is ISIS evil?

Even if you look at the dictionary, the definition of evil is somewhat subjective.

When you say something is morally wrong or bad, whose morals are you taking into account. By our standards, yes, they are evil. By their standards, as it was pointed out before, they're the heroes, saving the world from damnation.

Just take a look at the definitions, all of them can be looked at from their perspective as well, and, taking that into account, we're the evil ones.

EVIL

adjective
1.
morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.
2.
harmful; injurious: evil laws.
3.
characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
4.
due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation.
5.
marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition.

noun
6.
that which is evil; evil quality, intention, or conduct: to choose the lesser of two evils.
7.
the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.
8.
the wicked or immoral part of someone or something: The evil in his nature has destroyed the good.
9.
harm; mischief; misfortune: to wish one evil.
10.
anything causing injury or harm: Tobacco is considered by some to be an evil.
11.
a harmful aspect, effect, or consequence: the evils of alcohol.
12.
a disease, as king's evil.

adverb
13.
in an evil manner; badly; ill: It went evil with him.

Idioms
14.
the evil one, the devil; Satan.

Someone above said that evil has to do with suffering, but what if we have to make someone suffer in order to save many? Is that still evil, or a necessary sacrifice "for the greater good"?

I would like to say I'm a pacifist, and that I want everything to have a peaceful and blissful end, but I'm a work in process on that. In my mind, I can say that I would like to see it happening, but I'm not seeing it happening. I'm just worried by everyone not involved on it that will suffer.

Do I think ISIS is evil? Sure but it's much deeper than just are they evil. They're just a reaction to the problem of Western foreign policy that evolved from NSSM 200 . So ever since the US and it's allies have been giving money and weapons to these extremists, those extremists, overthrowing governments and all the collateral damage that this activity incurs. Sooner or later as previously mentioned in this thread, bloodshed begets bloodshed.

It's like Game of Thrones, you've got all these different groups (USA, EU, NATO, Russia, China, Middle East) who's criminal and oligarchial leaderships feel entitlted to whatever they are after whether it's a global government, religious government, control of resources, preventing competition, destroying enemies, they all commit very extreme atrocities under the cloak of benevolence. Each side conveniently sees the other as evil and the actions used to puruse these interests are overtly violent pretty much across the board. For some reason it just seems to be too perfect of a global scenario as if this is how it should be (for a very small group of powerful people) like these events are contrived for a different purpose. Of course this opens the door to the conspiracy world which I know most people can't even handle what happens on TV, to dig deeper is just too much for the average person especially because in the rabbit hole there is endless amounts of garbage and ridiculous theories. ISIS could be a grand scale situation like #BlackLivesMatter in the US, which rich, old white men control or specifically elderly socialists fueling racial tension to divide and conquer the country. ISIS, as crazy as they are, could be being used to divide and conquer the world, or everyday people like you and I rather. Since WE will fund and be used as personnel for the military actions aboard and at home, WE will have to live in fear of and die in these attacks, WE will have to be watched and tracked, WE will continue to see our standards of living dwindle and dwindle due to widely PERCEIVED existential threats.

The migrant crisis brought and will continue to bring these events as ISIS claims they were abusing it all along, even after the attacks in Paris the EU says policy will not change so we should assume these attacks will continue as will civil unrest. Poland is the voice of sanity standing up and refusing to accept anymore refugees - but I will say that in a certain viewpoint the West and Europe is actually responsible for creating the conditions for these refugees to flee their home countries, so you reap what you sow.

I do feel as though ISIS is presented to us as the latest boogeyman - although they are definitely not imaginary, if you don't have understanding of the geopolitical situation over the last 50 years since the end of WW2 you will just assume they are evil animals and that opens the door for you to support further violence, destruction, collateral damage on all sides justified by the need to eliminate this group and intrude into areas of the world they supposedly have or will have influence.

