspect some people might have difficulty in even imagining morality without a concept of evil (especially in this day and age, seeing how often the word is thrown around). I'd even be willing to do it, though I'd have to do some research before I felt comfortable.

In the mean time though, I think what's important is that the article is structured more effectively so as to show the contrasts that go on in the different views. Right now it more reads as a list of fairly isolated paragraphs, and an article on evil seems suited to me to being fairly substantial.

Perhaps if we create one of those bookmark headings (with all the links and stuff), we could have headings as follows

1.Religious conceptions, where we can compare and contrast those with strong metaphysical concept of good and evil - namely, the Abrahamics, with, for example, the more pragmatic far eastern thoughts.

2. Philosophic conceptions, where we can talk about the various ideas of ethics, and their ideas of evil (evil as pain, evil as deception, etc)

3. Social conceptions, where we can talk about the use of evil in terms of cultural values, such as patriotism and other social mores, as well as evil in a legal sense.

4. Scientific conceptions Where we can present how modern understandings in psychology and even neurology have had an effect on our popular ideas of evil.

Anyway, discussion would be welcomed, as I'm now feeling all pumped about this.

In the next few days I'll write up an article as I'd like to see it, and maybe post in here in the talk section or something.

Anyway, sorry for being so hasty, and hopefully we can sort this article out to everyones tastes, and any more points on due process, please feel free to point out. Alex404 01:01, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

*Breathes huge sigh of relief* Thank you, Alex, for being so positive! I was worried this was going to be a big fiasco -- anything related to religion around here tends to get that way unless all are very careful. I like very much your ideas about restructuring the article -- it's grown in an odd manner (often by being semi-vandalized, and then some of us coming through and trying to sort out what's useful and what's not), and you're right that it doesn't flow as well as it should. I will take down the disputed flag with your permission, mostly because I dislike tagging articles unless it's absolutely necessary, and it seems as though you and I are going to be just fine talking this one through. Here's my suggestion -- copy the text of the article at Talk:Evil/Proposed article and then start making edits to that copy, so it's clear what you're keeping from the existing article and how you're rearranging and adding to it...since you mentioned you're new here, I'll just note that this tends to be standard practice for overhauling an article. It helps the overhaul be as collaborative and visible as possible. I like your four main topics, and suggest we give that a try. Any objections to me casting around for other editors who might be interested? I will say up front that the only names I can think of are all members of Western religions, but they are fairly open-minded and know a lot about other religious and philosophical ideas. I think more that two minds will be helpful here (particularly as my life is hectic right now and I worry I won't be able to help you as much as I'd like), but I don't want to give the impression that I'm "ganging up on you" by hauling in cronies of mine (to clarify, the editors I'm thinking of aren't necessarily people I work with often, and we can often disagree, so I won't be bringing in yes-men for my perspective....whatever that is, come to think of it...but rather trying to find people with additional perspectives that might help round out the article). :-) I don't anticipate you and I are going to be adversaries, though, so perhaps I'm being a little too cautious. I still like to make sure, though, that everyone's comfortable with what we're doing. It may be, by the way, that there are nice snippets on evil in our articles on Eastern religions and philosophy -- perhaps you and I should both take a quick look and see what we can find. Generally, though, this sounds great, and if you're fired up, I'd say you should jump right in, and we'll sort it out on that proposed article page. Jwrosenzweig 16:07, 11 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Sorry that I dissapeared all of a sudden.

Unfortunately, I have a test on the 15th (tomorrow) which I'm studying busily for.

I'll try to have an adequate article up for the 16th. And please, fish for editors. While some of the headings I'll be good for (philosophic and scientific views I got covered fine), the other two (religious, and social) will deserve a better treatment then I'll be able to give it.

Anyway, hopefully I can put this in motion sooner rather then later. Alex404 04:11, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)

concept of evil is not so simple.

Concept of evil is not so simple

It is dangerous that people have a simple concept of "good and evil" without thinking deeply about the actual realities of the real world. (No, it's called Moral Relativism and is dicussed in the article) Adolf Hilter does not believe that he is evil. The last statement is very hard for a lot of people to understand. (How so? As far as he was concerned he was doing the right thing. We consider what he did to be morally wrong, but from his own standpoint it was not evil, thus SOME philosophers would take this to mean the person is not Evil because they had no evil intent. Again, this is covered in the article)

Consider the statement "Evil is as Evil does". It means that a person can believe that they are doing good. A person can believe that they are doing God's work. But if that person behaves in a way which causes harm to others then to the other people whom they had harmed, that person is EVIL. (That is a biased viewpoint. Showing only one side of an argument is not the thing to do. This is a site designed to provide information, free from any ideological bias or "guidance". God, therefore, and his conception of Evil guiding how we approach the article is wrong, and "This seems to be very hard for some people - I.e. YOU - to understand." If you're unhappy with Wikipedia being unbiased, go and start a site based soley on the teachings and ideologies you are enslaved by.) (The statement "Evil is as Evil does." is indeed biased in and of itself. HOWEVER, it is necessary to note that stating ANY philosophy is inherently biased. The person who commented on this section DID NOT CONSIDER THE ACTUAL DEFINITION OF UNBIASED, which is not that no controversial statement is submitted, but that no viewpoint is exalted above all others. Thus, it is perfectly legitimate to submit this theory as a PROPOSITION rather than a statement, and indeed, as it is a commonly held view, for example in the cases of Adolf Hitler and Osama Bin Laden, it is, indeed, biased to NOT include this as a section of the article.)

