Do you believe in EVIL?
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]
Evil \E*vil\ ([=e]"v'l) a. [OE. evel, evil, ifel, uvel, AS.
yfel; akin to OFries, evel, D. euvel, OS. & OHG. ubil, G.
["u]bel, Goth. ubils, and perh. to E. over.]
1. Having qualities tending to injury and mischief; having a
nature or properties which tend to badness; mischievous;
not good; worthless or deleterious; poor; as, an evil
beast; and evil plant; an evil crop.
[1913 Webster]
A good tree can not bring forth evil fruit. --Matt.
vii. 18.
[1913 Webster]
2. Having or exhibiting bad moral qualities; morally corrupt;
wicked; wrong; vicious; as, evil conduct, thoughts, heart,
words, and the like.
[1913 Webster]
Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,
When death's approach is seen so terrible. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
3. Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or
calamity; unpropitious; calamitous; as, evil tidings; evil
arrows; evil days.
[1913 Webster]
Because he hath brought up an evil name upon a
virgin of Israel. --Deut. xxii.
19.
[1913 Webster]
The owl shrieked at thy birth -- an evil sign.
--Shak.
[1913 Webster]
Evil news rides post, while good news baits.
--Milton.
[1913 Webster]
Evil eye, an eye which inflicts injury by some magical or
fascinating influence. It is still believed by the
ignorant and superstitious that some persons have the
supernatural power of injuring by a look.
[1913 Webster]
It almost led him to believe in the evil eye. --J.
H. Newman.
Evil speaking, speaking ill of others; calumny;
censoriousness.
The evil one, the Devil; Satan.
[1913 Webster]
Note: Evil is sometimes written as the first part of a
compound (with or without a hyphen). In many cases the
compounding need not be insisted on. Examples: Evil
doer or evildoer, evil speaking or evil-speaking, evil
worker, evil wishing, evil-hearted, evil-minded.
Syn: Mischieveous; pernicious; injurious; hurtful;
destructive; wicked; sinful; bad; corrupt; perverse;
wrong; vicious; calamitous.
[1913 Webster]
Evil \E"vil\ ([=e]"v'l) n.
1. Anything which impairs the happiness of a being or
deprives a being of any good; anything which causes
suffering of any kind to sentient beings; injury;
mischief; harm; -- opposed to good.
[1913 Webster]
Evils which our own misdeeds have wrought. --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
The evil that men do lives after them. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
2. Moral badness, or the deviation of a moral being from the
principles of virtue imposed by conscience, or by the will
of the Supreme Being, or by the principles of a lawful
human authority; disposition to do wrong; moral offence;
wickedness; depravity.
[1913 Webster]
The heart of the sons of men is full of evil.
--Eccl. ix. 3.
[1913 Webster]
3. malady or disease; especially in the phrase king's evil,
the scrofula. [R.] --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
He [Edward the Confessor] was the first that touched
for the evil. --Addison.
[1913 Webster]
Evil \E"vil\, adv.
In an evil manner; not well; ill; badly; unhappily;
injuriously; unkindly. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
It went evil with his house. --1 Chron.
vii. 23.
[1913 Webster]
The Egyptians evil entreated us, and affected us.
--Deut. xxvi.
