Is anyone happy being/doing evil ?

[Slapsuplex]

Do you feel happy by doing doing evil deeds. Or do you know anyone who can be happy in all ways by being evil ?

[andersonx]

You can "enjoy" being evil, and doing bad things. They can be pleasurable.

IMO pleasurable does not = happy.

Heroin is pleasurable, but it doesn't make anyone happy. A paedophile may feel pleasure when abusing a child but that is not happiness. This is pleasure that is disconnected from the heart and the consequences.

Happiness is pleasure that is connected to the heart. Loving and helping someone is pleasurable and connected to the heart. Accomplishing to the best of your ability is pleasurable and connected to the heart. This is happiness.

All selfish pleasure is disconnected from the heart, and is therefore not happiness.

[Slapsuplex]

How do you now if it's connected/disconnected to heart, isn't it subjective ?

[ssandra]

To be truly evil, harming somebody else on purpose? I cannot to that, not even i n a video game, let alone in real life...

I cannot understand how some people get pleasure from it. I just cannot understand.

[jeff3]

See the thread on good and evil, when you realize the subjective nature of good/evil your question will answer itself. People are conditioned to like or dislike certain things based upon the meaning they give the acts, so yes, people can derive happiness from about anything.This ability is actually advantageous to help us endure or even thrive in difficult situations.

As for heroin making you happy.....sure, I've seen some things. The problem is the recoil is pretty tough.

[ssandra]

Originally Posted by jeff3

so yes, people can derive happiness from about anything.This ability is actually advantageous to help us endure or even thrive in difficult situations.

Just a quesstion about this... How does it help you to endure by kicking a puppy (act of pure evilness if you ask me) or by letting other people starve to death while you have food enough? And i´m not talking about people in a far away country, but sitting right next to you?

ps this isn´t an attac or something like that, i´m truly curious.

[themaster]

Originally Posted by ssandra

Just a quesstion about this... How does it help you to endure by kicking a puppy (act of pure evilness if you ask me) or by letting other people starve to death while you have food enough? And i´m not talking about people in a far away country, but sitting right next to you?

ps this isn´t an attac or something like that, i´m truly curious.

The question becomes who are you to judge another?

Have you been through said experiences?? said life? set there themes up?? you don't know if they’re getting pleasure or even happiness from doing these things.. you just don't know..

So why like everyone else in society why do you adopt judgment?? judge everyone and everything..

I say "skating on the sidewalk is evil"
I say "skating on the sidewalk is not evil"

"What you going to do about it???"
"Bring it"

Common murder, chaos themes of the past ensue..

Obviously you’re right.. it would be so evil.. to let a family starve.. or kick a puppy.. but guess what?? I have a thing called the "imagination" and it says that I could kick a puppy or starve a family and still be neutral or find a positive perspective.. if you can't find these perspectives within your imagination.. you have some limitation

[Dreamline]

Some things described as evil aren't really even evil. But killing someone is evil. Feeling pleasure during that would be universally considered evil.

I don't know anyone like that.

Jennifer

[aggie]

i think people can be born evil...like the bad seed things...i guess people can become evil....i don't even know if any of them can be called ill....to derive pleasure from heinous things...but this is a twisted pleasure...not in anyway related to happiness....and i am always amazed at the attempts to pursue some elevated cosmic acceptance and "understanding" of everything to kind of make it ok...even evil....just my opinion....i don't get it...

[jeff3]

What if the puppy is about to bite into an electric cord? I kick it just in time to save it's life, but your puppy, on the other hand, bites the cord and is electrocuted for 5 minutes and then dies. Who is evil?

And that starving family, I received a letter from some psycho who said they would kill them all if I didn't see to it they lost 100 lbs collectively. Who is evil?

[jeff3]

Originally Posted by Dreamline

Some things described as evil aren't really even evil. But killing someone is evil. Feeling pleasure during that would be universally considered evil.

I don't know anyone like that.

Jennifer

What if some crazy woman had been dropping babies off a roof, one at a time, and she has 210 left to go,one of those is mine, one is yours, I shoot her. Is it OK for me to feel happy about that? What about you feeling happy about that? After all, I just saved 210 babies.

[aggie]

oh c'mon...this is exactly what i am talking about...we are talking intentional evil....evil that is being done intentionally...not some pseudo theoretical situation.....

[YourHumbleNarrator]

Originally Posted by aggie

oh c'mon...this is exactly what i am talking about...we are talking intentional evil....evil that is being done intentionally...not some pseudo theoretical situation.....

As absurd as the example may be it's a valid point. If killing is universally evil, is it wrong to kill in self defense, or in defense of another? Or is the pleasure what would be wrong, assuming you felt any?

Good and evil are flimsy concepts. For anything that could be considered "universally" good or evil there's at least one circumstance where it isn't.

Of course, it also depends on how you define them. Defining acts as inherently good or evil is rife with problems. If you define it as the intention to help or harm you've got something much more solid to work with but even that has its problems.

For the purpose of this discussion, people who live their lives actively trying to destroy other people are too disturbed to be happy. The exception is when it furthers their goals, or when they think they're improving the world by their actions. Happiness, like good and evil, is a very loose concept that's hard to pin down. It's not a feeling in itself, it's the amalgamation of other feelings. If somebody is satisfied with their lives, if they get out of bed looking forward to what lies ahead, then they're happy. They may not feel the same way you do when you're happy but they're happy. It all comes down to what satisfies the individual.

