Evil Definition Essay

Are you evil? Is anyone really evil? What even is evil? Evil is an adjective and noun. In the noun sense it means something that is bad, not good, foul. In the adjective form it means that a person, place, or thing is bad in elementary terms and demonic to the extreme. In a religious standpoint, it means to commit sin, or something similar to Satan. Religiously, evil means sin, and we all commit sin, but that does not really make us evil. The fact that we all have sin in our body the second we are born gives us the ability to act out a sin. Take two major events, 9/11 and the Holocaust, are the people who committed them evil? We refer to those both days as a day when evil happened, but are the people evil, or did they take advantage of the

ability to commit sin? Children in religious schools are taught that sin is evil and evil is sin and that everyone has Original Sin, so throughout our lives we will have done at least one evil act. The simplistic terms taught to children is what truly defines evil that evil, being sin, is within all of us, but is within us to act upon it, and it is due to World cultures we can become the noun form of evil.
When talking about religion in any sense there is disagreement, but in this case it best defines evil. Monsignor Lorenzo uses ethos to establish that he hears evil, sin, on an everyday basis as a priest. Lorenzo states, “As a priest, I deal with good and evil all the time” (Line 1). Then he expands on the Catholic truth of Original Sin, “Well, first of all, as a human being, I live good and evil all the time, within me” (Lines 1-2). Original Sin the idea that when Adam and Eve ate from the apple, God punished them and all of those who descended by giving them original sin. From that point on we, as humans, are subjected to pain, evil, sins. Adam’s and EVe’s children then proceeded to kill one another, an example that no one was pure after that incident. The only people who could be pure is Virgin Mary and Jesus. They had to be sin free, evil free, to open the gates of Heaven and to redeem Original Sin. Though Jesus completed the prophecies, we still all have Original Sin. It is upon us though to act an evil act, henceforth committing a sin. We all have the ability, it is just us that decides whether or not we actually do evil.
On Spetember 11, 2001 Osama Bin Laden had an idea, he wanted revenge. The green eye devil is exactly what the name suggests; it is a devil. As one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, he believes what he was doing what right. What we saw, the victims, was pure evil. Typically, when we commit evil we do if towards a specific person, group, or idea. Bin Laden attacked everyone. In his case, he took his ability to do evil and made a day known throughout history as a day where pure evil happened. Even Priest Lorenzo talks about this, “But 9/11 was different. There was a reality present, something it was different.” He then continues to talk about how in the event of 9/11 there was no one real victim, we were all affected, all targeted. He then suggests that, “A boundary has been broken that opens up the floodgates to unstoppable horror, because human is all we are, all we can be, all we can appeal to.”
World War II is a known even to every teenager across the world. What Hitler did was atrocious, but where did he start? Was he always evil as we perceive? Within Adolf Hitler’s life, Adolf Hitler was a poor child, a mailman, a person with an idea and the work ethic to change something. He had very little money; he wanted for the other countries to forgive what their grandparents did. To try and make this a reality, he started a political campaign and people agreed with him. Although, as he got more powerful people looked for him to blame specifically someone. In his mind, the Jewish people were the people to blame. After that, he tortured the Jewish people and the rest is known, but his original idea was a decent one in the beginning, but he was not evil growing up as a child; he was no evil as a teenager. It was once he blamed someone that he allowed for evil to corrupt him. Though, none of us are perfect, but some are better than others. In Adolf Hitler’s case, he was better than some until he allowed himself to commit sin without punishment, for we are only human; we all have original sin that we expand on as time goes by.
Ergo, the simplistic terms taught to children is what truly defines evil that evil, being sin, is within all of us, but is within us to act upon it, and it is due to World cultures we can become the noun form of evil.

I personally believe that evil is within all of us, but in American religious culture we call it sin, and in american culture we do not even have a name for the little evils, the little sins we do every day. Being disrespectful is something that is associated with rudeness, but it is also associated with teenagers. Lying is something that we try not to do, but it is associated with little children. Breaking the law is illegal, yet adults who drive get pulled over everyday. All these things, are sins that we do not name in American culture. In religious culture, we call it sinning. Within the Catholic Church, we are all human meaning we are all sinners. They are commutative. It is within us to be evil, to act evil, to be the adjective form of evil, but that does not mean that we are evil, the noun sense. We may act small evils, but that does not make us fully evil, that makes us human. Those documented in history as “pawns of Satan,” decided to act on that ability to do evil, and in World culture, we declared them the noun form of

evil.