Evil is a highly emotive topic, with so many different causes and too many different motives to blame for it to be easily pidgeon holed. My secular understanding is that religious people often see evil as a human desire to gain materially in this world - the increase in murders, rape, etc as percieved in the media is often blamed on ungodliness and secularisation. It helps to fuel the religious claim claim that unbeliebvers are by nature evil, - the ungodly say it is evil to think that way. You can'twin this kindof debate. It is self fuelling. (User:arthurchappell

My Rewrite

I attempted a major improvement of the article. I have added an additional definition of evil as well as included critical views on how the term evil is often currently used. The article could still use further imrovement, especiallally by adding information on eastern views of evil (Taoism, Buddhism, Hinduism). -Cab88

Yet another evil

M. S. Peck in his book "The People of the Lie" has yet another definition for "evil" people. See [2] I find this interesting as an exploration of absolute definitions of "evil," rather than the relative definition we so often assume. Peck proposes that our personalities convert from "bad" to fully "evil" when, first, we cultivate a blindness to our own unwanted character "flaws" and/or "bad" behavior, then second, we develop a mental disorder of subconscious psychological projection where we see imaginary character flaws in others and try to destroy them, yet we ourselves suffer from those exact character flaws. Evil people see themselves as fighting against a disgusting foe in order to advance "goodness," yet their victims are innocent. This definition of "evil" would be independant of culture, since the personal characteristics which are denied and then projected could be anything. It's the denial and the subconscious projection which defines the concept. Under this definition, Hitler was evil because, rather than subjecting his country and perhaps himself to honest introspection and attempts at self-improvement, he decided that Jewish and other minority groups were the true cause of Germany's troubles. He saw himself as doing good, yet outside observers saw him as suddenly lashing out at weak victims. --Wjbeaty 20:15, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)

Peck has a good analysis of institutional evil, that would apply well to USA foreign policy and its attacks on Iraq in the name of stamping out the terrorists of 911. It is interesting that the war against terrorism completely overlooks the US support of terrorists (eg. Supporting the Muhajiddin and Osama bin Laden in his attacks against the Russians in Afghanistan in the 1980s and in supporting the Contras against the legal government of the Sandanistas). The lies and coverup of the contra-arms deal is a classic case of Peck's "evil".

217.224.139.132 09:48, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Is Evil A Useful Term?

I removed the following two sentences from this section:

Tolerance is demanded in the Western view such as the United States with an increasing hostility towards Christian fundamental beliefs. The moral truth it stands on is the foundation of the law which established the very freedom to express freedom of choice in religion.

They are both somewhat incoherent and I do not feel they represent an NPOV. If I understand them correctly, they are both of dubious accuracy, at best. Septegram

Proposed removal of scientific definition

As an intellectual excercise I was impressed with the person who came up with a somewhat scientific definition of evil, however.... I see no relationship between science and the idea of evil, at all.

My proposal is to remove it... I'll let this sit for awhile and see if anyone has any comments on it, before acting. Sethie 06:43, 24 November 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the request. I gave it an overhaul and changed the header name to one more appropriate. I hope it is ok for now; if not let me know and will make more amendments. Adios:--Wavesmikey 22:43, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Ola-

I guess for me the only issue is where did you get this from? I cannot imagine a scientist using the term evil.

SAT! Sethie 23:19, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I did most of it off the top of my head; yet I did base a lot of it off of Elizabeth Dole Porteus' 1987 book "My Twentieth Century Philosophy" New York: Carlton Press, Inc. She is not a scientist per se but she is a thermodynamic philosopher of human life. In her book, she makes connection between the second law of thermodynamics, the law of "entropy", and mechanisms of human life, as: love, life, war, children, school, evil, happiness, unhappiness, etc. We can also source thermodynamic researcher Lawrence Chin's online book "A Thermodynamic Interpretation of History" ch 7 ["Power, the Second Law of Thermodynamics and The Problem of Evil"]:

http://www.geocities.com/therapeuter/originofevil.html?20058

And we can source the following article which discusses evil, entropy, and the second law of thermodynamics:

http://www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_mind/psychology/evil3/5.html

Also, read the wiki-entropy page, the part about disorder and chaos. [P.S. I am a chemical engineer and use the term evil.] Hit my user page if you have more questions:--Wavesmikey 04:11, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

This thermodynmaic stuff is crank nonsense; I think it should be removed altogether. Gene Ward Smith 00:05, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

Thermodynamics of Evil [Source: Journal of Human Thermodynamics, Vol. 1., Issue 1, pgs: 1-9]

Scientific perspectives

From a physical standpoint, some suggest that "evil" has relation to the thermodynamic quantity entropy, which itself is a rough measure of the organization of any system. In this regard, it is logically reasoned that whenever large collections of people move about on the basis of their own accord that predominately such movements will be harmonious, moving in a preferred unified direction. Yet, from time to time, it is inevitable that such motion will come into conflict creating transient states of disorder and confusion. From a quantitative perspective, states of disorder and chaos, as in during war, natural disaster, or economic meltdown, etc., correlate to high levels of entropy. By this logic, it is reasoned that in some way evil has a correlative representation in entropy, which from another perspective can be defined as the measure of the available energy in a thermodynamic system not available to do useful work.

proposed removal of hacker jargon

The hacker jargon paragraph seems to be directly cut-and-pasted from Eric S. Raymond's "New Hacker's Dictionary" without credit. Anyone with an account agree?