6.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]
evil
adj 1: morally bad or wrong; "evil purposes"; "an evil influence";
"evil deeds" [syn: wicked] [ant: good]
2: having the nature of vice [syn: depraved, vicious]
3: tending to cause great harm [syn: harmful, injurious]
4: having or exerting a malignant influence; "malevolent
stars"; "a malefic force" [syn: malefic, malevolent, malign]
n 1: morally objectionable behavior [syn: immorality, wickedness,
iniquity]
2: that which causes harm or destruction or misfortune; "the
evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft
interred with their bones"- Shakespeare
3: the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice;
"attempts to explain the origin of evil in the world"
[syn: evilness] [ant: good, good]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]
364 Moby Thesaurus words for "evil":
Loki, Nemesis, Set, Typhon, aberrant, abnormal, abominable,
abomination, accursed, ado, affliction, agony, amorality, angry,
anguish, annoyance, anxiety, apocalyptic, arrant, atrocious,
atrocity, awful, backsliding, bad, badness, baleful, bane, baneful,
base, baseness, befoulment, besetment, bitchy, black, blamable,
blameworthy, blight, bodeful, boding, bother, breach, bugbear,
burden, calamitous, calamity, can of worms, carnality, cataclysm,
catastrophe, catastrophic, catty, corrupt, corruption, crime,
crime against humanity, criminal, criminality, crooked,
crushing burden, crying evil, curse, damage, damaging, damnable,
dark, deadly, deadly sin, death, debt, defilement, degeneracy,
degradation, deleterious, delinquency, delinquent, depraved,
depravity, dereliction, despiteful, despoliation, destruction,
destructive, detriment, detrimental, deviant, devilry, deviltry,
diablerie, diabolism, difficult, dire, dirty, disadvantage,
disagreeable, disaster, disastrous, disease, disgrace, disgraceful,
disgusting, dishonest, dishonorable, distasteful, doomful,
dreadful, dreary, enormity, error, evil nature, evil-minded,
evil-starred, evildoing, evilness, execrable, failure, fateful,
fault, felonious, felony, fetid, flagitious, flagitiousness,
flagrant, foreboding, foul, foulness, genocide, ghastly, gloomy,
great ado, grievance, grisly, guilty act, hard, hardly the thing,
harm, harmful, hateful, havoc, headache, heavy sin, heinous,
heinousness, hideous, horrible, horrid, hurt, hurtful, ignominious,
ill, ill-boding, ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred, illegal,
immoral, immorality, improper, impropriety, impurity, inaccurate,
inappropriate, inauspicious, inconvenience, incorrect, indecorous,
indiscretion, inexpedient, inexpiable sin, infamous, infamy,
infection, infelicitous, inferior, infliction, iniquitous,
iniquity, injurious, injury, injustice, insidious, invalid,
knavery, knavish, lapse, lethal, loathsome, low, lowering,
malefaction, malefic, maleficence, maleficent, malevolent,
malfeasance, malign, malignant, malum, matter, menacing, mephitic,
minor wrong, mischief, mischievous, misconduct, misdeed,
misdemeanor, misery, misfeasance, misfortune, monstrous,
moral delinquency, mortal sin, nasty, naughty, nefarious,
nefariousness, nemesis, nonfeasance, not done, not the thing,
noxious, obliquity, obscene, of evil portent, off-base, off-color,
offense, offensive, ominous, omission, open wound, out-of-line,
outrage, pain, peccability, peccadillo, peccancy, peccant,
peck of troubles, perfidious, pernicious, pest, pestilence,
pestilential, plague, poison, poisonous, pollution, portending,
portentous, problem, prodigality, profligacy, putrid, rancorous,
rank, recidivism, repellent, reprehensible, reprobacy, reprobate,
repugnant, repulsive, revolting, ruin, ruinous, running sore,
sacrilegious, satanism, scandal, scandalous, scourge,
sea of troubles, shame, shameful, shameless, sin,
sin of commission, sin of omission, sinful, sinful act, sinfulness,
sinister, slip, somber, sorrow, spiteful, stinking, suffering,
terrible, the worst, thorn, threatening, torment, tort, toxic,
toxin, traitorous, transgression, treacherous, trespass, trip,
trouble, trying, turpitude, ugly, unangelicalness, unchastity,
uncleanness, underhanded, undue, unfavorable, unfit, unfitting,
unforgivable, unfortunate, ungodliness, ungoodness, unhealthy,
unkind, unlawful, unlucky, unmorality, unpardonable, unpleasant,
unprincipled, unpromising, unpropitious, unrighteous,
unrighteousness, unsaintliness, unscrupulous, unseemly, unskillful,
unspeakable, unsuitable, untoward, unutterable sin, unvirtuousness,
unworthy, venial sin, venom, vexation, vice, vicious, viciousness,
vile, vileness, villainous, villainy, virulent, visitation,
wantonness, waywardness, wicked, wickedness, woe, woeful, worry,
wrathful, wrong, wrongdoing, wrongful
Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]
evil adj. As used by hackers, implies that some system, program,
person, or institution is sufficiently maldesigned as to be not worth
the bother of dealing with. Unlike the adjectives in the
cretinous/losing/brain-damaged series, `evil' does not imply
incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of goals or design criteria
fatally incompatible with the speaker's. This usage is more an esthetic
and engineering judgment than a moral one in the mainstream sense. "We
thought about adding a Blue Glue interface but decided it was too evil
to deal with." "TECO is neat, but it can be pretty evil if you're
prone to typos." Often pronounced with the first syllable lengthened, as
/eeee'vil/. Compare evil and rude.
