The Scales of Good and Evil:
Part III
Cliff Pickover
Copyright 2000, 2001, 2002 by Cliff Pickover
If you liked this page,
visit Cliff Pickover's main home page for more lists.
"The Scales of Good and Evil" is a trademarked term.
On the main
web page on Good and Evil
I presented a list
of the Top Ten evil and good people
of all time. The debate started on this page, continued in Part II, and
continues below.
Please add your votes. Who would you like
to see added to the list? What alterations would you make to the list
or the ordering? Do the scales of good and evil balance?
From: Keith Warren
I can think of a few more evil people who might go on your list...
I don't know who the instigator of the
Rwanda genocide was, but he probably should be there. And I personally
think that the Wanli Emperor deserves some consideration. He was one of
the later emperors of the Ming dynasty; ruled from about 1580 to 1630. He
wasn't actively evil, exactly. When he was about 20 years old, his mother
refused to let him marry the woman he wanted. (Under the Confucian system,
even the emperor was bound by filial piety.) He replied by going on
strike, and for the rest of his reign he simply refused to do much of
anything. Since the Confucian bureaucracy depended on imperial
appointments, and since he had a very long reign, the government of the
country slowly withered, and the Ming dynasty collapsed a few years after
his death. Like I say, not actively evil, but there is something
frightening about a man who is so self-absorbed that he is willing to wreck
a country because he didn't get to marry his girlfriend.
We could also include any number of American frontiersmen, beginning with
the Puritans, who led massacres of American Indian noncombatants.
As for good people, how about Mahavira, the founder of Jainism? One of my
favorite choices would be George Fox, who comes across in his autobiography
(which he called his Journal) as being pretty self-righteous and obnoxious,
but who did found one of the largest Western pacifist religions, the
Religious Society of Friends. The service arm, the Friends Service
Committee, won the Nobel Peace Prize in the late 1940s. I've forgotten his
name, but there was an Iroquois leader in the mid-1600s who committed
suicide to protest the decision of the Five Nations to go to war against
the Hurons. (The leaders of that war would, of course, be nominees for the
evil list; the Hurons, along with the Eries, were completely
annihilated.) There were a number of women in 19th century America who
worked furiously at improving the lives of the poor, prisoners, and people
with mental illness. Lucretia Mott and Jane Addams come immediately to
mind--Addams, of course, did much of her work in the early 20th
century--but there were plenty of others.
From: AL
Dear Dr Pickover
I have read with interest the page hosted at
https://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/vlad.html
Your discussions with the people who responded to your info about Vlad were
interesting. What interested me the most was your constant failure to
provide evidence of the truth of the facts presented on your evil top 10
page (https://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/good.html). You cite the
following internet web site as the single source of information for your
documentation: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Cavern/3987/4.html which
relies, by it's own admission, on largely anecdotal evidence. What are your
mysterious "other sources"? Anyone who has a university education should
have learned the basics of citation and bibliography in documenting
research. Provide us with some, please! In the name of science and history!
In the name of academic rigour! May I refer you to the following academic
library's internet research guide for info on documenting online research,
as well as evaluating web site content
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html
The emotive language on your web page is singular, but whatever gets you
through the day; more power to the net for allowing freedom of speech
(Article 19, Universal Declaration of Human Rights). I am uninterested in
changing your opinion; I am only irritated by your lack of proof and/or
documentation. I am also uninterested in debating the nature of good and
evil with you, as this is subjective, complex beyond such easy division
into opposites and I sense that our opinions differ.
Personally, I have no reliable knowledge of Vlad and I cannot comment on
the historical accuracy of your account. I do have one question for you:
Why have you ignored requests for proof/ documentation of the facts(?) you
present online about Vlad?
I wonder - can it be a hoax, like your 'esp' experiment? (Someone in our
office geussed that you used that old card trick of not displaying ANY of
the cards shown in the previous page. Good one). So, is this whole thing a
joke? Surely you can't be serious!
Living in hope
Alka
From: "P-j"
Dear Cliff
btw, I also understand (I think) that your main purpose on the evil page is
to engage with the concepts of good vs evil and what they mean to human
beings. It's not that I don't get that, it's just that I prefer detailed
documentation. I agree that Vlad doesn't *sound* like a wonderful
neighbour, but I also wonder at our need to slot people into good and evil
categories. I wonder why we do that? Maybe it feels safer; perhaps it's an
attempt to hide from our own darker nature or uncouscious thoughts and
desires which are not 'good'. One thing that struck me on the site was how
people responded with a strong need to do this. Most of the respondents you
quote don't seem comfortable accepting that 'evil' people can also be good.
They seem uncomfortable with the complexity of our human nature and how
that can manifest in behaviour which is both good and evil - from one person.
One last thing that I found interesting - there are no Americans on your
evil list. Perhaps this is evidence of *your* conditioning? (You
mentioned conditioning to Marius.)
Ah well, enough potted psychobabble from me today. Back to work.
I appreciate your time, I'm sure you are very busy. Nice to meet you.
Warm regards
Alka
Cliff says:
Here's a nice site, that the Encyclopedia Britannica says
is one of the best on the web for Vlad:
http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~emiller/VladT.htm
From: Marcel
In order to clarify concepts, I propose those definitions for The Scales
of Good and the Evil in www.pickover.com:
Good-1 is a person with high probability to go to heaven when dieing.
Evil-1 is a person with high probability to go to hell when dieing.
Other definitions could be named Good-2, Good-3, ... Evil-2, Evil-3, ...
Marcel
From: Phil Jackson
I think a great number could be added to this list - mostly unnamed and
unknown - those Mullahs and "religious" teachers in Pakistan and similar
countries that are
training generations of young people to the ways of jihad and suicide
attack.
Surely this form of radical Islamisist thought is directly
Satan-Inspired. Taking the
helpless and totally ignorant and molding them into such is a Great
Evil, especially
when considering that they would be far too cowardly to risk themselves
in ANY
way. For those in the free world who would disagree - then go get
yourself a little
cultaral diversity experience in Somalia or some such hellhole....you
deserve it.
Phil
From Candi:
Read the e-mail from Martin L. re: Clinton vs. Vlad. Scary stuff -- his =
remarks about Arabs -- especially after 9/11!
Love your lists and agree. I must be a non-intellectual, too!
Candi
From: brian
First off, understand that I am _horribly_ biased (for example, I
would put Bill Clinton near the pile of "most evil"...he just drips
evil. He hasn't killed masses, only duped them, though, so he does
not go on the list).
Based on the "saving lives" argument you (and others have used) I
would argue that Ronald Reagan potentially saved millions to hundreds
of millions of lives. He saved lives on a scale of what Mao and Vlad
saved (according to sympathizers) and did it without the associated
"horrors" that Mao and Vlad needed to "prove" strength and leadership.
Even his biggest political misstep, Iran-Contra, was an error whose
ultimate goal was freedom of hostages. Compare that to Bill Clinton,
whose scandals were for personal glory or profit (or pleasure).
From: Stefan Obenauer
hi there.
i am missing elizabeth bathory on your page. look her up on google. she killed
about 600 young women, torturing them for months on end, bathed in their blood
to let her stay young. she was extremely nasty. for example she grabbed girls
at the jaws and tore their head apart. after she was captured, it was forbidden
to say her name...
s.
From: Svein Olav Nyberg
I stumbled across your web page on a search for something quite
different, and must say it's quite astounding. The only thing I
wonder about is your time compression machine. For you obviously must
have such a thing to be able to do all the things you do. So why not
produce it on an industrial scale?
As for good and evil people: I wonder if Jesus might not score very
high on both the good duys list and the evil guys list. And maybe
there is no contradiction in this. For to my knowledge, Hell was
invented - or at least introduced - by Jesus. It was his promise to
the disbeliever. All this while at the same time living a life that
has been an inspiration to pacifists worldwide. Moses falls into the
same kind of category, and maybe Mohammed as well. What do you think
of Milarepa? Would his "good" have existed without his "evil"?
--
Svein Olav Nyberg
From: Svein Olav Nyberg
Milarepa is a "saint" of Tibetan Buddhism. He was an evil sorcerer
who according to legend had thousands of lives on his conscience. But
he started regarding the consequences of his actions; for the evil
done in this life, he would have to pay with some very long cycles in
the hell worlds. That was his karma. So he set out to do the only
thing that could save him from the consequences of such karma: He set
out to become a buddha in that very lifetime. He attained his goal,
and from that blessed a hundredfold many people and even a few
deities with liberation. If the story itself interests you, a very
good account can be found at
In general, it seems a disproportinately large share of saints of
both Buddhism and of Christianity have a background of evil, which
acts as the motivation for their later sainthood. A prime Christian
example is the apostle Paul, who hunted down Christians until his own
conversion on the road to Damascus.
I think we can see the opposite, as well: Evil being motivated by
good. The phrase "the road to Hell is pave with good intentions" is
no emty saying. Not only in the sense that do-gooders often end up
making more damage than good by their meddling, but also in the more
profound sense that means become justified by ends. I have heard it
said that mothers are the cruellest of warriors, for they have
something to fight for, and they have only loss to achieve by
moderating their methods. Was that "Apocalypse Now"? I would add
fathers, too. Would you find yourself limiting your actions short of
what is needed to save your child if such a situation ever came to
pass?
But maybe worst of evils is when the Good Goal becomes abstract. How
many have not been killed in the name of abstract Good? You listed
Pol Pot and Stalin, whose regimes were Utopian hopes of the highest
abstract Good, and Torquemada, who was doing similar things in the
name of Christian Good. A Good Cause is able to bring about far more
suffering than the most demented private killer; for Good Causes
recruit and motivate people to do what ever their perceived Goodness
needs done.
Hmm ... I got off on a rant about more than Milarepa, it seems.
Anyway, back to Milarepa: I saw that you had written a book about
abnormal mind and genius. You will find a lot of that in Tibetan
Buddhism. Milarepa was seen as totally crazy by his own sister
(sitting naked, green-skinned and starved in a cave ... wonder why)
yet he was a religious genius. The Tibetans even have a name for it
"crazy wisdom". But maybe that's all in your book already?
Svein Olav Nyberg
From Lou Novellino:
Mr. Pickover:
There were 12 million Indians living in America before the European invaders
arrived. By the time they were through and this country was settled, there
were 120,000 Indians left. The extermination, slaughter, and killing of
indigenous wildlife (buffalo, cougars, wolves, etc.) proceeded pari passu
with the settling of the continent. William James Sidis' works on Native
American tribes are recommended and, in part, accessible on the Internet.
True enough, without all of this, the modern industrial-technological system
may never have evolved. Good? Evil? Apologetics? Theodicy? La Fontaine
has a fable "La Besace", also highly recommended.
Lou Novellino
Middletown, N.J.
dary--
From: JimWebb66
hello -
just wanted to add - Albert Fish - very evil - if you don't know his story -
here is a link to get you started - Yahoo! Society and Culture > Crime >
Types of Crime > Homicide > Serial Killers > Individuals > Fish, Albert -
interesting site though - I've had alot of fun reading through some of it - i
don't always agree with you though - vlad tepes in my opinion should not be
so high on the list - i actually don't think he should be on the list at all
(a list of 10 that is) - he did do some "not so nice" things - but there are
many others who inflict/ed far more pain and suffereing on people then he did
From: "Dan Conine"
Hi Dr. Cliff,
I'm sure you have treated the subjects thoroughly in your books (haven't
read them yet..), but I would like to nominate a concept and a business
method as the biggest evil around us.
The concept is the idea that we are not responsible for our actions.
Originally, when polytheism dominated the world, if someone performed
unacceptable acts, they were supposedly 'possessed' by a particular god
or entity which made them act that way. "The DEVIL made me do it!" With
the proliferation of monotheism, a single, all-powerful prescient being
predetermined our actions, and our 'evil' tendencies came from an
'original' sin that we had no control over. Some savior comes along and
can now allow us back into heaven (and as such, back into a particular
church to pay a tithe). Which leads us to the MOST evil idea:
The business method of marketing. Through marketing, we have been sold
things we don't need, and didn't know we would ever need, for more than
we should ever have to pay. More people have died through the
machinations of trickery and deceit which are labeled 'salesmanship' or
'spin doctoring' or whatever you want to call it (but it is usually a
trumped-up way of saying "LIES"), than have ever been killed by
particular individuals. After all, what made Hitler hate Jews so much?
The perceptions he had came from years of religious marketing from all
sides. Whole cultures and countries and societies have been created,
destroyed, and employed in the name of leadership or fear-mongering.
When they don't know they are being manipulated by other people, groups
of people will do anything. The real sorry evil is ignorance of
influence.
We think that 'scientific' marketing has only just begun in the 20th
century or so. When we think of crooked, lying sales tricks, we think of
snake-oil salesmen, but how many among us think of churches. The same
techniques that are employed to coerce children to McDonalds have been
used for thousands of years to mold people into non-thinking followers
of cults. Fear of being different, promise of rewards, repetitive
rituals, shiny noisy crap, Surrealistic Leaders, and fake comraderie
have been revised and refined to the point that we don't even look for
these tricks anymore.