Yes, I agree; if you know about this topic, I would give it a clean, up so to make it easier to read for those who don't follow hacker jargon. Thanks:--Wavesmikey 22:46, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Two meanings of evil. Can good exist without evil?

This is a good article, but there are a couple of things that I think need to be said. In particular, the idea that good cannot exist without evil is controversial. Rick Norwood 15:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

How so? To fully understand the concept of one, one must understand the concept of the other. They are opposites and equals. The use of "Exist" may indeed imply some greater cosmic forces of good and evil, but that is a reading which we create, not one that is explicit in the text. Show me a culture where a concept of "Morally Undesirable" exists and yet there does not exist a concept of "Morally Desirable". I'm fairly sure you'll not turn up anything. Thus, one must exist for the other. Good must exist for evil and evil for good. You cannot have an opposed view of morality if there are not at leats two sides, opposing one another.

That is one point of view. There are others. Some, for example, would say that evil can only destroy, and only good can create. If, of course, you take the concept of Evil as something that breaks the rules of society, then your view is correct. Whenever there are rules, they will be rule breakers. On the other hand, if evil is hurting someone, there is no logical reason why people have to hurt each other. Rick Norwood 00:14, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

Incoherent

in "Is evil universal?"

For this reason, some philosophers (e.g. Bernard Gert) maintain that not preventing evil is more important than promoting good in formulating moral rules and in conduct.

This is incoherent. Can someone who knows the primary source rephrase it?

Julian Morrison 17:23, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

Does evil exist?

I wrote this as an attition to the article however it was deemed to be rather confusing, It would be great for someone to take the concepts expressed and turn them into something of use for the article on evil. The primary basis of the text is whether evil exists, given that it is a human concept

"The concept of evil, among many other concepts, is defined by it's reliance on the existence of those who can define it. However, as a concept, the truth of its being comes in to play, and one asks if there truly are the absolutes of good and evil or if there is merely 'action'. For instance culture and religion vary among the world’s population, and the moral standards that differ between these variable standards leads to the development of likeness and differences between groups. For instance, an action by a person or group may be deemed as 'good', where another person of group would deem the same action as evil. If this conflict between people exists on the qualitative meaning of good an evil, then it inherently becomes hard to define its actuality. An historical example exists in the Holocaust, where large groups of people, affiliated with Nazi Germany, would be involved in the genocide of many people because of their belief that the practice was for the common good. However today, arguably the majority of people find that actions of the Holocaust to be a true representation of the 'evil' that mankind can undertake. Therefore, it can be established that good and evil do not indeed exist in absolute forms, given the contradictions that exist in the actions that define them. One might hence argue that good and evil are 'relative' concepts that depend upon either an individuals or societies values. If this argument is extrapolated and good and evil are viewed as human developed concepts that exist on the basis of relativity among action as well as the view of society and individual values then a prime example comes to light (if one respectively follows the argument above): Hot and Cold are definitions of the action of increasing or decreasing energy within matter, and both definitions exist only as concepts developed by humans, Hot and cold are relative terms as something can only be placed in one of the two categories when compared with another objects heat or an environments average temperature and finally whether something is defined as hot or cold among humans depends on the personal preference among individuals and cultures (a family from a desert may find a relatively warm day in a tropical setting to be quite cool).

Finally, the existence of evil takes on a number of forms, from the literal interpretations that exist in religion and culture including for example Satan, to the more broad interpretations such as above, where evil is a definition of action that depends always on a number of factors including: It's existence as a human concept, it's relative nature and finally its basis on the values of society and individuals." Bmgoau 09:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad you are struggling with this work in progress. You are much more apt to attract collaborators if you sign your posts to talk pages with four tildes (~). Rick Norwood 15:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

Im not sure how the above comment is important to the issue at hand, it would pay to be more civil in such matters Bmgoau 09:03, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Most newcomers consider it an act of friendship when they are told about some of the wikipedian customs. I'm sorry you found it uncivil. Rick Norwood 23:55, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

I added this to the article, under the section, Does Evil Exist? i thought it was a well written piece, and was worthy to be added, feel free to respond to any problems you might. Cheetoian 20:02 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Necessary Evil

I think the article needs an entry on: necessary evil [3]. -- Zondor 14:20, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Why don't you write one? Rick Norwood 16:46, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Some modern Moslems praise terrorists as heroes

Not only is Muslim inherently spelt incorrectly (Moslem is the culturally insensitive spelling of Muslim), but that sentance is biased. Stating that sentance without a Western bias would require defining terrorism, thus I think we should just remove it for now. --SeanMcG 08:09, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

The transliteration from Arabic to English takes many forms, but I certainly have no objection to someone more informed than myself changing to a different transliteration.

