Archive Home Page Subj: Re:Evil
Date: 95-03-31 19:18:24 EST
From: Joe Uhrig
>>Have you ever experienced, done or been evil? If so, describe it. <<
This should be a interesting topic, however you should provide a profile and more stimulous to the conversation if you really want honest answers. We get a lot of "evil" repent or else posts in this forum;)
In a dualistic world of suffering (love/hate, good/evil) I don't think evil is something that can be placed into arbitary moral categories. That simply lays the foundation for blame shifting (such as the Satan/God duality) and does absolutely nothing to resolve it. It does indeed exist and instead of trying to categorize it for the purpose of labeling people, I think a better approach is to ask "why" it exists at all.
I don't think evil is an eternal absolute so much as a force in the play of history. My own perspective, in a world of shared suffering, is that evil is the unfortunately necessary force driving history to it's inevitable conclusion. No country, no religion, no people, and probably very very few individuals, can claim not to have been a part of it. They can, on what some (including myself) have speculated to be the final chapters of history, resolve to be a part of ending it.
Anyways, that's my take on it. I've certainly done my share. Before we get too serious here however, there may also be an interesting underlying cultural pattern of "evil" as fun, like that wickedly evil hot fudge sunday, or sex that is so pleasurable for both people that it is absolutely evil :)