What do you think evil is?
'Evil' is the Old English word
yfel meaning 'harm' or (the noun) 'bad'.
We humans think something is bad/evil if it's detrimental to us, to our tribe, or to purposes and causes we support. In the same way, 'good' is what supports or advances us, our tribe, our causes.
'Evil' equally means something we find morally offensive. We get our basic moral tendencies from our evolution as gregarious primates ─ child nurture and protection, dislike of the one who harms, like of fairness and reciprocity, respect for authority, loyalty to the group, and a sense of self-worth/virtue through self-denial. We've also evolved to have a conscience (the feeling that some of our moral statements are of universal application, not just personal to us, though everyone has their own list); and we have empathy, probably from mirror neurons.
We get the rest of our morals from our upbringing, culture, education and experience ─ how to dress, encounter people in authority, or of the opposite sex, or strangers; how to behave at table, or at namings, coming-of-age, weddings and funerals; and so on.
Against that background, 'evil' means 'offensive', perhaps with a sense of 'more than usually offensive'.
I believe “evil” [...] is an objective tendency within this world that acts upon individual humans - I see it as a sociological force.
Genetics can play a part in one's attitude to society, but so can circumstances. For example, I see poverty as a sociological force that can generate anti-social, illegal and violent attitudes and acts.
Thus I think of 'evil' or 'bad' as a product or result, not as an independent phenomenon ─ not as an inevitable devil flying around looking for a shoulder to perch on or a wheel to make fall off and so on.
I believe there is an intelligent being behind this force who is more than simply a personification of evil – he directs a very powerful challenge against the rule of God’s Kingdom and has many millions under his spell. You know his name and I know his name, there is no need to give power to him by mentioning it (it begins with "S"!)
After a lot of thought and a good many years, I can see how that might work as a metaphor, but I can't see it as an accurate statement about reality.
Question: what does it mean to call another person “evil”?
I think there'll be a range of answers to that. I tend to associate such anaccusation as implying underhand methods, plotting, and so on, for selfish ends. But of course spies have always been regarded as evil by those they spy on, and heroes by those they spy for. (Traitors are often a more complex topic.)