Pokemon toys ---Stained glass windows
Monopoly Prizes---Eternal life
Playing in tunnels---Praying in Pews
Constant Commercials---Hail Marys or Prayer 5 times a day
"Something for Everyone"---Excommunication if you don't.......
Ronald McDonald---The Pope
Dan
From: sorin
Hi there,
Is there a medal for the no1?
What-s the poit of this page? I don't think Hitler is sad beeing listed
in yuou top, I don't think anyone is happy seeing Hitler there...
Please go to a library and read!!!
How many people died because of Columb or should I ask how many millions
or how many cultures was destroyed....
Only God can say what is good and what is wrong.I don't think you are God.
please do not answer this mail I have better things to do.I's sad
because i lost my time reading your page.
By
From: "martins"
Osama Bin Laden, if you wanna e-mail me back use this address. =
From: noah279
Please put Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein on the list of the list of the
top 100 evil people
From: "A. Malik"
1. Osama Bin Laden shouldnt be on any of the lists (so keep it that
way). HE wasnt the one who flew the planes into the towers...! After
all, he promoted the attack as a retaliation for the attacks on the
Palestinians from the Jews (Israel) and the support from the USA - yet
they are not on the list.
2. The Prophet Mohammed should be at #1. You are probably guessing that
I am a Muslim...well, you're wrong! Muslims believe in the oneness of
humanity, and also devote themselves to the abolition of racial
prejudice, class prejudice, and other injustices of all kinds. Islam, in
its true form, has no priesthood: the muslim can communicate directly
with God at any time and in any way. No priestly intercession is ever
necessary. Muslim men and women are equal in the sight of God and
Islamic society. Without Islam, the Baha'i faith would have never
developed. The teachings of Muhammad had a profound and immediate
beneficial effect on society and the advent of mathematics, astronomy,
and science in general, whereas Baha'u'llah has not had such an effect
on our society. Therefore, the prophet should be above Baha'u'llah.
"The Prophet Mohammed should be placed on the evil list...[a lot of
bull]...The pyramids and cathedrals, while beautiful if viewed in
isolation from their origins, were created by the death, slavery and
misery of the masses who lived and died to build them. I cannot help but
see a blood covered gravestone when I look at a Cathedral. The flowering
of Arab culture in the middle ages was purchased with the blood of
peoples conquered in the previous centuries."
Get your facts straight (whoever wrote this)!! I am not a Muslim and
have read the Qur'an too. And I'll tell you this for nothing, the
goodness in the book (which are the words of God) are not of any
violence and The Prophet Mohammed did not believe in Revenge (or Karma,
like Buddah). It is true that distorted representations of Islam today
give it a bad name, but the Prophet could not live forever in order to
keep it bound. I could go on and on and on but you get the jist....!
In addition (in reply to the quote above) the Pyramids were built
thousands of years before Islam even came about! And cathedrals have
nothing to do with Islam! so what the hell are you talking about!
3. FRED WEST (someone touched on this before)...but I just wanted to
agree! Murdering his daughter, over 15 women, rape, abuse, torture and
his wife as an accomplice! Research this and turst me, you'll add him to
the evil list!
I am really not that interested in the EVIL list. But those who are the =
epitomy of goodness and promoted goodness should be recognised!
1. The Prophet Mohammed
2. Jesus Christ
3. Buddah
4. Baha'u'llah
5. Muhandas Ghandi
From: Susan Woehrle
To Cliff Pickover, or Whom it May Concern:
Ok, did anyone else notice that, although there are
two Americans on the good people list, there aren't
any on the evil list? I understand that, as an
American, Cliff, you have been subjected to the same
nationalistic propaganda that we all have, but if
you're going to try to make a list of good and evil
people, could you at least try to look at it from an
objective standpoint? I know, I know, the whole point
is to stimulate discussion, so here is my discussion!
Ok, yeah, Vlad the Impaler is a good choice, but you
obviously didn't know what you were getting into when
you started that argument with that Romanian guy,
Marius. Trust me, you do not want to enter into a
discussion with an Eastern European concerning morals
in politics. Based on the discussions I've had with
my Yugoslavian and other Eastern European friends,
these people are extremely fatalistic, and consider
tact to be the refraining from punching you in the
face during the argument. Obviously, in the writing
of a letter, causing physical harm is not a concern,
therefore tact is not a consideration. Also,
semantics are obsessed over, with winning the argument
valued above furthering understanding (although that
may be the case with people in other parts of the
world as well).
Do you ever stop to wonder why people in countries
such as, say, Yugoslavia don't like America (well,
obviously you did)? Duh! Because of the bombing of
Serbia (and several other un-deserving countries)! I
mean, of course Serbia's enemies were pleased, but
that's not what I'm talking about. Indeed, most of
Eastern Europe, not to mention the rest of Europe,
considers America to be the most meddlesome,
self-righteous, and hypocritical country in the entire
world (and don't get me started on the Kyoto treaty!).
Of course there would be animosity towards Clinton;
as he is looked upon as the bomber of Serbia, he would
be hated just as any military foe would be hated while
looking at the smoking rubble left behind.
Do I think that Bill Clinton is evil? Not really. I
think that bombing a country is evil, and I think that
it was unwise, but in Clinton's case, as in the cases
of most political leaders, I tend to separate the act
from the person. In some cases. There have always
been human beings (yes, they were human, despite what
some say), who, as a result of something rotten inside
them, committed atrocity after atrocity, with evil
being a part of their very souls. However, I do not
harbor hatred towards them, I pity them, and wish that
I could understand, and so prevent them from coming
back in other individuals.
In fact, I think that President Truman was a good guy,
but he dropped the bomb, so to speak, and so he
allowed a very evil thing to happen. Would I have
done differently in his place? I'm not so sure, as I
have never been in a position even remotely similar to
that. Hell, I wasn't even class president! I guess
my point is, everyone is doing the best they can, and
if the best they think they can is causing evil to
happen, others need to take notice and have it
stopped. If they don't then it is not the individual,
but the system that is evil.
You wanna know who I think was evil? Henry VIII. I
mean, it's one thing to have thousands of strangers
killed, but it's another to get married to a woman,
have her executed, get married again, have her
executed, etc, etc.
In some ways, I find that more disgusting, because
it's so personal, and because he didn't even benefit
from it, in the least, and he didn't think he was
doing the right thing. He knew it was wrong, the
church told him it was wrong (not as wrong as divorce,
but hey!) but he did it anyway, because he didn't give
a damn about right and wrong. Isn't that what evil is
all about? Disregarding morals?
As for good people, I've always been a big fan of
Elenor Roosevelt. I mean, God, what a great person!
Here she was, married to a relative after a miserable
childhood filled with being told she was ugly,
realizing she was a lesbian, having your husband cheat
on you--my God, all of the cards were stacked against
her. Except one; her husband was willing to share the
power with her. She did so much with that bit of
power, so much good for black people, women, children,
the list goes on. She was the eyes and ears of her
husband confined to a wheelchair, but she was also the
heart.
Ok, I think that religious figures should be
off-limits, both for the good and the evil people.
Sure, you'll have to completely re-write your lists,
but hey, at least they'll be more objective. Also,
Abraham Lincoln? Come ON! Give me a break! To
disregard so many people for good ole Honest Abe? I
never use this expression, but that was a very pussy
decision. There, I used an extremely misogynistic
expression to make my point, are you happy now? Yeah,
I'm sure there are plenty of people that never made it
past the fourth grade and who don't watch educational
tv, surf the internet, or read books that would agree
that he was one hell of a model American, but you're
supposed to be to educated to present such nonsense.
He was an interesting and relatively moral president,
but he definitely does not belong on a top 10 "Good"
list. Top 100 Good People in American History, maybe.
In fact, because your list seems to be based, in
part, on the relative suffering caused or averted by
each individual, Lincoln being a part of the Civil War
would get him a spot on the Evil list, considering the
suffering that resulted from that war. I think that
averting the Civil War, while more difficult, would
warrant anyone a spot on the Good list.
Do I think Good and Evil Balance out? Yes and no.
Yes, because at any given time, I believe that there
are equal parts good and evil in the world. No,
because the powers ebb and flow, so that at any one
time, in any one situation, one could have power,
while the other does not. I would compare it to
global weather patterns; while you could say that the
world has an average temperature, in some places it is
hot, and in some places it is cold. As the season's
change, the position of the Earth, as well as the Moon
change, altering our climate in dramatic ways. Can
humans destroy this balance? Global warming seems to
be an indication that we can.
I guess since good and evil are a bit more abstract
than the weather (although not much more so), it is
hard to say whether or not humans could ever disrupt
the balance. Could good be overthrown entirely? How
about evil? Would one simply replace the other,
causing the concepts to simply trade places in our
minds? Maybe. I will now leave you to ponder these
questions while you draft a new list.
Keep on presenting those ideas!
-Susan
P.S.- Never read your books, but I love your internet
stuff. I first stumbled onto your sight when I was
researching African Masks. I was quite taken with
your, shall-we-say, eclectic interests. Also, I am
addicted to Alien Tiles.
From: "cq"
Dear Sir,
I saw your web site listing top 10 people having performed mainly
evil and good deeds on this planet:
https://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/pickover/good.html
I certainly wish to add president Bush to the evil list.
No day passes or he does another effort to sicken and
eventually destroy the planet and everythin on it.
His very bad influence (and of the part of his surrounding that is
on the same wavelength) on an, unfortunately,
global scale on political, military (dangerous!), environmental,
social and other issues (and the most important issues like
health care, eduction and environment being neglected
in favor of very destructive counter-productive military and nationalistic separative short term selfish materialistic purposes,
who badly influence not only the whole world and increase its problems, including the Israel problem who now too easily abuse the absurd arbitrary
war against terrorism without any structural remedies against its causes,
on the contrary even, as a justification but also the US itself,
among other by wasting the funds saved for the future
by the efforts of the Clinton Administration)
has almost never been seen before under any American president,
as I remember from history.
The only good is that there may be a very strong and decided
reaction world-wide against this, if it's not too late by then.
Best regards,
Stefaan Van Nuffel.
From: "s. lukos"
Geesh, Doc,
I just scanned the letters following your list of good and evil people,
and my reaction is that you might consider editing a bit more. Call it
discrimination, censorship, whatever- it's you're sight. You can do what
you wish. And you will.
I wish you wouldn't be so democratic. Some of these letters are
embarrassing: "you must be a Jew...." I know there are imbeciles
masquerading as normal people out there; to see such psycho-babble is
disturbing. I try to ignore things that incite me want to rip someone's
guts out with a rusty meat hook, then step in the goo. It's not healthy,
I tell ya. It makes my eye twitch.=20
I'm going to take my meds now. And my antacid pills. Damn this twitch!
Am I evil?
Stravo Lukos
From: Richard Winter
how about saint Dominic...who flayed Hypatia alive ..the last light of the
library of alexandria...
and sheik omar..who decreed to burn the books of the library
....bringing us into the dark ages...
rick
From: "Ed Gesumaria"
Add Ed Gesumaria, trust me. He's called the Neo-Christ.
From: Susan Woehrle
Cliff-
Ok, just did some research, and that one guy Holmes on
your list is from America. Geez, what a psychopath!
Well, I reckon you knew that, which was the reason you
put him on there. Still, though, couldn't you have
found someone who couldn't have used insanity as an
excuse? Someone like the guy who orchestrated the
Trail of Tears, or something like that? Please add
this to my first letter, because I don't want to sound
like an idiot for saying you didn't have any Americans
on your bad guy list.
-Susan W
P.S.- I can see you've been quite busy since I last
looked, getting those letters on that Good and Evil
Page. Good for you.