On the other hand, to deny that "some" Moslems support terrorism is to deny the stated position of some Moslems. In today's news, for example, is this item: "Muslims in Nigeria that were protesting the Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad attacked Christians and burned churches, resulting in at least 15 casualties." To attack one group of people for an action taken by another group of people, when the two groups have nothing in common except their religion, is certainly terrorism -- an attempt to influence, using terror, the co-religionists of the victims. Rick Norwood 14:02, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Sounds like the USA attacking Saddam and killing 100,000 Iraq's because of September 11th. 217.224.139.132 09:53, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The transliteration Moslem was primarily used by the British Empire at its peak; therefore, it has its negative connotations. I think if you refer to any spelling of Muslim in the media, it is spelt thus. Granted, "some" Christians, "some" Jews, "some" Hindus, and "some" Buddhists also support terrorism. To deny that any other religion, let alone any other ethnic group, at one point or time also supported an action that is considered terrorist or genocidal is ignorant. How about Slobodan Milosevic? Would you not consider someone who is guilty of mass genocide a terrorist merely because he has the consent of the majority? I don't mind keeping the statement that some Muslims may condone terrorist actions as long as we provide the opposide side of the spectrum. --SeanMcG 19:53, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

It was not my attention to single out Muslems, but rather to provide one example to show that not everyone considers terrorism evil. The point was moral relativism. If we lived at the time of the Hugonauts, I would probably have singled out Catholics. Rick Norwood 20:15, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

If you would question a Muslim extremist, he would not regard himself/herself as being a terrorist. Therefore, in their perspective, the acts of violence they are perpretrating are as legit as any military. You're defining evil in merely according to present day politics, which should be only one of the many angles of this entry. --SeanMcG 03:17, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Quoted from the American Heritage Dictionary: USAGE NOTE: Moslem is the form predominantly preferred in journalism and popular usage. Muslim is preferred by scholars and by English-speaking adherents of Islam.

Just because you don't use it, doesn't mean it's "wrong" or "derogatory". I suppose next you'll be telling us that "colour", "honour", and "favourite" are wrong because they were used by the British. I'm quite offended by your linking of modern British, Canadian, and Commonwealth English to the evils of Colonialism. The fact that the British spoke English while colonizing other people's land doesn't mean all English speakers must change their language to avoid similarities with the British. What about the French, Dutch, Germans, Italians, Chinese... all colonial powers at some point. Must they all change their spelling of words because they remind you of colonialism? Honestly you're being very unreasonable. Muslim is just another way of writing Moslem and vice versa.

Furthermore, you say that Muslim extremists wouldn't regard their terrorist actions as terrorism, but rather as legitimate war. If I may quote the American Heritage Dictionary once more:

ter·ror·ism n. The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.

Whereas "war" is defined as:

war n. 1.a. A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties.

The main distinction between terrorism and war, therefore, is firstly its legality, and secondly whether it is hidden or overt. While radical Islamic terrorists may view their "Holy War" as legal (under their interpretation of Islamic law), it is not open warfare, but rather is hidden. Whether it is war is debatable, but the tactics used in this conflict are undeniably designed to promote terror: one never knows of a terrorist attack beforehand, so one lives in constant fear.-65.94.173.206 15:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Please note that I did not say that terrorism was evil. On the contrary, the point of view of moral relativism is that whether terrorism is evil or not depends on the context, which seems to be the same thing you are saying. Rick Norwood 13:40, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Is God the author of evil?

A troubling interpretation of of a verse from Is 45:7 is raised here. "I form the light, and create darkness, I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord that do all these things."(Douay Rheims) "7: I form light and create darkness, I make weal and create woe, I am the LORD, who do all these things."(RSV)

In this context "evil" is not evil as of sin, but rather woe, or hardships. Any inference that this is saying God is the "author of Evil" would not be a mainstream understanding of this verse. I have left the verse in for the moment, awaiting others to comment. Cialovesyou 02:53, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

A Calvinist accepts that God, being all powerful, created evil as well as good, as the verse from Isaah confirms. Since Adam lacked free will, the fall was predetermined, as are all actions by men, good and evil alike. "God is the author of all things." Rick Norwood 19:42, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know Calvin agreed with Augustine, as did all theologians of note between them, that evil is the privation of good. FWIW, this view stemmed from a Christian modification of Neo-platonism that held that the substance of created things proceeded from the substance of God. As a Calvinist, one certainly say that God causes the privation, or absence, of good. To say that he causes evil only leads to other people, who do not have this same view of evil, misunderstanding you catastrophically. Dr parsley 17:16, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

A Removal

The above old 7(Poetic and Promt..) has been removed because it violates the policy of: Wikipedia: No Original Research of which the prime author(myself) was ignorant in thinking that this was some sort of free-style chat room. All apologies.

