What is Evil?
First, what is good? I think we understand it as helping others. Every major religion of which I'm aware has some common tenets about doing so, especially Christianity. Anthropologist Margaret Meade pointed out that the first signs of civilization were healed femur bones. That meant someone had to care for another person who couldn't themselves.
Evil is perhaps often subjective. Beliefs, behavior, or actions that are immoral, cruel, unethical, dangerous to others, illegal... may not rise to the level of evil.
Merriam Webster: morally reprehensible : sinful, wicked. an evil impulse. : arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct.
Members of organizations such as Moms for Liberty, a lie, don't see themselves as "evil". Teachers, administrators or school board members who lose their jobs or see their work made much more difficult think otherwise. The people of and behind Alliance Defending Freedom, another lie, don't see themselves as evil. The women who suffer and die because of their actions, and their families, and LGBT people who are demonized and persecuted, think otherwise.
It's important to understand history. It's been said that people who read history are doomed to watch those who haven't repeat it, I think that's incorrect, as we've seen in the last 60+ years. Some people who have read history have and are repeating the worst of it.
Many settlers came to the New World to escape religious persecution in Europe. Millions of people died during the Inquisition and Thirty Years Wars, when Catholics tried to stamp out "heresy" and Protestantism. The Thirty Years Wars wiped out as much as 50% of Germany's population. Just as in our current "culture war", those wars weren't about just religion, they were also about political power.
“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries.”
James Madison
As I said, history repeats. Reinhold Niebuhr was one of the most respected theologians of the 20th century. He and Dietrich Bonhoeffer became friends, he arranged for Bonhoeffer to come to and work in the U.S. Bonhoeffer was safe. but returned to Germany to oppose Hitler and Nazism.
“Ultimately evil is done not so much by evil people, but by good people who do not know themselves and who do not probe deeply.”
Reinhold Niebuhr
“The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan value and ends is the source of all religious fanaticism. ”
Reinhold Niebuhr
As Niebuhr said, "do not probe deeply". I see that as due diligence when making decisions, especially as to people we follow, support, and vote. People who are uninformed, brainwashed, remain willfully ignorant, either don't vote or vote against the best interests of themselves, their children, their descendants, all of us. Voting is like getting on a bus going in the direction you wish to go, not a taxi ride.
"For the love of money is the root of all evil..."
Christian Bible, 1 Timothy
Money, wealth, is certainly a factor in much of the evil we see today, epitomized by the Kochs and people like them, many of whom inherited wealth. Fred Koch made his early fortune building refineries for Stalin and Hitler. He admired Hitler, and hired a Nazi nanny for his two oldest sons, Frederick and Charles. Charles and David forced Frederick and their younger brother out of the family business, built an empire based on fossil fuels, became two of the wealthiest people on the planet.
They, other billionaires and corporate executives spent $billions funding religious right and other right wing extremist organizations in return for global warming denial.
I think all of us would agree that tobacco is harmful. It's still a major factor in deaths worldwide. In the U.S. progress has been made, but another law suit was just settled last April.
Tobacco companies were among early supporters of Paul Weyrich, who IMO was one of the most evil people in modern history. His motivation wasn't money, but he needed it to advance his theocratic far right wing agenda.
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