Deliberately Abusing Trust

That's how I would define "evil." To me, the act of extending trust is one of the most precious things a human can do. Therefore, when someone deliberately violates that trust -- and particularly if they violate it with malice -- that is evil.

This is made worse when the trust is extended not by free choice, but by necessity. For example, a young child must trust its parent to survive. For the parent to then deliberately abuse that trust is harmful not just in the obvious way, but doubly so because the violated child is placed in a truly horrible position: having to choose between trusting and dying.

Another example of this is something I witnessed once in North Carolina. A man was viciously kicking a chained-up dog. The dog was yelping pitifully, and trying its best to get away from the abuse. But of course it could not. The dog was helpless.

Trust, once extended and violated, creates a wound that can almost never heal.