There are so many bad things in the world. Is there only one ore are there more causes? Is it possible to define the evil without reference to a concrete situation?
First, the greed of many people to own a lot and secondly, to force your way of thinking on to others (who want to have their own and resist the pressure from others).
I think evil is ultimately rooted in the human desire for retribution, i.e., the eye for an eye mentality.
Thank you for your answers. Undoubtedly the religious assumption that there exisst an own independent transcendent power ov evil (the powers of darkness and the devil as their ruler), which is the cause for all evil doing of human beings, differs with results of theory of evolution. This well-known religious belief in the existence of the devil als living being lost its powers of persuasion after the era of Enlightenment, but it exists today as well. The "so-called evil" (Konrad Lorenz) concerns aggressive behavior. In certain situations man act and react aggressively.
In my esteem the evil exist. I cannot believe that in my country so many accidents happen just by chance. To my mind the evil is working in the people to do the wrong. We live in Hungary so as we were enclosed by ghosts. A lo of mythical accidents happen nowadays. It must be the work of the evil. It is sure.
@Éva Szőke
Dear Evá, I can understand how you feel. Twenty years ago there must have been a completely different atmosphere and a great deal of hope in your country. I attended conferences a few times there, after the period of socialism - and I also met colleagues there from other post-socialist countries. There was much hope for new developments. In many cases things went other paths. But today I cannot imagine a new political ice age for any country in Europe; the information and communication networks have become too narrow for that. The political mood is not particularly good everywhere at the moment, each country has its own problems (and does not seem to be coping well with them.). What we can do is already happening: to establish internationalism and to try in our own country to have contact with those people who have the same convictions and to support those groups that we believe that they have a desirable future. Research is a good thing in this respect: We can reduce the "evil": One may contradict the mainstream of scientists, for example in the social sciences, and develop one's own theoretical or practical approaches - one's own research results can no longer be suppressed as they were 50 years ago. As a scientist you can always say: Nevertheless! Best, HEIN
Much one of the kinds of evil in the world is obviously the work of man, either as the result of fearfulness, stupidity or wickedness. In this category fall wars and killing, robbery, fraud, abandonment, adultery, hatred and suchlike. Indeed, many of the evils we classify as natural disasters are actually incurred at man’s hand: droughts in Ethiopia, Sudan and Somalia were made much worse when wicked men made hunger a weapon in their wars. [http://www.one-gospel.org/concepts/i_concepts_03.htm]
The insatiable desires of man are the cause of evil. According to religious beliefs in Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, Satan is to be blamed for the evil in the world.
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