--Scroll1 21:44, 24 April 2006 (UTC)

Another proposed removal

"For the French philosopher Michel Henry, God is the invisible Life that never stops to generate us and to give us to ourselves in its pathetic self-revelation. God is Love because Love itself in an infinite love is Life. By consequence life is good in itself. The evil corresponds to all what denies or attacks life, it finds its origin in death which is the negation of life. This death is an inner and spiritual death which is the separation with God, and which consists simply in not loving, in living selfishly as if God didn't exist, as if he was not our Father of us all and as if we were not all its beloved Sons, as if we were not all Brothers generated by a same Life. The evil peaks in the violence of hatred that is at the origin of all the crimes, of all the wars and of all the genocides. But the evil is also the common origin of all those blind processes and of all those false abstractions that lead so many people to misery and exclusion."

I don't think the person who wrote this said what he intended to say. Can anyone fix it, or should it be discarded. There are many paragraphs in this article that seem to have been put there more or less at random. Rick Norwood 20:51, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Needs pictures

Someone should get a picture of evil. Lapinmies 18:48, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Mexican President Vincente Fox doesn't count, Lapinmies. Please don't do that again. Powers 20:10, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

External links:Chabad good and evil

I am sick and tired of Chabad trying to represent the beliefs of the entire Jewish people. They represent one sect, ultra orthodox or lubavitcher sect, of the Jewish people. They are the largest group devoted to spreading the word of Judaism, but it is very important to make the distinction on Wikipedia because its beliefs, and the beliefs of many other Jews do not align. --Cocopuffberman 23:18, 20 May 2006 (UTC) I have added a parenthises to the link in external links to make the distinction.--Cocopuffberman 23:19, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Is prostitution Immoral?

Brothels, etc?

144.132.1.37 08:35, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Religions in general seem to attract people who like to boss other people around, and in particular to tell other people what kinds of sex they may or may not have. Add to those conservatives the large number of liberals who think that women should be "protected" by being forbidden to sell their bodies, and you have a lot of people who think prostitution is evil. It is still universally practiced, however. There is no such thing as bad advertising. Rick Norwood 14:01, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

Considering A Reversion

Rick Norwood added this to the intro section:

Evil is what you make something. Everything is neutral but it's how you use it that makes it good or evil.

While that may be a valid viewpoint, to have it stated so baldly seems (a) inappropriate for the intro section, and (b) NPOV. Changing the statement to indicate that it is a view held by a certain group (preferably with citations) and moving it to a more appropriate section of the page are preferable to a revert, of course. Rick, do you want to undertake that?

Looks like someone else took charge and deleted it.

Septegram 21:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Did I really add that? Must have been my evil twin. I'd have changed it, too. Rick Norwood 23:42, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Nope, twasn't me. It was 194.81.160.19. Rick Norwood 23:51, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Bizarre. What made me think it was your fault? I'd like to think that at 45 I have a little time before dementia sets in, and I haven't done any mind-altering substances in decades. Oh, well—it's fixed.

Septegram 14:25, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-five. Rick Norwood 18:22, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Evil in Slav Languages

I can't agree with comment about slav languages as native speaker of Serbian I can say that evil and zlo have the same meaning in Serbian altough word zlo can be used in other contects sentance "Hitler was evil" has the same meaning in Serbian as in English ( this also applyes to Bosnian and Croatian languages, don't know about other slav languages.

Evil in Slavic Languages

I would just like to mention the fact that as a moderately advanced Russophone and one who has personally known Russians and speakers of other Slavic languages, including in such relevant fields as philsophy and debate, I have not noticed any great difference in the view of evil which stems from being a speaker of a Slavic language. I believe that it might be beneficial to revise or cut out this section of the article.

Being a Russian myself I agree that this section should be removed. The adjective "zloj" has a meaning of "angry" indeed, but the word "zlo" does not have it. The word "zlo" is quite similar to "evil" and if I say - "наркотики - это зло (drugs are zlo)" I mean that "drugs are evil" and not that "drugs are angry" --AntonMalinovsky 23:45, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I am a russian-speaking bulgarian and agree with AntonMalinovsky.In some of the Slavic languages, "zlo" isn't even used as angry.

Deontology and Teleology

Two of the most influential moral philosophies in the world, deontology (most notably Kantianism and the categorical imperative) and teleology (most notably utilitarianism. the principle that whatever it is that achieves the greatest good for the greatest number of people is the moral path, and evil is defined as major deviations from it) do not appear at any point in the article, and these philosophies, particularly the former, are essential to any discussion of moral good and evil, and deontology in particular is simply not a part of the article; at no point is anything approaching the principle of universalizability mentioned, nor the Kantian concept that any use of a person as a means and not an end to something is evil. As these are two of the primary philosophies on the subject, a section on them is necessary. I, unfortunately, lack both the time, and the research material as of the present moment, so I must request that some other student of philosophy writes this section.

