Do you agree with the Bishop of Durham that we all have evil within us or do some people become wrongdoers because of things that have happened in their lives?
Julia Bard Editor channel4.com/belief channel4.com/shariahtv
I believe some people are born with a diminished conscience which doesn't allow them to empathise with other's pain and so come across as evil. Psychopaths are a typical example.
Others may turn off their empathetic faculties as a consequence of personal circumstances & their environment.
Everyone has the capacity to commit harmful acts, not sure I would use the term 'evil'.
But most people have internalised controls that prevent them carrying out deliberately harmful behaviour towards others. (as the professor says, above: psychopaths are people who do not have these internal controls).
But to demonise a person like Adolf Hitler for example, by saying he was 'evil' and that's why he behaved with such cruelty, is to ignore the fact that thousands of ordinary, law-abiding outwardly 'decent' Germans played an active role in the operation of the concentration camps killing machines in WWII.
I don't think those people had 'evil' within them, but they were thoughtless, immoral, self-serving, and cruel. Just as any of us might be, given certain circumstances.... that is, if we fail to examine continually the morality of our own actions.
Originally posted by Vlad Tepes: I would need to understand what is meant by "evil".
1 The quality of being morally bad or wrong; wickedness ( morally = Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character)
2 That which causes harm, misfortune, or destruction:
Originally posted by the professor: I believe some people are born with a diminished conscience which doesn't allow them to empathise with other's pain and so come across as evil. Psychopaths are a typical example.
Others may turn off their empathetic faculties as a consequence of personal circumstances & their environment.
One problem with always excusing their diminised responsibility is that under that criteria they are automatons with no free will.
I am not convinced by genetics/ social influences being our only "destiny" so to speak.
There are many factors, but I believe ultimatly there is the freedom of choice, the choice that person makes is "their" responsibility.
Therefore if they make a decision that results in "evil" from their actions then they are ultimatly responsible
Originally posted by gt: 1 The quality of being morally bad or wrong; wickedness ( morally = Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character)
2 That which causes harm, misfortune, or destruction:
This is not an answer, it is a series of synonyms.
Originally posted by the professor: I believe some people are born with a diminished conscience which doesn't allow them to empathise with other's pain and so come across as evil. Psychopaths are a typical example.
Others may turn off their empathetic faculties as a consequence of personal circumstances & their environment.
One problem with always excusing their diminised responsibility is that under that criteria they are automatons with no free will.
I am not convinced by genetics/ social influences being our only "destiny" so to speak.
There are many factors, but I believe ultimatly there is the freedom of choice, the choice that person makes is "their" responsibility.
Therefore if they make a decision that results in "evil" from their actions then they are ultimatly responsible
good post gt, Im not convinced of this diminished responsability on the grounds of bad past experiences thing either. Many of us have suffered in our past but choose not to make others suffer.
Yes, I'm sure we all possess the potential for evil; also, that our past experiences can certainly be a further influence. p.s., best Easter programme I've seen.
hummm the programm left me a little dazed and confused....
and i had just written out some of the thoughts it provoked but decided not to post them because like many posters on this thread i too felt that the Rev. didnt really answer what evil was and left everybody in some sort of nomansland. Sorry.
Originally posted by julia bard: Do you agree with the Bishop of Durham that we all have evil within us or do some people become wrongdoers because of things that have happened in their lives?
This was a very muddled programme, like a long illustrated sermon. What does the bishop understand by evil? It all becomes focussed on Jesus in one titanic battle on the cross. What is he talking about? And he seemed to think the Tsunami was evil? It was a natural disaster whose effect was terrible; but you can't call it evil.Or does the bishop believe in devils?
And the chosen people of God and suffering. I only hope God does not choose me - he it seems is not very nice to his friends. And if God is good, why all this evil in the first place?
And people as evil? There is no analysis here; it is wooley thimking at its worst. The programme needed a few sceptics to get him to explain himself more clearly.
<zendan>
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by julia bard: Do you agree with the Bishop of Durham that we all have evil within us or do some people become wrongdoers because of things that have happened in their lives?
A particular action is judged good or bad (evil) according to its effect on other people. There is no "force" of evil lurking inside us waiting to pounce.If an action makes people unhappy then it is judged bad (in extreme cases - evil) but we have the option of not doing it. Turning the other cheek works where the wrongdoing is petty, but who in their right mind turns the other cheek to a murderer? To forgive your enemies results in their escape from culpability merely by repenting - genuinely or not.
To "cure" evil we must embody morality in law and enforce it rigorously.
I believe that most people do have the capacity for evil, and are particularly likely to indulge this tendancy when in a group situation. Its something we all really need to be aware of, see when maybe some minor predjudices we have can develop into real hatreds. Maybe part of being a thinking being with the capacity for doing good automaticaly involves having an equal capacity for evil.
Originally posted by zendan: Turning the other cheek works where the wrongdoing is petty, but who in their right mind turns the other cheek to a murderer?
Actually, I thought that one of the more thought provoking aspects of the show was the whole South African Truth and Reconciliation case study in forgiveness. That's one situation where people who have been deeply wronged have found it within themselves to forgive their enemies, and started a process of healing on a national level. As was mentioned on the show, the alternative could well have been long and bitter civil war.