[sk8joyful]

Originally Posted by Slapsuplex

Do you feel happy by doing doing evil deeds. Or do you know anyone who can be happy in all ways by being evil ?

vague constructs, such as "evil, happy, all" - need contexts,
the more specific, the better.
provided you want a helpful discussion

[jeff3]

Originally Posted by aggie

oh c'mon...this is exactly what i am talking about...we are talking intentional evil....evil that is being done intentionally...not some pseudo theoretical situation.....

I understand where you are coming from, I just wanted to point out it's not always real clear cut. Just come up with one specific (and verifiable) example of an "evil" act and we'll discuss it.

[andersonx]

Ok so you bring up two children from birth. You give one of them a stick, and reward him every time he hits his brother with love. Everytime he hits his brother you give him a big hug.

That child grows up equating beating his brother with happiness. He believes that is a good thing to do.

That is a conditioned sense of good. However there is a difference between our conditioned sense of good and evil (for example at some points in society it was considered EVIL to have sex before marriage) and the truth of the heart.

The mind can be conditioned but the heart cannot. If you are truly in touch with your heart, you can go within yourself in each situation and find the truth about whether it is good or evil regardless of how you've been conditioned to think.

I speak from personal experience.

[ssandra]

Originally Posted by themaster

The question becomes who are you to judge another?

I don´t judge the person, but I can judge the action.

With regards to the puppy, of course I mean just kicking it for fun, not to save its life. I would still feel bad about it, although I would also know that the alternative would be worse.

[aggie]

that is what my point is....i never said all killing was evil...to me evil is not just killing, it is torturing, depriving, neglecting...causing pain and harm just for the sake of the reaction or effect it illicits. i also think concepts are evil and what harm they can cause mankind. also someone who does something unthinkable and heinous. examples of all of the above...and we know and we have read...someone poking out a cats eyes, Hitler, Jeffrey Dahmer. i just don't know how much you want to intellectualize something...you can make certain things sound so lofty as to say that there has to be some way to become enlightened by it, and i just can't buy that concept about everything in life.

[cristie]

Sometimes it feels good to do something bad, just like when suceeding on your "little revenge" on someone who did bad to you, mentally and emotionally you can released the anger and burden that you are feeling, it makes me laugh sometimes, its a self-satisfaction is the right term for me, its not really evil, its just like a wake up call to someone, not to do bad to others.

[meanttobehappy]

I'm not sure how good and evil are considered flimsy concepts when every culture in every nation has some very strongly shared notions of what consitutues one or the other. Rape is considered evil by all religions on planet earth. Even though some people in the name of some religious traditions engage in it as a form of punishment, it doesn't change the fact that it is universally accepted to be an act of evil.

There is a universal revulsion at the thought of it. Every society has laws against it.

That some people believe purposefully taking innocent life is only subjectively evil, doesn't make it so. I mean in some sense there is nothing that isn't subjective. There is an organization called the Flat Earth Society that actually holds that the earth is flat. So is the earth's roundness merely a subjective interpretation just because some people claim it to be so?

Something like 10% of the population believes Elvis is alive. That doesn't mean that his death is an unsubstantiated or unsubstantiatable opinion, a subjective interpretation.

To say that all evil is subjective is to twist the concept of subjectivity so as to bend truth into a puff of nothingness and reality into a kaleidoscopic lens of ever-changing colors.

Different opinions about the height of the Statue of Liberty doesn't make it a sliding scale of possible heights. It is as tall as it is, others' opinions about it notwithstanding.

Anyway, I'm tired and am thinking slowly now. Just throwing out some food for thought.

As for happiness, I agree with andersonx.

Happiness is a state of being. It is a life of meaning and purpose and decency. It requires that at the end of the day, you can look in the mirror and like the person staring back at you. That's tough when you engage in acts of depravity.

[ar81]

Originally Posted by Slapsuplex

Do you feel happy by doing doing evil deeds. Or do you know anyone who can be happy in all ways by being evil ?

Happy people feel happy when others feel happy. Evil is in my opinion a problem of people who are unhappy who believe that unleashing and spreading unhappiness will make them happy. Unfortunately nothing external could heal a wounded soul.

Criminals do not think that what they do is evil, or they would not do it otherwise. Moral values are essential to establish the boundary between good and evil. Religions have been diminished under the cliche that they are totalitarian or fundamentalist (generalization). But certainly religion plays a role in establishing moral values.

[Dulma]

Originally Posted by ssandra

I don´t judge the person, but I can judge the action.

With regards to the puppy, of course I mean just kicking it for fun, not to save its life. I would still feel bad about it, although I would also know that the alternative would be worse.

I think compassion for "evil" doers is a better way to contribute than judging their actions. Evil is nothing but ignorance. And ignorance is the most heart-achingly sad thing, really.

[jellybeanpimp]

Even if you do enjoy being evil, whatever satisfaction it gives you will be temporary.

Plenty of people serving life sentences in prisons that can only be compared to Hell on Earth were very pleased by commiting temporary acts of "evil".

And most evil acts are punishable by law.

And we have ways of keeping track of people who have demonstrated that they are capable of and have commited certain acts. Sometimes we keep track of them for the rest of their stay on Earth.

Should you be an evil person with a brain, you might be able to keep your consequences at bay for a longer period of time, but inevitably they will come to you.

So to answer your question, can you be happy doing evil? Yes. Can you stay happy doing evil? No.