The Definition of Evil Intent

In this article, there is no discussion of the definition of evil intent, which may be defined in relativism as the beliefs of the performer of an action regarding the nature of evil applied to an action or that of oneself, whereas in absolutism, it is the absolute definition of evil applied to this, and in universalism, evil intent is open to interpretation, but only to a certain extent, as the universal principles which do exist must also be applied. As the primary philosophical debates regarding morality refer to the ends and the means of actions, this article requires more discussion of this.

Humanist concept of evil

It seems that their should be a definition of evil listed outside of those stated by religion. Certain humanists imbrace a notion of good and evil, perhaps that should be listed on this page?--69.205.162.73 19:20, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Irish Evil

For the non-initiated who are too lazy to google, the "Irish Evil" jokes come from "http://www.qwantz.com/index.pl?comic=816"

Why are there no topics concerning Irish Evil in this article yet? Damn semi protection and unwillingness to sacrifice the repute of various wiki accounts to make a fantastic reality. Thechosenone021 17:09, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Even T-Rex agrees that there are no particular flavour of Irish evil!! The fantastic reality will have to be conjured up by other means. sikander 17:26, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

--I concur, I can only wish that the so-called "editors" of this website would realize that evil and Irish evil are in fact synonymous, and that therefore this wikipedia will remain incomplete so long as we continue to ignore the menacing spectre of Irish evil. ~~some guy

This is pretty funny. Most vandalism disappears pretty quick but Irish Evil is still going strong....ooops spoke too soon.

What about the vital opposite to Irish Evil, Australian Good?

Australia is a land founded by crooks. Canadian good for the win!

Australia and Canada are basically the same country man. We should unite or something. The primary difference is that Canada has different accents and better snow. And also, a country founded by English convicts is better than a country founded by English aristocrats. Or the Irish, for that matter. (I'm looking at you, USA!) Gorman 07:58, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Canada and Australia are quite different, actually. Historically speaking, Canada was not founded by English colonizers. The first Europeans to arrive in Canada are the French. Australian, for the most part, were founded by Englishmen. Some of the oldest citys in Cnada (Quebec celebrates its 400 birthday in 2008) are French.

Okay! New Zealand = (Australian-esque location * Canadian-ish snow * funniest accents!)

You forgot New Zealand = 65 Billion Sheep. I can't deal with that many sheep. Also it is tiny and has worse local music. Gorman 04:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

While we are discussing other countries, what about Swiss amorality? Damn moral-centrists! --maru (talk) contribs 13:30, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Did the Irish Evil article get deleted?, i'm guessing yes. Ohh well. Thechosenone021 01:23, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Ha ha, came here to check if Irish Evil had been adde. ~~Casey

"Irish Evil" should redirect here. - caleby

Has anyone else noticed that thanks to the new nationality of evil, Satan has become the "dIrish evil"? --Mysterian

Check List of Ireland-related topics ~ someotherperson

This is while mildly amusing also quite frankly unprincipled, reckless, and immoral. Violation of trust is something that destroys the basic tenets of our culture; it leads to an unwillingness to rely on people, moving into insecurity, and, finally, anarchy, in which everything we value about our civilization ceases to exist. In addition to that, to find amusement in racial slurs is disturbing and disgusting. A prank that insults an entire group of people is not funny at all.

First you say it's mildly amusing, then you say it's not funny at all. You're just not making any sense. What are you, some kind of Irishman?

I really think that is uptight. I'm of Irish decent (Although of not 100% heritage) and I personally find it hilarious. People need to learn how to take a joke.Straightxedger 04:38, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The joke has been taken. It was mildly funny, but not appropriate so it got reverted away. Anyone who wants to see what the joke was can go to an earlier version. You can even link to it, if it's that important to you. To continue to put this "Irish Evil" nonsense here after it's been reverted away, however, stops being funny and starts being childish. Kindly knock it off.

Septegram 11:04, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, I'm Irish and I can safely say I'm not insulted, because I have one of those "sense of humour" things. I also present here a link to an old "Irish" revision for your perusal, as per Septegram: linky --Grey Knight 04:40, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

I'm half-Irish and, as I said, the joke was mildly funny the first time (I, too, have a sense of humor). After the fifth or sixth time, it stops being funny and starts being annoying. This has nothing to do with being offended, and has everything to do with vandalism.

Septegram 13:37, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Just a hint for reverting a lot of minor changes quickly, copy the text of an article into a decent text editor (vi or emacs for example) and do a global search and replace. --D3matt 03:36, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I actually find it easier just to do a revert, which is even faster (although emacs rocks!).

Septegram 13:26, 18 October 2006 (UTC) (slowly learning my way around Wikipedia)

Suggestion

I don't think this article is very good - the style is all over the place, there're too many references to irrelevant politics and Bush, and there seems to be no attempt to distinguish between undesirable and evil - that someone believes that it's 'good' in the sense of desirable and beneficial to destroy their enemies doesn't mean that they necessarily believe that it's 'good' in the moral sense. In fact, some ancients considered the Circus to be 'good' in the sense of desirable for keeping the people quiet and on side, but thought it had a negative moral effect. (Cicero wrote about that). To sort out the style, the whole of this article needs to be rewritten by a single person. I started making piecemeal changes to try to improve it, but I think something a bit more radical is needed.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 157.161.173.24 (talk • contribs • WHOIS)

It is my well-informed opinion that every instance of the word "evil" in this article should be replaced with "Irish evil."

