'Evil people' vs. 'good people'

Status
Not open for further replies.
The_Reginator

The_Reginator

Active member
This is an idea that only occurred to me today:

We often know of people who we would call ‘good people’ regardless of their religious affiliation (if any).

I’ve never heard it said that ‘so and so’ is just a person who does a lot of good. But we almost never hear anyone say that someone is an evil person. We hear it said that ‘so and so’ is just a person that has done a lot of evil.

What do we say about someone like Hitler. Can we say that Hitler was actually an evil man, or just a man who did a lot of evil?
If we are willing to call someone a good man, is it proper, following the same logic, to call someone else an evil man?
[What do we call a man or woman who finds the right to kill to be more important than the obligation not to kill?[/COLOR]]

I have to admit that I am quite uncomfortable in labelling anyone as ‘evil’ but to label someone as ‘good’ doesn’t bother me at all. I am not sure that this makes any real sense to have this attitude.

Thoughts? Philosophical or not … I’m just interested in hearing other peoples’ opinions.
 
As I understand it, the Catholic Church teaches that every human being has a conscience which is always informing the human being about what is right and wrong, and so, even a person who was given no education in morals or ethics, and even a person who grew up around adults who were constantly doing evil things and calling them good things, would still have the ability to know right from wrong.

Take the case of Hitler. He gave all sorts of justifications for his inhuman treatment of Jews and other non-“Aryans.” Hitler always claimed to be doing what is right and good. But, inside himself, did Hitler have a conscience that was nagging him, making him feel guilty and ashamed on the inside? I think there is evidence that he did feel guilty and ashamed. One bit of evidence: the fact that he killed himself rather than face a trial. I think he knew that once all the evidence was put forward in the trial, he knew all his justifications would look weak and pitiful, even to him. He knew he was guilty. Also, look how careful he was to keep the vast majority of the German people from knowing about the direct killing of civilians (Jews and others) in the concentration camps. If he thought that was justifiable, why not tell the German people? I think the answer is that he knew it really wasn’t defensible.

Yes, he could have been hiding these things from the German people because he felt that he had superior knowledge and judgment compared to them, and so he felt that he had the right or even the duty to deny the Germany people a right to know about and influence this matter. Some people do have a very serious “Superiority Complex.” Yet, perhaps a Superiority Complex is itself just a cover for a guilty conscience.

John 3:19-21: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.”

I think the teachers of the Church do acknowledge that, for a period of time, a person might truly be confused, conflicted and unclear about what is really right and is really wrong.

But, in time, it seems that everyone does come to a pretty good position of clarity about right and wrong.
 
This idea came to me mostly because I have been hearing Obama described as an evil man. He certainly promotes intrinsic evil and is actively fighting God’s Church. Since we are fighting a spiritual battle against Satin himself I certainly do not want to belittle any evil that any man has given himself up to. But to call one of God’s creatures evil?
Well, Satin is one of God’s creatures and he is evil. Can that happen to one of us?

I’m just pondering this idea, not suggesting it.
 
The_Reginator said:
This idea came to me mostly because I have been hearing Obama described as an evil man. He certainly promotes intrinsic evil and is actively fighting God’s Church. Since we are fighting a spiritual battle against Satin himself I certainly do not want to belittle any evil that any man has given himself up to. But to call one of God’s creatures evil?
Well, Satin is one of God’s creatures and he is evil. Can that happen to one of us?

I’m just pondering this idea, not suggesting it.
Click to expand...
I think our Catholic Church teaches that no human being in this lifetime on the earth ever becomes pure and total evil the way Satan and the fallen angels are pure evil.

Yes, one hears some political people characterizing some public leaders as pure and total evil. When you hear that, I think you should tune them out and have doubts about their sincerity and righteousness. Any informed Christian knows that no human being is the devil or an equivalent of the devil.

But what about the Antichrist? Isn’t he supposed to be a human being who is totally sold out to Satan?

Yes, I suppose so. But unless and until the pope or some saintly bishop or group of good bishops points to a man and says, “He’s the Antichrist,” I don’t think people are doing the right thing by calling a man the Antichrist.

I think the Bible and our Holy Church teaches us to TRUST GOD, and OBEY GOD ourselves. From that comes our SECURITY, not by focusing on identifying, vilifying or fighting supposed Antichrists.

Just my opinion. I might be wrong. Follow your conscience in light of Church teachings.