From: fred murray
What about Walt Disney for your good list? He sure should
make it into the top 100. his uplifting imagination & animation
inventions brought joy & a measure of peace to friend & foe alike. come
to think of it Jim Henson might be
viewed in the same light. other than an eye for a well-turned female
leg at least until the unveiling of the first Disneyland Walt never
meant anybody any harm & as far as i can see never did any. i'm sure it
could be argued that Disney became a huge financial empire but not
during Walt's lifetime. what he actually did through his dreams was lay
the groundwork for good to be rewarded in like kind. both Disney &
Henson entertained & enlightened as well as educating the world over in
their own way.
the problem with this good-evil exercise is that it is difficult to
apply anything other than recent history since so much history is lost
misunderstood inaccurate or simply legend. even recent history is
suspect as we can see from debates over fdr truman & churchill just to
name a few. we still don't know who killed jfk so how can we presume to
correctly interpret history? isn't that why we are doomed to repeat it
over again?
for some other good-list candidates i prefer malcolm x to martin luther
king. they were actually both non-violent but i don't think the civil
rights movement would have ever gained full strength had not good people
begun adhering to the black muslim faith. as a white northern christian
i can remember thinking of king as a troublemaker for black & white
alike. i thought of malcolm x as a CRAZY troublemaker. well i was
obviously wrong but the threat arising from the misperception kept many
black persecutors at bay. it took awhile--about 5 years--but white
people as well as many black or african-american grew to respect this
group of people who simply led their lives in quiet dignity without
fanfare or sclc rhetoric. it of course didn't hurt to have some
high-profile athletes as representatives or spokespeople for the black
muslims but in general these people turned into very good role models
for everyone. 2 important deviations of the black muslims from the rev.
king philosophies stood out. first why would a society enslaved by
another society want to be identified with the offending society's
religion particularly when the offended society often had had its own
organized religion--islam--before being kidnapped. second why run
around constantly making empty-sounding statements about being just as
good as white people & being entitled to live among them? the black
muslims simply said "why on earth would we ever say we are as good as
our captors when we are obviously better than them?" why should we live
among them when they lie, cheat, steal, put down, persecute, burn and
murder. why do we want to go to their schools when they don't educate?
they scared us but they never hurt us. to me the black muslims
reclaimed for the african society whatever dignity & progressiveness it
might have stripped by the white man. it didn't hurt that we white
teenagers had agendas not unlike black muslims at that time of the
vietnam travesty. ironically it was the christians who went to war and
those scary muslims who chose not to kill.
anyway i wish i knew a few other good people besides americans but it's
difficult trying to imagine living in someone else's society. How about
simon bolivar. Sorry,
though, i forgot exactly what he did. Probably just as well
since who knows how many people he killed, right?
i believe albert einstein was more than well-meaning and should probably
be on the top 10 of the good list. he never meant to be political but
knew what the nazi germans were developing. i don't think his advocacy
for atomic weapons was initially for offensive purposes but rather as a
deterrent. the information & beliefs he advanced to fdr may well have
actually saved the world.
how about edison for the good list? or bell? did they ever hurt
anybody? didn't they really help a lot of people somewhat selflessly?
hey, you know who i like? da vinci! what was the matter with him? we
still don't even know the full impact he has had on mankind a half
milennium later. how about mark twain? tchaikovsky? or anton chekhov?
how about the crown prince of the good-evil clash alfred nobel?
did any entertainers have a world-wide impact for good?
how about jackie gleason, red skelton, bill cosby, emmett kelly or bip
the clown? i won't even go into sports from pele to babe ruth to
sadaharu oh.
i talked so long i almost forgot my bad guy nominations. actually the
only possible new one i can think of is rasputin. he seemed to be able
to practice mind-control
and sowed the wrong type of revolutionary seed against tsarism in
pre-bolshevik russia. he certainly seemed to have authored a tremendous
amount of intrigue. in short, what i'm saying is if there were no
rasputin there might not have been a lenin or a stalin.
that's about all i have for now. one suggestion might be to leave
jesus, buddha and the like off the list because they are the ones
defining the list. many of us feel that one or the other weren't even
men anyway but were actually divine. others don't even believe they
existed. might as well put in robin hood or king arthur. if you put
jesus in the good list one viable argument would be to put satan on top
of the evil list and so on and on. maybe you could substitute socrates
or aristotle. maybe even plato although he might have been a little too
strange.
anyway interesting concept. thanks for the ear. keep up the good work.
by the way most of the responders have some excellent points one way or
the other.
fred murray
From: (Dale Lehman)
Cliff,
This is Dale, from Planet Baha'i. I enjoyed looking over your
good & evil lists. I thought you might like to know that although
most of the available literature on Gilles de Rais paints him as a
monster, there are many who seriously doubt that he was actually
guilty of the crimes for which he was convicted and executed. Indeed,
his case was reopened not too long ago in France (where there are
apparently no time limits on such actions), and a French court reached
a not guilty verdict!
My wife Kathleen has had a keen interest in Gilles since she was
in high school, and over the years has done an impressive amount of
research on him. She had written up her findings and posted them on
our personal Web site, but after awhile she decided she didn't have
the time or inclination to handle the email that was coming in about
it. Basically, she concluded that the available evidence points to
political intrigue between France and Brittany as the real culprit in
the case. Gilles was caught in the middle and eventually saddled with
an outrageous (but fairly standard for the time) battery of false
charges in order to get him out of the way and give control of his
extensive and strategically-placed properties to Brittany's Duke Jean
V.
If she and others who have expressed serious doubts about Gilles'
guilt are correct, he doesn't come anywhere near belonging on the evil
list. So perhaps you might want to consider either removing him or at
least annotating the entry to indicate that there are a lot of
questions about what really happened. ;-)
--Dale
Home: http://www.erols.com/lehket
Baha'm Faith: http://www.planetbahai.org
From: "tarot"
We can only truly judge a persons evilness or goodness when the impetus
of their actions has ceased. So long as peoples actions are still
influenced by an individual he is still to be accurately judged. Jesus
christ as an example may have been considered the most evil man that
ever lived during the crusades, or during the attempted conversions of
many people of different beliefs right up until the present day.
However most people in this century believe the opposite. So is our
opinion now valid with the benefits we have of modern technology to
guide us. Or will it change in a hundred years time when we discover
that jesus's preaching and words were all designed to have far reaching
effects into the future for millenia. And how static is our view of
evil, is Carl Djerassi a saint for saving so many people so much
misery. Or is he a man with far reaching evil influence for his help in
elevating our favourite sin to the status of a healthy hobby that
provides hours of pleasure in decadent activity and no side effects
whatsoever other than official lowerings of ages of consent, followed by
personally prescribed unnofficial further lowering of levels of consent,
the descent of television standards where each program must go a little
further than the one before, and the propogation of the belief that we
can sink ourself as far into pleasure as we please with no new side
effects. The energy that people once spent on improving the world
around them, developing the world we now live need be pushed in this
direction no more, the world needs no more growth we now have the
freedom to put our energy into dampening mattresses. Pushing the
heights of our pleasure so far that pleasure begins to lose it's
meaning, until we find that extra little spike for our neuro
transmitters. How did we evolve to be what we now are? Triumph over
adversity, living through centuries and millennia of hardship. How
might we evolve into what we shall become following blindly our desires
and removing the obstacles we perceive with constantly upgraded
scientific discovery. Maybe we can come up with some fantastic
creations, but how weak and feeble the human race. Who does us the most
harm the one who strengthens us and tempers us like the blacksmith or
the one who spoils us and panders to our every wish. At any one moment
it is the one who ensured you feel good now, but everyones feelings are
different. The only way to get a truly objective answer is to wait for
a time when it is all over, however if it is all over was there ever any
real difference between good and evil, they both reach the same end many
deaths were caused by the finest men and many deaths were caused by the
worst men. In conclusion I can only say that neither good nor evil
exist except as fleeting moments in subjective opinion
From: Liggett Family
I think Jesus Christ should be number 1 good person
From: "Sellers David"
I'll have to offer a protest against mother Theresa. yes, her
compassion reached hundreds of people and the stuff put into books even
more; however, her misappropriation of funds left those hundreds back in
poverty. she continually raked in millions of dollars that went
undeclared. most went to catholic agencies funding administrative
duties and into building funds for her cloister, which goes emptier each
year instead of creatively providing a way for the poverty stricken
people to achieve independence and freedom not just of mind but also
community. therefore her stance basically lifted compassion with the
opinion that these people should still be physically oppressed. in
addition her continued support of dictators that committed atrocities
themselves she is no better than the US, which continues to call
terrorists only those that go against the businesses of the US.
Wisdom for the day:
For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
From: "Quintessencesluglord"
Hello,
Was reading over the site when I was reminded of when my friend mentioned
documenting every atrocity in the world. I mentioned that she would never
live long enough to see it through. Such is the nature of evil.
It does strike me that beyond "the people I would like/dislike to be in a
room with", the criteria used for evil is murder and numbers. Good of a
yardstick as any I suppose, although I've always felt betrayal to be among
the worse things perpetrated (could cite Dante as a yardstick, but I don't
really care).
Also the difficulties of history is written by the victors, and onward:
known evil against unknown evil. And are they truly evil? And by what
criteria? Leaves much room for doubt.
I wonder if it is really evil people or evil circumstances? And how many
other names would have been included if Hirohito (strictly by the numbers)
didn't exist or if Hitler got accepted into art school?
Too simplistic in either case.
As for good, non-violence seems to be the running theme. Does that make
violence evil? Avoidance of violence good?
I would probably be in the minority in thinking violence is a tool that can
be used for either.
Good seems to be at a loss to evil just because of the sheer scope of evil
(see above). I think of good as that which exalts the soul. Luckily there
has been more good than evil in my life, although none of which would make
your list (the lists for good and evil are highly personal, although I like
the "Satan Set" idea).
And what about those people that are a highly refined mixture of both?
Personally, I'd rather share a room with them than with Gandhi or Mother
Theresa any day.
THERE IS NOTHING MORE MORAL THAN WHAT A MAN CHOOSES FOR HIMSELF.
Reprint what you like.
From: amy
To Mr Pickover,
I really like the ESP Experiment, as you already know and I also
think that the effect of the rippling water in the caverns is really
smart and attractive. It looks very real. I find that after listening to
some of Enya's music, I can melt into a world of my own
surrounded by calming colours and peaceful sounds. It really
helps to relax me and bring out my inner self. A year ago in my
Religious Education lessons at school, we had to do a similar
exercise. I really enjoy everything we do in RE and would like to
teach the subject when I am older.
I also enjoyed having a look at your art work. I think that the
Circuit Swirl is my favourite. I like the way it fans out at the
bottom. The Infinate Curl is another of my favourites, it is very
effective.
I was very interested to read The Scales of Good and Evil. Some
of the methods used to kill people were pretty gruesome! There
really are some evil people in the world but I suppose, at least
there is some element of good to balance up the scales.
In answer to the questions that you asked about the Good and Evil
Scales, I think that it is easier to think of bad examples than good
ones because people are very insecure and it is easier to pick
faults than it is to praise people.
I think a good way to explain why I think this is true is an example
of bullying during childhood.
Bullies tend to pick on other people to hide there own faults and
make themselves look stronger and better people than they really
are. They want to show the world that there are worse people out
there than themselves.
When we have to think of people who have done good, we start to
look at our own lives and the way we have acted in the past. We
compare ourselves and possibly start to feel ashamed or guilty. I
think people need to open up to themselves and become aware of
who they are before they try to be something else.
(These are just my opinions, they probably aren't true but they are
just my feelings and reactions when I have been in similar
situations.)
I think it is easier to do something big and bad than big and good,
on a short term scale. It is easy to press a button and wipe out a
huge community of innocent people with a bomb than it is to
convert your life to poverty and experience the appalling conditions
that less fortunate people have to endure day by day, in order to
help them.
However, I think that on a long term scale, whether you are
religious or not, people have a conscience that catches up with
them sooner or later. Guilt eats away at their mind and even if it
has no phsical effect, the person could never live with themselves
deep down. They possibly even do more evil things to cover up
other evil things that they have done in the past.
Even if some good people like Mother Teresa have no possessions,
money, health, clothes, hygiene etc, they still have love, honour
and respect. They can feel true and pure to themselves and not
afraid to find out who they are and sacrifice their lives for the
happiness of others.
I think that the scales balance because although the evil people
probably killed more people than the good people saved, everyone
in the world remembers them for the evil acts they carried out.
They are regarded as evil, sick and twisted people and have no
respect or honour. However, people such as Mother Teresa, even
after she passed away, people still remember her and hold her and
her work in the highest standard of respect, admiration and love.
I think that a very good read that made me think about both sides
of conflict is 'Black Hawk Down'. It made me have a slightly
different way of looking at things. It tought me to look underneath
the skin and think of possible explanations and points of view,
other than your own. It also tought me that there are separate
elements of good and evil on both sides and things aren't always
what they seem.
Anyway, sorry to have droned on so much. I would be very
interested to know what you think about The Scales of Good and
Evil. Do you think it balances?
Thank you for reading this,
Amy Sorensen.
From: Daria
I'm interested in your sources on the Vlad Tepes entry. I've read a few
books on him which took a very different slant of his intentions - and
didn't include some details that you mention. In fact, I've never heard him
described as evil or sadistic - ruthless, yes. I'd say the same for Ghengis
Khan. He wasn't more bloodthirsty than his environment called for... and in
conquering most of the world he brought about more good than bad
consequences. At least one of those should be replaced with Caligula.
I am also surprised at the inclusion of Abraham Lincoln in the 'good'
section. Yes, Lincoln freed the slaves; but that was a political move, not
a moral one. He was an admitted racist, who thought that black people
shouldn't even live among whites in order to serve them.
I think there is room for women on the 'evil' list - Countess Elizabeth
Bathory, for instance. However, evil does not have to be restricted to
physical sadism. Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake" was an indication
of evil in my estimation.
From: APirkl
mother theresa needs to be moved from the "good list" to the "evil list".
why?
read christopher hitchens biography, _missionary position_.
From: "Chris Addison"
pretty good work on the bad list. the good list needs some more thought.
People are good or bad not solely because of their actions, but their
motivations. For instance, Abraham Lincoln did not free slaves (at all,
really) because slavery is wrong, much to the chagrin of the
white-washed-history buffs, but rather to cripple the southern states
financially.