As for solutions, well, this problem is global. As mentioned, there will be more attacks from the acceptance of waves of hundreds of thousands of refugees SOME of which will be terrorists (which by looking at the GDP to debt ratios of the US and EU they cannot even be taken care of without harming the citizens economically or even physically). More attacks will justify more crazy foreign policy and homeland security measures, it's just a tremendous mess that has been going on for a long time and the chickens have finally come home to roost. So a solution I would suggest is for every individual to become prepared with the basics like having food and water stored, back up plans for power, no debts and money saved, and definitely have arrangements for your defense - it's going to be a rough ride for everyone if this gets worse.

Alsa-him wrote:

CryojenX wrote:

Skryym wrote: If, however, ISIS is not evil, wouldn't there be a way to bring them back to peace? Wouldn't we have a better way of answering hate than more warfare? If love can not win them over, then maybe it is real evil we are dealing with.

You hit upon something that has been preoccupying my thoughts this evening. One of the things I have firmly believed for so long is that no one is beyond redemption, it's why I'm against cruel and unusual punishment and one of the reasons I'm against the death penalty. But how in the universe can someone who not only kills innocents, but specifically targets innocents to slaughter in large numbers simply because they have not explicitly declared their allegiance to the same cause, possibly be redeemed in any sane sense of the word?

To this group these "innocents" are not innocents at all but the cause of their own suffering. The United States and other arrogent Democratic nations created comunism and the vilocence with it but mistreating the indiviuals within the Societ Union and China. These countries have also mistreated the indivusals within ISIS and they are retaliating in the most logical way to get a message accross. The unfortuante aspect is that the only way national leaders and most of their citizens will hear the anger and problems is through violence. So this group targets the face of what they believe to be evil based off their religious and culture belifes. It is important to see their view of all this because if we decide they are evil we must understand we help created them that way based off how we live in the wrold. We may not directly affect them but we support national polices that continue to ignore and harass them when diplompacy was an ignored option. We need to take accountablity on our action and in actions before we decide someone or something is evil.

I suggest you review the Jedi Creed and take good long look at your statement. Especially "Instrument of Peace". There is no Justification of the empty murder of innocent people that want nothing but thier freedom to do what they want without harming others. Maybe we should all review the attack and learn thier names, thier families, thier friends, thier careers, and thier dreams. If anybody sees these people as anything other tool, might want to reconsider what they're looking for in this temple.

I'm entering this topic late, but, at every angle ISIS is evil. There's no sugar-coating that. They murder people. They cut the heads off of people who disagree with their religion. What else is there to say?

For those on the fence of what the definition of "evil" is, just imagine ISIS cutting off your head with a dull knife, and justify it with philosophy.

Hmm...I will try to give the simplest answer possible to a very complex question.

To me their actions are evil. As I believe that people are defined by their actions that would make them...well evil. There you made me say it. They murder innocent people and justify it with their religion.

To them they are heroes and martyrs for the noblest of causes. They are fighting back against centuries of oppression and are seeking justice for the horrors committed against them by groups who murdered innocent people and used their religion (the crusades) and politics (pretty much everything after the crusades) to justify it. Who, after all, is occupying who's lands?

Sadly things don't work like they do in the movies. Where the bad guy knows he's the bad guy (it is obvious. They have a long skinny mustache and wears all black after all. ) and the good guy doesn't really have to question anything. That's why I like movies where they fight orcs and zombies and evil undead monsters. Life is filled with complicated moral issues so sometimes I want a break from them.

Evil is in the eye of the beholder. From this end of things yes they are evil and yes they need to be stopped, but we can't overlook our own side's evils. I guess I didn't give the simplest of answers after all.

Adder wrote: Yea, but my working definition is a bit more detailed then just 'suffering' alone. I agree suffering is a subjective 'experience', but forcing suffering on someone else seems quite an objective action to me - and hence suitable for interpreting behaviour.

