We want to show that if you consider evil to be a valid concept that there are bad consequences from adopting it. It is not the purpose of this article to argue that maybe we should stop moralising and put harmful behaviour down to mistakes.
Some say like M Scott Peck of People of the Lie fame that if you enter the presence of somebody evil, evil will infect you so you have to be careful. He was speaking of how common it is for a person to succumb to evil after seeing it.
As human discernment is limited, it may be hard to detect what is happening to you and so it will succeed at getting in.
It may infect for part of you wants it to or you are suffering confusion.
It may infect like a supernatural force that casts a spell on those who see it.
It may infect for we are suggestible creatures, if we wrongly think evil can behave like a power we react as if it is truly is.
Evil thanks to itself and how we make it, does not expose its true face. You can think you identify an evil and while you are chasing that evil, the real evil gets away or plants seeds to rebound. Evil is a mystery and creates some mystery which means that if you try to understand it and why somebody did it, you are in over your head. You are pretending to understand properly and you make this chink that evil gets in through. Understanding evil excuses it in some way for it is fake understanding.
Animal suffering and degradation surpasses any human suffering and degradation almost infinitely. We ignore the evil that happens humans except when it suits us. We are even worse with animal suffering. For that reason, being aware of suffering is sure to plant something in us, something evil.
If evil is an actual infection or very like one so that it can be treated as one, then do you burn the evil person to cure the evil? Do you quarantine the wicked? Does tormenting that person to death kill the evil? Is it hopeless? Is there no cure? For something as rife as evil would appear to be, you would lean towards the latter. Evil would want you to think there is a cure if there is not. It would be to serious to simply assume that a cure is happening and is feasible.
Human nature has a disgusting tendency to let terrible things run riot and then when they are accomplished then it calls them evil. The hypocrisy here is chilling. Human nature waits before assessing an evil as evil because part of it wants something to condemn and be morally repulsed by. This is about being seen as different from the immoral and inviting action against the immoral and there is a morbid curiosity in human nature too. Also human nature likes to feel that the suffering person is a potential project. Not all who feel people should be helped want them helped for they are people.
Once you think of an evil as common, the seeds to maybe doing it yourself for "I am not the only one doing it" or "I am in big company" are planted. A person of faith who thinks there are loads of demons out there led by Satan could use that belief to feel that he or she is not alone while committing some atrocity.
It is warned that evil is a pestilence. It acts like it is never satisfied. And the person doing it never is either. If evil itself acts like it is never enough anyway it is to be expected that its instrument will do the same thing. We are talking both of evil and the evil person here.
First the evil act as if they will get will get away with doing more.
Second, as evil bases itself on lies and lies are fragile and has feet planted firmly in mid-air, the security that comes from truth is missing so the evil/person will compensate by trying to do more evil.
Third, if evil is a lack of a good that should be there and is not it cannot satisfy. It is going to lead to a feeling of emptiness.
Fourth, St Thomas Aquinas said that hate wishes evil on others for no sensible reason so it is never going to have a point at which it says, "That is enough". It will want to go and on. Evil that is not directly malicious against others is indirectly vicious for you hate what is truly good for them.
Fifth those who speak of evil being banal are saying it gets so boring and stupid that a person will do worse to try and get a buzz. That can come from merely witnessing it and feeling there is something unimpressive and unattractive there and the desire to do an evil that will be exciting creeps in. The seed will be there even if you think it is not. Witnessing the evil you do can do that. It does not have to be the witnessing of evil in another.
Sixth we are all encouraged by each other - not that we need it - to fight evil with evil. Jailing is an example. So seeing evil arouses that in us. We may call it justified but it is still evil. Necessary evil is still evil. The second you call any evil necessary and unavoidable you are saying the alternative is worse and that evil is needed in life. That numbs over time. You think needless evil is no big deal for sometimes you have to do evil anyway.
M Scott Peck saw evil as the lie and noticed it had power to trigger evil in the person who merely beholds it. If evil is a lie then like all lies, it is able to instill and nurture something in you.
Peck pointed out that witnessing and studying evil will do something to your soul. Some kind of damage sets in. Evil infects those who behold it. I would say that if the evil is imagined or you think you see it, the same thing will happen. The evil you see in others is too much about the evil in you. That would apply to Satan most of all. Surely Jesus and his followers see that? Do they not care? Evil depends on deception and that is one reason why it can have surprising capturing effect on the witness. That aside it seems to appeal to the bad side of the person. It corrupts and threatens further corruption.
