Presence of evil

[beachcitygirl]

Aibu to ask if you've ever felt yourself in the presence of evil. Following on from
The intuitiion thread.

I once met a friend of my ex in a coffee shop. The man was nothing but civil & friendly. Soft spoken & was an ex police officer. My then husband was there also.
I went to the loo & spent ages as something about him made me feel afraid. I stress it was just a feeling. Zero untoward behaviour.
Many years later he was arrested & found guilty of violent rape.

Has anyone else ever sensed evil? (For want of a better word)

@MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry No need to belittle someone's beliefs is there?
You are entitled to believe evil acts are in fact learned or chosen behaviors but i and many others don't think this... its just different POV's based on our individual experiences.

BTW i'm not a Christian but i do believe that evil exists, it is the only explanation for what people are capable of doing to each other.

No need to belittle someone's beliefs is there?

If you are referring to my comment to 2gen then it was in response to a very condescending “educate yourselves” comment from her.

And again, I totally disagree with you that “evil” is the only explanation for what others do to each other.

A handy man at work was always normal and friendly. But one day I was alone with him in the hall bit of work and he started asking me about my daughter and then was saying something is going to happen, nothing bad but something was. The. Asking how old she was, who I lived with. When I asked what he meant he was just laughing and said he couldn't say anything. I told my other colleagues and they said to ask him when I seen him again. So I did and said it's made me really paranoid that it was something to do with work. He said it wasn't and it was nothing to worry about but wouldn't tell.

I ended up going into my daughters school that no one apart from daughters dad, me and my parents will be picking her up and we set up a password to use. It was honestly the scariest thing. I still see him now but never on my own, don't get into conversation with him and nothing has ever happened. But from then on I get such bad vibes from him.

I am so sorry. That is awful.

sorry @ParkheadParadise

2gen's never said"educate yourselves" and the comment she did make about doing some more reading and research was not related to her christianity. She specifically mentioned a book and personality disorders - not the bible or other religious text or concepts.

I have no idea what she triggered in you for you to attack her like that but it was way out of proportion to her actual post (as opposed to what you are claiming she said)

@MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry She didn't actually say that did she?

Anyway, moving on, do you mind explaining what you believe motivates people to do horrific acts on other people?

I'm willing to change my mind.

Good point here from @HunterGatherer
And yes, I've worked in a top security mental hospital with many household name child murderers and no, none of them gave Mr the creeps. That's the thing with psychopaths they are bloody lovely, charming people on the surface of it.
The best way to keep yourself safe is not to rely on "spidey senses" whatever they may be, its to raise our boys to be respectful, and to never put our trust into people who we don't really know.
I was going to say something about trusting instinct too, but those who give us the creeps are often the least dangerous, its the people who are good at getting our trust that we should probably be most wary off. That's cheerful, isn't it!!

@GirlOnPfizer

In the course of my work I have met violent offenders and criminally insane people - some whose names you would recognise. In many cases they seemed pleasant and I got no "bad feeling" around them. In fact there was a really jarring disconnect between how amiable they seemed and what I knew they had been capable of.

Separately, I can think of two men I've met, in social contexts, neither of whom I have any evidence had committed any criminal acts, who filled me with utter fear and loathing.

I don't know what to conclude from this.

@GirlOnPfizer, do you think this could be because the men who’ve been incarcerated are no longer striving to conceal their true nature? Plus there’s no real opportunity to act on their worst instincts, so they don’t need to put any effort into maintaining a facade?

Maybe it’s the strain of appearing harmless, and hiding their true thoughts and motives, that gives away people with bad intentions when they’re living normal lives on the outside - hence we may feel inexplicably wary of them …?

2gen's never said"educate yourselves" and the comment she did make about doing some more reading and research was not related to her christianity

No she said that anyone who said evil didn’t exist should do some research. Pretty much “educate yourself to think like me”

@MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry

Well evil doesn’t exist, so no, but you can certainly form accurate gut instincts about people based on unconscious signs they give off.

You and other pp sound so arrogant saying “evil doesn’t exist”. How can you know for sure? Perhaps, I don’t believe evil exists but you make it sound as if you know all the facts about the universe and everyone else is wrong.

[quote Alexandra2001]@MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry She didn't actually say that did she?

Anyway, moving on, do you mind explaining what you believe motivates people to do horrific acts on other people?