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]
evil
As used by a hacker, implies that some system, program,
person, or institution is sufficiently maldesigned as to be
not worth the bother of dealing with. Unlike the adjectives
in the cretinous, losing, brain-damaged series, "evil"
does not imply incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of
goals or design criteria fatally incompatible with the
speaker's. This usage is more an aesthetic and engineering
judgment than a moral one in the mainstream sense. "We
thought about adding a Blue Glue interface but decided it
was too evil to deal with." "TECO is neat, but it can be
pretty evil if you're prone to typos." Often pronounced with
the first syllable lengthened, as /eeee'vil/.
Compare evil and rude.
[Jargon File]
(1994-12-12)
I do not believe in `evil` per say, only those displays or acts of same by people.
rgs
Evil \E*vil\ ([=e]"v'l) a. [OE. evel, evil, ifel, uvel, AS.
yfel; akin to OFries, evel, D. euvel, OS. & OHG. ubil, G.
["u]bel, Goth. ubils, and perh. to E. over.]
1. Having qualities tending to injury and mischief; having a
nature or properties which tend to badness; mischievous;
not good; worthless or deleterious; poor; as, an evil
beast; and evil plant; an evil crop.
[1913 Webster]
A good tree can not bring forth evil fruit. --Matt.
vii. 18.
[1913 Webster]
2. Having or exhibiting bad moral qualities; morally corrupt;
wicked; wrong; vicious; as, evil conduct, thoughts, heart,
words, and the like.
[1913 Webster]
Ah, what a sign it is of evil life,
When death's approach is seen so terrible. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
3. Producing or threatening sorrow, distress, injury, or
calamity; unpropitious; calamitous; as, evil tidings; evil
arrows; evil days.
[1913 Webster]
Because he hath brought up an evil name upon a
virgin of Israel. --Deut. xxii.
19.
[1913 Webster]
The owl shrieked at thy birth -- an evil sign.
--Shak.
[1913 Webster]
Evil news rides post, while good news baits.
--Milton.
[1913 Webster]
Evil eye, an eye which inflicts injury by some magical or
fascinating influence. It is still believed by the
ignorant and superstitious that some persons have the
supernatural power of injuring by a look.
[1913 Webster]
It almost led him to believe in the evil eye. --J.
H. Newman.
Evil speaking, speaking ill of others; calumny;
censoriousness.
The evil one, the Devil; Satan.
[1913 Webster]
Note: Evil is sometimes written as the first part of a
compound (with or without a hyphen). In many cases the
compounding need not be insisted on. Examples: Evil
doer or evildoer, evil speaking or evil-speaking, evil
worker, evil wishing, evil-hearted, evil-minded.
Syn: Mischieveous; pernicious; injurious; hurtful;
destructive; wicked; sinful; bad; corrupt; perverse;
wrong; vicious; calamitous.
[1913 Webster]
Evil \E"vil\ ([=e]"v'l) n.
1. Anything which impairs the happiness of a being or
deprives a being of any good; anything which causes
suffering of any kind to sentient beings; injury;
mischief; harm; -- opposed to good.
[1913 Webster]
Evils which our own misdeeds have wrought. --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
The evil that men do lives after them. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
2. Moral badness, or the deviation of a moral being from the
principles of virtue imposed by conscience, or by the will
of the Supreme Being, or by the principles of a lawful
human authority; disposition to do wrong; moral offence;
wickedness; depravity.
