Do you believe evil exists?

[MariaAngustias]

So, I am not a religious person, I am a sceptical agnostic. I never really thought about good and evil until I had the experience of meeting someone who emanated... well evil. It seems a bit embarrassing to say it but that is the only way I can describe it.

I was working for the NHS in a very run down area, a lot of patients came from a local Bail hostel and some had done some hideous things - I treated a murder and got on with him fine, felt sorry for him actually cos of the circumstances around what happened and his utter genuine remorse, had a few paedophile patients who, whilst I knew what they did was vile, did not give me the creeps at all. I had also worked in the drug service and come across people who had done some shocking things but nothing really phased me and I saw these people as human beings who had taken a bad path in life . Then.

We had a patient come to us from the hostel and he had an appointment with me. He was an old man with a stick and looked quite pathetic and harmless but he made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end and filled me with such dread and horror. He looked at me as though he was trying to read my mind and said really creepy stuff like 'I showed children how to kill animals' and seemed to be playing with me. In the end I asked another person to come in the room with me and she said she felt it too and we both could not wait to get him out of the room. We were both so shaken and I just said 'I have met pure evil'. I still believe I did and it is the only time that has ever happened in my life.

WTF was it?

@SkeletorAttack one was a person who hadn't done anything awful yet. But it was clear from a very young age that they would. They had all the help imaginable over the years but there was no helping them. It was who they were. If they were in the community they would have hurt or killed people.

It's not a popular option to some but some people are born that way.

That is so sad @WankPuffins - for everyone. Almost waiting for their horrible destiny to manifest

Could you elaborate on what gave you that impression? I have just looked up psychopathic tendencies (as a result of this thread) and the behaviours/traits are chilling.

This thread is making me so sad. If people can be 'born evil' or there is no obvious reason for the horrible things they do (eg trauma), then how can it be fixed or avoided? Imagine having a child and them turning out to be so wicked - I don't know how I would cope.

Used to work with a guy years ago who I always found very unnerving but couldn't put my finger on it. He went onto try and murder his wife (fortunately she survived).

I only now realise he had strong psychopathic traits.

What was really horrible was that he meticulously planned it all, she was really lucky not to die.

His dad used to live in the same village and very very religious - he told people he was upset his son had committed adultery (a sin). He seemed more upset about that

@SkeletorAttack it wasn't an impression. Sadly it was someone who had been in facilities since they were a child for their own safety and for the safety of their family.

Yes. My xh. Evil through to his core.

Understood @WankPuffins - what a sad situation.

@NoOneOwnsTheRainbow

I came across one once. I was working in a call centre and I felt it down the phone. Honestly petrified me. I was shaking by the end of the call and I'm usually rock-steady. It lingered in my mind. I ended up leaving that job soon after.

How on earth did you ‘feel’ evil down a phone line?

Of course it exists. It's always there in society, lurking until a regime rises up where evil people can flourish, such as the Third Reich. All of those Nazi guards and generals were all functioning members of society before. As soon as they were alllowed and encouraged to show their evil, they stepped into their roles.

That's why it frightens me when extreme ideologies are allowed to take root.

My late OH had a summer job in the early 70s working for the Council in a graveyard, he liked his colleagues although he called one creepy. That was Peter Sutcliffe.

Yep I think some people are evil- I felt that after I
First read about James Bulger, his killers had evil in them.

I think we look today in the wrong places for these causes because we cannot face that there is evil as a distinct concept in itself.

Queen Elizabeth the 1st lost her mum to beheading at the behest of her father, was banished from court, declared a bastard when she was two and a half years old. If you want childhood trauma, that is it. What did she do? Reign as Queen for 44 years.

The Bronte sisters, lost their mum when they were young, were sent away to boarding school where two of their sisters died returned home and watched their further siblings die and drink themselves to death. What did they do? Wrote Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

We have come to believe that childhood is this sacred thing that can affect you for the rest of your life but history clearly shows us that is a lie.

We are imprisoning people in victimhood.

Yes and no. In my previous career I sat through many murder trials. Most of the killers were to varying degrees stupid, inadequate, weak, overly impulsive, addicts, in thrall to stronger personalities, and affected by traumatic events in their own lives. It was fairly rare for me to think ‘I really hope this person never gets released’, but there are some who are genuinely frightening. Two I encountered spring to mind. In general, there are some murderers who are so appalling it is better not to think about them IMO.

I personally think it is wrong to label children evil. I know Venables and Thompson provoke very strong reactions in people but I do not believe they were/are evil. What they did was beyond the pale and absolute nothing can excuse it even to the slightest degree, but I do believe they were deeply damaged children themselves. It troubles me that people will label them evil when there are adults committing heinous crimes against children all the time.

People who are very mentally ill can also do things that are so shocking it’s tempting to ascribe them to ‘evil’ but if those people were kept safe and medicated properly etc quite often the crime would never have happened.

