What Is the root of all evil?

Failure to recognize our fundamental interconnectedness.

Ego-centricity or its global manifestation – fundamentalism.

GREED, pure and simple.

Ignorance and mental illness.
If one has no conscience horrible things unfold.

<== ::ahem::

Humans.

Religion. It takes away peoples’ innate ability to think for themselves.

Religion & vaginas :D

@ucme – in that order?

@elbanditoroso I’d put the holy place first.

Money, sex, power.

Why would anyone think there is one root of all evil?

Probably because they’ve got that phrase in their head, and from other close-minded traps rooted in judgmental religions.

The phrase comes from English translations of the Bible (which probably borrowed it from something older). The King James version reads, “For the love of money is the root of all evil”. Later translations tend to be less absolutist, such as “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil”. Notice that the shift from “the” to “a” makes it not imply that there is only one root of all evil.

I would add that another “root” of much evil of many types, is projection – people are hurt inside, can’t be with their own anguish, forget, dissociate, and dump the feelings on others. They in turn end up dumping on others. One of the worst cycles of this is child abuse, particularly molestation, which creates child abusers in turn. It’s especially bad in an ego-centric prideful society where child molestation is widely regarded as nearly unspeakable, a taboo, a more-or-less unforgivable act, and shames the victim as much or more than the perpetrator, and fails to adequately protect victims or heal victims or perpetrators. There’ so much of this going around and not being reported or healed, and every screwed up person passes on the suffering in spades until they get healed.

@Zaku, You said Why would anyone think there is one root of all evil?.. It’s stated In the question their honest opinion, and who doesn’t know there is more than one root to evil, it’s not rocket science, that goes without saying, people are just giving their honest answers like you’re giving your opinion.

Dissatisfaction with what one has? Hard question.

Power and freedom.

The Penis.

Religion

Idle hands

Irrationality

Greed,lies deceit and religion.

@Safie I wrote that as a rhetorical question, both to point out and question the unwritten assumption that people would think there is one root of all evil. Then I answered my rhetorical question, to show that actually there is an answer why – that it’s written that way in the King James edition of the Bible, and has of course been parroted and riffed on many times since. I think that in this case, as with many such misleading truisms, they get repeated attention precisely because they sound true but subconsciously we notice their unwritten inaccurate assumptions.

Desire

It’s not money that’s for sure.

Human frailty. My first thought was a lack of money. If everyone had enough money things might be okay. But that’s not true, for some peeps enough is never going to be enough, they’ll always want more. Then again, some people live for power, for sex, for addictions, for love, for hate, the list goes on. People just suck in general and they will always be evil among us. (amongst?).

Women.

An egocentric attitude.

In all honesty, the most accurate answer would probably be mental illness.

The root of evil, I don’t know about. The cause of a lot of unhappiness, in my opinion: The way children are treated in our society. I think many problems would just disappear if all children felt safe and happy at home and at school.

There isn’t just one. Evil comes in many forms, from many sources. However many of our modern evils come from the pervasive but ridiculous belief in equality.

There is not such a clear distinction between what is evil and what is not. We are all driven by the need to survive and, whether we admit it or not, we are social creatures who enjoy raising our status. If a starving person steals food, is that evil? Is doctoring your resume evil?

There is also the question of when the end justifies the means. Suppose that a politician truly believes that a certain course of action is in everyone’s best interest. Is it evil to stretch the truth to promote it?

Economists routinely assume that human wants will always exceed available resources. As long as that holds, there will be the temptation to go outside the lines to attain what one wants.

I’m fairly certain that the phrase in the bible everyone is playing at says something about the love of money. Not just money in general. To me that encompasses something entirely different. Underneath that umbrella are ideas like power, greed, etc.

The root of all evil though? I’d have to say trigonometry. Or the human condition. Bah, let’s face it – I can’t come up with a better answer than @thorninmud did. Sounds spot on to me.

Really, when I speak of mental illness I am really speaking of pathological narcissism and sociopathology. Both of which are more conditions of character and lack of empathy rather than true mental illness. Sociopaths are born, it has been proven their brains lack emotional processing ability, the nature of the beast is not much influenced by nurture, but certainly poor nurture exacerbates this defect. Some become serial killers and others just our run o’ the mill politicians and corporate sharks and con men, chronic liars and cheaters.

The crazy homeless guy wandering around one of my local shopping zones making jungle animal sounds is not the one to fear. haha

Selfishness.

Jesus himself said, the most important commandment is to treat others as you would like to be treated. If most people actually did this, many of the world’s problems would go away.

e.g
Why are their rapists. Rapists are extremely selfish people. They only care about relieving themselves, whether if be of anger or sexual desire.

Why do people murder others . Same as above.

Why do people cheat. – not thinking of the effect it will have on their spouse . Only thinking of themselves and how they feel.

Why do many but not all people get divorced. I AM NOT HAPPY. me me me.

Why is the inequality between rich and poor so great in the world? Because the rich are greedy and selfish. Do most of them really need that much money? Yes you earned it . But I think God gives us the ability to become successful so we can help others. I don’t think he just expects us to keep it to ourselves for egotistical reasons.

Why do a lot of people get married for the wrong reasons?-

they are only living for the now. They feel happy at that particular point in time. From the minute they get into any disagreements with their spouse or things become routine , they want to move on to someone else. They don’t think they should have to work on their marriage. They think happy marriages should just exist without effort. Again selfishness. Going by their feelings and desires.

WE live in a me me me me world.

IT takes a lot of effort and sacrifice to be selfless.

I don’t think religion itself causes evil. I think people inability to agree with each other is the source of so many religions in the world. Again they were just being selfish. They want to do whatever they want to do and are not willing to compromise or try to understand others. As a result divisions were created in the world among religious beliefs, which in turn caused divisions among people.

@chinchin31
I was actually going to say “being selfish” at first, but I couldn’t think of a way to spell it out that made sense. You’ve done it. =)

Also, I agree that religion gets a bad rap. Religion is a victim of negativity bias on a grande scale. It is hated the way so many other things are hated – because people don’t understand them.

@chinchin31 Oh my….I strongly disagree with much of what you say. Rapists are often sociopaths and mentally unwell, they do not rape for selfish reasons of sexual gratification, they rape because they are turned on by power and control
Being unhappy is a perfectly good reason to divorce and while altruism is good rich people are not all greedy and selfish and certainly should not pay higher taxes and/or be forced to part with their money. People that make a lot of money usually have payed their dues in terms of higher education and extreme hard work and commitment to their professions, or they are innovative entrepreneurs. Yes, “selfishness” can be a problem but not every person that wants a divorce or earns a lot of money is selfish.