Read frankenstein, a clockwork orange, and research humanistic vs psychoanalysis in pyschology, that should help you out.

If you don't have time then pm me and I'll tell you why frankenstein and a clockwork orange might help you.

Also choop thanks for bringing that kind of thinking up. Just went through all sorts of therapy to try and stop myself from thinking about every little thing like that and boom, someone that thinks the same way comes along and off I go.

I think you become "evil" (I hate that term) when you violate your own personal moral disciplines.

Humans are naturally a blank slate-they are born with nothing, and gradually build up their own ideas of right and wrong. The point at which you choose to do that which you hold as wrong, you are, for your own intents and purposes, evil.

As far as society's ideas of evil, there really is no general interpretation of the word. What America in general calls evil, other countries call a way of life, so I tend to think that good and evil are personal definitions, and only you can define yourself as evil.

Of course in the scheme of things it really doesn't matter. Think of the worst events in history, the holocaust, the civil war, the black plague, genocide, humanity has been defined by it's "evil" acts. We still exist despite them, so they have neither a negative nor positive impact on our race. My opinion, anyway. I will continue to hold my concepts of evil, with the knowledge that they are simpy a concept, not a definition, much like my concept of time.

ANARCHY_SCOUT wrote: John Locke?

In basic theory, yes. Man is an empty slate, built up by his surroundings. Your beliefs, your idealogy, everything is built up by your experiences and those around you. This always throws people back in religion debates-

Person A says his religion is right, and person B is going to hell. Person A is convinced in his mind there is no other way, but fails to take into consideration that person B also feels the same way, and is just steadfast in his opinion. Which is why it is pointless to argue religion-people's religion is formed by a lifetime of enviroment. The same goes for the definition of good and evil-you feel rape is wrong because society has told you from birth that rape is wrong. The same goes for hate, racism, murder, theft, what have you. Definitions of society.

As has been pointed out the definition of "evil" is extremely vauge. Most people don't have a set explaination of evil, using more of the "I know it when I see it" approach to calling something evil.

Now, the real question that I see is "What is the difference between something evil and something immoral?"

For instance, most people have a deep feral urge at one point or another. Something in the back of your mind comes up with a dark fantasy of say tearing someones throat open just to watch them die. It is the natural hunter part of us. It was how our race survived.

Now surely doing that would be immoral, by pretty much anyones standards, but how does acting on an instinct rise to the level of evil?

By the other side of the coin, there is almost no such thing as "good" to me. What can be defined as a good act? If your belief is that it is something that falls in line with moral behavior then as moral is defined culturely then there is no way to define good.

The end result of the debate that I see is simply this, seeing as how you cannot solidly define good or evil, then niether can the position of humanity. It is much more likely that people are simply too animalistic to be defined by anything other then their instincts.