Christians: when you use the word "evil" do you think of it as literally from the devil?

No not really, for me anyway. When I mean Satan, I say Satan. Like “Satan really had his way with that evil pedophile”

Definately an outside source. I was taught that the more you work for God, the more Satan tries to hurt you, or disrupt your life, to take your eyes from God.

@KNOWITALL So, you do sometimes think in terms of Satan causing someone to do something. That Satan influences or controls people? Do you think that about God as well? That would imply we don’t have free will. Or, maybe you are saying God or Satan tests us?

Answer at lunch, sorry.

Not usually. I use “evil” to describe things that are so despicable I can’t wrap my mind around them. Example: I call one of the neighborhood children evil. She’s been kicked off the school bus multiple times now for her disgusting behavior, and she was recently caught trying to light a cat on fire. Evil little shit. But I don’t blame Satan, I blame the stupid mother who turned her child into a miniature sociopath.

@WillWorkForChocolate Does the mother have any fear the child really is sociopathic? That she will grow up to be a criminal? What you desrcibe sounds like big warning signs.

No; I don’t think of most evil as being “from the Devil.” It may be; maybe not. But I think it’s worth exploring.

@JLeslie I’m back, sorry. Yes, I do think Satan can assert influence, and in some cases, I could see the possiblity of him controlling someone who was open to it, like posession I guess.

To me, God is different because He believes in choice and free will for His children. Like with Adam and Eve, they had the choice and thus the repercussions. Christians know the rules and choose whether to obey or not.

If you’re asking if I believe in a literal devil I would say yes. I don’t think I would give anyone a pass saying that the devil made them do it. People have free will.

Evil is everything that is left in the void when good is absent. It has nothing to do with the devil. It has everything to do with why people choose certain actions. Or inaction as is sometimes the case.

@Judi I was not really asking that originally. I was more asking if someone exclaims something was evil, are they just using the word as a descriptor, or actually think there is a religious background or explanation to what is happening.

@JLeslie I don’t use “evil” as a descriptor often, and when I do, I mean it. That is clearer hopefully.

@KNOWITALL I thought I understood your answer, but now I am not so sure. When you say “mean it” what does that mean? At first you said you are not really thinking of some sortof religious evil if you use the word, but me mean it signifies you are.

I think @WillWorkForChocolate explained it in a way I understand well, she uses the word, even when she blames lack of parental guidance. When she uses evil she is not typically thinking about Satan or some sort of good vs. evil war going on.

@JLeslie I thought about it a little more and realized I don’t use the word “evil” often, which is why I changed my answer. Sorry.

@KNOWITALL Got it. Don’t be sorry. :) Thanks for clarifying.

@JLeslie No, the mother doesn’t give a shit what her kids do, as long as they do all of the housework and leave her alone. She even kicks them out and tells them to find a friend’s house at which to spend the night. This is why I say it’s her fault that her youngest daughter is an evil shit.

St. Augustine says that evil is the absence of good. It is analogous to darkness and cold, which are not really things in their own right but are merely the absence of light and heat.

Satan tempts us, but we give in to temptation because of our own defective nature, which became disordered through original sin (the Fall of Adam). Only by accepting God’s grace and letting it work through us can we overcome temptation and live rightly.

@submariner Does all that mean that when you use the word evil you do have some sort of religious content behind it?

I think its just a descriptor.

@JLeslie What I said above was an attempt to encapsulate St. Augustine’s position as concisely as possible, which as far as I know is accepted by most mainstream Christian theologians. Honestly, it’s hard to say how much of that is present when I use the word “evil” in ordinary conversation, but it has influenced my thinking to some degree. I try not to use the term lightly. I might use the term to describe willfully malicious human action; I would not use it (or not in the same sense) to describe natural disasters.

I was pressed for time in my previous entry, so I didn’t mention that St. A. was a Manichean for a while before he converted. That sect was dualistic in that it posited two deities, one good and one evil. In this view, evil is indeed a force in its own right and not just the absence of good. But St. A. came to reject this account of evil.

In my early youth, when I was an enthusiastic practitioner of the Christian Arts, I didn’t think.

I knew.

There is no devil or satan or hell. They are all metaphors.

I was going to ask what’s a metaphor?

Then I remembered, itsa for askinga questions abouta this site-a.

@rojo . . . it was sooo hard to give you +5 for that

“A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on some point of comparison, the same as another otherwise unrelated object.”

A good example for a metaphor is Jesus talking about people being the light and salt of the earth. Only biblical literalists and small children don’t understand the concept of metaphors and parables and myths.

If Satan exists, then God created him, so if we are asking why people commit such horrible acts, positing a devil doesn’t help much. But maybe on a practical level it helps to imagine an adversary that one can resist.

The question of where we get our ideas remains a mystery, whether those ideas are for a great work of art, a fantastic invention, or a monstrous crime. The Muses? A daimon? Lucifer? The Id? Who knows? The challenge is whether and how to act on the ideas that come to us, and to get our priorities straight.

If you don’t like St. Augustine, here’s Charles Baudelaire:

If you would, you could be the Tyrant’s favorite; it is more difficult to love God than to believe in Him. On the other hand, it is more difficult for people nowadays to believe in the Devil than to love him. Everyone smells him and no one believes in him. Sublime sublety of the Devil.

(From the first draft of his preface to Flowers of Evil.)

@submariner Are you addressing me?

I have to say some of the answers confuse me. I was only asking what Christians have in their mind when they use the word evil, like calling a terrorist evil. Are they just blurting it out the same way we can say the terrorist is a bad guy? Meaning using the word evil, because it is understood by evryone that evil means bad, very bad and sinister. Or, actually thinking in religious context. You seem to be defining what you think evil is, so I guess when you use or hear the word evil you are analytical about it.

This Q is along the same lines as when I ask what Christians mean when they use submissive, cult, obedient, they (they meaning some) have different definitions for those words than the dictionaries. They use the words differently than the rest of us.

^Ha, that’s what I get for using you in the way I tell my students not to. My previous comment wasn’t directed at anyone in particular. I was just musing further on the topic.

To rephrase: For those who don’t like St. Augustine etc.

Evil comes from the heart, I suppose.