I didn't mean to belittle your definition, only to point out that it's easy to say "I can't understand why A isn't understood to be objectively A", because we're not dealing with letters of the alphabet, we're dealing with abstract concepts. Evil doesn't exist, at least not as an independent construct (i.e. you can't go to the store of Super Evil and buy 12 units of evil, rather you have to point to incidents or things which you call evil). Evil is part cultural, part mythological, part incidental (situational), and every bit as controversial as other things which are hotly debated. Look at the gun debate we just had, I would still insist that despite all the evidence presented there is still a compelling case to be made that guns are evil (even if I didn't do the best at making that argument), yet a large number of people from that debate walked away from it feeling that guns were not a/the problem.

i want to say that i appreciate everyones input so far

now, in response to the idea that IS see themselves as some kind of righteous noble crusaders for a holy cause

a person may believe they are any number of things and simply be wrong

heres a guy who thinks he is a powerful wizard and a ninja warrior

he puts 5,000 of his own money up for grabs in a challenge to prove it

sorry to spoil the ending but it turns out that he is not a wizard!

and the most important part of his self image (in terms of this conversation) is that it is completely out of touch with reality

as Hans said of Luke: "DELUSIONS OF GRANDEUR"
although there is a real condition associated with this term, which is more appropriately known as "narcissistic personality disorder"
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder/basics/definition/con-20025568

but my point with this is; WHO CARES if they think theyre doing something good?

rationalizing and justifying the abuse and degradation of others is one of the the recurring themes of all the homicidal mass movements of history

the fact that it (the justification) happens does not in any way counter the argument that the movements are evil

that there are complexities relevant the growth of IS i agree, and i dont want to OVER-simplify

but i also want to again point out that IS kill way more muslims than non muslims

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/07/isis-s-gruesome-muslim-death-toll.html

as well as engage in systematic rape and sexual slavery of muslim girls, as told by survivors and escapees of these events

https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/04/14/iraq-isis-escapees-describe-systematic-rape

and you cant really make the case that this counts as fighting back against the oppressive forces of the "evil" western zionists (or whatever)

---

the difficulty of this topic imo is the definition of evil

all i can do is offer certain recurring characteristics

which i would like to do eventually but for the sake of brevity it wont be this post

Adder wrote: We can use good v bad, right v wrong as subjective terms... but does evil really have to be another subjective term? To me its always been about causing suffering, .

Good or bad is subjective, SO WHAT!

My subjective belief is their actions are horrific and evil...

ISIL has received severe criticism from other Muslims, especially religious scholars and theologians. In late August 2014, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, Abdul-Aziz ibn Abdullah Al ash-Sheikh, condemned the Islamic State and al-Qaeda saying, "Extremist and militant ideas and terrorism which spread decay on Earth, destroying human civilization, are not in any way part of Islam, but are enemy number one of Islam, and Muslims are their first victims

and have nothing to do with religion and everything about unrestrained pursuit and abuse of power.

but it's only a subjective opinion.

I see a trend in the conversation, so I'm going to try to rip it wide open and ask...

Why is subjective bad? I don't think anyone has outright said subjective is bad, but it feels like our conversation has shifted to one of subjectively evil versus objectively evil. If I think terrorists are evil, even though my definition of evil is subjective, is that any less meaningful to me or to those close to me? Does the fact that I have to explain what I mean by evil diminish the impact such a word has on others?

This is a question where there are no rights or wrongs
Since it all depends on perspective, some belive them to lead a holy crusade against non-belivers and some belive them to be demons in human form

What i belive them to be is not muslims, and we should nor claim them to be representatives of islam
I personally belive that Daesh (IS) is a terrible terrorist group, that must be dealt with
As i do not belive in death as a solution to conflicts they must be dealt with in a diplomatic way first, if that is not possible then i am afraid we must sadly fight them with weapons

We can not allow hatred for them cloud our judgement, for if we allow it to, we will not only bring war upon Daesh, but on all muslims aswell