Ultimately the reason I added the religion comment in my post though is somewhat what you were talking about. I knew if I mentioned the word "evil" some people would immediately draw their own conclusions. Some would not see it as a chance to target religion, others would. I've actually encountered that before. I don't believe we actually need religion to understand the concept of evil. Some people though obviously have mental issues (example: psychopaths and sociopaths) and cannot totally comprehend this. So yes I recognized that by using "evil" some people may choose to focus on that word from a religious context, and if they are anti-religious that may stop them from reading any further, or if they are religious they could potentially take it in a context other than what I was aiming for as well. So yes, some of what you were writing about is true to my motivations as well.
I remember thinking "evil" and then feeling the need to put that qualifier in there. This is experiential in my case. I've had discussions derailed by that word before. People can latch onto a word and get fixated on it and ignore everything else I was talking about. Thus, I believe that qualifier was my experience trying to head that off at the pass so to speak.
That's an interesting insight.
That's the crucial point. I don't think it's possible to separate those two. When we deal with the concept of evil, we implicitly assume the existence of a transcendent reality and that's the very domain of religion. We could call it ethics but still it's the same thing: something that shapes our behavior yet it's beyond our rationality.
Personally I am fine with that. It fits right in with Deism.
So let me rephrase that "I don't believe we actually need ORGANIZED religion..." :)