"Pure Evil OR Evil as a power.  Is it possible or does it exist?"

THE DEBATE

Nobody disputes that good is real. Evil works against good. There is a debate over what it means to say that evil exists or in other words what evil actually means.

While it is true that evil is said to work against good it is not clear if that means it is the opposite of good.  Opposition alone would not prove that at least one side is good.  Evils often oppose other evils.  You can work against your company without wanting to bring it down totally so we may not be talking about an opposite.  That is why we get confused.     If evil is the opposite of good then by definition we have pure evil.  Religion denies this definition so we get confused.  It both says pure evil is a fact and it is not.

What does it say if you ask if evil is real or evil pure evil is a fact?

The reply is that there are only two possible answers.

One - evil is not a reality in the sense that electricity or a brick is real. It is something failing to be as good as it can be. It is a lack or absence of a good that should be there.

Two - evil is indeed a lack but also a power.  Evil then would have properties like strength, maybe height, weight, width and so on.

One says evil does and does not exist. It is just real in the sense that it is good in the wrong place and time. Two says that pure evil exists.

We must remember that if pure evil appears in a situation it is not going to be pure evil for all involved.  If John experiences pure evil or is pure evil it is sort of contained which means that others will not see it and maybe think it is an example of how good is a distortion of evil. They are thinking about how there seems to be a context of good around it.  It is like how you think you have an excellent dish when you don't see the fly in it.  The good stops you seeing the bad is there and what it is.  In other words, it is no wonder if you think that evil is just distorted good and gives rise to good.

Is pure evil a reality? Is it 100% evil? Is evil as real as a brick or not? If it is then we can talk about pure evil. Otherwise evil is not pure but just like rust on iron – a parasite. Is evil more than missing the mark? Do people who say they believe it is really mean it? Why do they treat some harmful people as pure evil?

ATTEMPTS AT A SOLUTION

Nobody can show or test that evil is not a real force. They only assume it.

There is no direct proof that evil is only good that is not good enough which makes it bad.

So attempts to show that evil is not real the way a brick is argue indirectly.

The attempts involve

trying to show that pure evil would look terrible but so such evil is that repulsive

trying to show that evil is a parasite on good for it takes good and twists it

trying to show that a pure evil being cannot exist for evil is destruction

trying to show that as evil depends on good it cannot last and will wreck itself

PURE EVIL NEED NOT BE TOTALLY OBVIOUS

Pure evil invokes a monstrous image of something totally repellent and dangerous. But evil can look good and still be pure evil. Pure poison can look like its fresh well-water. Pure evil can take any form it wants. If it wants to show total ugliness it can. If it wants to look good it can.

Pure evil does not mean something has to be as bad as you can imagine. It only means it will be as bad as it can be and wishes it could be more destructive and would be if it could. For example, if a force is only able to become evil to a degree it is still pure evil though there are bigger evils. Evil is evil in quality and quantity. A weak evil force can still be 100% evil in quality. Evil is a lie and involves lies so it stands to reason that pure evil needs to be a lie and hide its true nature.

EVIL IS A PARASITE FALLACY

Is a thief falling short of being honest? Is the hurricane falling short of being a breeze? Evil whether personal or a natural occurrence is accused of being a mere parasite by religion.Those who say evil is not real but is just parasitic on good get carried away. They think evil being parasitic proves it is not real as in real power. Evil can be a real power and still parasitic. To use a bad argument to deny that pure evil exists is like trying to protect pure evil from being properly identified and we cannot handle what we do not know. A disease thrives when people dismiss it as something else.

Evil can even look parasitic when in fact it is not. Rust can be put on the bit of iron. Iron rusts but that does not mean that this bit rusted. The person who can be honest is not and we assume that the dishonesty is parasitic on his faculty to be honest. But with nature there is only an order that came together by itself so there is no should or normal so maybe has no faculty at least for now.

When the believers call evil a negation or falling short but nothing else it is the parasitism they are referring to. Their hypocrisy is shown by how they say they love sinners which is thin when they mean parasites by sinners. It would follow they degrade themselves and encourage parasitism the sinners if they show them love.

The fallacy is that evil being a parasite or acting like one does nothing at all to tell us what evil is. It only tells us what it is doing or seems to do. That is all.

IS PURE EVIL A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS?

Can something be nothing else but evil with no light or grey in it at all? Can a spirit be that kind of evil? Can a human being be?

Christians usually say that since evil is harmful and degrading a purely evil force or person cannot exist for they would just self-destruct. A being has to have some good in it to be able to exist at all. An evil person would need the good quality of intelligence in order to plan evil.