[1913 Webster]
The heart of the sons of men is full of evil.
--Eccl. ix. 3.
[1913 Webster]
3. malady or disease; especially in the phrase king's evil,
the scrofula. [R.] --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
He [Edward the Confessor] was the first that touched
for the evil. --Addison.
[1913 Webster]
Evil \E"vil\, adv.
In an evil manner; not well; ill; badly; unhappily;
injuriously; unkindly. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
It went evil with his house. --1 Chron.
vii. 23.
[1913 Webster]
The Egyptians evil entreated us, and affected us.
--Deut. xxvi.
6.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]
evil
adj 1: morally bad or wrong; "evil purposes"; "an evil influence";
"evil deeds" [syn: wicked] [ant: good]
2: having the nature of vice [syn: depraved, vicious]
3: tending to cause great harm [syn: harmful, injurious]
4: having or exerting a malignant influence; "malevolent
stars"; "a malefic force" [syn: malefic, malevolent, malign]
n 1: morally objectionable behavior [syn: immorality, wickedness,
iniquity]
2: that which causes harm or destruction or misfortune; "the
evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft
interred with their bones"- Shakespeare
3: the quality of being morally wrong in principle or practice;
"attempts to explain the origin of evil in the world"
[syn: evilness] [ant: good, good]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]
364 Moby Thesaurus words for "evil":
Loki, Nemesis, Set, Typhon, aberrant, abnormal, abominable,
abomination, accursed, ado, affliction, agony, amorality, angry,
anguish, annoyance, anxiety, apocalyptic, arrant, atrocious,
atrocity, awful, backsliding, bad, badness, baleful, bane, baneful,
base, baseness, befoulment, besetment, bitchy, black, blamable,
blameworthy, blight, bodeful, boding, bother, breach, bugbear,
burden, calamitous, calamity, can of worms, carnality, cataclysm,
catastrophe, catastrophic, catty, corrupt, corruption, crime,
crime against humanity, criminal, criminality, crooked,
crushing burden, crying evil, curse, damage, damaging, damnable,
dark, deadly, deadly sin, death, debt, defilement, degeneracy,
degradation, deleterious, delinquency, delinquent, depraved,
depravity, dereliction, despiteful, despoliation, destruction,
destructive, detriment, detrimental, deviant, devilry, deviltry,
diablerie, diabolism, difficult, dire, dirty, disadvantage,
disagreeable, disaster, disastrous, disease, disgrace, disgraceful,
disgusting, dishonest, dishonorable, distasteful, doomful,
dreadful, dreary, enormity, error, evil nature, evil-minded,
evil-starred, evildoing, evilness, execrable, failure, fateful,
fault, felonious, felony, fetid, flagitious, flagitiousness,
flagrant, foreboding, foul, foulness, genocide, ghastly, gloomy,
great ado, grievance, grisly, guilty act, hard, hardly the thing,
harm, harmful, hateful, havoc, headache, heavy sin, heinous,
heinousness, hideous, horrible, horrid, hurt, hurtful, ignominious,
ill, ill-boding, ill-fated, ill-omened, ill-starred, illegal,
immoral, immorality, improper, impropriety, impurity, inaccurate,
inappropriate, inauspicious, inconvenience, incorrect, indecorous,
indiscretion, inexpedient, inexpiable sin, infamous, infamy,
infection, infelicitous, inferior, infliction, iniquitous,
iniquity, injurious, injury, injustice, insidious, invalid,
knavery, knavish, lapse, lethal, loathsome, low, lowering,
malefaction, malefic, maleficence, maleficent, malevolent,
malfeasance, malign, malignant, malum, matter, menacing, mephitic,
minor wrong, mischief, mischievous, misconduct, misdeed,
misdemeanor, misery, misfeasance, misfortune, monstrous,
moral delinquency, mortal sin, nasty, naughty, nefarious,
nefariousness, nemesis, nonfeasance, not done, not the thing,
noxious, obliquity, obscene, of evil portent, off-base, off-color,
offense, offensive, ominous, omission, open wound, out-of-line,
outrage, pain, peccability, peccadillo, peccancy, peccant,
peck of troubles, perfidious, pernicious, pest, pestilence,
pestilential, plague, poison, poisonous, pollution, portending,