Wily Peck did not admit though that understanding why a person did evil means you are letting them give you reasons and excuses for being evil yourself. Psychologists say that understanding is not condoning. True. But it is condoning an evil person helping another to understand them and the person can only understand them if they have evil within themselves. If evil has a contagious influence that cannot be fully explained as everybody says, then listening to the evil person even when your intention is to help and understand is dangerous. Loving the sinner and hating the sin would be impossible and also irresponsible. It would be itself evil.
The end result is a limbo. The evil person needs understanding and cannot be granted it.
Religion has quack treatments for evil such as prayers and rites and sacraments. These only add to the dangers for if you look at evil without having any decent means of combatting it then you are asking for evil to take root. Also, no matter what evil is, if the remedy is a sacrament or a spell or a prayer or something else supernatural or paranormal that implies that this matters more than understanding the evildoer. Assuming everybody needs to be heard and understood and then helped, to put magic first would be disgraceful. Jesus by his nonsense about changing lives and washing sins with the ransom of his blood has a lot to answer for.
It seems that unless you can do something about it and are prepared to do it, you should not be looking at the evil at all. Even if you justify observing evil behaviour, how many times have you done that and walked away and surprised yourself? Only a person drawn to evil wants to see it or hesitates and gazes at it before reacting against it. Notably, there is no evidence that Jesus did anything to stop the adulteress in John 8 from being stoned by another mob. He dignified the accusations against her by listening to them.
Psalm 101:3-4 says, "I will set no worthless or wicked thing before my eyes. I hate the practice of those who fall away; it will not grasp hold of me. A perverse heart shall depart from me; I will not tolerate evil." The Psalm of course is ignored for Christians like their horror stories and the Bible has plenty of its own.
Because evil hides in good and lies about itself you don't really so much see or detect it as you do surmise that it is there and where exactly it is and what it is doing. It may pose as something neutral or confusing if not good. Good is often in the eye of the beholder and so is evil. Nobody sees the proper picture. So the problem is not just in good and evil but in the person looking on as well. Evil is going to enter you whether it is just a negative or whether it is something even darker like a malevolent force. And especially if it is the latter.
An ethicist or a Messiah like Jesus who cannot outline these things is not an ethicist at all but full of bs. It is like calling someone who never teaches addition a math teacher. The things above are more than basic, they are virtually everything.
Projection means that when you hate or love something, it says more about what you are like and what you prefer than the object of hate or love. One can serve a God who bears too much of a resemblance to what they would want him to be or to do for them. For that reason, crusading for the love of God can be hugely about self-love in the guise of God. For that reason crusading against sin can be about your guilt over wanting to sin that way. Or it could be that you get a placebo from the thought of God fighting evil for you know you are not doing much. The evil you battle outside of you is already within. You don't have a God to be your psychiatrist and root it out of you. It is no wonder God and sin are too much about your inner aspirations and image of yourself.
The Bible says Adam and Eve ate the fruit of a forbidden tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God forbade them on pain of sin. Some say that Adam and Eve wanted the knowledge of good and evil thinking that like God they could know what evil is and know it deeply but not be contaminated by it. So they got their knowledge of evil and corruption set in. Corruption definitely set in for the first thing they did was deny responsibility and try to blame everybody else. The message is sin when it happens denies any blame. Every sin involves a lie. Evil is a lie so that is how it can get into you unawares just because you dally with somebody evil.
Jesus however told us he sought out sinners and wanted us to do the same. If he cannot protect us then he is to blame for the consequences.
My point is also that if Jesus was a false prophet and a fraud then you are in the presence of evil by being Christian or by co-operating with Christianity at any level. Same if you are something else that revolves around the presence of a dodgy saviour or deity. If there is no God there could still be some way the likes of Jesus gets the hold they have over people. It is frightening how some religions when they get to a certain size by default become virtually immune to any assault from the truth. (Parents are to blame for letting the religion get to that stage!) Islam is unharmed by Muhammad's abuse of Aisha a child. Christianity's bloodthirsty scriptures are respected and made sacred and God is insulted by being told the Bible is his word. So where does the sinister "hold" come from? It can be seen as some kind of natural force that cannot be detected or is not detected or that hides itself. Or it can be seen as a deceiving or perhaps malign spiritual or paranormal force. Maybe that is what baptism of babies, a rite that intended to put spiritual energy into a baby, is REALLY for! Why somebody so vulnerable?
FINALLY
If you need evil inside before you can understand that it is happening and what it is doing it is no wonder there is so much hate and division between those who claim to be heroes against evil. If you breed evil inside when you point at evil and sin you have an explanation for why moral crusades do so much harm and people who claim to be upright are suspected of fakery. It is a very important subject for it automatically denies that anybody such as Jesus is really all-good or can speak for a God of love.