Making Sense of Evil (Virginia Tech Massacre)

Sorry, but this statement is false.Dictionary.com would define it as such:1. morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.
2. harmful; injurious: evil laws.
3. characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
4. due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation.
5. marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition.
-noun
6. that which is evil; evil quality, intention, or conduct: to choose the lesser of two evils.
7. the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.
8. the wicked or immoral part of someone or something: The evil in his nature has destroyed the good.
9. harm; mischief; misfortune: to wish one evil.
10. anything causing injury or harm: Tobacco is considered by some to be an evil.
11. a harmful aspect, effect, or consequence: the evils of alcohol.
12. a disease, as king's evil.
-adverb
13. in an evil manner; badly; ill: It went evil with him.
”IdiomWhile you may not agree with a personification of evil, the word does mean something. I understood an agreement with some of those definitions in the next line of your post.

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I'm bent, bruised, broken, and a little lost. But you know what? I'm not so afraid as you are, who has never ventured away from the trail.

That first line doesn't sit well with me. Cho did some horrible things, but no matter how absurd or implicitly violent an idea may be, to label it as a threat to 'our (who's this refer to, anyway?)' way of life sounds a lot like what Senator Mcarthy said. The greatness of this country means we have the right to speak as we will and believe whatever we want to belive (and own a gun, but that's another debate).But don't get me wrong--you, in turn, may believe something is dangerous all you like, and even say so. I guess I jumped the gun, but the whole 'these ideas are dangerous' thing kinda scared me.

Maybe I jumped the gun when I gave the definitions. But here you say something that also takes a step too far too quickly. So being open to the concept that there is evil beyond our own in this world, and to address this possibility of evil is irresponsible? I don't really have an opinion on whether or not any problems can be solved with such an acknolwedgement; I do know that such a concept doesn't necessarily take responsibility away from us because 'the devil made us do it', either...is that what I read you saying? I don't want to misinterpret anything you said, but it sounds like you're lumping a belief in supernatural evil with alleviating one's own responsibility for secular evils in this world. You know that's not the case.

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I'm bent, bruised, broken, and a little lost. But you know what? I'm not so afraid as you are, who has never ventured away from the trail.

Did you miss the keywords 'being open to'? So, anyone and everyone who is so much as open to the concept of supernatural evil is automatically irresponsible, without any question whatsoever? Come on, you know better than that. 'So many' does not equal all of them/us, which is what you asserted just above that. The next line I agree with, at least if we're talking the general intepretation. Me, I see gaining knowledge of good and evil from the apple as responisibility that comes with understanding the difference.Edited by One_Charred_Wing, : gotta stop leaving words out

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I'm bent, bruised, broken, and a little lost. But you know what? I'm not so afraid as you are, who has never ventured away from the trail.

So I guess believing in God is irresponsible too? Believing in something, as long as there's no negating evidence, is not irresponsibility. Irresponsible actions resulting from the belief is irresponsibility.The belief in supernatural evil does NOT necessitate action as a result.Edited by One_Charred_Wing, : had to be precise as to what I was trying to say

But neither of us said anything about blaming things that people do on supernatural evil until you did just now, and if that's what you meant from the start then you needed to be more explicit.Being open to the possibility of supernatural evil is believing something, not attributing it to anything per se.

Okay, but you just completely ignored what I said.

1.Whoa, me? I didn't say I believed in what we're talking about.
2.Let's say that somebody does. They believe that this evil, like God, works through people. If that were the case, then addressing the evil (that manifests itself through our own evils) would be to combat it with our own means: research into mental illnesses, therapy, biopsychotic drugs if necessary, and perhaps some TLC.That doesn't sound irresponsible at all, does it? Doesn't sound like much of a change from what you and I seem to believe, either. It was until I read you calling such a belief in supernatural evil irresponsible.

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I'm bent, bruised, broken, and a little lost. But you know what? I'm not so afraid as you are, who has never ventured away from the trail.

Irrelevant? Yeah, I'd say so as long as we're not calling it
irresponsible'. It isn't as long as they're taking responsibility, as in this example. If anything, belief that these methods might be combating the work of some dark puppetiers(sp?) behind the scenes might motivate individuals to work harder.

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I'm bent, bruised, broken, and a little lost. But you know what? I'm not so afraid as you are, who has never ventured away from the trail.