portentous, problem, prodigality, profligacy, putrid, rancorous,
rank, recidivism, repellent, reprehensible, reprobacy, reprobate,
repugnant, repulsive, revolting, ruin, ruinous, running sore,
sacrilegious, satanism, scandal, scandalous, scourge,
sea of troubles, shame, shameful, shameless, sin,
sin of commission, sin of omission, sinful, sinful act, sinfulness,
sinister, slip, somber, sorrow, spiteful, stinking, suffering,
terrible, the worst, thorn, threatening, torment, tort, toxic,
toxin, traitorous, transgression, treacherous, trespass, trip,
trouble, trying, turpitude, ugly, unangelicalness, unchastity,
uncleanness, underhanded, undue, unfavorable, unfit, unfitting,
unforgivable, unfortunate, ungodliness, ungoodness, unhealthy,
unkind, unlawful, unlucky, unmorality, unpardonable, unpleasant,
unprincipled, unpromising, unpropitious, unrighteous,
unrighteousness, unsaintliness, unscrupulous, unseemly, unskillful,
unspeakable, unsuitable, untoward, unutterable sin, unvirtuousness,
unworthy, venial sin, venom, vexation, vice, vicious, viciousness,
vile, vileness, villainous, villainy, virulent, visitation,
wantonness, waywardness, wicked, wickedness, woe, woeful, worry,
wrathful, wrong, wrongdoing, wrongful
Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]
evil adj. As used by hackers, implies that some system, program,
person, or institution is sufficiently maldesigned as to be not worth
the bother of dealing with. Unlike the adjectives in the
cretinous/losing/brain-damaged series, `evil' does not imply
incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of goals or design criteria
fatally incompatible with the speaker's. This usage is more an esthetic
and engineering judgment than a moral one in the mainstream sense. "We
thought about adding a Blue Glue interface but decided it was too evil
to deal with." "TECO is neat, but it can be pretty evil if you're
prone to typos." Often pronounced with the first syllable lengthened, as
/eeee'vil/. Compare evil and rude.
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]
evil
As used by a hacker, implies that some system, program,
person, or institution is sufficiently maldesigned as to be
not worth the bother of dealing with. Unlike the adjectives
in the cretinous, losing, brain-damaged series, "evil"
does not imply incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of
goals or design criteria fatally incompatible with the
speaker's. This usage is more an aesthetic and engineering
judgment than a moral one in the mainstream sense. "We
thought about adding a Blue Glue interface but decided it
was too evil to deal with." "TECO is neat, but it can be
pretty evil if you're prone to typos." Often pronounced with
the first syllable lengthened, as /eeee'vil/.
Compare evil and rude.
[Jargon File]
(1994-12-12)
I do not believe in `evil` per say, only those displays or acts of same by people.
rgs
Ok... so you don't believe in evil per se, but do you believe some actions are fundamentally evil from a human perspective? And if so, do you think the person who commits the so-called evil action believes his action to be evil?
''Evil takes all sorts of forms''...
But what is it that you call 'evil' that takes many forms? Is it an impulse to hurt others?
Is the serial killer born evil? Or does he become evil because he was exposed to evil people? Or for any other reasons you can think of?
If you remove emotions like I mentioned earlier, compassion, empathy, the disposition of that person is markedly different than a person who shows these emotions at all. To me evil is just one of an extreme line(s).
The conscience I think is like the total sum of emotions that we use in the decision making process. If you are lacking in some department, that's going to skew that person to different ends of the spectrum.
It's been said they are two sides of the same coin, but I think it's a little more complicated than that. You mentioned experience, and I think that's important. I don't know that it can be measured, the degrees of separation...but there certainly are.
