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?

I agree with @NoIDontWatchLoveIsland.
I also believe evil/psychopathy resides in some people who lead otherwise 'normal' lives until an environment is created where it rears its head and thrives.
I'm convinced a former boss is one of those. Charming to her own line manager who was very hands off and didn't want to know. Evil to her staff. She really took pleasure from seeing others in distress controlling them and had that 'look', it's hard to describe, when she reduced someone to tears. I dread to think what she would be capable of in a totalitarian regime.

It's that feeling of being prey that you sense I think. Most animals have that innate sense of a predator. Just because someone has killed before, doesn't mean they're preying on you, and just because someone hasn't killed before, doesn't mean they're not looking at you as prey.

But I do think some people are rotten inside, no longer human, i think it's rare, and even rarer to be born that way.

I think alot of people are partway rotten, like a bit of mould growing on your bread, or a wound on an apple.

But some people are completely rotten, like if you cut their skin smelly brown liquid would ooze out of them, they're the truly evil ones, there's nothing good left in them, just foulness.

I work in a school. There are a few misbehaved ones but they usually just like pushing the boundaries and being cheeky, nothing really bad.
But one child, he's only 7, really really scares me. There really is something truly and deeply evil about him. You can see it in his eyes. I honestly would be terrified to be left alone in a room with him. He attacks other children so viciously, I have never known anyone like him. I have tried really hard to try and build a rapport with him. Tried to praise him when he has been good.
His slightly older Sister (the year above) is lovely and his Mum is lovely too.
I fully expect to see his name in the paper in the future linked to serious violent crimes.
That sounds awful, especially as he's such a young child. But, I've kept my thoughts to myself as I know how irrational they sound and yet other colleagues have said the same about him to me.
Poor kid, to have his future written off by others. I really hope I'm wrong.

No.

We are imprisoning people in victimhood. I agree with this. My DP grew up in foster care. He was so badly abused that he sustained permanent disabilities as a result, the abuse was physical, sexual, emotional. And as he has grown up he has encountered more than one person who has expressed surprise at the fact he’s not a child abuser or hasn’t been convicted of any kind of crime when nothing could be further from the person he is.

Also I think that “evil” is subjective. We will look at the crimes someone commits and because of the strength of feeling around those crimes we will decide the perpetrators must be evil. I don’t actually believe that James Bulger’s killers were evil. I believe they were children with something very, very wrong in their lives. As adults I would say that they were responsible for the crimes they had committed, and I would probably have condemned them as evil. But as children I refuse to believe they were evil and can only see two children where something had gone very badly wrong for them to commit those crimes.

People are led by the crime rather than the perpetrator. If a girl seduces a man when she is 15 people are quick to say that she’s under age and unable to consent. If a child drinks alcohol then the parent must have some responsibility because they are under age.

We don’t allow under 18’s to marry, to drive, to purchase alcohol, but as soon as those 11 year olds killed a child all bets were off and suddenly they were judged as adults.

As much as what they did was wrong, so was society in the way it reacted.

I don’t believe in it as an external force and I don’t believe people are ‘pure evil’.

People are more complicated than that.

@rawlikesushi

As a character trait, yes, in someone devoid of all kindness, empathy, compassion, mercy.

Not as a 'force' in the world, as some religions claim.

This 100%.

I see it in people who treat animals appallingly, some getting a thrill from it - twisted abattoir workers and farmers, people who enjoy hunting and shooting, - those who abuse kids, who take political decisions absent compassion for those affected. Where people place pleasure, power or money above compassion/empathy. It is somewhat distinct from misguidedness though, there is a cold calculating ruthlessness to it. Psychopathy I guess.

@NotExactlyMrsCurrentAffairs

I work in a school. There are a few misbehaved ones but they usually just like pushing the boundaries and being cheeky, nothing really bad. But one child, he's only 7, really really scares me. There really is something truly and deeply evil about him. You can see it in his eyes. I honestly would be terrified to be left alone in a room with him. He attacks other children so viciously, I have never known anyone like him. I have tried really hard to try and build a rapport with him. Tried to praise him when he has been good. His slightly older Sister (the year above) is lovely and his Mum is lovely too. I fully expect to see his name in the paper in the future linked to serious violent crimes. That sounds awful, especially as he's such a young child. But, I've kept my thoughts to myself as I know how irrational they sound and yet other colleagues have said the same about him to me. Poor kid, to have his future written off by others. I really hope I'm wrong.

Has this child's home life been looked into? Any safeguarding flags etc?

I once read about an apparently (and thankfully) very rare personality type known as ‘malignant narcissist’. It was suggested that Hitler, Saddam Hussein and Pol Pot would have fitted the description, i.e. bent on absolute power, capable of extreme cruelty and quite indifferent to other people’s suffering.

I dare say that could = evil, but that word has for centuries had religious connotations, i.e. to do with the devil aka Satan.

So how you see it rather depends on whether you believe in a satanic influence, or whether you think it’s innate, so not their fault - same as being born with blue or brown eyes, etc.

