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 think the most evil people have a horrendous background. I dont think it excuses it and there are a few rare exceptions but to think how often we attribute our personality to our childhood just on this forum, it seems naive to think it isnt a factor.

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.

All to you've done is pick out a couple of examples that happen to back up your argument, it doesn't prove you're correct.

I've attached this before, but it doesn't have to be 100% to be linked.

Not all people who are sexually abused go on to self harm or misuse substances or develop eating disorders. I did all three. The fact other people don't doesn't mean there is no link and my behaviour was unconnected to what I experienced.

I was sexually assaulted by a friend's father, he had worked South Africa had campaigned heavily against torture under Apartheid. On the one hand I admired him enormously he was brave and noble, on the other I'm disgusted he was manipulative and a paedophile. It made me question the nature of evil.

Yes.
My stepmum, she mentally abused and bullied me and my sister with severe learning difficulties.

I do think anyone could commit 'evil' acts in the right circumstances.

If anyone hurt any of my children - sexually or physically - and I could hurt them back with impunity? I would, if I am honest, I would want them to suffer and it has always been an absolute fear of mine. I imagine the blind rage would take over.

If someone gave me a knife and said I could end my childhood rapists life, again with impunity? Again, I would. He has sexually assaulted at least 4 girls/women, so not only do I want him dead so others don't suffer but I also want him to experience horror.

Although writing it down is easy. If it actually came to it? I don't know if I could/would.

Does it make me evil to even consider it?

I met a child of 3 who I am convinced is a psychopath, I would not be at all surprised if he does something awful when older.
He would be playing or just walking along and with no warning hit or kick another child or adult, sometimes he would run across the room to do so

@missymoomoomoomoomoo

I think the most evil people have a horrendous background. I dont think it excuses it and there are a few rare exceptions but to think how often we attribute our personality to our childhood just on this forum, it seems naive to think it isnt a factor.

I do think an excellent upbringing can work so as to prevent some psychopaths from pursuing a criminal career. I don't think it can prevent them becoming psychopaths though, because its thought to have a biological cause, often genetic, where part of the brain responsible for traits such as empathy and conscience don't receive signals from other parts of the brain.

I think humanity is faulty for want of a better word. We seem so different that other mammals. I think some individuals carry out evil acts and there is definatley a prey feeling that can be triggered - but sometimes whole societies are complicit or involed in evil. The transatlantic slave trade stands out.id be surprised if many individuals involved in that were giving off vibes. Its not like there was one enigmatic/feared leader like Hitler. It spanned centuries and countries.
Im moving towards thinking evil is money/power at a national level and something else at an undicidual level and sometimes the two combine.

If a girl seduces a man when she is 15 people are quick to say that she’s under age.

Children don't "seduce" men.

@GreenlandTheMovie

Nurture can influence, but not decide, biology but yet biology is an influencing factor

Jaypreen that is not Morgan’s experience that is her mother’s experience of her daughters life

Morgan’s experience could be very different (and from her siblings too)

Yes. And after watching Nightstalker, which absolutely chilled me to the bone and had me in tears, I genuinely believe there are evil people in this world whose sole aim is to cause pain to as many people as they can.

I don't believe all psychopaths are evil. A majority of CEOs score highly in the test. That doesn't make them evil.
I do however think a very small minority of people have a complete disregard for human suffering. This is thought to start for some of those in childhood with torturing animals etc.
Its definitely a darkness that I've met, but I'm not sure about evil.
Evil for me seems to be linked to the bible and I'm not a believer.

Just started watching The Serpent. The three main characters are pure evil.

Yes and it is personified by my neighbours on both sides. So they stay in their lane and I stay in mine.

I don't know if I would describe this man as 'evil' but something inside of me didn't feel right whenever I was with him. It was something about his eyes and his general manner, I had a strong, bad gut intuition about him and I'm still not sure to this day whether it was just paranoia of if there was something more to it.