And of course what is evil to me is not necessarily evil to you. Have you heard of Dexter? It's a television show about a serial killer. He witnesses the murder of his mother at the age of three. The gangsters left him and his brother in the shipping container, with his mothers corpse and her blood covering the bottom of the container. A cop shows up, adopts him, notices that he lacks "feeling", after some neighborhood dogs go missing. The father trains his adopted son how to train his impulses, onto criminals, so that he won't some day end up in jail as a serial killer. But, he's a vigilante serial killer. The father taught him the code in part to save himself from being jailed, but also in part because the father sees the faults of a justice system that allows murderers to walk free. The code he lives by is a morality, but in the end Dexter is still a killer himself.
It's a very interesting show to me. Is Dexter evil?
Thanks for feeding the thread...
If you go by the rule 'Thou shall not kill' than of course, Dexter is evil. But obviously it's not as simple as that. By killing the murderers, Dexter is fighting fire with fire... I haven't seen the show. Does Dexter kill out of a need for justice? Or does he kill for his own pleasure?
This example brings us to such ethical questions as death penalty. Is it evil for society to terminate the life of a child rapist and murderer to satisfy its need for revenge? Is society demonstrating a lack of compassion to the murderer by terminating his life? Or on the contrary, is it an act of compassion to put him out of his twisted mind frame?
No prob. It's a good thread
On the show, he refers to it as his dark passenger. He kind of needs to feed that part of himself. It's ritualistic, it's a release, he's driven to kill.
I think it is evil to terminate life, when there is no guarantee that the life being extinguished is guilty of the crime that life was charged with. However, I can certainly empathize with the victims of such heinous crimes, and that's my own little bit of evil I would say.
Can you think of any evil in yourself SLone?
Do I believe in evil..I believe in Darwins theory ,backed by dawkins cold view of our past and future..They can't be disproved ...Survival of the fittest.Evoloution.! But I believe we have evoloved outta the raw animal stage into a more civilized HUMAN direction .We have "Tapped into the ENERGY"..The future is bright if you believe most people are good!!!!
We will do the right thing if given the choice..For the most part!
Unless your an animal!!
We will do the right thing if given the choice..For the most part!
Unless your an animal!!
Yeah your right ..Unfortunatley we need the word "EVIL"!!...Works well on HALLOWEEN!!...Goth And in "Star wars"!!!.....lol...
Although goth is more Dark than evil!!..lost souls dealing with the heavyness of life and death!
Although goth is more Dark than evil!!..lost souls dealing with the heavyness of life and death!
Last edited:
Evil is taking delight in what causes others some pain and/or some misery. Without the laughter it could be debated on whether some act could be defined as being evil, the presence of laughter would close all argument against it being not evil.
Tell me again how man came to have 20,000 genes from an ancestor that had 10,000 pairs of genes.
"Darwinists claim we evolved from the simplest form of bacterial life to ever more complex forms of life. The most basic bacteria had less than 500 genes; man has over 22 thousand. In order for bacteria to evolve into man, organisms would have to be able to add genes. But there is no genetic mechanism that adds a gene. (Mutations change an existing gene but never add a gene.) This means there is no mechanism for Darwinian Evolution and this is a fatal flaw in the Theory of Evolution."
Sandwalk: The Three Fatal Flaws in the Theory of Evolution
Not sure how this got onto this thread.
Tell me again how man came to have 20,000 genes from an ancestor that had 10,000 pairs of genes.
"Darwinists claim we evolved from the simplest form of bacterial life to ever more complex forms of life. The most basic bacteria had less than 500 genes; man has over 22 thousand. In order for bacteria to evolve into man, organisms would have to be able to add genes. But there is no genetic mechanism that adds a gene. (Mutations change an existing gene but never add a gene.) This means there is no mechanism for Darwinian Evolution and this is a fatal flaw in the Theory of Evolution."
Sandwalk: The Three Fatal Flaws in the Theory of Evolution
I agree with Twila - noun, adjective and adverb.
There is no pure good, and there is no pure evil. When I really need something, I will try real hard to get it. And it would be good for me when I do. But it would be evil for those I took it away from. That's it. The same applies to anything. Good and evil are just points of view.
There is no pure good, and there is no pure evil. When I really need something, I will try real hard to get it. And it would be good for me when I do. But it would be evil for those I took it away from. That's it. The same applies to anything. Good and evil are just points of view.