Mother Theresas statement about this is how we fight abortion in Africa
says it all.
Chris Addison
Wildlife Ecologist
Cascadia Natural Resource Consultants
From: reception
Short and sweet. How about Jerry Falwell. He is quite evil for spreading =
lies and misinformation about homosexuals worldwide, and is particularly =
infamous for even blaming the recent terroist attacks on Gay Americans.=20
Jo
From: "aaron keeler"
i'd certainly remove mother teresa from the 'good' list, especially in
light of your position on birth control: mother teresa's dogmatic
insistence on the sinfulness of birth control has contributed to the
spread of std's, overpopulation, & the subjugation of women throughout
india & the region.
i'm not sure if you're measuring intent or result, but lincoln freed
the slaves largely as a matter of political expediency: industrialism,
not the agrarianism of the southern u.s., was the future. although i
must admit, i'm no real expert on this subject, i don't think my
position on lincoln is very unusual or contentious.
if you're including torquemada & vlad the impaler, people whose
contributions to history include, but are not limited to the butchering
of civilians, then henry kissinger & richard nixon should be on the
list. the u.s. military decimation of hundreds of thousands -- at least
-- of vietnamese, laoatian, & cambodian civilians is one of the high
points, in terms of sheer numbers, of 20th century violence.
and finally, just so it's not all blood & guts in my email, i
suggest as some of the 'goodest' people in history lao tzu, who may
never have existed; lester b. pearson, who was instrumental in the
creation of u.n. peacekeeping; & the author of silent spring, whose name
i can't recall, but whose work virtually invented the concept of
environmentalism. none of my 'good' nominees is perfect, but all are
worth considering, i think.
From: MHP
4
I question your placing of Moses on the list of the most good people on two
grounds. (1) It is not entirely certain that he ever actually existed. He may
be no more than a purely legendary figure of a particular ancient people. (2)
Assuming that he was a real person and the Old Testament contains an accurate
record of his life and deeds, he is responsible for killing quite a few
people, both among the Hebrews (for disagreeing with him, or rather, with
God's will), and outsiders, whom he directed the Hebrews to mercilessly
exterminate to the last individual, including women, children, the sick and
elderly, and even their livestock. Definitely not actions worthy of someone
generally regarded as "good." Oh, well, I guess it just shows that ideas
about what constitutes good and evil do change with time. Vlad Tepes and
Torquemada were looked upon favorably by many in their time. E-mail me and
give me some feedback.
MHP, North Providence, RI
From: "Neal, Thad M"
Cliff,
Found your page from a link in a story on disinfo.com.
I found your site very interesting. Not sure about the puzzle. Didn't
really get a chance to look at it in detail.
The list of good and evil is thought provoking. Would have included some of
the Roman Emperors. Also, McCarthy may not have killed anyone, but he sure
as hell highlights the insidious nature in humans.
I'm not really a believer in aliens per se. I just haven't been shown
anything tangible to go on.
I am very interested in your 4th dimension theory. I am a simple IT project
manager, but I like to ponder such topics to take me out of the world of
pushed implementation time frames and sky rocketing budgets.
Thanks for the effort.
Thad Neal
From: Leah Faerstein
I have an explanation for the Tepes debate. You see, in our history
books he was presented as our treasure from the past (the way you would
talk here about Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln).
The main reason he was revered was, I think, his success in staving the
Ottoman invasion - the major historical problem of that corner of Europe
for centuries. The torture part was very cursory mentioned, and mostly,
as someone wrote you as some socially redeeming action ("he did it to
the rich only") These were history books in a communist regime. So, I
was shocked myself in finding out the whole truth about Tepes - my first
reaction was also: "This can't be right". But it is.
On "Clinton more evil than Hitler": Never underestimate the power
of sexual frustration. Misery loves company and people who can't get any
will not forgive those who do. $70 million was spent to find something
sinister about this great president and all they could come up with was
a blow job! Asked why do right wingers hate him so much, Clinton said:
"Because I won"
The wingnuts thought they had the power divinely bestowed on them and
the unwashed masses dared elect one of them! Evil! I noticed someone
nominated Al Gore for "trying to steal the election". We know he won and
the SCOTUS 5 handed it to W. I was considering nominating W - he has
enough to his credit already. On second thought, given the magnitude of
the historical figures you picked, he needs to work on it more. (If
proof actually emerges that 9.11 was his team creation, he should
definitely qualify)
From: Murtaza Akbar Rehmtulla
http://www.petitiononline.com/warcrime/petition.html
From: Don Young
Please add to the evil list any of our earlier presidents involved in
the "Indian problem". Andrew Jackson might be a start. He set up many
treaties and broke them, was involved in Indian Wars for land; land that
he and his relatives became rich from through speculations and sales.
These leaders, directly or indirectly, are responsible for stealing land
(most of the country in fact) from the only really true Americans.
Killing many in wars for that land, killing many on death marches west
(Trail of Tears). Yet when it happens to our side during WWII, we are
horrified at the atrocity!
We set these people up on reservations set aside on completely worthless
ground. We continued to conquer and try to annihilate their descendants
through economic means, until they found a way to use the legal system
and set up those god-awful gambling casinos throughout the country. The
treatment of these people sounds like genocide to me, no different than
the Jews in Germany or the Armenians.
I also remember reading somewhere of blankets being sent to Indian
reservations, blankets infected with small pox. We were developing
biological warfare way back then in the good old days.
When I think of how we came to be these 50 United States through a
policy of Manifest Destiny (greed), it makes me sick. Couldn't this
nation have been made great using moral and ethical means?
Then we top it off by putting our greatest leaders in stone on land
considered sacred by the Sioux. We should be truly ashamed of past.
Don
From: "Chris M"
I think you should add Lord De Soulis (Lion Of The North) to your list as
he:
Was a giant of a man he and quickly became loathed by his vassals on whom he
inflicted all sorts of humiliating and oppressive acts. He enjoyed power and
ruthlessly exploited his position at the expense of anyone who came his way.
He took a delight in inflicting pain and misery on his people.
He was said to be in league with the devil and indulged in all kinds of
black magic and witchcraft.
And on one day, in 1320, Lord de Soulis, took a fancy to a young lady, an
Armstrong, who lived nearby. To satisfy his passions, he decided to seize
her regardless of her wishes. Riding to her home he was confronted by her
father who was determined to defend his daughter.
Not being used to having his desires frustrated, de Soulis struck out at the
man and killed him.
The local people had witnessed the incident, and Soulis would have been
slain by the infuriated mob and he was forced to abandon his prize and flee
for his life.
He would certainly have been killed but for the intervention of Alexander
Armstrong, the Laird of Mangerton, who, arriving on the scene in the nick of
time, restrained the crowd, and escorted de Soulis back to Hermitage
De Soulis, safe at home, felt no gratitude to the man who had saved his
life. Indeed, he was offended that a man whom he regarded as his social
inferior could so control his people and save his life.
Brooding over these thoughts, he sent an invitation to Alexander, inviting
him to a banquet at Hermitage to demonstrate his appreciation and thank him
for his help.
But on arriving at the castle Alexander was attacked and murdered by De
Soulis, stabbing Alexander in the back.
From Anon:
Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. Just because they didn't entirely succeed,
doesn't mean they shouldn't make the list.
From: "ThenWhen" Diane:
It makes my heart ache to read the comments from Marius.
During the Bosnia war my husband & I began to talk about the nature of evil.
What was it, we wondered, that could make grandmothers wish to gouge the
eyes out of the neighbor's children? Saying that they had lost their own
children or grandchildren seemed no explanation at all. Why wouldn't
suffering the unbearable loss of a child make them doggedly determined not
to inflict the same horror on another mother? Slowly it began to dawn on me
that that question itself carried at least a partial explanation for evil.
My theory is this. They didn't SUFFER the unbearable loss, they are trying
to pass it on.
I have come to believe loss distills into compassion only when it has been
fully experienced. This process dissembles a person at every level; there
is often tremendous physical pain, dreams and hopes and goals are abandoned
or restructured. One's faith, if it existed previously, frequently feels
insufficient for the new suffering. For longer than the person can bear
there is an emptiness, and then imperceptibly a new larger self appears.
This new self weeps for neighbor children as well as one's own.
This transformation is difficult for all humans*. It requires tremendous
courage, which is to say love. (Cour coming from the French for heart -
courage being a fully funded heart.) When a loss occurs to a person who has
not been sufficiently encouraged, or when it happens in a culture that
frames extended grief or suffering as weakness, the wounded may turn to
revenge. The impact of their loss has left them with sufficient energy to
destroy a persona. Unable to apply it to themselves, it bounces around
inside them like St. Elmo's fire. Thermodynamics speaks of the properties
of energy, that it can be transferred from entity to entity, that it decays
into heat. Interestingly, acts of revenge or destruction are often
described in terms of fire or heat.
In the moment that the murderer is executed in Texas, or the stone hits the
Israeli soldier's face, or the bomb shatters the toddlers jaw, there is a
flash, a flush of heat in the one who is passing on a grief they cannot
bear. Of course, the transfer is incomplete. Rarely does the act of
revenge result in full relief. It is sometimes diminished, sometimes it just
spreads until it reaches the body of someone who is either funded to feel
it, or so unable to pass it on that in time it works its transformation on
them against their will.
As a child I had heard the Jews called "the chosen people." With ghettos
and genocide going back hundreds of years, I remember thinking "Chosen for
WHAT, for suffering!?" Perhaps the answer to that question is yes. For
centuries the Jewish people were the great wire where suffering went to
ground. But that time seems to have passed - these days, Israeli soldiers
shoot back at Arab boys. The chosen people have quit, the rest of us are
going to have to learn to process our own grief or watch it transmute to
contagious evil.
So, what is there to do. Well, for myself I take the following policy.
When faced with loss, I grieve. Sometimes I grieve for losses that touch me
only peripherally.
I answer statements of grief with a simple "yes". ("I miss him" "yes" "We
were going to go to Holland" "yes")
I refrain from bright siding people ("Holland will still be there"; "You'll
feel better soon")
I trust that children can survive gentle truth - "Grandma is gone from this
world forever, you will probably miss her most at Christmas when the chair
she used to sat on is empty, sometimes you will smell places that remind you
of her house and it might make your throat and heart hurt a bit." "You loved
Mittens very much. Mittens loved you. Remember how she would rub against
your legs. Remember how soft she was. ...yes...yes...yes."
*There is a Zen tale of a master who lost his son. His disciples asked him,
"why master are you weeping, when you teach that all is illusion?" He
answers "to lose a child is the most painful of illusions"
Thank you for your site
Diane Buenger
From: "Sean Griffin"
G'day Cliff,
I received a link to your Top Ten Evil list via a UFO-related mailing =
list recently.
I was astounded at the reaction from Marius to your description of Vlad.
This debate really struck a chord with me, and I felt compelled to
write to you about it.
It wasn't so much the content that gave me an uncontrollable desire to
side with you on this topic. I was more so the tone (or undertones) of
the discussion.
As a supporter of the UFO cause myself, I've had countless debates of a
similar nature with friends and skeptics. The result is usually the
same - utter bewilderment. I've always considered my thought processes
to be much different from others. And found it frustrating to be
unable, as you were, to reach a sensible conclusion on such matters. I
realise now I'm not alone.
I can't but help to put myself in these situations time and time again.
Thinking perhaps one day my point will make it across.
If only I had been able to record the details of the conversation, I
might have later discovered where the inconsistencies occurred. Then I
would feel more comfortable with my cause (knowing I am justified in my
thinking).
I thought you handled the barrage on incoherent rebuttal very well.
Congratulations on keeping your composure!
(I still can't believe people like Marius exist).
This information is so valuable to me.
I'd like to ask for your permission to use it on my own web-site.
Regards,
Griffo Jnr. (Bach.App.Sc.)
U f o l o g i s t
From: Eluthingol77@
1.- julius stricher.
2.- saddam hussein,
3.-nero,
4.-ted bundy,
From: Dean Lett
Who are the most evil people to ever walk the face
of the earth? I guess I have a slightly different view
on evil than you do. All the people on your dark list
are of course monsters, and have probably done more
evil, and directly caused more pain and suffering than
any number of creatures I can dredge out of recent
headlines (people like Ted Bundy, and Jeffrey Dalmer),
but when it comes to real evil all the creatures on
your list are merely pawns compared to what I'm about
to reveal. Before I reveal this let me ask you a
question. What do you think is scarier the evil that
waits for us in the dark alley ways of life, or the
invisible evil that walks among us in the broad day
light of human acceptance, wearing the mask of the
most beautiful or handsome face, totally hiding the
most hideous monster from our plain sight? the
scariest evil is the kind you can't see coming. You
can't hear a wicked laughter. You can't even hear the
footsteps of this creature as it approaches you,
because it's not coming to you--it's already there.
