There are evil acts and there are evil people. Evil acts are, roughly, ones that involve the intentional infliction of suffering that is significant, undeserved and unnecessary. Those who consistently perform evil acts are evil people. Evil is not a supernatural force that takes possession of people. Neither is it a sequence of genes. An evil person does not have to be motivated by the thought of perpetrating evil. An evil person may act only from what they regard as the best of intentions. Most of the evil acts in the world are the result of simple stupidity: of people holding rationally and/or morally indefensible beliefs.