Humbly offered for the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls.

Yours, Barto
 
who is to say hitler is or is not in heaven. we can not say. I remember on this site not to long ago Fr. Vincent Serpa said that it has been documented that during one of his speech’s there was a priest who was saying the excosim prayers and that hitler fell to the ground. so you could say maybe just maybe that the devil used hitler to do his evil things.

When hitler was a young boy he was an alter server at a small catholic chuch.
 
have a read of this. i know that the thread isent really about hitler but this might be a little good read
 
Bartolome_Casas said:
I think our Catholic Church teaches that no human being in this lifetime on the earth ever becomes pure and total evil the way Satan and the fallen angels are pure evil.

Yes, one hears some political people characterizing some public leaders as pure and total evil. When you hear that, I think you should tune them out and have doubts about their sincerity and righteousness. Any informed Christian knows that no human being is the devil or an equivalent of the devil.

But what about the Antichrist? Isn’t he supposed to be a human being who is totally sold out to Satan?

Yes, I suppose so. But unless and until the pope or some saintly bishop or group of good bishops points to a man and says, “He’s the Antichrist,” I don’t think people are doing the right thing by calling a man the Antichrist.

I think the Bible and our Holy Church teaches us to TRUST GOD, and OBEY GOD ourselves. From that comes our SECURITY, not by focusing on identifying, vilifying or fighting supposed Antichrists.

Just my opinion. I might be wrong. Follow your conscience in light of Church teachings.

Humbly offered for the Glory of God and the Salvation of Souls.

Yours, Barto
Click to expand...
I agree with this! I just want to add that I would be very careful into labeling anybody into the categories of good or evil people. Unless the Catholic Church has specifically designated someone’s life as good, trying to label people is not right as in reality we don’t know what is really happening in that person’s life. There are acts that we can certainly point out as bad and sinful but given that we don’t really know the circumstances, I wouldn’t label anybody.
 
The_Reginator said:
This is an idea that only occurred to me today:

We often know of people who we would call ‘good people’ regardless of their religious affiliation (if any).

I’ve never heard it said that ‘so and so’ is just a person who does a lot of good. But we almost never hear anyone say that someone is an evil person. We hear it said that ‘so and so’ is just a person that has done a lot of evil.

What do we say about someone like Hitler. Can we say that Hitler was actually an evil man, or just a man who did a lot of evil?
If we are willing to call someone a good man, is it proper, following the same logic, to call someone else an evil man?
[What do we call a man or woman who finds the right to kill to be more important than the obligation not to kill?[/COLOR]]

I have to admit that I am quite uncomfortable in labelling anyone as ‘evil’ but to label someone as ‘good’ doesn’t bother me at all. I am not sure that this makes any real sense to have this attitude.

Thoughts? Philosophical or not … I’m just interested in hearing other peoples’ opinions.
I’ve met people so evil I wasn’t sure they were human. I’ve net people who exude so much peace, light and love I felt unworthy to be in their presence.

I’m essentially clueless - but what is good always comes from God, that’s the part I’m sure of.
Click to expand...
 
We need to define evil. Which isn’t hard; the theological definition of evil is simply “a lack of good”. Evil does not exist on it’s own. As humans are creatures of God, both our bodies and souls are inherently good. Satan is certainly evil, because he is in the state of being which is Hell, in which he cannot receive God’s graces; Hell was made out of love, anyone who goes to Hell does so because they make the decision to not follow God; God ratifies their decision. Thus, God loves Satan and all the Damned souls and angels because they are inherently good.

So if someone is evil, that means someone is a lack of good. Because evil does not exist on it’s own, a creature cannot be pure evil. When we speak of “evil spirits” we mean those who turned away from God, who is the source of all good. Evil doesn’t always have to be in relation to spiritual matters, for example an illness is a physical evil.

So I’d say we all lack good here and there, therefore we all have a bit of evil in us, but until we are in a state of Hell and no longer receiving graces, our intellects cannot be so distorted as to be called evil, opposed to part good and part evil, and as our intellects (our souls) are inherently good, they will never be completely evil. If they were completely evil that would mean evil existed on it’s own, which is completely contrary to theological definition of God. I think.

My two cents…
 
Matthew 12:33 Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is recognized by its fruit.
 