Not that how you see it will make an iota of difference to how you feel about it, if you are ever unlucky enough to encounter it in person.

Started watching Night Stalker this morning and had to turn it off when the lady was telling what he did to her as a 6 year old. I can't handle things like that.

I've worked in Mental Health wards for years, and have come across maybe 3 or 4 individuals who could be described as 'evil'. I don't know if I believe in evil itself, but these people were/are psychopaths. A total absence of empathy, and a cruel nature, who enjoyed making others suffer. They have a deadness behind their eyes. Interestingly, I've worked with murderers and rapists who didn't seem to have that same 'deadness'. Just very difficult lives, combined with severe mental illness.

@LouJ85 I don't know, I would have expected so due to the seriousness of most of the displayed behaviour.
I'm only a Lunchtime supervisor. I have reported his behaviour many times and had to get the SLT involved on a few occasions. I'm never told of the outcome of any of the incidents.

I don't think "evil" as a separate entity exists but I think human beings have the capacity to do evil things. Some do evil things but still have an empathetic side to them. Some are psychopaths or sociopaths with total lack of empathy. I believe the man you described falls to that category.

Exactly what LouJ said.

There’s a fine line between evil and mentally ill when it comes to certain people e.g Ed Gein.

It's that feeling of being prey that you sense I think.

Interesting. Like the lady with the Newfoundland, I once had a very unsettling experience. After working late, I was waiting at the bus stop. It was dark, but London, well lit, CCTV everywhere, etc, and it was something I did regularly. A man approached me and I felt very strongly that he was dangerous and whatever bus happened to come along, if I got on it, he would too. I actually got a very sharp pencil out of my bag in case I suddenly needed to defend myself! I flagged down the first cab that came along. When I got in, the driver said ‘oh, I thought you two were together’. That made me feel really weird. Nothing remotely similar has ever happened to me before or since, but I think feeling like prey describes it well.

Psychopaths aren't insane, nor is it a mental health issue. We've now seen physiological differences in their brain and its structure. There's also more than one type. Primary and secondary. Primary feel no fear or remorse, secondary can feel both.

You're never going to meet a nice psychopath, but I also guarantee you've all met way more than one. They're not a rare, almost mythical being. One in a hundred is the current estimate. Loads of studies have found early attachment problems to strongly correlate with future offending in diagnosed psychopaths so yes, a lot is dependent on their upbringing after being born with these brain differences and deficits. Psychopathy isn't always bad either. They tend to be very utilitarian in their thinking, one of the professions with the highest rate is in surgeons. The surgeon can't afford to wrestle with moral issues, they just do what needs to be done in split second situations, and that can save your life. You don't want to be best friends with this surgeon, but you'd want them operating on you if you needed it.

This "I felt evil and think I met a true psychopath"? There was probably one on the last packed train you were also on.

Yes, I do believe evil exists.
I know the bastard who took my dd's life was evil.
In court when the verdict was announced(NOT PROVEN) he looked across straight at us and smirked. He looked evil. My brother was threatened with contempt of court by the judge for threatening to kill him himself. By this stage, he was laughing openly in court.

Months later he was back in court he had killed his new girlfriend's dog and left it on her doorstep.

But every cloud he's dead now (sadly no one killed him) He died of a drug overdose.

I had a patient once brought in from a prison.He was guarded by about 5 policemen round the clock.His face , the way he looked at me and the things he said .He was evil .No doubt about it.

I’m so so so sorry @ParkheadParadise

Cows

They are evil

@parkheadparadise

@lunalulu

Yes absolutely.

I've seen it.

The weird thing is, when it comes out in someone, it always looks the same, whoever it is in.

Yes. This I can’t even type my experience it’s too harrowing but honestly you just know evil when you see it

I'm so sorry @ParkheadParadise 😔

I'm a police officer and have dealt with many people who have done terrible things. Only once have I met a man who made my skin crawl - his offence was fairly low level but I just felt so oppressed in his company. I had to shower as soon as I walked through the door, like I had to wash him off my skin, and spent weeks checking my doors and windows even though what he was arrested for wasn't anything like that. It wasn't anything he said or did, and I'm usually an extremely rational person, but he just gave off a vibe.

My husband is a mental health support worker, and has worked in forensic wards. He's a big man who isn't intimidated very easily. Once we walked to the local shop and someone said hello to him and he froze. I've seen him in confrontational situations before and I've never seen him react like that, like his hackles had gone up. Later he told me that the man had been a patient of his. We have seen many patients knocking around before as we live near a unit they get placed in before being released. Obviously he didn't tell me about him due to patient confidentiality. A few weeks later I was sat in a cafe with my young child. Out of nowhere I suddenly felt very uncomfortable and when I turned round I saw the same man sat behind me, staring at me. I felt so uncomfortable that I left the cafe a few minutes later. I have sat with murderers, paedophiles, dv abusers and never felt so uncomfortable.

I don't know whether I believe in evil as a concept. I believe that some people are devoid of compassion and empathy to an extent that you can almost sense it in a primeval level.