Good and Evil

Good and evil are an eternal concept - the subject of countless essays. Nearly everyone has some concept of what these two constructs mean; most believe that there exists an inherent value to these words. Stealing is evil. Murder is evil. Charity is good. Defending the weak is good. It comforts people to believe that there are people out there who are worse than them by some universal standard.
However, the world is not a function of good and evil; it is a series of meaningless events. Through the formation of society and the need for order, people develop values and assign meaning to once meaningless actions. Murder, however hard for one to cope with, is not an evil act. It is a series of chemical and physical reactions that mean absolutely nothing. It is true, though, that murder often has a negative impact on our society, so we must stigmatize it to minimize it.
It is simply a matter of perspective whether or not something is evil. If good and evil are a matter of benefit, then murder is good for the murderer, but on the other hand, it is bad for those close to the murdered. I completely understand this need for constructs that guide social conduct, but we invest too much emotion into abstractions of our own creation. We vehemently oppose anyone who does something that isn't to our benefit. We convince ourselves that the offender has something fundamentally wrong with them that couldn't possibly affect us, but this is just not the case. We all have the capability to commit an act that someone else would deem evil.