I think that, basicly, you’re right. Labelling some as good and others as evil is a double standard. I prefer the approach C.S. Lewis lays out in Mere Christianity. Essentially, our free will exists entirely independently of our psychological background. We can speak of good and bad actions, but labelling some people good and some people bad is impossible to do with any degree of accuracy whatsoever, since we have no idea what kind of psychological background the person is opperating on. The same sin is not equally sinful for every person; likewise, a good action is not equally virtuous for every person.
 
The_Reginator said:
This idea came to me mostly because I have been hearing Obama described as an evil man. He certainly promotes intrinsic evil and is actively fighting God’s Church. Since we are fighting a spiritual battle against Satin himself I certainly do not want to belittle any evil that any man has given himself up to. But to call one of God’s creatures evil?
Well, Satin is one of God’s creatures and he is evil. Can that happen to one of us?

I’m just pondering this idea, not suggesting it.
Click to expand...
Michael Voris has called the President “an evil man.” Check this and this out.
 
The_Reginator said:
This is an idea that only occurred to me today:

We often know of people who we would call ‘good people’ regardless of their religious affiliation (if any).

I’ve never heard it said that ‘so and so’ is just a person who does a lot of good. But we almost never hear anyone say that someone is an evil person. We hear it said that ‘so and so’ is just a person that has done a lot of evil.

What do we say about someone like Hitler. Can we say that Hitler was actually an evil man, or just a man who did a lot of evil?
If we are willing to call someone a good man, is it proper, following the same logic, to call someone else an evil man?
[What do we call a man or woman who finds the right to kill to be more important than the obligation not to kill?[/COLOR]]

I have to admit that I am quite uncomfortable in labelling anyone as ‘evil’ but to label someone as ‘good’ doesn’t bother me at all. I am not sure that this makes any real sense to have this attitude.

Thoughts? Philosophical or not … I’m just interested in hearing other peoples’ opinions.

I say that there are evil people in the world. I don’t know what world you live in.
Click to expand...
 
I found this post through Google. Something that would not be at all strange except for the reason that I found it.

I searched for 58 people that hear a human being.

I read the words ‘Evil people’ vs. ‘good people’ and I read a bit more and I knew that I had heard some of the words before. I opened the forum post and I read the second post before the first post and skimmed over a bit more.

I don’t want to read any more than I did and I will tell you why. Because I have already seen what happens when somebody automates a debate that involves a moral and ethical response.

I have watched somebody automate to see both good and evil responses. In fact, it would be better said that I have heard somebody automate both good and evil responses.

In just the first two posts I could already see some of what was automated. I have heard an audio conversation that most people do not hear for all of 2012. I can even remember when ‘evil people’ were being talked about to me in my own home.

I am a very frustrated human being, who happened to get myself ordained in 2001 on the internet. I have no desire whatsoever to preach. I would not consider myself a minister or a pastor of any sort. But I think being ordained gave somebody a reason to communicate with me a little bit differently.

My father was also ordained. He went to seminary to get ordained. I don’t think at all like my father and he doesn’t think at all like me. I am writing this bit of background information in here because I do not want to tell anybody how to live. I do not want to tell you what is right and wrong and I do not want to be seen as anybody but an individual human being, whom wanted to be ordained to be able to marry a friend of mine to his now wife.

She’s catholic, I"m not, I never married them, though I attended the wedding as a friend who was in the wedding party.

I think this post needed to have me personally write something because I was lead to it by a search result for hearing human beings. My catholic friend is an audiologist, I saw her and her husband at one point this year and even got a hearing test. The result: I hear too much.

I was just alerted that I need to read more of the posts on this thread, and that my friend may have actually known about this post and if not she will know about it.

I am actually a bit scared to admit that I have heard, seen, and felt what I would consider real evil in the world and I have seen it from people who may not have intended to to it. I have seen it automated, redirected, and played back in multiple types of media. I can even find some patterns to some of it, though I do not wish to experience any more of it than I already have.

So for those who are listening to me or automating what I am saying I want you to understand I am a real human being that hears 100 times more than I want to and I am not okay to separate people by labeling them as good or evil. Some people are jerks, and some people **** me off. Some have done to me what I consider evil and for this I want to forgive them, but I am human, and I am still being used by people who seem to have an agenda.

So I will do my best to forgive those whom I perceive are doing me harm and will hope that they let me live in peace and quiet, as what I consider myself to be; a good person, who does not want to retrain my mind and body to be okay with who they really are’s culture-shock style of communication.

