Therefoe we have a [politico-legal] system in place which has identified good and evil.

I don’t deny that lawmakers will often use conventional morality as a guide in the making of laws. Laws prohibiting murder, theft, fraud and for the enforcement of contracts are no-brainers… and if that’s all you were saying then all I can say is “WELL, DUH!”
I think your statement actually implied something more substantial and less obvious; i.e. that the State defines moral boundaries itself. This is far more contentious. The same state also sanctions abortion. The same state tolerates homosexuality, atheism, and even Satanism. Many would say that this is immoral… nay, even EVIL.
Sure, there is a sense in which the State takes guidance from notions of good and evil… but not entirely. Modern states are also based on a different kind of ethical base from that which gave us the notion of sin, and good and evil.
You may wish, Facelift, in your wildest fantasies, that the State would put the full force of its power behind policing the boundaries between good and evil in their entirety… but the question will arise, “whose Good and Evil?”. The choice would yield a theocracy… or something analogous.

You have sinned today by failing to observe the requirement to rest on the Sabbath.

Terrorists’ opinions of others not of their ilk being evil doesn’t negate the evil means they use to further their cause.

“They are evil because they do evil to us” pretty much sums up what evil, for all practical purposes, actually means.

Don’t we call this system ‘law’ or ‘justice’? Isn’t it generally organised and adjusted by the people we empower as law makers and law keepers. Therefoe we have a system in place which has identified good and evil.

I don’t think the precepts and prohibitions of law and justice are at all equivalent with the categories “good” and “evil”. You are suggesting that politicians are the guardians and interpreters of moral absolutes. I don’t think any good Christian, let alone anyone secular, would condone that.

If we were to set up a universal code of ethics wich identifies the difference between right and wrong for creatures of our level of intelligence and conscience, then we would have standards and values which indicate ‘normal’ behaviour and separate good from evil. Don’t we call this system ‘law’ or ‘justice’? Isn’t it generally organised and adjusted by the people we empower as law makers and law keepers. Therefoe we have a system in place which has identified good and evil. Mast nations on earth would judge the actions of terrorists to bee outside the law and therefore evil, regardless of their possiblee belief to the contrary.

The fact of systems of justice doesn’t indicate the presence of a devil, but it does demonstrate a high level of justice which shows that we are dependent, to a certain extent, on conscience and consensus, or, better, a consensus of conscience, as a foundational part of our law making system, whihc in turn throws up a value which demands a descriptor of what is generallyb accepted as good or generally acccepted as evil.

I’ve tried whispering into GWB’s ear, but as you should know he took the temperance Pledge a while back.

And you believe him? Bwaaahahahaha

Would you prefer Comrade Drink? H.R.H Queen The Devil?

that those who treat individuals as compounds of chemicals are generally the ones who also want to use individuals as fertiliser

Wow, demonization from a demon.

I don’t deny that people do horrible things, but that’s a consequence of the way we are, not because there’s Lucifer Star of the Morning cackling on his throne and whispering in GWB’s ear. Much of the same behaviour is found in the rest of the mammal world, humans are just a bit more inventive. Are chimpanzees evil?
Figuring out why people behave the way they do and ways to deal with our tendency to take short-term advantage over long-term gain will take real research, not giving up and claiming it’s all the fault of an Anthropomorphic Personification.

Holding in tension the Xian concept of original sin, when talking about the nature and manifestation of evil, I have taught my kids that the world is made of good people who sometimes make bad choices

Or sometimes evil people who can make good choices, maybe? I think evil and good are meaningful terms, actually. I draw the line at people who argue that sometimes you have to be a ‘little bad’ and embrace your ‘dark side’ to be ‘whole’. That just strikes me as moral complacency.

I’m prepared to debate any of you as to my own existence.

Yeah, man, I’ll take you on.
*Picks up*
*Takes lid off*
*Glugglugglugglugglugglugglugglugglugglug …*
*Burps*

Ah, man, that was good!

Oh, you were talking metaphorically … damn!

And, um, hey, what was it that I just drunk?

The theological arguments on evil are interesting though – Augustine’s privatio boni isn’t very satisfying.

But that’s more theodicy than demonology.

And on the politics of evil, I’m with Cliff. And I don’t mind tanja’s Jungian take on the psychology of evil.

Holding in tension the Xian concept of original sin, when talking about the nature and manifestation of evil, I have taught my kids that the world is made of good people who sometimes make bad choices…and that sometimes those choices impact terribly upon others, that there are consequences etc etc, but that you always have the opportunity to make better choices, no matter whats gone before .

As simplistic and behavourialist as this may sound it is a liberating concept.

As an aside, denial of the shadow, almost always seems to manifest in repressed behaviour that occassionally explodes with violent consequences.