Evil, defined, its reality

As others have more carefully remarked, the idea that there is no human nature is bankrupt. Out of that human nature arise a number of reactions to the world in which we evolved and are evolving, including a wide variety of reactions to real forms of threat to our personal safety.

People struggle with defining and applying the term 'evil' because it is a definite category of experienced reality with definite and characteristic consequences for everyone, but it is never reified. As per J. Campbell in Chapter 1 of his book Primitive Mythology, consider the greyling moth. Males actively persue and mate with females, showing preference for darker females. When exposed to a mockup of a female that is darker than anything that occurs in nature, they persue it in preference to any real female. What Campbell describes as a "supernormal sign stimulus." Hence things arise from nature that are indeed never reified. Evil, like a pure black female greyling moth, does not itself occur in nature, but it is definitely real for organisms with nervous systems organized the way ours are. The idea of evil is a spontaneously recurring idea with all human beings for this reason-- an impossibly superlative form of threat in existence.

Evil goes on to assume other characteristics, again not because of any concretely real thing we can point to in nature (e.g., subterranean anti-deities), but rather because of the way our minds work. As organisms we absorb and respond to a far larger collection of stimuli than make it into what we oversimplify when we speak of 'consciousness.' The remainder, we also oversimplify (though probably pragmatically), as the 'unconscious' after the ideas of Freud and Jung. Since the normal development of a person's different faculties is usually lopsided-- e.g., some people are more incisive than charming, some more charming than incisive-- some parts of every personality remain underdeveloped, primitive, and unconscious. Just as teh conscious personality commands the various strengths an individual has developed, the relatively primitive aspects are constellated as a sort of unconscious anti-personality, which Jung called the 'shadow.' The shadow is in evidence quite often-- embarassing slips of the tongue, black moods, and most of all when we project our weaknesses and faults onto others to avoid recognizing them as parts of ourselves. The intuition that there is an alien but intimate "other" constantly sabatoging the self, develops out of this common condition of consciousness, and serves in particular as a model for intentional evil, rather than 'natural evil,' aka accident (to which the term evil is misapplied).

The amalgam of these two influences generates a very compelling intuition of Evil, which applies only metaphorically to things which in fact are only: irreverent, irreligious, illegal, harmful, sadistic, sociopathic, unfortunate, catastrophic, and/or spooky (since none of these, individually or together, constitute evil). But in this looser sense, it applies properly to anything that meets both the follwing criteria:

1. extremely threatening (excludes the inevitable and the unforeseeable), and 2. something from which the subject markedly seeks to be distanced (projection).

Anybody interested in this topic would find the following books extremely fruitful, IMO: Primitive Mythology, Joseph Campbell, The Blank Slate, Stephen Pinker, Meeting the Shadow, Zweig and Abrams.

This is an interesting discussion and useful I think, but again it comes at the topic from one point of view, like a lot of the article. It needs something a bit more like a survey of all attempts to define it. --157.161.173.24 07:42, 7 August 2006 (UTC) 157.161.173.24

Vandalism

The vandalism simply isn't acceptable. Yes, I know many of the things here are very controversial, but it's starting to become discriminating. SilentWind 04:03, 1 August 2006 (UTC)SilentWind

Eh, it's just amusing that Wikipedians can't have a sense of humor about absurd edits. I mean, everyone saw this one coming from a mile away. Same thing with Colbert and the like. Is it really that taxing to revert a copy? Uh, no. Why don't people stop getting bent out of shape (you have to read the related discussions to realize just how batshit crazy some contributors are) and toss Irish Evil and Elephant Population Growth into an "Absurdist Attacks on Wikipedia" explain the pop-culture context and the very real fundamental dangers of having publically-edited information. Or you guys can continue to bitch and moan and lock articles and whine like little sissies. Wah.

I'm guessing they'll choose the second option.

I'm getting tired of seeing this "Irish evil" nonsense. I've done my first-ever revert (please let me know if I did it wrong) to remove it, but I think it's time something stronger was done. Do we need to protect this page?

Septegram 13:35, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Glenn Danzig is evil???

Witty vandalism at its finest or does someone really hate Glenn Danzig?

Danzig actually claims to be evil, and attempts to live an evil lifestyle. Just ask him.

Revert needed

someone wrote Irish Evil all over the article

It's been happening a lot. Apparently there's a comic that tells people to do just that. I'm wondering if we need to protect the page.

Septegram 08:24, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Please don't. Changing portions of this page to say Irish Evil is great fun. Why interfere with that?

I'm sure some people receive some childish pleasure from vandalizing the page, but for those of us who have to keep reverting this nonsense it's becoming tiresome. If you can give some justification to keep inserting "Irish" before the word "evil," please present it.

Septegram 20:19, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I can't justify inserting Irish before the word evil. If I could, we wouldn't be having this discussion. Also, it wouldn't be fun. Also, why do you think childish pleasure is bad?

Also, do you like to have fun? You ought to try it.