James
 
Trick question.

Evil is the disordering, distorting, or perversion of the “good.” All men are evil because all men are created good, but offer themselves to disorder, distortion, and perversion. Now we often use good and evil based on some standard. There may be good vs. bad people by some normative human standard, but by God’s standards all men have fallen short of the glory of God. If you are looking for a good person, you have found Jesus. Saints are those who are purchased with a price and sanctified by the Spirit of God. God is ordering our lives, but we too are disordered.

If you want to define the human standard, that will be rather subjective I think. It is also a bit absurd, I suppose, to have evil people defining which of the people are good and evil by the evil standards of evil people. I do it too, but it is a maddening contradiction, isn’t it?

QUOTE=The Reginator;10007593]This is an idea that only occurred to me today:

We often know of people who we would call ‘good people’ regardless of their religious affiliation (if any).

I’ve never heard it said that ‘so and so’ is just a person who does a lot of good. But we almost never hear anyone say that someone is an evil person. We hear it said that ‘so and so’ is just a person that has done a lot of evil.

What do we say about someone like Hitler. Can we say that Hitler was actually an evil man, or just a man who did a lot of evil?
If we are willing to call someone a good man, is it proper, following the same logic, to call someone else an evil man?
[What do we call a man or woman who finds the right to kill to be more important than the obligation not to kill?[/COLOR]]

I have to admit that I am quite uncomfortable in labelling anyone as ‘evil’ but to label someone as ‘good’ doesn’t bother me at all. I am not sure that this makes any real sense to have this attitude.

Thoughts? Philosophical or not … I’m just interested in hearing other peoples’ opinions.
 
trimidium said:
I found this post through Google. Something that would not be at all strange except for the reason that I found it.

I searched for 58 people that hear a human being.

I read the words ‘Evil people’ vs. ‘good people’ and I read a bit more and I knew that I had heard some of the words before. I opened the forum post and I read the second post before the first post and skimmed over a bit more.

I don’t want to read any more than I did and I will tell you why. Because I have already seen what happens when somebody automates a debate that involves a moral and ethical response.

I have watched somebody automate to see both good and evil responses. In fact, it would be better said that I have heard somebody automate both good and evil responses.

In just the first two posts I could already see some of what was automated. I have heard an audio conversation that most people do not hear for all of 2012. I can even remember when ‘evil people’ were being talked about to me in my own home.

I am a very frustrated human being, who happened to get myself ordained in 2001 on the internet. I have no desire whatsoever to preach. I would not consider myself a minister or a pastor of any sort. But I think being ordained gave somebody a reason to communicate with me a little bit differently.

My father was also ordained. He went to seminary to get ordained. I don’t think at all like my father and he doesn’t think at all like me. I am writing this bit of background information in here because I do not want to tell anybody how to live. I do not want to tell you what is right and wrong and I do not want to be seen as anybody but an individual human being, whom wanted to be ordained to be able to marry a friend of mine to his now wife.

She’s catholic, I"m not, I never married them, though I attended the wedding as a friend who was in the wedding party.

I think this post needed to have me personally write something because I was lead to it by a search result for hearing human beings. My catholic friend is an audiologist, I saw her and her husband at one point this year and even got a hearing test. The result: I hear too much.

I was just alerted that I need to read more of the posts on this thread, and that my friend may have actually known about this post and if not she will know about it.

I am actually a bit scared to admit that I have heard, seen, and felt what I would consider real evil in the world and I have seen it from people who may not have intended to to it. I have seen it automated, redirected, and played back in multiple types of media. I can even find some patterns to some of it, though I do not wish to experience any more of it than I already have.

So for those who are listening to me or automating what I am saying I want you to understand I am a real human being that hears 100 times more than I want to and I am not okay to separate people by labeling them as good or evil. Some people are jerks, and some people **** me off. Some have done to me what I consider evil and for this I want to forgive them, but I am human, and I am still being used by people who seem to have an agenda.

So I will do my best to forgive those whom I perceive are doing me harm and will hope that they let me live in peace and quiet, as what I consider myself to be; a good person, who does not want to retrain my mind and body to be okay with who they really are’s culture-shock style of communication.

James
Click to expand...
James,
Could you please elaborate on what you mean by ‘automates’? I think I understand but I’d like to be clear from your point of view. (I’m no philosopher … I don’t know some of the words that others may be comfortable with.)

Thanks, Reg.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top