Chances are you've been embracing it all your life
without even knowing it. That's the way real evil is,
it's a magician that walks with us in the broad day
light, and we have no idea that we should be trembling
in its presence. We have no idea we should be
revolted. The magician artfully misdirects our eyes
and even what we need to hear. It's voice is calm,
soothing, always reasonable. And as we walk with it it
in turn secretly drops the seeds of terror and agony
that will insure that the most demented men imaginable
will come into existence to be a terrible thorn in the
side of all who are decent and peaceful. Real evil is
like the ambient noise coming from the earth itself,
its not that it doesn't make a sound, its that the
sound is covered up by the rustle of the leaves, and a
thousand other distracting noises that make up our
daily experience. It takes an extremely quiet mind to
hear the whispers of evil, and it is only such a mind
who stands a chance in the real fight. I'll leave you
to ponder these things before I reveal more.
DL
From: "Justin"
Now, onto the other contents of ur site....
...i found it to be a site worth adding to my list of fav's, especially
after i read the section of 'evil people'. Im a bit of a history buff
myself and enjoyed reading ur interpretation of our species' worst. I
was thinking that perhaps the marquis de sade should be there. I know he
didnt actually commit the offences that he describes in his "120 days of
sodom" but its the sheer nature of his thinking thats evil enough to
make it to the list. Also, i knew Genghis Khan wasnt a role model
citizen, but i had no idea he was so evil. I read some of the history of
Marco Polo and how he lived with Kublai Khan, and no mention was given
of the violent nature of Kublais grandfather. Was Kublai the complete
opposite of Genghis is terms of his method of ruling?
Keep up the great work, you have a new fan :)
Cordially,
Justin C
From: DBPV99-MCGUIRE-R
Osma Bin laden
From: Matt Hill
I recently purchased The Alien IQ Test and found your website from it.
The book has proven fun and challenging, but your website takes the cake as
far as overall intellectual stimulation is concerned. I certainly plan on
purchasing more of your books in the near future.
I was reading your top 10 good people list, and my immediate reaction
was that Jesus should be higher on the list than Buddha. I was taken aback
by your minimalist description of Jesus' contributions to the world
("preaching of love"). But after I saw that Buddha had a stronger influence
on society with the pacifist movement, I understood where you were coming
from. But I ask you; can a person's goodness be evaluated by the resolve of
his or her followers?
If that is the case, then it seems Buddha would win. The majority of
his followers subscribed to his teachings of pacifism and led relatively
peaceful lives. Jesus' followers seem to have a zero-sum when it comes to
goodness (consider the apostles versus the crusaders), but another problem
with that logic lies in how a "follower of Jesus" is defined. For the most
part, not many people during the Crusades are considered Christians, by the
standards of a modern-day Christian. Jesus did preach love, as you said, but
I think the phrase is ambiguous and does not do his ministry justice.
Buddha taught a disconnected regard for others. Jesus taught an
active and self-denying regard for others. In theory, Jesus' teachings were
much higher on the scale of "goodness", but his followers were unable to
measure up. Buddha's followers needed only to turn the other cheek--a much
easy standard to comply to.
I hope to hear from you about your criteria for your top 10 list. Thank
you for your time.
Sincerely,
Matt Hill
From: "Marc Yelverton"
Cliff,
I was impressed by your site, not so much by the list, but the dialoge it
sparked. I must confess that I did not read every response, but i read
enough to get the gist of the responses. I think the explanation you gave
in consideration of whether Vlad was evil was an excellent one. if you
remove the name of a person, and just list the crimes and any justifications
they have for their actions could said person be considered evil? I think
this is a fair and intelligent question to ask. The problem is first of all
that most people have no real conception of what evil is. Secondly they do
not apply this definition even if they have it because of mitigating factors
and lastly, even considering the aforementioned, people tend to romantacize
larger evils lessening their impact whil magnifiying petty evils.
I have a very simple definition of evil by which I judge an action. Are
people evil? Yes, but I chose to define what is actually evil first. I will
admit right now that I have certain biases, so I removed all concideration
of the notion of religious and governmental authority on the definition of
evil. My definition of evil is thus: Evil is the harming of(or intent to
harm) others by an act of willful intention to cause that harm.
By my definition, nearly everyone at one time or another is guilty of some
evil action. That is not say that humanity is evil, like I said, I leave
that type of thinking to religions. As such things done by accident are not
evil --which I hope most people would agree upon. Plotting to murder, rape
or simply attack as well as acting upon those intentions are evil. Someone
who does not wish to have these actions visited upon them is being harmed.
I can't honestly say that the Clinto fiasco counts as evil. I don't know
all the details, and we probably never will. Now America's bombings of
foreign countries, and the actions of various leaders around the world are
evil. No one accidently bombs another, you cannot accidently deny people
their human rights, nor can you accidently force them accept your religious
or political beliefs. I think that people's sex lives, jay walkers,
speeders, pot smokers are not topics to be considered evil. Religion only
becomes a topic of evil when a believer tries to force a non believer to
behave different by force and coersion.
I think that is why some visitors to your site dispute whether or not a
particular figure is evil. Evil acts do not make a person evil. However,
some people are evil. If you repeatedly chose to perform evil actions, and
in fact take delight in them, then I think it's a safe bet to say that you
are evil.
From: "Tarot Atkinson"
I haven't spotted any mention whatsoever of Henry VIII of England a man =
so obsessed that he must have a male heir that despite the english =
monarchies position as defender of the catholic faith he created his own =
protestant branch "the church of england" simply so that he would be =
able to divorce his wife whom he believed was cursed by god to bear him =
only daughters. He then went through a succession of wives, executing =
or imprisoning them as the dissapointed him, The rift he created in the =
christian church led to civil war and dispute throughout europe and =
further afield. Illustrated most clearly to those growing up through =
the twentieth century by the Northern island conflict which has raged =
for hundreds of years between the catholics and protestants. A man who =
twisted his children so much that his eldest daughter continued the =
slaughter of those opposing the new belief long after his death and his =
forced and doubtlessly bloody dissolution of the monasteries throughout =
england plundering the wealth of the roman church.
Hi im going to give myself a different name so as im not critisized.
From Dren
Im American and i totally disagree with you and some of what martin
said.
you really are quite ignorant and i suggest you do more research you do
keep arguing with the same facts and that just proves how stupid and
ignorant you are.
I disagree with martin in what i believe him to be saying all americans
are evil i dont know if he means this directly thats just what i pulled
from it. Not all americans are evil but a great deal are nationalistic
dumbasses who couldnt tell their left from there right. I my self will
probably move somewhere to in europe when im older and or move to
canada. YOU however should rethink the way you look and research your
issues.
From: Dean Lett
Let me give you a few more thoughts on pure evil,
the evil so subtle that most people don't even know it
when they see it. What follows should give you a
pretty objective understanding of where the human race
stands in regards to this evil, and from this we
should gain an accurate perception of the relative
strength of our collective sanity.
The bad news is that we are not as good as we would
like to think we are. Pure evil has a greater foothold
over us than we would like to imagine. It's not as bad
as you think it is--it's even worse. The good news is
I think the best wisdom is on its way, and the kind of
wisdom being applied in every day situations can make
all the difference in the world. Right now our wisdom
in this area is very weak, and the worst part is that
we don't even know it's weak, and could be made more
powerful and effective with the right focus.
Why is this wisdom so weak? From what source does
such immense evil come from? From my perspective the
kind of evil that has thwarted human endeavor since
the most ancient of times almost always has its birth
in our predilection for choosing unbalanced
philosophies by which to govern our lives. Why do we
always choose unbalanced philosophies? Why does it
always lead to evil or great danger?
First you must understand that the evil with which I
speak was seared in the most ancient of times, and the
problem is that since those days we (especially our
philosophers) have never confronted the problem right
where it lays. We have never said, "This is where the
evil begins, let us not follow down this pathway." No
we don't do that because the evil is usually to subtle
to see, but I'm about to break it down for you. First
of all what do you think it means to have an
unbalanced philosophy??
From: Michele Boule
Hi - I just wanted to note the absence of any women on your most evil
persons list.....interesting.....not too many on the good list either....
Thanks.
From: "Julian Knight"
Hello Cliff,
Great Site! One note though. While I more or less agree with your picks for
Good and Evil, I notice that you seem to give special placement ( I'm
assuming they are ranked in order?) to the Pacificists in History. While
certainly they could not be accused of great evil, I would submit that those
who actively fight evil are perhaps far more worthy of our praise than those
who merely refuse to succumb to it. Gandhi is oft praised for pacifism, but
in and of itself it is rarely successful. It only works when: 1. the rest of
the world is united against the oppressive force, and 2. the oppressive
force (usually civilized nations) cares what the rest of the world thinks.
This was the case for Britain. It has done nothing for say, the Tibetan
Monks.
As an example, if you were a Jew dying in Dachau, who would you consider the
"better" person? The guy who just shot and bayoneted 20 Nazis to get to you
and free you, or the Pacificists in Denmark who sits back and generally
decries all war. Personally, I think the warriors who fight for the cause of
freedom, democracy, and eliminate those who would bring evil to our world
are far more worthy of praise than overweight philosophers who have the
luxury of expounding on the virtues of peace when they are not being rounded
up, gassed, or impaled.
I have long held it's easy to be a liberal. (Not accusing you). You just
have to say the right words, and you are immediately given credit for being
wise, compassionate, and caring. It's much tougher to take the conservative
road and willingly confront evil and risk your life to defend the principles
of goodness that others will only defend with words. That's why there alot
more liberals/Pacificists/humanists in the world, especially in Europe. We
have have taken on the responsibility of defending them from the world's
evil and keeping them from each others throats so that they can have time
and luxury to criticize us for being to arrogant/imperialist. Their defense
of Vlad just goes to show you their warped sense of Good vs. Evil. It, like
most liberalism, is based on class envy, and as long as bad things happen to
a guy with a dollar more than you, it's OK.
Oh, and the idea that Clinton ranks among the most evil in history is
ludicrous. I couldn't stand him as President as he continualy flaunted and
broke the law, the cornersone of a true democracy, but he did not reek the
carnage/suffering that other's did in History. History will judge him as one
of the most ethically bankrupt Presidents ever, but then the American people
get what they deserve. I think now people are beginning to realize it takes
more than Populist policy positions and an inhereted good economy to go down
in History as a great man. Character really does count in the end, if you
want to be remebered as a great man.To politicains like him, the worst
punishment of all is a failed legacy, and that's where history will
thankfully put him.
J.K. USMC (Full-time Warrior, Part-time philosopher)- Tampa, FL
From Jim:
Whew,
What a plethora of opinions! I found it quite interesting reading
virtually all the write-ins as to additions or subtractions to your list. I
tried to look at each of them with no contempt prior to investigation. For
the most part I was able to do that but had a few thoughts of contempt prop
up in hearing some of the defenses put forth defending what some of those on
your evil list did, (Vlad, etc.)
I really only propose to list just "one" for the good side as I found
it indeed interesting that you used the scale analogy of what good would it
take to counterweight a given evil. Using this analogy, and taking it a bit
farther.....
I propose that you add Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert H. Smith, (Dr. Bob),
cofounders of Alcoholics Anonymous to your good list with this reasoning.
These two men started a movement which today has helped millions to have
recovered from alcoholism. Their same 12 Step program has been beneficially
copied to help millions of others recover from various other dysfunctional
conditions, narcotics, gamblers, overeaters, etc., to name a few.
What makes them qualified for this list is that unlike a pill or
vaccine discovered, what these men did was give their program away freely, in
fact, to fully recover from your ailment, you must unselfishly give away
(help another who ask your help), what was so freely given you. Thus it
grows exponentially! One man/woman helps another, who might go on to help 3
more, who might go on to help 3 more, and on and on.... When you think of
the productivity and positive affect put back into the world instead of the
other way around, what these two men did is indeed truly remarkable. No one
makes money doing this, they just better society by becoming functional,
responsible members of society. I don't think you'll have to search far for
any information on these two men and I would bet a dime to a dollar that you
work around one of these "Friends of Bill W" and possibly don't even know it.
Bill Wilson was nominated for numerous awards and honorary degrees, but in
the interest of anonymity, would never accept them for himself. Dr. Bob died
in 1950 of cancer with 15 years of sobriety, while Bill Wilson died in 1970
with over 35 years of sobriety. These men gained definitely not monetarily,
nor did they gain fame in mainstream society, (except among those within the
program).
Just a thought that might get you thinking of how the scales might be
affected on the good side as it grows just as a good cell might split and
split again. Your request for comments might be over, but I had not seen
these names mentioned so I though I'd throw my two cents worth in. If
needed, you may publish, or list this response.
Jim S.
Cincinnati, Ohio
From: "Red"
I have tried not to re-read any of the messages, so as to keep my first
gut feelings fresh...
One point I feel sticks out is that it seems to make a difference as to
the why's ads wherefores of the actions.
Deb's comments about Clinton revolve around not only why he does what he
does - but also does he know the consequences of his actions?
Furthermore is it reasonable for us to expect better decisions resulting
in 'less' suffering. If the answers to these questions are yes - then
Clinton would indeed be evil. If the answer in Vlad's case was no - then
he would not be evil.
