I had a conversation with my ExMo son last night, who is now Jewish. I told him that after 9-11 I was an atheist and I went to meet up with a local group I met through an atheist website linking up local atheists in a community. The local group at the time called themselves the SSSS, South Sound Skeptics Society. It was a group of all middle aged cynical white guys. The guy who started the group was an older atheist. His old buddy was a Vietnam Vet, and one was like me, a former Christian who realized it was all nonsense and became an atheist.
We got to the point where I quit going because we couldn't agree on the word, "Evil" in reference to things like the Holocaust.
We couldn't agree that the Holocaust was evil because the three of them didn't agree that 'evil' was a real thing. I said, 'so what word would you use to characterize murdering 11 million Jews for being Jewish?
They said, "Bad".
I said, "No. Paying $1.50 for a rotten avocado is bad. Evil is worse than 'bad' we reserve the word, 'evil' for things like the holocaust or genocide, mass murder, terrorism, child abuse, you know?"
They disagreed and said that the word 'evil' carried with it waaaaay too much religious baggage and connotations. If you look the word up it means, "Profoundly immoral or unethical."
So, in order to be immoral or unethical, somebody or some organization has to determine and codify what constitutes 'morals' and 'ethics'. Without religion, what is there to say what's 'moral' and 'ethical'? Each individual?
I argued that 'morals' and 'ethics' are present in all species. All species have morals and ethics that they follow in order to survive and thrive. In most species, there's a rule against murdering your own kind which could be considered 'immoral' and 'unethical'. In most species rape is not immoral or unethical and is often a form of reproduction. But humans have made rules against things like rape, murder, canibalism, etcetera. We consider those things to be 'immoral', 'unethical', and we've made laws against them, perishable by death or imprisonment.
Those things seem to me to be evil or what we call evil.
My son said there's not enough words in the English language to describe how evil the holocaust was.
I said that's true. There really is nothing worse than evil, right. It's like John Lennon said, "Each of us has within us the capacity to be like Hitler or Gandhi or anybody in between and it's up to each one of us individually to determine which potential we are going to realize."
It's true, each one of us has the capacity for evil and it's opposite, good and it's up to each one of us to strike our own balance with the world.
He asked me if I thought death was evil.
I said I didn't think it was, because 'evil' is just a human construct. It's not something that exists in nature. I can't think of a natural act that seems 'evil' to me. Sure there's plenty of humans dying from starvation, pandemic, and natural disasters, but that's not because nature is evil.
There is plenty of food to feed the world's starving people, it's just a distribution problem and not a priority to get the food to those who are starving. But it's not nature's fault the people are starving. It's our own fault. If we really cared, we'd make sure they had the food or were provided with the help to get the food.

At least we are not the only ones that get to hear all about how you decide to define everything.

Didn't you already start a thread or 10 on this topic before?

Evil is when you don't damn well do what the Mormon leaders tell you to do

dagny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> At least we are not the only ones that get to hear
> all about how you decide to define everything.
>
> Didn't you already start a thread or 10 on this
> topic before?


There are many new people comming to this board. Although some of the topics are old to those of us who land here regularly they may be new and vital to the newcomer. So I think that periodically rehashing these issues can be very beneficial.
Of course this is just my opinion.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/27/2020 09:21PM by thedesertrat1.

I don't know how to define evil.

I think one of the signals of evil is often a lack of empathy.

People who lack empathy are often involved in what I, personally, consider evil.