But I agree with oher posters that maybe Bish Tom didn't really explain what evil what. I guess he assumed that everyone knows what evil is intuitively - so rather than trying to offer an explantion of it, he was trying to outline the solution to it offered by Christianity. So yes, that would make the programme a long illustrated sermon...
<BornAgain>
Posted
Certainly hope so!! - if not, he illustrates some aspects of evil beautifully.
Evil is what the word is - the reverse of 'live'. It's everything that destroys, hates, envies, reviles, tortures, despises. It's all the negative things that we so easily fall into every day, that make someone's life harder to bear.
I'm amazed at some of the stuff above, and that people get all wishy-washy and philosophical about 'what is evil?', 'it's just someone's idea of...'.
Come on, we all know what evil is, in our hearts. Let's not BS one another that it doesn't exist!
The Bish' did a very fair job of expressing his passionately held belief that Jesus died in order that the worst aspects of evil could never totally overwhelm the world.
Think of the worse thing you've ever witnessed, read about, or imagined. Then imagine what it might be like if that was the norm for everyone, everywhere, all the time.
That's what would have happened without Jesus.
Scary, ehh?
<zendan>
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by humblebum99:
quote:
Originally posted by zendan: Turning the other cheek works where the wrongdoing is petty, but who in their right mind turns the other cheek to a murderer?
Actually, I thought that one of the more thought provoking aspects of the show was the whole South African Truth and Reconciliation case study in forgiveness. That's one situation where people who have been deeply wronged have found it within themselves to forgive their enemies, and started a process of healing on a national level. As was mentioned on the show, the alternative could well have been long and bitter civil war.
But I agree with oher posters that maybe Bish Tom didn't really explain what evil what. I guess he assumed that everyone knows what evil is intuitively - so rather than trying to offer an explantion of it, he was trying to outline the solution to it offered by Christianity. So yes, that would make the programme a long illustrated sermon...
the innuendo behind the Bishop's statements seems to be that the Devil exists - which all God fearing Bishops believe. Of course there is no Devil as there is no caring, paternal God.
The Buddha got it right when he said, "There is hope for man only in man."
Originally posted by BornAgain: Evil is what the word is - the reverse of 'live'. It's everything that destroys, hates, envies, reviles, tortures, despises. It's all the negative things that we so easily fall into every day, that make someone's life harder to bear.
I'm amazed at some of the stuff above, and that people get all wishy-washy and philosophical about 'what is evil?', 'it's just someone's idea of...'.
What, because the nature of evil somehow isn't a philosophical question?
quote:
Come on, we all know what evil is, in our hearts. Let's not BS one another that it doesn't exist!
The Bish' did a very fair job of expressing his passionately held belief that Jesus died in order that the worst aspects of evil could never totally overwhelm the world.
Think of the worse thing you've ever witnessed, read about, or imagined. Then imagine what it might be like if that was the norm for everyone, everywhere, all the time.
That's what would have happened without Jesus.
Scary, ehh?
All that's scary is that childlike superstition and ignorance such as yours still prevail in this country as they have under the Taleban in Afghanistan.
Originally posted by zendan: the innuendo behind the Bishop's statements seems to be that the Devil exists - which all God fearing Bishops believe.
You really ought to meet more Bishops, zendan.
Actually, no the innuendo I got from him was that he was agnostic about whether the devil exists, and he wasn't sure sure what difference it made to the question at hand. (I believe he said something like "but the language of demons is just a way of describing whats going on when bad things happen - its a restatement of the problem, rather than a proposed solution")
I would have said that his "innuendo" was that evil was part of the system, part of the world, part of human nature, the inherent flaw in any purely humanist solution to the problem.
<humblebum99>
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Originally posted by Vlad Tepes: All that's scary is that childlike superstition and ignorance such as yours still prevail in this country as they have under the Taleban in Afghanistan.
Dude, you can't try and act enlightened and morally superior whilst stooping to name-calling at the same time, it doesn't work.
Originally posted by humblebum99: Dude, you can't try and act enlightened and morally superior whilst stooping to name-calling at the same time, it doesn't work.
But it is ignorance and childlike superstition; it's not name calling. He thinks spelling a word backwards creates a new concept which means the opposite - so presumably "doog" is a synonym for evil? He thinks that in the 1st Century AD, somehow the world was poised to be overwhelmed by evil, as if in some bad 80s sword and sorcery film. When other people try and talk seriously about it, he's shocked and appalled because it's not been reduced to the black and white simplistic assertions he understands.
We're a complex animal at heart. The widely varied environments we grow up in add to the diversity of our natures. As we continue to make rules that govern us as a culture, the diversity of the species insures that some will be closer than others to what is perceived as right or decent. While some traits are more clearly anti-social than others, we all have the capacity to stray from one rule or another depending on our invividual heritage and beliefs. My first novel gave a plausible account of how Noah could have built the ark, loaded it with animals and remained afloat for a year while the rest of life perished in the flood. I showed that it could have been done with no help from a deity and employed all the character virtues and flaws of flesh and blood humans. In that, it was detemined that his mission was flawed in its concept and doomed from inception. He could not have left the evil to perish while good survived as both traits were carried in the hearts and minds of anyone who lived. The best he could have hoped for was to keep those most prone to surpress the "evil" instincts and act on the good.