People on these threads are usually quick to mention Myra Hindley, Rose West, Venables & Thompson and I wonder why we are so quick to label them evil when the vast majority of horrible crimes are committed by men and quite often against their wives/partners. Not saying people are wrong to single out the women and children who do terrible things but it is relatively rare.

I'm Christian, i believe in Good and evil. I also think run of the mill, normal people are capable of doing horrific things based on circumstances.

Yes I think evil does exist. Without going into the psychos (Bundy, Wests, Brady, etc) I think taking someone’s life (except in self-defence), or raping someone, or abusing children or your partner, are so outside the bounds of what’s humane that it is evil.

Evil as some sort of entity, no.
A person who is 'evil' as in does horrendous things and is vile to the core, absolutely yes.

So why do some people give other people the chills, while others don’t?

@Emeeno1 We are imprisoning people in victimhood.

I agree with this.

I used to work with women who had been in care as children and had built great lives. When they became pregnant themselves some were absolutely treated unfairly by health care professionals because of their past.

Fantastic mother's made to feel like they were destined to fail their children because of their own childhood experiences.

People with so much hate in them give me chills too. Watching videos on YouTube of people being nasty to others (race, religion, sexism, slut shaming etc) makes me think theta the evil too.

Of course, there are too many examples of human cruelty for me to believe otherwise.

I have to agree. I do think some people are bad through and through. I didn't use to think that and remember being quite young and talking to someone I vaguely knew who ran a rehabilitation scheme for offenders. He just looked at me and laughed when I insisted that everyone could be helped!!! On the other hand I do think there are people who just radiate 'goodness.' My DH isn't religious at all but he often tells me about the time he met a nun that his DM knew through her work. He said he met her and just felt the most incredible goodness and peacefulness. It has really stuck with him

I don't think I would use ths word "evil" but "psychopath".

I also don't think it's as black and white as an innate characteristic, more that some people possess innate traits, and the manner of their upbringing/life experiences can make it more or less likely for those traits to result in a psychopathic character. Some of those traits are going to be pretty commonplace, even useful when directed in the right way (things like ruthlessness and single mindedness are common among business leaders), while of course violent and pervase traits are the less common and more worrying.

I do believe that there are a tiny fraction of severely damaged people for whom rehabilitation is simply never going to succeed, and sadly for the protection of themselves and others they must be incarcerated for the duration of their lives. I find it rather terrifying hearing stories of individuals like you mention, because while it's clear this person is monitored, they are nonetheless out there in the community, and I worry that we think someone is not reoffending but actually the reality is sometimes its that we don't know (yet) that they in fact are reoffending.

To clarify my point, I dont even think its traumatic childhoods etc that always cause people to become psychopaths, i think in some individuals the traits are so strong that it is almost inevitable they will result in psychopathic behaviour. Then there are other people for whom I believe they have traits, but those traits are directed in a psychopathic way by damaging life experiences.

I don't *think I would use ths word "evil" but "psychopath".

I also don't think it's as black and white as an innate characteristic, more that some people possess innate traits, and the manner of their upbringing/life experiences can make it more or less likely for those traits to result in a psychopathic character. Some of those traits are going to be pretty commonplace, even useful when directed in the right way (things like ruthlessness and single mindedness are common among business leaders), while of course violent and pervase traits are the less common and more worrying.*

As a forensic psychologist who has worked for many years with individuals described by others as "evil", I have to agree with this. True psychopathy can be very unsettling and frightening to be in the company of, and is typically described by others as feeling as though they are in the presence of "evil". But I do believe there's a lot more to its existence than people are just born with it - psychopathology is widely accepted to be the result of a nature-nurture interaction, whereby people are born with a predisposition to develop certain character traits but these are activated by certain adverse life events (usually in childhood). And of course, there is the notion of "white collar psychopaths", who never engage in criminal behaviour but channel their "inner psychopath" (for want of a better phrase) to achieve highly and become very successful, albeit they often do so with ruthlessness not really caring who they step on in the process.
Psychopathy is a truly fascinating concept.

I can’t say I’ve ever met anyone who gave me that vibe, but I believe other people who have. I don’t think anyone would say it lightly.

Back in the 70s or 80s, my DM, who was an acutely sensitive type, met Jimmy Savile at a social do at Broadmoor - my DPs lived close by and were friends with the chief psychiatrist and his wife.
My DM said at the time how he utterly gave her the shudders.

I didn’t think too much about it then, since I’d always found his TV presence off putting and unsavoury.

A friend of mine once said how a fairly ordinary looking man approaching her on the street set all her ‘danger’ senses tingling. The dog she was walking - a very big Newfoundland - evidently felt the same, since he started a low warning growl until the man was well past them. She said he’d never done that before and was very glad to have had him with her - appropriately enough he was called Hero.