I have to agree with your point about his almost pathological enjoyment
of watching agony - but are those statements editorialisations of the
staight facts?
It would be easy to editorialise Clinton as a sex slave puppet of his
wife Hilary (who looks most of the time to be in psychic contact with
the Prince of darkness) - but that is what the tabloid sensationalist
papers would do - surely not historians?
It is a deep question - and I would love to see a page inserted before
your evil people page discussing these factors. For example could we
with modern techniques discern that he was in fact mentally ill, needed
help, and in fact was allowed to come to power by truly evil people?
Don't forget the story of the boiling frog - Us in the democratised west
have spent too long assuming that democracy works, and that our leaders
are in some way more enlightened that those in the past. This is
obviously not true - and watching the current Middle east problems one
has to wonder if Bush will one day be called 'evil' for his failure to
act consistently against those who wish to opress others - to condemn
some terrorists, and not others is qualatatively equal to endorsing some
terrorists.
Red Reid-Pitcher, Hong Kong
P.S. Love the web site - it has inspired me to make my own - coming soon =
is Red.Pitcher.com, or possibly Redsite.com - haven't paid yet!
Thanks again.
From: jwbb2
Not in order:
1.Countess Elizabeth Bathory of Hungary who, in order to maintain her
youthfull look, commissioned a Swiss click mechanic to construct a device
with which she encased young maidens having them crushed to death and their
blood showered down upon her, with the assistance of her handmaidens.
Finally, she was walled up in her room by the Bathory family and fed through
a hole in the door. Her family was the royal family of Hungary. Estimated
body count: 2000.
2. Queen Victoria. Under her reign was the Irish Potato Famine in which the
Irish were forbidden to hunt, fish or forage and confined to their plots for
potatoes which were rotted by a fungus. Estimated starved to death: Up to
100,000. Campaigns in South Africa against the Zulu, Tutu and Dutch Boers.
Estimated dead: >1 million.
The Khyber and Pushta invasions of Northern India and Pakistan. Cannot
estimate native dead. British invasion of China resulting in the starvation
and addiction to opium of millions all over the world and the eventual Boxer
Rebellion in 1910. Estimated Chinese casualties in starvation alone: >3
million. Rule Brittania! (Hey. I love the British. I'm a Royalist. Rule
Prince Michael Stewart!)
3. Antonin Beria, head of the KGB during the reign of Stalin. Went around in
a specially built armored locomotive (You can see it in the James Bond movie
"Goldeneye") arresting, torturing, maiming thousands upon thousands and
raping as many as an estimated (by his count) over 10,000 girls under 10yrs.
old. Beria was finally executed by Kruschev.
4.Countess Lucretia Borgia who would marry men then have them poisoned to
death. She is reported to also have three of her own children assassinated.
5.Too big to enumerate: Please read "The Bad Popes" by Walter Nigg and the
book "The Vicars of Christ". Some of these Popes were among the worst.
6.Edgar "Pop" Buell, purported missionary for a Heartland American
evangelistic organization, actually a CIA employee, aided the Kuominh Tang of
the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia in the 1960s-1970s, buying opium from
them and paying in gold, cattle, chickens and grain. He used the CIA
airlines Air America and Continental Air for the transport with home base a
Udorn AFB in thailand. How many he was involved in addicting? Unknown.
7.James Jesus Angleton, CIA Chief of Counterintelligence from 1954 to 1973.
Paranoid and secretive, drug and alcohol addict, performing 'uncoverage'
missions without official sanction, in order to fine a "Soviet Mole" in the
Company. Had many good agents and analysts fired and ruined, illegally
imprisoned and had tortured for three years the Soviet defector Yuri Nosenko.
After the exposure of this action, Nosenko was released, paid several
million dollars a year for the rest of his life, given a position as a
consultant in the CIA and because he defected as a Field Grade Soviet
officer, was afforded all the privileges of a retired US General, and POW
status. In the three years, Nosenko lost his teeth, all muscle tone,
suffered kidney and liver disease, ricketts and survived extreme depression,
a series of phobias, and several nutritional diseases as weel as continual
sleep deprivation. It took him over five years to supposedly fully recover.
In 1972 Angleton drank himself to death. There are no indications of awards
available to public by the FBI and all references to him have been sealed.
8. The Marques deSade: Copriphilic, Pederast, rapist, pornographer,
Sado-masochist, thief, conman, pathological liar, syphilitic, he spent his
life in the pursuit of the forbidden. Though no one knows of deaths, there
may be estimates somewhere of lives and minds he ruined.
9. President Botha of Union South Africa. He ruled South Africa and actually
had a mission to eliminate the natives calling them "virtually useless
subhumans good only for our purposes." He had Stephen Biko killed and
Mandela imprisoned. No estimate is available for his imprisonments,
torutures and killings. He was an all-round bad guy.
10.Simon deMonfort, British ex-patriot, murderer, thief, papal sycophant,
brigand and all round bad guy. This is the man who was commissioned by Pope
Innocent III to eliminate the Albigensian Cathars, a Manichaean Christian
Dualist sect of the South of France. It was he who, when asked by a
commander how he would know who was and who was not a Cathar so he could kill
them, ordered: "Kill them all. God will know His own". Estimated
casualties in the Crusade alone: 2 million. His involvement in the seige on
Constantinople adds another 100,000. He died in battle in 1218, supposedly
by one of his own lieutenants.
11. Lt. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman whose "March to the Sea" from
Chattanooga in a "Scorched Earth" campaign laid waste a 20mile wide swath of
destruction and decimation to Savannah. Unknown innocents killed. Millions
of acres destroyed. He went about his men joking and making racist comments
and epithets. He had little opposition because after the battle of
Chiccamauga the Rebel armies were concentrated in Virginia, West Virginia,
Maryland and Delaware. After the Civil War he was assigned the task of
rounding up native americans and either putting them into desolate
reservations, or outright annhilations. His comment on them: "It is indeed
too bad we may not eliminate them all. They are too primative and inhuman to
be allowed such rich environs. If at all possible, we should seek any
opportunity, for the logisitic and economic sake, to eliminate as many of
these soulless and Godless bastards as we can." No estimate to the
casualties in all.
Others later: Pope John XIII, Edward Teller, Eduard Pinochet, Antonio
Samosa, the Nicaraguan 14 Families, Juan Peron, Pappa Doc Duvaille, Nilolai
Chowchescku, Karenski, Otto von Bismark, Pope Pius VI, The Gang of Four,
Rabbi Maier Kahane, Ayn Rand, Roy Masters, Jim Jones, John Wayne Gacey,
Richard Speck, Richard Nixon, Martha Stuart, Ayatollah Khomenei, Nikita
Kruschev, Antonyi Kryklenko, the Serbian Seven, Attaturk, the Sassins, the
Tugs, the Quominh Tang, the Tong, the Russian Mafia, the Menudo, the
Bulgarian Gypsies, the Ick,. (and there are lost more.)
What differentiates Good from Evil?
Ans: Evil cannot sustain itself. It seems always to cannibalize itself to
extinction.
Good seeks intentionally to sustain itself with healthy action. It lasts.
Good guide books:
Children of the Lie by M. Scott Peck, MD
Whatever Became of Sin? Konrad Lorenz
Anything by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Anything by Lanza delVasto
The Book of Ammon by Ammon Hennacy
Guide for the Perplexed by Moses ben Miamon (Miamonides)
The Way of Aikido
Anything by Walker Percy
Essays for the Green Revolution by Peter Maurin. (Also known as "Easy
Essays")
The Analects of Confucious
Anything by Simon Weil, especially "Human Obligations"
Anything by Nikolai Berdyaev
Anything by Victor Hugo
Ba ha'u allah and the New Era. (B'hai text)
Anything by Jacques Mauritain
Anything by Emmanuel Mounier
The Kingdom of God is Within You by Leo Tolstoy (Letters to Adin Ballou)
Anything by Byzantine Catholic Archbishop Joseph Raya
Little By Little by Dorothy Day
(Why not the K'uran, the Holy Bible, The Book of Mormon, the Bagavad Gita or
the Sri Upanishads or Damapada? I don't think they are good books about
peace. The Upanishads and the Damapada tell you more about how to escape the
emotions of life rather than rejoice in them. Buddah may have been a good
guy, but I don't go fo his "detachment" theories.)
Hope this helps.
From: craig fontaine
From an American Indian perspective Christopher
Columbus has to rank as one of the most evil people to
ever walk the earth.I also object to Abraham Lincolns
position on the list as the top ten good people for
the very reason he ordered the largest public
execution in the history of the United States of
Dakota Sioux in Mankato,Minnesota.Megwetch,Craig K. Fontaine
From: Arthur62008
It is interesting to see that there re a number of myths regarding
the evil people suggested. For instance regarding Genghis Khan, it is
accepted that steppe peoples were more tolerant than their urbanized
neighbours to conquered peoples. It is unfair to have singled out
Genghis Khan for having said "Man's greatest good fortune is to chase
and defeat his enemy, seize his total possessions, leave his married
women weeping and wailing, ride his gelding, use his women as a
nightshirt and support, gazing upon and kissing their rosy breasts,
sucking their lips which are as sweet as the berries of their
breasts." because it is a myth that the Mongols were unique in this
regard. European knights at the time were doing the same thing.
Steppe peoples have traditionally been demonized by their neighbours.
Atilla would be another example. Pre-literate societies have always
been represented only through the eyes of other peoples who often were
their enemies. Giles de Rais, it is nowadays accepted, was the victim
of political propaganda. Similarly, the criticism of Ceaucescu is
unfair that he decreed that all women must bear five children. In
fact he did no such thing, he actually encouraged a high birth rate
but did not try to enforce this (how could he?) and actually
tolerated abortion where family size was too large. Both anti-
communists and pro-choicers have attempted in the past to use this
myth as propaganda because it is blamed for a mass incease in
population that led to famine. In fact there was no mass increase
that resulted from the policies if one looks at the demographics of
Romania. In any case, the laws were copied from Stalin, who is never
acused of having this effect. Historically it is hard to evaluate the
crimes of individuals or nations from their enemies who use it for
political gain. Particularly in Roman history this is true of several
unpopular emperors like Nero. Even with Adolf Hiler, recent to us in
time, the existence of the holocaust is used for political advantage
by those supporting the state of Israel and representing a minority of
Jewish people who have interests other than remembering the holocaust
(see The Holocaust Industry by Norman Finckelstein). I'm not sure
about the addition to the good list of the invention of the birth
control pill. Besides the extremely subjective nature of the right to
life or otherwise of the zygote, contraception has been around for
centuries.Also note that abortion is the termination of the physical
condition of pregnancy, it does not refer to ending the life of a
zygote before the onset of pregnancy. To a large extent perception of
good and evil is altered culturally. The founding fathers of the USA
killed more people than Hitler, yet Americans treat them as role
models. To some killing nonhuman animals is equal to killing humans
but not to others. Only objective observation can sort right from
wrong and it challenes preconceptions.
Arthur King
You can quote this.
From: twest
Your evil list is pretty impressive although it is not quite in the
right order. Your good list however has a ridiculous flaw. In case you
were never informed Lincoln owned many slaves and the only reason he
paved the way for their emancipation was only to gain political support.
It just does not seem right that he is on the same list as the most
influential and incredible people of all time.
From: Jim Mckelvey
May 3, 2002
To whom this may concern,
Hello, this is Rachael and Julie and we are in eight grade.
We read your information on the scale of good and evil. We want to
know why you think that Jesus Christ should be number four on the
scale of good people, we believe that He should be number one. We
have different beliefs on this certain subject. Jesus Christ was not
only the giver of love but he saved us all, he gave us eternal life
and he was our Lord. Christ also died on the cross for us and he
always will forgive us for our wrong doings. Jesus was also the son
of God who might I add God was the one who created Adam and Eve who
then gave birth to the exsiting world today. Another thing that we
would like to add it that without Christian music what would be left?
The war had a major part of belief in Jesus. They believed that he
would protect them against some of the evil people we know. Adolph
Hitler was one of the ones who was on the bad side might I add. If
you could give us some feed back on your reasoning and your thoughts
we would be truly grateful. Thank you for reading and consdering our
small concern. Thanks again.
Sincerly,
Rachael Bowden
Julie Jenkins
Jim McKelvey
From: "Michael Jacobs"
Cliff
Great site... But I really don't get out enough to be a good judge..
The good ,evil thing,,,
It is hard to have one without the other. Both sides are full needed in
the discussion. Such a discussion quickly becomes a discussion about
contrast and paradox. It simply depends on perceptive. I enjoyed
reading the various inputs. I'm by far not a historian, but I do know
that history is very often written by the winners. Perhaps that is why
we hear more bad then good. ( if it bleeds it leads)
I am also amazed at how peoples emotions flow with things that happen so
long ago. It is as if people worry more about 2000 years ago then
something they can do today.