It was around 2 years ago, I met him on a dating site and we dated for around 2 months. Nothing he did or said in particular raised alarm bells but it was just this overwhelming feeling that something wasn't right with him, but I didn't know what it was.

He was nice, we had loads in common, and I was very, very attracted to him, we had immense chemistry but there was just a constant knot in my stomach (not a good one at all, like a sense of impending doom) the full two months I was with him.

I finished it one day as the previous night he has been over for some dinner and we were watching a film. He'd never met my DD but he would come over once she was in bed and leave late at night. This particular night it was about 1 in the morning and we were lying on the sofa and he said I just need to use the toilet (which was upstairs where my little girl was). I thought nothing of it, and then he was about half way up the stairs and I felt this drop in my stomach. And this overwhelming sense of dread and voice saying don't let him up there alone with your DD. So I bolted up after him said I was checking on DD, waited till he went back downstairs and made my excuses then broke up with him over text the next day.

He accepted it and went away quietly so never any issues. But I have never ever had that experience and will probably never figure out what happened. Now when I think of him I get shudders. Very bizarre indeed.

yes I live above an evil man and above two evil woman. They do exist

just to add, I have met dealers, murderers and I still think the neighbours I am around are evil

@Emeeno1 being reigning queen of England and writing novels doesn't mean you're a sound of mind person though. If anything the Brontes writing showed how fucked up they potentially were. Also, they were exposed to the norms of their time. Someone like Richard Ramirez however, as a modern 20th century kid in his youth, was exposed to things outwith the norms of his time.

@MillieEpple

I think humanity is faulty for want of a better word. We seem so different that other mammals. I think some individuals carry out evil acts and there is definatley a prey feeling that can be triggered - but sometimes whole societies are complicit or involed in evil. The transatlantic slave trade stands out.id be surprised if many individuals involved in that were giving off vibes. Its not like there was one enigmatic/feared leader like Hitler. It spanned centuries and countries. Im moving towards thinking evil is money/power at a national level and something else at an undicidual level and sometimes the two combine.

I do agree with this. I think evil is the name we give to our remaining animal instincts.

From a zebra'a point of view, a lion is evil. It will kill you if it can and will use your young to teach it's own young how to kill. Well fed domestic cats will torture prey for the thrill of it, not through hunger or necessity. My own elderly greyhound will chase and kill anything that it identifies as prey. As humans we accept this 'evil' in our pets but not in people.

Yann Martel used this to good effect in Life of Pi by offering two alternatives, one being unthinkable because of the lack of humanity shown in the most likely scenario.

Long ago we were both prey and predator. With events like slavery (still happening today) and genocide we revert to animal instinct. We know when we are in the presence of 'evil' because, as described here, we 'feel' it (that innate knowledge built in for survival).

Depends on the morals and if the "evil deeds" were for the greater good, eg going back in time to prevent x situation, could be carried out using evil deeds but for the greater good of society, I guess it's situational ethics.

No I don’t. There’s just people, doing what people have always done, good and bad.

just to add, I have met dealers, murderers and I still think the neighbours I am around are evil
Evil neighbours do exist (my worst nightmare) neighbours who no longer have the morals safety and capacity to live in communities many cases come to mind. acts carried out by a sick mind, unsure if the intentions are evil or services are no longer there to in-house risky MH patients.
It is much tougher for a neglected abused DC to become a person who cares mix MH issues in and it's nearly impossible.

@OhWhyNot

Jaypreen that is not Morgan’s experience that is her mother’s experience of her daughters life

Morgan’s experience could be very different (and from her siblings too)

This does not negate the fact that Morgan did not show signs of normal human empathy from an early age. This is very telling it seems to me.

At 12 she was diagnosed with early onset schizophrenia or psychosis. She didn't tell her parents she was experiencing symptoms. She's heard voices and had hallucinations since early childhood.

Having read a fair bit about her case, it seems clear that she's suffering from mental illness. Likely inherited from her father - who was hospitalised several times as a teenager as a result of schizophrenia.