Not Just Evil
Not Just Evil

Author: David Wilson

Publisher: Diversion Books

Published: 2016-12-06

Total Pages: 222

ISBN-13: 1682303268

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In 1927, a schoolgirl’s murder leads to a Hollywood manhunt, a bizarre confession, and a landmark trial in this historical true crime. Twelve-year-old Marion Parker was kidnapped from her Los Angeles school by an unknown assailant on December 15, 1927. The killer dropped her off a few days later, fleeing with the ransom money before Marion’s father discovered she had been brutally murdered. When William Edward Hickman was hunted down and charged with the killing, he admitted to all of it, in terrifying detail, but that was only the start. Hickman’s insanity plea was the first of its kind in California, and it led to a national media frenzy. His lawyers argued that their client lived in a fantasy world, inspired by movies and unable to tell right from wrong. In a year when the first talking picture had just been released, the movie industry scrambled to protect itself from ruinous publicity. As scandals threatened the proceedings from the start, the death of a young girl grew into a referendum on the state of America at the birth of mass media culture. Author and private investigator David Wilson captures the maelstrom surrounding Marion Parker’s death in vivid detail. From the crime itself to the manhunt that followed, the unprecedented trial, and its dramatic aftermath, Wilson draws readers into this fascinating true account of the birth of the celebrity criminal.

Why Does God Allow Evil?
Why Does God Allow Evil?

Author: Clay Jones

Publisher: Harvest House Publishers

Published: 2017-08-01

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 0736970444

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"If you are looking for one book to make sense of the problem of evil, this book is for you." Sean McDowell Grasping This Truth Will Change Your View of God Forever If God is good and all-powerful, why doesn't He put a stop to the evil in this world? Christians and non-Christians alike struggle with the concept of a loving God who allows widespread suffering in this life and never-ending punishment in hell. We wrestle with questions such as... Why do bad things happen to good people? Why should we have to pay for Adam's sin? How can eternal judgment be fair? But what if the real problem doesn't start with God...but with us? Clay Jones, an associate professor of Christian apologetics at Biola University, examines what Scripture truly says about the nature of evil and why God allows it. Along the way, he'll help you discover the contrasting abundance of God's grace, the overwhelming joy of heaven, and the extraordinary destiny of believers.

Evil in Modern Thought
Evil in Modern Thought

Author: Susan Neiman

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2015-08-25

Total Pages: 408

ISBN-13: 0691168504

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Whether expressed in theological or secular terms, evil poses a problem about the world's intelligibility. It confronts philosophy with fundamental questions: Can there be meaning in a world where innocents suffer? Can belief in divine power or human progress survive a cataloging of evil? Is evil profound or banal? Neiman argues that these questions impelled modern philosophy. Traditional philosophers from Leibniz to Hegel sought to defend the Creator of a world containing evil. Inevitably, their efforts--combined with those of more literary figures like Pope, Voltaire, and the Marquis de Sade--eroded belief in God's benevolence, power, and relevance, until Nietzsche claimed He had been murdered. They also yielded the distinction between natural and moral evil that we now take for granted. Neiman turns to consider philosophy's response to the Holocaust as a final moral evil, concluding that two basic stances run through modern thought. One, from Rousseau to Arendt, insists that morality demands we make evil intelligible. The other, from Voltaire to Adorno, insists that morality demands that we don't.

Just Babies
Just Babies

Author: Paul Bloom

Publisher: Crown

Published: 2014-11-11

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 0307886859

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A leading cognitive scientist argues that a deep sense of good and evil is bred in the bone. From John Locke to Sigmund Freud, philosophers and psychologists have long believed that we begin life as blank moral slates. Many of us take for granted that babies are born selfish and that it is the role of society—and especially parents—to transform them from little sociopaths into civilized beings. In Just Babies, Paul Bloom argues that humans are in fact hardwired with a sense of morality. Drawing on groundbreaking research at Yale, Bloom demonstrates that, even before they can speak or walk, babies judge the goodness and badness of others’ actions; feel empathy and compassion; act to soothe those in distress; and have a rudimentary sense of justice. Still, this innate morality is limited, sometimes tragically. We are naturally hostile to strangers, prone to parochialism and bigotry. Bringing together insights from psychology, behavioral economics, evolutionary biology, and philosophy, Bloom explores how we have come to surpass these limitations. Along the way, he examines the morality of chimpanzees, violent psychopaths, religious extremists, and Ivy League professors, and explores our often puzzling moral feelings about sex, politics, religion, and race. In his analysis of the morality of children and adults, Bloom rejects the fashionable view that our moral decisions are driven mainly by gut feelings and unconscious biases. Just as reason has driven our great scientific discoveries, he argues, it is reason and deliberation that makes possible our moral discoveries, such as the wrongness of slavery. Ultimately, it is through our imagination, our compassion, and our uniquely human capacity for rational thought that we can transcend the primitive sense of morality we were born with, becoming more than just babies. Paul Bloom has a gift for bringing abstract ideas to life, moving seamlessly from Darwin, Herodotus, and Adam Smith to The Princess Bride, Hannibal Lecter, and Louis C.K. Vivid, witty, and intellectually probing, Just Babies offers a radical new perspective on our moral lives.

