I think it boils down to unselfishness vs. selfishness.

If you are abusive physically or psychologically to a person or an animal ,and lack any empathy

Question. What is bad? Answer. If you Imagine a universe where everything that lives, suffers the maximum that it can for the entirety of their existence, then whatever your definition of bad is, this would definately fall in to that category. Any other universe that is not as awful as this is not neccesarily good, but it is better. What is good is subjective, and it is subject to science, rational thinking, and reason. Got all this from watching Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins talking about science and morality

as above so below Light doesn't always bring good darkness doesn't equate to evil. Light bringer Light keeper Light protector Light Stealer Morning Star

Good and evil are entirely human concepts. They don't exist in the grand scheme of the universe. There is only creation and destruction.

it's all to do with perspective

Hey , I never addressed your "religion is behind most evil". How about: power of people over other people is the problem. Often religion was used ( or abused ) for that. But so was communism, or rampant capitalism devoid of religion other than the holy dollar. I don't believe trump&all has (have) any religious belief whatsoever, he (they) just says that to get the "christian" vote. They are lying about it. Still, religion as it manifests today in either the USA or places like Saudi Arabia doesn't seem to be much on the good side. But I feel it is wrong to view all religion or spiritual tradition as inherently bad because of the bad samples we see.

My 'take' on what evil is , is that it is cruelty in all it's many forms. It's a total lack of empathy for others.

To me, evil is against life. Denying the life force, or if you talk like someone who believes in that, denying the holy spirit, which by the way, was the only sin Jesus considered unforgivable. And here I don't think he meant what people declare, but rather if you are for or against LIFE. But I cannot easily answer what exactly I mean by that, where do I draw any lines between: this is just life, but that isn't , it is evil. Holocaust was evil. Yet it happened and was also life, as in: it was/is part of all there is. I've met some very irritating people, but evil? Such a loaded word. Bad people? I sure think they exist. And some to the point where they decidedly fall outside of the normal "everyone makes mistakes" stuff. Like all they ever do is wicked. Wrong. Deceitful, hurtful, cruel. But everyone here is welcome to disagree with or add to my ponderings.

I don't see religion as mostly evil. I don't agree with it and don't like how religious people act as if they have the moral high ground but I see religion as the best humanity could do when religion was invented. It gave people authority to answer to, safety at least in mind, and a reason to contribute to a community. Now we have these things and don't need the training wheels of religion but I think humanity was going to make religion because that was the only way to manage a large community. It's also a way to make a community act against it's own interests which is when it became bad. I think good and evil are subjective like the flavor of dirt and chocolate. Most sane people have a sense of good because we care about other people but if we were something else we wouldn't think so at all. Like worms like dirt humans like chocolate. There's nothing objectively better about the other but we humans tend to agree on one.