There is one very real thing to me ,, and that is time.. and the sun is
shinning so I will go an enjoy.
best regards
mike
From: Rob Moser
The Pope. Actually, any pope since the invention of birth control, and
specifically whichever pope first spoke out against it (sorry, my
ecclesiastical history is fairly nonexistent). Given your blurb on why
Carl Djerassi is a good guy I don't think I even have to explain why, but I
will comment that some of the people on your top ten evil list are penuts
compared to this crew. Killed 200 people? Killed 2000? Hah! Compared to
the pain and suffering directly and indirectly caused by overpopulation and
unwanted children these guys are strictly amateur.
(BTW, I'm only picking on the Catholic church because they have a lot of
influence over a lot of people, and that makes them an easy target. I feel
the same about anybody - certain conservative American politicians spring
to mind - who has used their influence to discourage or deny population
control.)
- rob.
From: Camilla Burke
Very interesting website you have here. I would add both Sadam Hussein
and Bin Laden to the evil list in present times. I believe Sadam to be
behind most of the middle east conflicts during the last 12 years.
From: M.A.
First off, I think that Moses should be recognized as the liberator of the
Hebrew people before the creator of the Sabbath day. Removing a people from
slavery ranks somewhat above a practice that I believe would have come about
anyway, there was no way that if it wasn't for Moses we wouldn't have a
weekend by now.
My main dispute with the good list, however, is Abraham Lincoln. I admit
that his actions had a direct effect of the freedom of the slaves, but this
was not his motivation. The only reason that the civil war became centered
on slavery is because Lincoln wanted to be sure that no European country
would come to the aid of the south. And the best way to do this was to tell
Europe that the south was going to war to perpetuate a practice that they
had not long before then abolished.
Also, suggestions to be added to the list: the discoverers/creators of
penicillin and the smallpox vaccine. these two medical developments have
saved countless lives since their inception.
Well, that's it for now, hope to keep talking to you in the future.
From: "Conley, Regina"
mr. sharon and mr. arafat sould e added to the list due to the pain and
suffering they both have caused people in their nation and afar based on the
idiotic notion that this is somehow what God would want them to do. Speaking
of God and Holy war issues, we certainly
add to the list mr bin laude, and any other person that likes to call
themselves a born again christian, yet behaes in way that are totally
against any teachings of any religious order.It always amazes me that people
can be so cruel, kill maim and injure innocent people all in the name of
God, and sleep good at night waking to start all over again another day.
Regina C.
From: "Jean"
That's indeed QUITE the touchy subject you found there? I read it all,
but I still believe good and evil are purely situational, although I'm
northern america. Most cultures have their own set of values about what
is "evil" and what is "good". Most *individuals* do too, even if they
won't say so.
I can think about thousand corrupt officials who extort for their own
benefits the efforts of the populations that elected them with their
agendas so far from their claims I'd call them evil without a second
thought. Corruption for the purpose of completing a personal agenda for
me, is inexcusable.
I can also see a thriumphant Nazi Germany rigorously exterminating every
nation on the face of earth to replace them with a growing "purified"
german nation with a methodology and a perfection that I believe no
other country could achieve, ultimately creating a perfectly
hirarchized, efficient beyond belief society which could thrive more
than any other nation could possibly achieve. With no qualms about
excessively using genetics, or using the "lesser men" for tests of
science, humanity as a whole, or at least the aryans who would have
composed all of humany a few centuries after, could have been stronger
and more organized than any council of 210 nations. It was Hitler's
dream, an abomination for the free thinking western society, but was it
a dream with an ultimately evil intent? The *means* were evil, and I
agree that the end should not always justifies the means. Yet, would
Hitler be not on the top of the "Good" list, with you honestly thinking
he deserves the spot, should you be one of the 400,000,000 odd germans
that Germania would have bred by now? Can we concieve people wanting
Hitler on the Good list, with other motivations than a blind hatred? I
think so.
I've put myself in the worse devil advocate position, I'm certain the
case of Ghengis Khan, arguably an honorable warlord for his time and
civilization, wishing peace for his people the only way he knew how to
obtain it, an alliance against others, would have been much easier to
argue. As long as we base ourselves on the fact that killing humans is
BAD, no matter the end purpose, yes they are all evil, Stalin and Hitler
both near the top.
I can't help but think of the end purpose though. And then my own vision
of what would be a good society kicks in, and I can find myself almost
sympathizing with Hitler, and hating Stalin just as much. I can like a
vision, but not to the point of being ready to sacrifice millions. Yet,
I'm not too quick to judge someone who is, as long as the vision pleases
me.
Should I be on the list? :) Maybe? As I type this, I realize I'm partly
lying to myself. I loathe some methods. I loathe systems filled with
corruption, no matter how dictorial or democratic. But as long as the
goals and the methods pleases me, I'll accept alot. Big hyphotesis: And
if I was to build an empire my way, most likely our grandchildren would
put me on the good list if they look at the world they live in and think
it's good. And I do firmly believe that the end results would be good,
because we all strive to do what seems good no?
For exmeple, my goals would be *what I percieve as* true justice, the
end of corruption on any level - governmental or economic, long term
vision of what would be better on all levels - economic to ecologic
instead of short sighted nonsense, stability and no-nonsense policies on
everything from crime to personal liberties and foreign policy. One good
point is that no amount of zeros on a check or no promise would bring me
one iota away from my goal of a better world. As long as I'd lead the
whole thing I'd do all I can to keep things fair, and improve the world.
The "percieved evil" points is that to that end, a rigidly lawful system
where the community comes before the individual in most matters, a
heavy-handed justice system with more death penalties than jail
sentances, state interventionism on a large scale, with the implications
like a secret police would be needed. Am I evil for thinking something
like that could be better than our current systems? One thing is sure -
the success of any government form is based on the long term hapiness,
security and stability of it's people. If democracy in it's current form
is believed superior in these terms, is a different opinion evil? Should
I build this little state two things would worry me. What about what I
can't control, and what about once I'm dead? Because in the wrong hands,
this thing goes down the drain, and who knows if the successor I chose
will choose a worthy successor? No great empires survived the trials of
time to this day. Was Ceasar evil for trying?
What I say is: take your list of evil and ask yourself, who here, knew
what he did was evil and did it anyway with evil intent and purpose,
because that's what he wanted? Remove the others. Then you'll have a
list of evil people that we can all agree on, except a tribunal, for it
would simply point out an absolute fact: the persons on this list are
madmen.
As for those we removed, they had good intent and purpose, so they were
either severly misguided or they failed. History has it's own way to
overlook the first on a regular basis... but those guilty of the latter
are doomed to centuries of calomnies.
Jannus.
From: DAHBaker
President Andrew Jackson should be added to your "Evil List". He is
responsible for murdering thousands of Native Americans and stealing their
land for the benifit of wealthy slave-owning Southerners. He then exiled the
remainder to a far away land. That trip is called "the trail of tears". The
Cherokees took their case to the supreme court and won but Jackson ignored
them.
From: "KV"
I submit Charles Manson as another evil being to add to your list. Although
he didn't directly carry out any killings himself, he was another Hitler in
that he convinced others to kill for him. It's really too bad that he is
still alive.
I would also suggest anyone who kills a child, but your list of evil people
would then number in the millions, I'm sure.
I really like your site. I'm glad I found it.
Thank you.
Best,
Kathy
From: "Jim H Markley"
To those of you who say that Osama Bin Laden should be on the evil list,
I disagree. On the thoughts of evil and good, it's all perspective.
Osama and his followers probably consider us evil, and who is to say
that we are right, besides us? And I suppose virtually no Arabs or
followers of Bin Laden access this site, which makes it all American
perspective, and not necessarily right. What exactly is "evil" anyway?
Doing things with bad intents? Does how many people someone has
murdered determine the level of their "evil-meter"? In that case, many
of our former presidents would be very evil, if you consider their
choices to involve our country in many wars that could have otherwise
been prevented. Oh, and by the way, I also don't consider Clinton evil
either, for his poor choices were something that thousands of people do
every day. If you can get past the fact that what he did was wrong, the
rest of his presidency was very successful.
ANNA
(respond if you want)
From: "Duff Mason"
A full-fledged psychopath, Courtney Love drove Kurt Cobain to kill himsel=
f so she could take over his fortune and ownership of his music. While he=
r evil isn't of the scale or type of that of Hitler and Torquemada, she h=
as had a subversive, insidious effect on society of a different nature by=
becoming a role model to millions of teenagers, demonstrating to them th=
at one can achieve fame, admiration and material success by being vicious=
, greedy and self-centered and generally embodying all the basest human q=
ualities. Like all psychopaths, the complete lack of a conscience has all=
owed her to do what she wants and take what she wants. =20
Duff Mason
PS. Heinrich Himmler was not the architect of the final solution. That wa=
s Adolf Eichman. Himmler was the head of the SS.
Ted Bundy
From: BobLutt
I guess you can't call Satan a Person (as in Human) But he is the King of all
Evil
beings who ever existed. I'm sure most who read this will laugh and say Satan
doesn't really exist....That's just what he want's you to believe. If mankind
is born
basically good as so many people believe, Then how come a two year old will
lie
thru the two teeth they have to their mothers that they didn't take the
cookie. If we
are born good, why do we have to teach kids to be good? Shouldn't it be the
other
way around? We should have to teach kids how to be Evil, if evil isn't in
their nature.
And as far as the good list. Jesus Christ is beond good. He is Holy, the Son
of the
Living God.....I have read some of the responses written. One says take Jesus
off
the list because there is no evidence that he really existed....That's really
funny. There is more written about Him than any other great master in
history. And why
would over TWO BILLION people believe and follow a person who didn't exist.
How many people follow SANTA CLAUS???? It's really sad how Deceived so many
people are today......Hey prove to me that George Washington existed...there
are
no photographs of him and people wrote about his life....DID HE REALLY EXIST?
Wow boys and girls planet earth is in deep trouble.....Guess who is going to
Judge
US ALL..??????
From: "Margaret"
Hi Cliff,
I found your site when I was browsing fark.com, which had a link to it.
After I emailed the link to your esp test to several of my friends, I
then proceeded to explore the rest of your site. I was quite interested
in your top 10 morally good/morally evil people (I have a master of
divinity from St. John's Provincial Seminary, a Roman Catholic seminary
in the Detroit, Michigan area. I should add that Allan, my friend who
saw the trick in your experiment, hails from the same seminary). I read
over your exchange of emails with the supporters of Vlad Tepesch. Vlad
has some interest for me because I wrote a term paper on him years ago.
Anyway, I was amused that although they claimed you had not done your
homework, they did not give any sources to support their side of the
story. In addition, since it is obvious that Vlad did engage in
impaling/burning/nailing turbans to heads, etc., their only real
argument in support of him was that the end justified the means (he
promoted the homeland, therefore he was morally good despite his
atrocities). When pressed to defend their position, they resorted to
being verbally abusive rather than trying to argue their ideas. I
suppose I should add that I have nothing against Vlad as he was 1.
probably just one more cruel ruler of that and earlier eras and there
are plenty of other rulers that engaged in atrocities. Roman and ancient
Eqyptian rulers are definitely in the competition; 2. he was trying to
rule a primitive rabble that probably would not have responded well to a
20th century "I feel your pain" approach, and 3. he obviously had severe
emotional and mental problems resulting from the abuse he endured while
he was imprisoned by the Turks when he was young.
Very interesting website. I actually think there may be something to
ESP, but every time I get to thinking that, The Amazing Randi comes
along and ruins it for me.
Thank you for the time you took to respond!
Margaret
From: RavenMad aka Prettychainsaw
I'm not sure I agree with your top ten evil people of
all time list. I'm not romanian, and I think Vlad the
impaler definately belongs somewhere on such a list,
but putting him above stalin and hitler, who killed
millions is hard to justitfy. It could be argued that
he killed a larger percentage, or because of the manor
in which he killed and tortured, he belongs higher up,
and he actually killed his victums, where as hitler
just ordered it. But then, why is Gilles de Rais
last? He was certainly very cruel, just lacking in
the power of the others. A list of evil people in
history, with a description of some of the lessor
known monsters is a good idea, declaring that this one
was worse then that one without a standardized (unless
I missed it) system is difficult to defend.
Honestly, I'd rather find myself in a room with a
modern stalin or vlad then H. H. Holmes. While Stalin
and Vlad seemed to have some reason for what they did,
while crazy, they killed those who were threats, not
those who were somehow near them at some point. Where
H.H. Holmes invited and killed people for no reason,
except the thrill of the kill. Does that make a
person evil? How many people only managed to kill 20
or 30 like that? are they worse then Hitler?
Well, at this point I'll stop, because I probably
sound like I'm preaching or have that classic arrogent
attitude (I *am* arrogent, but I try to keep that
under control as best I can.)
Alvin
From: "Maeljin"
I would upgrade Stalin, after all he made 22 millions disappear in
Siberia.
I would also add Martin Bhormann (sp), Hitler's right arm and probably
the true mind of Nazi rule.=
Just suggestion, after all I don't substantiate them.