Ethics and the Problem of Evil
Ethics and the Problem of Evil

Author: Marilyn McCord Adams

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2017-02-27

Total Pages: 182

ISBN-13: 0253024382

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Provocative essays that seek “to turn the attention of analytic philosophy of religion on the problem of evil . . . towards advances in ethical theory” (Reading Religion). The contributors to this book—Marilyn McCord Adams, John Hare, Linda Zagzebski, Laura Garcia, Bruce Russell, Stephen Wykstra, and Stephen Maitzen—attended two University of Notre Dame conferences in which they addressed the thesis that there are yet untapped resources in ethical theory for affecting a more adequate solution to the problem of evil. The problem of evil has been an extremely active area of study in the philosophy of religion for many years. Until now, most sources have focused on logical, metaphysical, and epistemological issues, leaving moral questions as open territory. With the resources of ethical theory firmly in hand, this volume provides lively insight into this ageless philosophical issue. “These essays—and others—will be of primary interest to scholars working in analytic philosophy of religion from a self-consciously Christian standpoint, but its audience is not limited to such persons. The book offers illustrative examples of how scholars in philosophy of religion understand their aims and how they go about making their arguments . . . hopefully more work will follow this volume’s lead.”—Reading Religion “Recommended.”—Choice

Evil
Evil

Author: Julia Shaw

Publisher: Abrams

Published: 2019-02-26

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1683352084

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An expert in criminology and psychology uses science to understand evil in today’s society. What is it about evil that we find so compelling? From our obsession with serial killers to violence in pop culture, we seem inescapably drawn to the stories of monstrous acts and the aberrant people who commit them. But evil, Dr. Julia Shaw argues, is largely subjective. What one may consider normal, like sex before marriage, eating meat, or working on Wall Street, others find abhorrent. And if evil is only in the eye of the beholder, can it be said to exist at all? In Evil, Shaw uses an engrossing mix of science, popular culture, and real-life examples to break down timely and provocative issues. How similar is your brain to a psychopath’s? How many people have murder fantasies? Can artificial intelligence be evil? Do your sexual proclivities make you a bad person? Who becomes a terrorist? If you could travel back in time, would you kill baby Hitler? In asking these questions, Shaw urges readers to discover empathy and to rethink and reshape what it means to be bad. Evil is a wide-ranging exploration into a fascinating, darkly compelling subject from wickedly smart and talented writer. Praise for Evil “A brilliant panorama that elucidates humanity’s dark side. . . . This science-based foundation for studying the minds of sadists, mass murderers, freaks and creeps, as well the new role of tech in promoting evil is presented in a totally engaging fashion.” —Philip Zimbardo, PhD; Professor Emeritus, Stanford University; author of The Lucifer Effect “This overview of various kinds of aberrant behavior grouped under the umbrella term evil is well backed up by the expertise of Shaw. . . . Shaw’s work will be particularly appropriate for college and high school libraries for its sober-minded, academically rigorous examination of an oft-sensationalized subject.” —Publishers Weekly “Capably written with a smooth mix of scientific insight and theoretical thought, the book will hopefully inspire empathy and understanding rather than hysteria and condemnation. A consistently fascinating journey into the darker sides of the human condition that will push on the boundaries of readers’ comfort zones.” —Kirkus Reviews

Wickedness
Wickedness

Author: Dr Mary Midgley

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-11-01

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 1040278922

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To look into the darkness of the human soul is a frightening venture. Here Mary Midgley does so, with her customary brilliance and clarity. Midgley's analysis proves that the capacity for real wickedness is an inevitable part of human nature. This is not however a blanket acceptance of evil. Out of this dark journey she returns with an offering to us: an understanding of human nature that enhances our very humanity.

Disappointment with God
Disappointment with God

Author: Philip Yancey

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 0310517818

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"Is God listening? "Can he be trusted?" In this book, Yancey tackles the questions caused by a God who doesn't always do what we think he's supposed to do.

Evil Men
Evil Men

Author: James Dawes

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-05-06

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 0674073991

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Presented with accounts of genocide and torture, we ask how people could bring themselves to commit such horrendous acts. A searching meditation on our all-too-human capacity for inhumanity, Evil Men confronts atrocity head-on—how it looks and feels, what motivates it, how it can be stopped. Drawing on firsthand interviews with convicted war criminals from the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945), James Dawes leads us into the frightening territory where soldiers perpetrated some of the worst crimes imaginable: murder, torture, rape, medical experimentation on living subjects. Transcending conventional reporting and commentary, Dawes’s narrative weaves together unforgettable segments from the interviews with consideration of the troubling issues they raise. Telling the personal story of his journey to Japan, Dawes also lays bare the cultural misunderstandings and ethical compromises that at times called the legitimacy of his entire project into question. For this book is not just about the things war criminals do. It is about what it is like, and what it means, to befriend them. Do our stories of evil deeds make a difference? Can we depict atrocity without sensational curiosity? Anguished and unflinchingly honest, as eloquent as it is raw and painful, Evil Men asks hard questions about the most disturbing capabilities human beings possess, and acknowledges that these questions may have no comforting answers.

Von Bek
Von Bek

Author: Michael Moorcock

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2024-12-03

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13: 1668067714

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Ulrich von Bek, a facet of The Eternal Champion, makes a deal with the devil in this exciting adventure story from one of the greatest authors of our time. This is the story of Ulrich von Bek, a cynical mercenary who sells his skills as a soldier in the wars taking place all over Europe. After the particularly horrific destruction of a city in which he played a role, von Bek decides to desert the military company he was working for and travel alone for a while before seeking further employment. On his solo journey, he happens upon a castle where he takes refuge with—and then falls in love with—the keeper of the castle, the beautiful Sabrina. It is in this castle that he meets Lucifer, the master of Hell, and finds out that his soul is already destined for Hell. And so, in exchange for his soul, von Bek agrees to go on a quest for Lucifer, namely to find the Cure for the World’s Pain. This quest is also known as the Search for the Holy Grail. As von Bek travels around Europe on his impossible quest, he will find himself caught up in wars, politics, intrigue, and romance. But he can never forget his purpose—or the terrible bargain he has made with the devil…