OY!!... okay, maybe my last post was a bad example. Either way, the 'your' is interesting because I personally did not have anything to do with either of these events, although I acknowledge that as a society we've all got something to do with Columbine and VT. (if you want to start a New Orleans thread that's fine, but from my limited knowledge of the event my sympathy is less with them than the victims of the school shooters.)So, how about we stop going 'your fault' when all I'm trying to say (albiet I may have done a poor job in the last post) is that the mere belief in supernatural evil is not irresponsibility, especially when people don't go pointing fingers at the devil when tragedies happen. Let's leave it at that so you don't get confused and start attacking me again.(Yes, I'm aware that the 'your' was hypothetical, and not me. But the way you're coming down on this isn't the least bit convincing.)

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I'm bent, bruised, broken, and a little lost. But you know what? I'm not so afraid as you are, who has never ventured away from the trail.

Again, I didn't say I believed this, did I? Hopefully the 'you' is hypothetical? I'll try and look back in your posts and find a single legitimate reason to mark a simple belief as irresponsible.EDITED INUp until I used the 'dark puppetier' example (which I admit jumped instead of stepped forward), you've got irrelevant, but no reason whatsoever to consider it irresponsible.I still say that if they're responding effectively in that instance then the responsibility is still being taken, even if the idea's un poco loco... but maybe I should've established that the 'irresponsiblity' of the simple belief itself is nonexistant before I opened my yap.Granted I already did this, but you don't seem to get it yet. Edited by One_Charred_Wing, : after looking back...Edited by One_Charred_Wing, : didn't mean to hit submit.

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I'm bent, bruised, broken, and a little lost. But you know what? I'm not so afraid as you are, who has never ventured away from the trail.

Okay, great point. I guess what I am trying to present with that example is that some people (my old church, for example) preached that, like God, Satan works through people and the natural world.Remember the saying that 'God doesn't have hands or feet, so he works through people'? No? Well, there it is. It's basically the realist interpretation of the Divine, and in the example I gave, it works in reverse.Is it relevant to the discussion? No and yes-- it is if we're branding such beliefs that don't call for, say, an excorcism or the like, irresponsible simply because they believe in something that may be irrelevant while they're still getting the job done. Say a (real) doctor perhaps believed in Satan? He might believe that mental illnesses originate from satan (which doesn't matter either way, yes) but still handles the problem the same as any other competent doctor. Correcting a statement that a simple belief=irresponsibility. You're the first post to make a real attempt to back that statement up, to be honest.Do I personally believe any of this? Meh... not exactly, but that's another thread. Edited by One_Charred_Wing, : Apparently I accidently reposted about half of Ned's post as my own. I am sorry; I'm multitasking with the computer and a Spanish book right now, and apparently doing a bad job.

Good to know that you respect other peoples' arguements.

...You know, I have a feeling that if I explained myself here, it'd just start the broken record all over again. If you or jar are up to it I wouldn't mind starting a separate thread, in which I'd explain what I'm trying to convey completely instead of in bits in response to questions/objections. Then again, this might be one of those agree-to-disagree situations. What do you think?

Typical lilly-livered liberal response, and this coming from a notorious fence-sitter you can consider yourself burned. Don't assume somebody's conservative just because they don't think guns are RESPONSIBLE for killing people like you [i]seem[i/] to think. I would, for so many reasons that immediately come to mind that would make me sound like a would-be gun nut. But even if 'you' with the gun wasn't you, and 'me' wasn't One Charred Wing with a knife(who would win), and mr. gun nut won, the gun still had no say in the intent of the gunman. I'll assume that would address anyone who disagrees with you... I don't know everything about machine guns, but I have passing interest, and I know how to reload and aim an AK (I love knowing people in the NRA).I also have uncherished experience with knives (if you could see me, you'd look at my right arm for permanent proof), and they're quieter, and thus would have a huge edge in the proverbial contest. Slippery slope arguement; you assume someone who claims that a private citizen may own a firearm for home defense is also in favor of having an unnecessarily* powerful firearm so he or she could shoot people just for the heck of it.Do you honestly believe that all people who are in favor of the second amendment want armor piercing bullets on civilian shelves? Yes or no?After you answer that simple yes or no question, explain to me how a gun has the capacity to dictate a human being's behavior inthe first place?Oh, and I'll admit to recently stretching a side issue in this thread too long, so this might be another good new topic.

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I'm bent, bruised, broken, and a little lost. But you know what? I'm not so afraid as you are, who has never ventured away from the trail.