Franz
From: "Mattias Henricsson"
Are you really sure Abraham Lincoln has a place among the ten most good =
people of all times? Did he really pave the way to freeing all the =
slaves in the USA out of pure goodness, or did he perhaps do it for =
economic and political reasons? I think it is a bit na=EFve to view him =
as good on the basis of what political strategy happened to lead to. A =
much more realistic view of this man can be found in, for example, =
Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States". From the point =
of view of the slaves (and for the rest of humanity too!), of course =
what he did was a good thing, but does that really make him a GOOD man?
Mattias Henricsson
From: "it's me"
hi Cliff,
i must admit, i've only begun to scratch the surface of ur site.
nonetheless, i've liked what i've seen so far. i'll tell you what i think
once i've seen a little more.
i tried the ESP test on a few of my friends, and though normally bright
people almost none of them picked up on it. as far as i can tell (i think i
said this already but anyway) most people try to complicate something they
find strange and mysterious. like trying to give it an auro of greatness to
justify the fact that they can't grasp the concept.
one thing on your site i must comment about is the good and evil page. i
liked it a lot, and agree with most of it, but i have a couple of people
who's positions i think are unfitting (you probably get a hundred of these
on that page, and i hope u take it with a grain of salt):
i think idi amin should be higher up the list. after all, the only reason he
only killed somewhere between 100 000 to 300 000 of his own people, it was
only because of his relatively short riegn and he did have them tortured in
the most gruesome ways. not to mention the rape. i'm not sure if you've read
'the confessions of idi amin' (if you haven't, i heartily recommend it) but
his goons would cut off men's genitals and stick them down their throughts
(betting on whether the man would die of suffocation or blood loss). there
were rooms were people were hung up on meat hooks and then bits were cut off
them so it would take as long as possible for them to die. there were rooms
were people would be roasted to death like a pig on a stick. torture victims
were thrown in tiny cells without food, water, or toilets for days were they
would grow so weak as to have to fight a desperate struggle against the rats
to survive. a janitor would periodically come in and dumb a bucket load of
human feces and piss over their heads. there were rooms were they would have
people fight to the death with sledgehammers, told that the victor would be
let free. with the afore mentioned rape, idi would pick whatever woman he
wanted, rape her for as long as it pleased him (taking her in any way he
wished, from any oraffice), and then when he was done with her he would hand
her over to his soldiers. this was not something they survived, except on
the rare occasion one of those soldiers felt for them and helped them
escape.
that's all i can think of right now on the case of idi.
as for the good list, i think that lincoln and martin king should be higher
than jesus, for jesus was homophobic and a sexist, and promoted those things
in others. not to mention that promoting the whole no pre-marital sex thing
causes the sexual frustration that leads to priests abusing small boys.
i'd just like to say i am also a skeptic. why do i not believe in pegasus?
no one can disprove it, but until i see it with my own eyes it does not
exist.
sincerely
Sami
From: "jrizzo"
Find your list very interesting. But we cannot judge anyone for their
actions good or bad. There is only one being to placed on the evil list
and that is Satan who invokes his evil presence in people. And of
course only one being on the good list and that is God who invokes just
the opposite of Satan. Joseph Rydzy
From: "Mark Funk"
George Wallace should be in the top 10 because he paved the way for =
addition of white-supremacy hate groups and people into them. The guy is =
a modern Hitler and deserved to get shot down.
From: Amy
Amy S. -- she is an 18 year old girl who is all sweet and inocent
on the outside but on the inside has a crual and sinister mind wich
has destryed the lives of countless people. amy never wanted to be
bad she just wanted to be loved by everyone like so many of her
friends who seemed so perfect. she destroyed the life of one boy
called dwayne w. she did this by playing silly mind games(wihout
even realizing she was doing it it was almost a subconciouse thing) to
make him like and then reject him every time he tried to get close to
her. one night at a party she got into a fight with him and he pushed
her to the groung first because she wound him up soo much, and then he
hit her repetedly(which is exactly what se deserved) of cause she came
out as the victim and everyone gave her the love and attention where
as he was thrown out of the party and all his friends deserted him,
and he was forced to leve his corse at college and now spends his days
doing drugs and getting drunk.! amy did not mean to ruin his life she
would never have wanted to do that but her evil and sinister mind just
took over her. not only did she ruin this boys life she also ruind
her friends party, and some how or outher she has manged to secretly
ruin the lives of all the people she has ever known. The question is,
is it true that she does'nt actually mean to do it or or is it that
she is just such an evil minded lier that she cannot controll the need
to ruin peoples lives. the answer?? she dosn't even know ! This girl
is a truely evil person even more so than, the like of Hitler and
Stalin who at least had reason for doing what they did.
From: Jose Olimpio Ribas de Oliveira
Congratulations for your iniciative. It allowes us to know how deep
mankind may go to hell or heaven, nor angels or demons could do it
better.
I hope more men as Gandhi and Martin Luther King grow up on Earth.
Id like to have Marius' email, the romenian defensor of V.D.
If you are not allowed to tell me this information id like to know
something about V.D's genealogy.
God bless us and Free the world from all evil.
Thankyou very much,
Josi
From: "Emma Easton"
I noticed that you didn't include Elizabeth Bathory! I really thought she
was pretty evil
From: "brady strachan"
Hi Cliff,
The one other part that I did investigate was the EVIL/GOOD people section.
I don't know how I ended up there, but it caught my attention.
Interesting comments. I hadn't heard of the person who is on the top of
your list. To be honest, after reading about #2. Vlad, I wonder why he
doesn't top the list. I like that you give people a chance to voice their
ideas. One thing that occured to me is that much more text is given to
describe the horrible people and their horrific crimes against humanity
compared to the space to describe the GOOD people and their contributions to
society. I'm pretty certian that most people probably spend the majority of
their time reading about the EVIL deads and the horrible torture they
endured on their victims than they do on the GOOD list and the merits to
society. It would be nice to see more written on the GOOD people. Inspire
us!! At least a link to find out more so that we may learn from their
example!
As I said, I have't had time to check out the rest of the site, but I will
go back and search around more. It is interesting, and I hope to pick up
one of your books someday and give it a read, especially the newest one that
details your experiment results.
Take care!!
Brady Strachan
From: winston legrand
Courtesy of Lightbringer
I find it rather comical that people feel the compulsion to justify the
actions of characters like Vlad and Hitler. They are different cases
indeed in different times but the scale of their terror was equal. To
manipulate understanding and use comparisons between guys like Clinton
vs. Hitler is out of this world. One quick aside, some lady used the
Gulf War as an example of American tyranny but lets not forget that
Sodamn Insane gassed his own people with the horrifying anthrax which in
my mind puts him on a scale with Vlad. I am a university student
studying to be an archaeologist and every one knows that history paints
people differently based on who wrote it. The only evidence I need about
Vlad's level of evilness is the fact that the Ottoman ruler left town
because he did not want to come in contact with an individual that would
have that level of disregard for his own people whatever the
circumstances.(dead family doesnt count-go talk to the Medici's of
Italy) Anyhow I,m certain that Mohammed didn't leave out of fear because
the Ottoman empire was the second biggest ever next to Genghis. The
only other argument is they couldn't wage an effective was after the
taking of Byzantium, which is also unlikely because it was only the
richest place ever and I'm sure there was no problem with forging a
slave army like the Romans. So why then did he feel that Europe was
unworthy of his company. He did not like Vlad's style and he knew if he
lost, what would happen to him and his men. They were fearful I can
guarantee. Was this Vlad's intention? Did he receive word of the
marauding Turks, who can know and who gives a crap when your talking
about moral distinction. It doesn't justify killing anyone, especially
on the scale and manner in which he did. As to even compare Hitler to
him would not be clear because Hitler did not massacre his own people on
that scale but he still managed to manipulate his country into hating
the Jews which in my mind is just as evil. The one fact that remains is
that Vlad killed his own kinsmen and liked it, enjoyed, and proved he
could hold back a big meal while witnessing the most extreme form of
suffering I have ever heard of. The inquisition could be a comparison
because it was in the same age and the torture was on the same scale
maybe even worse in terms of numbers. (the Incas) Anyhow there is no
confusing the fact that Mr. Draconian is among the most evil people the
light of this world has ever seen and I hope we can all pray that if
anyone like him attains power in this age that someone will have the
courage to try and change his/her ways or extinguish them from this
world. Does this event make God evil, no of course not. If you look at
the broader picture this has allowed democracy to flourish in Europe as
opposed to the regime situation in most Muslim countries. I don't know
this for a fact but I think most hard-core followers of Allah prefer to
be among their own somewhat comparable to the Jewish community which is
also fairly tight. Where as Christianity has allowed the cohesion of
all cultures(now, not in the middle ages) and instills the idea of peace
among all cultures which will bring an end to war altogether
eventually. I am a believer that Christ existed, and existed for a
reason, a purpose, he did not promote fanaticism or forcing ones will on
another, he simply wanted to help people in general and that is good.
Vlad and Hitler did not want to lend their fellow man a hand and that is
what distinguishes a person that is less than good. I hope my insights
don't appear to be too biased. I appreciate you listening and peace out
to all, and God always empower those that reach for the light and open
the hearts of those that can't.
From: "Shannon Conger"
Cliff,
I have been going through your site lately and found your convo with Mari
us about whether or not Vlad Tepes was evil or not. I have to agree with
your side. The people who disagreed with you said that you weren't list
ening, but it was really they who weren't listening. I don't remember Ma
rius denying that Vlad had killed all those people in a horrible, ghastly
way, just with who they were specifically. Did it matter whether the 20
,000 people Vlad killed were romanian or turkish? The fact remains that
he killed men,women, and children and took perverse pleasure in it. Ther
e is a woman I remember from a paper I did in high school that was a nobl
ewoman and believed that she could stay young by bathing in the blood of
virgins. I believe by the time the caught her she had something like 50 o
r 60 young women buried in her courtyard, and not only that, but she had
a freshly used torture chamber. I don't remember her name, but she certa
inly would qualify for the top ten evil people. Many people at the time
thought she was a vampire as they did Vlad. (My paper was on common myth
s and some of the facts behind them) Anyways, great site!
Shannon Conger
From Angie
While reading your conversation with Marius, Debi, and Martin over the
debate of Vlad I was appalled. Your constant repition of the same phrases
read more like a rant of a young child then that of a grown, mature adult.
If you plan on labeling these figures from history then you need to have
some common criteria in order to place them on your list. I agreed with
Marius when he mentioned the fact that God killed many people also. If you
wish to establish your list of evil people by that criteria then God should
also be on that list. Also it sickens me to think that people with ignorant
viewpoints, as yourself, are the way that Americans are judged and the fact
is that not all of us are blind to what is going on in the world around us.
I'm not saying that anyone should be on either the evil or the good list,
I'm simply saying that you need have an open mind, you need to research in
depth what you write, and you need to have a common criteria for your
judgements.
Angie
From: "Lauri H"
Hi,
Most of your "Good List" is what I would list in the Evil list.
1. Buddha - Despite Siddharta Gautama's preachings for peace,
Buddhism includes a Hell where non-Buddhists go, just like
Christianity. Buddhist governments, like the in the former Tibet,
Bhutan, etc. are corrupted, theocratic and try to enforce Buddhism by
persecuting people with other faiths.
See: http://www.everything2.com/?node_id=1006541
3. Dalai Lama - The head of the aforementioned type of
government. This Dalai Lama hasn't done much evil, but he represents
the old, corrupt, theocratic Tibet government.
See http://www.everything2.com/?node=Free%20Tibet
4. Jesus Christ -- I would say he's the most Evil for starting a
religion with "destroy other cultures and religions" inscribed.
However, it is a bit unfair to account him, as the Christian religion
(as we know it today) is founded by the first apostle, Paul of
Thyrsus.
5. Moses - He's a completely irrelevant Egyptian aristocrat. He
didn't invent the idea of resting on the seventh day, and it's not so
popular either.
From: Laura
Dear, Cliff, I love your mind and your style. And
your sense of humor. I'm in my late twenties. Please say you'll
marry me.
From: James C Lawter
I'd like to nominate Josef Mengele as top name on your Evil List.
Although greater monsters may have existed in Human history, to my
knowledge none has been better documented. His Nazi-sanctioned personal
torture and murder of children was the epitome of evil, so extreme that
"criminal" doesn't begin to describe it. The fact that he was never
punished for his unbelievably heinous acts just adds to his notoriety in
my mind, and makes me question if there is any true justice in this
world.
For your Good List, I nominate The Good Samaritan. Not necessarily the
nameless Biblical character, but each and every person who helps a fellow
Human being out of the goodness of their heart. As selflessness is a
major attribute in such a person, their name would not be available to
your list.
By the way, that's a very amusing "ESP" Experiment that you have on your
web site.
Best Wishes, James
I have collected many
additional comments and suggestions regarding my list of
good and evil people. However, I have no idea
if visitors want to read additional comments or even get to the bottom of this page.
If you have gotten to the bottom of this page and if you
also want me to post 100s of more comments, let me
know.
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