My position begins with questioning whether the undead created are de facto evil. I have presented evidence that puts that into question. From that flows the rest of the argument. If the undead are neutral, then the spell is neutral, it becomes just a tool to be used for good or evil.
Skeletons and zombies are evil. Period. No evidence you brought from the rules say the contrary. In fact, you brought zero evidence to prove me or the book wrong.
Yet, I look at the spell Feeblemind which does nothing except utterly destroy a person's mind, and I have to question how I could use this for good. Is it ever good to erase someone? To turn them into a mindless creature?
I notice you also refused to take up the defense of "well it can be healed" that I challenged.
There was no challenge. It can be healed, fully, at almost no cost by not so high level casters. A 7th level spell is nothing to sniff at. A fifth level is usually easily accessible. Unless spell casters of 13+ level are common in world the fifth level spell is way more accessible. A magic nullifying spell cell costs a lot and can be escaped by conventional means. Not the feebleminded condition. It will take a divine caster to reverse the effect.
But is it ever good to earase a person's mind? Not IRL. Ever. But if it could be reversed as easily as in D&D... There was an episode about in B5 (it was in the 3rd or 4th season with Brad Douriff as the guest star. He played a serial killer that was sentenced to: Death of personality.) A very enlightening episode. You should watch it.
I look at Geas. Slavery is generally an evil institution, is a spell which is essentially magical slavery ever going to be good?
Slavery is evil. Geas is more like the GPS used to locate a prisoner to ensure of his location. Geas is better in that you ensure that he will respect the intention of the geas. It would not be used lightly. Only in cases where it is possible for the person to evade a zone of truth or similar magic (which can be done relatively easily). Again, a tool that can be used for evil or for good. You see evil, I see security. After all, nothing happens if you follow your conditions. Conditions can be good or evil, again you choose how you use them and act according to your alignment. Again, dear Chaosmancer, you choose to look only at evil geas. Not those that are made for the greater good. You see only what you want to see.
And if these spells are so close to the line of evil, then why were they not called out? Why is only this one spell called out? Because it is somehow more evil to cast the spell frequently to summon a skeleton in a basement to clean your lab, then disassemble it or lock it away than it is to literally destroy the mind of a person and snuff out everything that makes them a person?
Again, evil is evil. I have nothing more to say. These spells create evil monster. You bring the skeleton to clean your basement. You die of a heart attack in the meanwhile. After the cleaning the skeletons has no instruction. After 24h, control isn't restored and your young 10 year old children comes to the basement to see what is taking you so long and the skeleton happily kills the 10 year old child. Climb the stairs, kills your wife, your daughter and go outside and start killing whomever happens to be in the street until a guard or an adventurer comes to destroy the skeleton. A very good action indeed.
You could slowly kill anyone with various chemicals. As was pointed out, burn victims suffer permanent debilitating damage to their bodies too. I've seen people who have suffered massive burn damage. It is equally horrible.
Agreed on that. Again, a tool used for evil in an evil way. Burning is very crippling. I saved a friend from chemical and high temperature burns at our power plant. He has scars that will last for life but fortunately, they're not that bad as I knew what to do (I'm fully trained in First Aid). Surviving these can be very stressful and the permanent damage can be very debilitating. On that I fully agree.
And betrayal has nothing to do with the tool you use to slowly ruin the life of the person you are betraying.
This is where I disagree. Poison is the only tool that can be used without the knowledge of the victim. Acid, fire, baseball bat, magic, arrows just about everything else is face value. You can see it coming. Poison will not be noticed. This is the tool of the evil minded persons. On that, I agree fully with the games' authors/creators.
Heck, taking a baseball bat to someone's knees could leave them crippled for life. Shall we call wood evil because someone uses it for evil? You have personal experience that makes this particular tool horrible for you to consider. I can respect that, but it is materially no different than dozens of other tools that can be used for evil.
Of course you can get crippled. But at least, you can always defend yourself or another person's life with these. Poison, you can do nothing because you simply do not know. It is insidious, unseen and very efficient. But if for you the end justifies the means...
And poisons have good usages. Like medicine. Since almost every medicine is a poison in improper dosages.
In that context, they are not poisons any longer but a medicine. And you have to be very careful with the dosage. Even aspirin can kill you if you are not careful enough. Hell Viagra can be deadly, especially with Nitro. Never mix the two together.