So you can't justify inconveniencing people and vandalizing articles, yet you continue to do it. Why should Wikipedia put up with it?

Actually, I haven't vandalized the article, not even once. You're being mean.

It's not an unreasonable conclusion to draw that someone who does not sign comments and endorses vandalism is likely the vandal. If I drew that conclusion erroneously, I apologize. Nonetheless, my point stands; no one has yet put forward a justification for inconveniencing others and vandalizing articles.

Septegram 21:27, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Childish pleasure isn't bad ipso facto, but when it inconveniences others, then it becomes unacceptable.

I do like to have fun. Screwing with other people's work does not qualify.

Septegram 13:33, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Not to dredge up to much 'Sympathy for the Devil,' but are you not, to some extent, interfering with the work of the very pranksters who you opose? It seems to me that the primary difference between them is that you're serious (while they are not).

The primary difference is that the "pranksters," as you call them, are operating in a fashion which is not consistent with the stated goals and intentions of Wikipedia. Rather than working to create quality encyclopedic articles, they are damaging and defacing the work of others. Thus, their "work" does not qualify for the same protection as the work of someone who is, in fact, trying to create encylopedia articles.

Why are you wasting time trying to defend them? If you have time on your hands, why not make a contribution to some Wikipedia article? Be productive...

Septegram 21:27, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Reverted "Irish evil" out again. Methinks this is going to be a problem for the indefinite future. *sigh* Septegram 13:28, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

And again. Tedious. Anyone else who's watching this page, feel free to jump in and take a turn *grin*. Septegram 21:19, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Removal

I removed this comment:

Love spelled backwards, evol, sound phonetically similar to evil.

It was inserted at the very beginning of the article, and doesn't really seem to have anything to do with the subject at hand. The person who inserted it doesn't have any other contributions that I can see, and this page is a vandalism-magnet these days. Septegram 17:32, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Terrorism is not evil by "all" definitions.

Sadly, terrorism is not evil by all definitions. Read the Old Testament, for example, where terrorism in the name of God is considered good. I think terrorism is evil, but to claim that everyone thinks that is naive. Rick Norwood 12:32, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Please give a cite to the Old Testamaent location. While not definitive the term "evil terrorist" finds over 78,000 hits on Google. The search string +evil +terrorism results in over 22 million hits. Just because the Old Testament says something is good does not make it so, actually it just proves that most evil is done in the name of God(s). Fortunately, most good is also done in the name of God(s). --- Skapur 14:07, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Please read carefully. Of course, most people think terrorists are evil. My objection was twofold. First, terrorism is a special case and does not belong in the first paragraph. Second, the word "all" is too strong. Clearly some people think terrorism is good, or it wouldn't go on. As for an Old Testament verse, how about this one (among many), "And all the first-born in the land of Egypt shall die, from the first-born of Pharoah who sits on his throne, even to the first-born of the slave girl who is behind the mill-stones. ... Pharoah will not listen to you, so that My wonders will be multiplied in the land of Egypt. And Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharoah; yet the LORD hardened Pharoah's heart, and he did not let the sons of Isreal go out of his land." Exodous 11, verses 5 and 9-10. Rick Norwood 12:27, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

It's worth mentioning that the meaning and associations of the word 'terrorism' have changed significantly in the last 5 years. Were members of the Fenians, or even the IRA, 'evil'? - Coil00 15:16, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

If what they did was meant to inspire terror amongst innocent people, then YES they were terrorists --- Skapur 14:53, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

They were obviously terrorists. My question however, is 'were they evil'. - Coil00 15:16, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Killing innocent first borns is an evil act, no matter who performs it! --- Skapur 14:53, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Meta evil

This article itself is evil, especially the "See also" section. What a load of speculative garbage! Mike Dillon 17:54, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

I have looked at the "See also" section, and I agree it had several questionable entries. I have removed the links to Axis of Evil and Evil empire because these are already covered by the link to Political usages of the term evil (which also explains them slightly, though that stub could use much improvement). I have removed the list entry "Evil (A musician based out of the Twin Cities, Mn.)" because it wasn't a link to another Wikipedia article, as is customary for the "See also" section. I also removed the link to "Jade Duke" because a) the article does not exist, and more importantly, b) a Google search for Jade Duke turns up nothing on the first page that suggests any relationship to evil. The links to Erich Heller and Glenn Danzig don't appear to be especially relevant to me. Many philosophers have written about evil, and many musicians have sung about evil; what makes these two so special? I think these links should also be removed, but I've left them in there for now because maybe I'm just not seeing an obvious relevance. The other links I've left alone, as I feel they are relevant to the topic.Paul Armstrong 07:01, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

NPOV violation

A contributor attributes evil to politician Dick Cheney. It is not clear whether the quote fragment the contributor uses is complete or in context. The contributor's selection of one politician, from one party, at the exclusion of others across the political spectrum shows a partisan agenda. This violates NPOV.

Tone

The tone of this article isn't right, espesially the naming of sections. Shall I tag the article as inappropriate? --¿¡Exir Kamalabadi?!^{Join Esperanza!} 23:23, 31 October 2006 (UTC)