I'm willing to change my mind.[/quote]
Countless and multiple things motivate people. There isnt one thing. You can’t really think there is? Or maybe you can.

And @Pallisers there was no “attack”

You and other pp sound so arrogant saying “evil doesn’t exist”. How can you know for sure?
Perhaps, I don’t believe evil exists but you make it sound as if you know all the facts about the universe and everyone else is wrong.

Ok

I mean there are dozens of people here asserting that evil does exist- surely that’s equally as arrogant?

I have never sensed evil but I sometimes have intrusive thoughts about evil things happening to me.

One Christmas a few years ago, I was leaving work late on 'Mad Friday' and crossing the road in the dark, I started panicking. There was a man on the other side, and I got it into my head he was waiting to stab me or something. I know it sounds daft. He stretched his arms wide when I got there and I thought "this is it", but he just said "Merry Christmas love" and walked off.

There is guy, who walks through my village every day. Seems like a real violent hard nut. Just a feeling and I give him a wide berth. There have been others in the past but never heard of them doing anything bad.

No idea why MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry is being so aggressive

It literally doesn’t affect you at all what other people believe. Why you’ve picked on 2gen I don’t know.

They’ve literally just said that they believe in good and evil due to their faith, and you’ve ridiculed them unprovoked.

You’re so cool with your edgy athirst beliefs.
Bloody bully

@LouiseBelchersBunnyEars you may not be bothered to read the series of comments but if you choose not to, don’t bother to comment.

@MaryAndGerryLivingInDerry

I mean there are dozens of people here asserting that evil does exist- surely that’s equally as arrogant?

I once read about a head teacher in a primary school in Bosnia, he went on to command one of the worst killing gangs going.... evil is multifaceted too.

But i was expecting a more comprehensive answer from you, that or you don't actually know.

My DP has to visit shops and offices as part of his job and one idiot woman actually complained to his company that she got a scary vibe from him ( we've been together for eons and he's the kindest and gentlest person l know, so l think she was just having a bad day and projecting ) l'm on here looking for a post about him!

No she said that anyone who said evil didn’t exist should do some research. Pretty much “educate yourself to think like me”

Icould you at least stop putting "educate yourself" in quotation marks as if she actually said that. You directly quoted her previously saying it when it is clear you know she didn't.

What she said was:

I'd suggest people who claim there's no such thing as evil do a bit more reading and research.

Any yeah I do think you misquoting her, telling her she is a "fully signed up fairy in the sky worshipper" and calling her condescending is an attack

Anyway off-topic and no skin off my nose but I hate posters claiming people said stuff they didn't and then having a grand old go at them on the basis of a fiction.

This thread is terrifying.

The cinema I worked at had a haunted screen. Most of the stuff was made up to scare new staff members but the screen did genuinely have a terrible and oppressive atmosphere where it felt like someone was always watching. It was to the extent that the screen adjoining it also had a slightly bad atmosphere but not quite as bad. (All cinema screens feel a little like someone is watching as you can literally watch from the window in the projection booth but this was different)

There was also a guy I worked with there who I got bad feelings from even though he was fairly good looking and charming. I don’t think he was evil but I think he may have been a psychopath as they act out or mimic how they think a normal person behaves. He was dating a work colleague (suspected he was abusive to her but no proof) one morning I switched the work computer to discover his Facebook with messages up from night shift and it was all about him having an affair with one of her friends. (Only reason I even looked was coz they had a stupid game there that he started where if someone left themselves logged in to social media people would post stupid messages that that person wouldn’t say etc) Just an example of how he was a practiced liar.

He would seem normal one minute but occasionally fly into rage out of no where. He pushed a female colleague over (not at work at time) and she never forgave him. He also through a male colleague up against a tile during a game of flicking rubber bands at each other. One of the reasons I left that job was I thought it was pretty stupid that they promoted a guy who literally assaulted a colleague ahead of me. He was basically able to use his ‘charm’ to get away with stuff.

Also, he was silently weary of me because I think he knew that I knew he ‘wasn’t quite right’

@Alexandra2001 I’m really not sure what you want from me- you want me to explain the reasons behind every act of murder/abuse/torture- no one can actually do that. It would involve in depth investigation into the perpetrators’ lives. Sure- some people will have access to that information for some perpetrators- I am not any of those people so I can’t give you specific reasons for their actions.

She was condescending @Pallisers. There is no attack in stating that.