I've been thinking about thinking again, which is usually a bad sign. The question that occurred to me recently is this: Can thoughts be evil? I don't think that this question has a straightforward answer.
First, I'll start with a definition of evil. Microsoft's Bookshelf '95 has five definitions of the adjective, of which the second seems most applicable: evil: Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful. (I consider this most applicable because it avoids the issue of morals and morality, which complicates the issue even more.) When looked at in this light, a thought itself cannot be evil to others, because it has no way of affecting them directly. The actions that arise as a consequence of a thought may be evil, but the thought itself is not.
However, it seems to me that a thought can cause injury or pain to the one experiencing the thought. In the absence of a moral standard for defining evil, one could consider, say, memories of an unpleasant experience to be evil if they cause the thinker continued pain. But this does not seem to be what the average person would consider an evil thought.
So, let us introduce morality to the equation. The first definition provided by MS Bookshelf '95 is: evil: Morally bad or wrong; wicked. This leads us to question the meaning of: moral: Of or concerned with the judgment of the goodness or badness of human action and character. This requires us to have a standard for goodness and badness to use as a reference for our judgments. For the sake of argument, let's consider the Ten Commandments to be that standard, although others would serve equally well. We'll say that action that satisfies the Ten Commandments is judged to be good, while violations of the Ten Commandments are judged to be bad.
By this standard, the memory of an unpleasant experience is not evil, which agrees with the common sense of the word. If it hurts me to remember how embarrassed I was to say "campbell" instead of "candle" during an Honor Society speech in ninth grade, that memory is not evil, only uncomfortable (and actually not that uncomfortable, but it serves as an example).
On the other hand, let's say I'm walking through a store, and I see a CD that I really want. No one is around, and the thought occurs to me - "I could just take this and put it under my coat." Now, I don't actually do that - I just think that. Is that thought evil? After all, it directly violates two commandments ("Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not covet", for those keeping score at home). Or does it? The thought itself did not steal or covet anything. I, the person experiencing the thought, certainly didn't steal anything, although I may have coveted the CD (tough call - can't say I really understand the coveting thing).
So, since thought itself is incapable of action, it would seem to me that it cannot be evil. However, when I was briefly researching (I use that term very lightly) this issue, I found at least one site that claimed that in fact thoughts can be evil. Indeed, the coveting commandment itself would indicate that this is a possibility. It is bad to just want something, even if you don't steal it. Wanting is purely a mental state, which would imply that some mental states (i.e., thoughts) are manifestly evil. This seems unjust to me. One cannot control one's thoughts. Can one have evil thoughts and still be a good person? Perhaps that is a question for another day.
You can respond to my ranting here.
Who knows what rant lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.