Notice what this argument is doing - it is redefining bad character as destruction/cessation of existence. Destruction is not a moral matter at all. Destruction is not bad in itself and is only bad if intended to do harm. The problem is the kind of person that destroys not destruction. The argument then fails to show us that pure evil is impossible.

This argument says the closer you get to becoming pure evil the more you come apart. If you can never become pure evil that is not the point. The point is that growing in evil is decreasing as a power and a person. The more you get damaged the less capable you are of exercising free will and choosing evil.

Now if you are going to start a genocide then you must be strongly in the grip of evil and your own evil. You are so destroyed that you cannot really have free will.

Notice this argument divorces free will and evil. It totally contradicts the notion that evil is only something that happens when people abuse free will. It even makes that doctrine evil! It is evil to help evil by refusing to identify it properly.

If pure evil does not exist that does not mean evil is impossible. You can still increase in evil. If pure evil is at the end of the goal only impure evil leads the way to it. Whether or not you can reach the goal of pure evil, the point is the impure evil in you now. That is what is relevant. The more evil you become then the less you can use free will to do harm and do it wilfully. You cannot be responsible for your evil intention.

No matter what you think evil is, it is clear that an evil person is not breaking down and becoming less of a person the more evil they become.

EVIL SELF-DESTRUCTS?

If evil is just a parasite then you see that it cannot be as strong as good. It is always in danger of self-destructing and some time it will.  Pure evil has the potential to stay around forever. But if pure evil is possible then there is no problem with it staying around only for a while and vanishing. That is not self-destructing. It is just doing its job.

IT IS EVILS NOT EVIL

Evil can be a bit too general as a concept.  Many who have the debate about God and evil tend to think of evil that leads to good.  But that is only our perception of some evil not all.   It is easier to imagine that evil is just disordered good and in that sense not real if you do that.  Religion takes advantage of that overreach.  God belief is parasitic on it.

Evil needs unpacking.  Every evil is just a summary of evils.  We cannot make ourselves want something and yet we have wants that draw us to do harm.  That makes God the creator of temptation.  Religion may call that testing.  That is splitting hairs.  God is still telling you with a feeling, "Go and hit John."  Then there is suffering which randomly strikes people.  Suffering is sufferings.  The randomness is a suffering in itself.  To say it is not really random for God is sovereign is cruelty.

So we should not want God to exist.  The belief is pure evil.

Because evil feels like a mistake religion argues that sin is trying to get something good the wrong way and it is about the good.  Imagine if personal evil, evil in people, is not a force then suffering might be a force.  The personal evil is parasitic on the real evil of suffering.  Using personal evil as an argument for evil being in some way unreal then would be evil.  It would be like trying to prevent a diagnosis of real evil.  It would be helping real evil thrive.  Religion says that all personal evil is suffering in a sense or opening yourself to it for evil is damaging.  You cannot maintain that position and then say personal evil is in some way unreal. 

Only an evil person would define all evil as in some sense unreal and being a good thing in the wrong place and time for they are talking about how they see evil in themselves.  And the horrific truth is that that you can only describe evil according to how you experience it.  It is entirely an experience matter.

No two evils are the same. Calling something an antibiotic does not mean that all antibiotics are the same.

Pure evil is not necessarily one force parcelled out. It can be a host of independent and even competitive evils! Each evil deserves its own specific definition. Evil is just a term to make it simple.

The problem is not the amount of evil or the style of evil but what evil is. To fear one evil and not others is being open to the other evils if they are powers and forces.

FINALLY

Religion is incoherent when it talks about evil.  If evil is not the opposite of good then there is no evil only different levels of good.  This amounts to religion being guilty of trying to slander and demonise when it says some person or action is evil.  It will lead to passive aggressive rage and hate. Violence will erupt.    Evil is pure evil or it is not evil. 

The excuses to avoid calling evil real are themselves evil. The insult is compounded by religion. It says that since all comes from the loving God then evil is only abused good and in that sense is not a real thing so there is no suggestion that God created evil. This is saying that evil is just an abuse of free will. Thus it tries to whitewash what may be pure evil to blame us for evil in order to avoid saying God has anything to do with causing evil.

The notion of pure evil says evil is a noun and is as real as electricity.

Evil whatever it is, is seen as terrible for what it does to us. It is up to experience to tell us if evil is a power or not. We have no right to define evil for everybody for everybody has their own experience.

No argument for the notion that evil is not real works. Each one is just trying to lie. There is something open to evil in just assuming that pure evil is not real when you don't even know. You don't want to be its blind friend.

The parasite doctrine could itself be pure evil. Real evil will be and try to be a parasite anyway so anybody saying that evil is not real for it latches on to good is just guessing.

The notion that evil is not real or a pure evil thing cannot exist actually mistakes nothingness or non-existence for evil! That is absurd.