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Good and Evil

CriticalThought said:
Talk about judging a book by its cover...

At least give his TED talk a look.
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Not its cover, but its message. He, or his agent, want to sell books to people that want a confirmation that they are "good", whatever they believe in or whoever they vote for. That's just intentional misuse of psychology as an academic discipline.

I was going to ask about TED... if he's there I'll certainly check him out. Thanks for the pointer
 
sawyerloggingon said:
As a rule I agree with you but here we part company.I have done things I regret and things that were wrong but I never intentionally set out to hurt somebody, in my mind that is what evil is.
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In my mind, evil is quite a different concept altogether, and is born of ignorance and/or an overly inflated sense of personal importance. I don't think one has to intentionally do something bad, in order for it to quality as evil. In fact, there are people who rationalize their actions, to the point of believing they are doing the "right" thing, when it requires destructive or *bad* things to accomplish their goals. Iow, the end justifies the means.
 
There is no "good" and "evil". There is only our evolutionary imperative to survive and reproduce which we are slaves to. We can no more reprogram ourselves than computers can.
 
Ditto.

People imagine themselves as being good, simply because they aren't evil. Truth is, the overwhelming majority will never be either. A Jesus or a Hitler doesn't come along that often.
 
No. They're almost exclusively disturbed. That's pathology, not Evil.

Evil doesn't necessitate cruelty, or even physical harm. If it did, then every schoolyard bully would be the embodiment of it. Evil need only hate. Like Good, Evil is a quality unto itself. One that requires no audience to sustain itself.
 
Ray410 said:
If you watch the video, with sound, of the Muslims sawing off Nicholas Berg's head, you will have no trouble concluding that they are truly evil.
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Or Islamists.

Slight difference.
 
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