A long time ago in Munich I met a former member of the Waffen SS. How do I know he was the real thing? How do I know he wasn't spinning me a line?

Obviously I cannot be sure. But the memorabilia he had carefully preserved led me to believe he really had been in the SS.

At the time I met him he was an alcoholic beggar. He must have been about 40 but he looked 70. He stank. I ended up giving him a few Marks to buy some food. He probably spent it on cheap schnapps.

What brought this 40 year old incident to mind was watching Downfall on SBS. Downfall is a movie that tells the story of the last days of Hitler as soon through the eyes of the clerical staff in the Fuhrerbunker.

Seeing the movie raised a question I often ask myself. Suppose I had been born to parents who were avid Nazis. Suppose I had been through the Hitler Youth. Suppose I had grown up in a society that considered unquestioning obedience to the Fuhrer as the highest good. Would I have joined the Waffen SS? Would I have proudly bellowed out HEIL HITLER!

Could I have been that stinking alcoholic beggar?

Or is there something inside me that would have prevented me following the same path.

Perhaps there is something that would have stopped me following the same path as the erstwhile member of the SS. But when I look inside myself I can't find it.

Suppose I had been brought up in a society that considered blowing oneself up in a crowded pizza parlour to be the greatest service one could perform for some god. Could I have become a suicide bomber who yells ALLAHU AKHBAR and massacres himself and those around him?

What is there that would have stopped me being a suicide bomber?

Who is evil?

stevenlmeyer,
I agree that most of us are victims of circumstance and fate and that these are a result of when and where we are born.

How many of the same right-wing zealots who spend their spare hours typing away at their laptops would be busy making home-made bombs instead if they had been born in some oppressed society with no hope for the future?

How many left-wing miltary leaders would be successful corporate psychopaths if they had been born elsewhere?

It's been said that patriotism is a love of one's country that actually masks a secret hatred for other countries and religion is no different.

Both are usually determined by circumstance and the likelihood and opportunity to voluntarily change between them is not as common as some would believe. Refugees may be an exception but are still looked at with suspicion.

Who is evil ? Suppose you get a hard time from some ignorant moron who is too stupid to realise what he is doing to you. You would eventually have a gut full & retalliate. So, who would be the evil one there ? The moron who doesn't know that he is giving you a hard time or you who runs out of patience ? Neither of you deliberately went out to do "evil" but the consequenses are. In my opinion evil is when someone "deiberately" harms or cons someone else. Is it evil to expect cradle to grave support ? No !. That's ignorant. Is it good to give support from cradle to grave ? No ! That's ignorant. Is it evil to buy land, do nothing with it & then sell for 3 times as much ? No ! That's greedy & opportunistic. is it good to help drug abusers ? No ! That's stupidity which fosters evil. Is hypocicy evil ? Yes! Is turning a blind eye evil ? Yes ! Is reporting misuse of public funding evil ? No ! That's a good trait wich guarantees you some evil outcome. Leniency in sentencing is evil. Do-gooders are not evil, they're just plain ignorant & foster evil.

individual, that post came across less as a query as to what fosters evil behaviour than it did as a bitter diatribe against the issues you find personally offensive.

I know people who think there may be a 'fundamentalist' gene, which makes us unable to see reason, and latch on to whatever belief set is presented.

It's one possibility I guess... though I tend to be of the view it's more to do with the intensity of impression. If during the formative years, a child is repeatedly subjected to a particular ideology, of course it will take shape.

I've sometimes wondered what life would be like if children up to the age of about 17, weren't taught anything about any ideology, then when they were able to think for themselves, were offered the facts about evolution and the central religions, with the lessons being prefaced as 'these people believe....'
I can't help but wonder if religion would still have such a hold on so many if it wasn't impressed on children from such a young age.

I dare say most suicide bombers have been brought up in an environment where fundamentalist Islam is everything and it's tenets aren't questioned.
At the end of the day, I think anyone who doesn't reflect upon the basis for their beliefs and doesn't question is at risk of fundamentalism.

this thread was started many years ago. not only before the web, but before printing, quite possibly before writing. i could tell you the answer, but as i don't enjoy writing on stone tablets, you wouldn't listen. and then there's the lively possibilty that i'm wrong...

but the rough guide is this: humans are evil. it's in our genes. but until we take ourselves off the world stage with war, resource depletion, or simple pandemic, we can modify our behavior with negotiation and law. this will file off the sharp edge of evil so we are left with mere greed, flatulence, and rowdy behavior when drunk. let's aim for this.

Without absolutes 'who is evil' is only a matter of opinion. We all have the potential in us to do evil. Actually we all commit evil acts to a certain degree. A harder question to answer is who is good. There is only One I know of who walked the earth and was perfectly good by nature and action.