The Nature of Evil

Dante: Evil is the "sins of the wolf;" an inner black hole so vast that nothing will fill it.

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo, The Lucifer Effect: "Evil consists in intentionally behaving in ways that harm, abuse, demean, dehumanize, and destroy innocent others -- or using one's authority and systemic power to encourage or permit others to do so on your behavior."

Philosopher Hannah Arendt: She coined the term the "banality of evil," after Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann was pronounced normal by psychiatrists.

Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie: "Evil people are chronic scapegoaters."

St. Augustine: Evil is "an essential nothingness."

Ralph Waldo Emerson: "An absence of light; shade; no essence."

Goethe: Evil is "to render invisible another human consciousness."

Baudelaire: "The Devil's cleverest wile is to convince us he doesn't exist."

John Milton: "A tortured soul who makes others dance to the music of his own despair."

But to discern evil, we need to go beyond the guidance of the experts. We must decide with our own eyes, ears, and nose, whether a person passes the "stink test."

Humans possess an extraordinary sixth sense -- our intuition. St. Jerome called intuition, "synderesis:" an infallible God-given ability to distinguish between good and evil.

Yet, we're told not to trust our gut because it's not nice to be judgmental. In these politically correct days, where everybody is good, even terrorists, we're supposed to dismiss our intuition, shove it underground, lest we offend anyone.

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