For believers in a higher power, evil is blamed on human beings getting the gift of freedom and abusing that gift. The higher power is asked to keep out of your life. And it complies for it respects free will but that means nature will not have its protection and so harmful people will be enabled. And plagues and other natural evils will take place. The higher power only lets evil happen when it can be balanced with good or lead to goods that are worth tolerating it for.
We cannot discuss evil without clarifying that evils such as pain and suffering are not the same thing. They have overlaps but do not confuse them.
Suffering is that which attacks your sense that your life is worth living.
Pain is not the same thing for pain is a warning and you can love your life and be in a lot of pain.
For atheists, suffering is part of the way things are. Rather than be asked or commanded by anyone to deal with it, the atheist simply decides that it must be fought. Atheism takes the side of the sufferer even if this means rebelling against nature and defying a higher power if there is one. The atheist being against suffering comes from within. The atheist does what a higher power should be doing.
People ask the atheist why they should consider it fair and loving to help others overcome suffering. This is assuming that the atheist may help or not bother and it matters not either way.
Evil for atheists does not need moralistic concerns but merely opposition to suffering. This redefines evil. Religion argues that this is too flimsy. It says that just because an experience is horrible does not mean it is unfair or immoral.
Now we have a conflict. Religion defines evil as injustice and malice. Atheism defines it as suffering. One of these two stances must be itself evil. There are overlaps but the core difference remains.
One of the two sides is reinventing evil.
To see evil the way you decide to see it rather than how it really is means you are seeing what you want to see. So there is evil in you.
Say you take the right side. Being right does not mean you accept what it says about evil BECAUSE it is right. It could STILL be because you want it to be that way.
You never see anybody's intention. You just cannot. And the person would hide what is going on inside them. Privacy matters whether their inner world is good or bad. And evil will be hidden. The person will keep the bad intentions under the surface.
Good intentions come with a temptation to pride. This does not inspire confidence that the person really has good intentions.
So you can only guess that the person with seeming good intentions really has them. It is not even a good guess.
There is more.
Suppose you see evil in a person or thing. You want to see it so that you can identify it and distance yourself from it. You are inwardly glad the evil has happened and that you know about it. So don't call yourself good then.
So when we look at the evil in others we do too much guessing which means we probably only see the bad we want to see. And to see it in the way we want to see it. Our judging would speak more about what badness is in us than what is in the one judged.
What is the alternative for we need to take positions on harmful behaviours?
Christians say you have reach out to the evil person to help them rise above it. And they caution that in doing so you can turn evil too. They say that is hard but achievable and the key is to avoid any smug glows and moral superiority.
But unless you think it is only luck stopping you doing what the other has done that advice is far from inspiring. The only way you can avoid being smug is if luck could have struck causing you to be the one to choose evil.
They say you have free will and they want to blame luck too.
"Now let us talk of how there is a tradition that you cannot see evil anywhere unless you are using the evil in yourself to help you and inform you.
Perhaps for some reason this happens even if in principle there is no necessary reason why you need to be in some way evil to see evil. It may be down to the way we have developed. It could be embedded in us.
There are two aspects to judging something evil. They are,
Guessing there is evil there.
You guess where the evil is and what its presence is saying.
So the evil is really in you. You cannot try to see evil without being evil if you are largely guessing. You want to find it. You want it there.
Plus you cannot see the intention of the other and condemning evil means nothing if you cannot.
So for that reason as well, you are causing yourself to see the evil so it is not about the evil but you. Therefore you are evil. To see evil is to be evil. You are using evil to discern evil and putting it in yourself.
And at the same time it is in you. You are acting like you know it is there and what it is exactly but that is the evil in you talking. It is a case of, 'It takes one to know one.'"
JESUS
Jesus told people on the individual and group level that they were evil. He said whoever defiles a child would be better off dead as a result of being thrown in the sea. And he spoke to his individual hearers at the Sermon on the Mount in these terms: "You being evil know how to do good things and won't give a person who wants bread a scorpion." He raged about this "evil generation and how much longer am I to endure it?" Don't be fooled by, "Jesus alone can judge if one is evil so we cannot." Jesus doing it for you and you calling people evil gets around how you cannot see.
If you need to be already in some way evil to see evil in another, the alternative is to get Jesus to look for you and agree with him. But now you are trying to see evil and that does not make you any better.
It is harder to see the evil in yourself when you delegate the power to see it in others to somebody else such as Jesus. And that is how you want it.
Conclusion Summary
Understanding evil is complex and deeply tied to how we interpret pain, suffering, intention, and free will. Religious perspectives often see evil as the misuse of human freedom within a world balanced by a higher power’s allowance of both good and evil. In contrast, atheistic views define evil primarily as suffering to be fought against without appealing to moral commands from a deity. Both perspectives offer valuable insights but also reflect underlying assumptions and personal biases about what evil truly is. Judging evil in others is challenging because it involves interpreting intentions we cannot fully know and will reveal more about our own inner struggles than about the accused. Ultimately, recognizing our shared potential for both good and evil, as highlighted in Jesus’s teachings, encourages humility, compassion, and careful self-reflection rather than quick condemnation.