IS EVIL ONLY IN THE DOING?

This post is intended to raise, though perhaps not answer, one question:

Should the mere thinking of doing something evil/immoral be considered evil/immoral?

We know the general rule that thinking does not rise to the level of a crime unless some action is taken. But that is because crimes involve other people and physical action is required to affect them. The question here is whether what is only in a person's thoughts, unaccompanied by physical action, impacts his character and ought affect our judgment of it?

For example: I contemplate what it would be like to commit adultery with my beautiful neighbor. I fantasize having sex with her and what it would feel like. Have I done something wrong? Am I evil (immoral) for thinking it?

I contemplate what it would feel like to kill someone. To rape someone. Am I evil for merely thinking it?

The word "contemplate" can cover a whole range of thought...from idle conjecture, to conceiving, to imagining, to visualizing, to deliberating, to ruminating. Is there a point at which innocent thought becomes evil thought?

The Bible tells us that Abraham believed God wanted him to sacrifice his son Isaac on a burning altar, and took his son to the mountain, built the altar, and tied Isaac to the top of it. At the last moment, God intervened and stopped Abraham and Isaac was saved. It is believed by many that that was God's way of testing Abraham's faith in Him before making Abraham the patriarch of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

Was Abraham evil? Would your answer be different if God had intervened before Abraham had set with Isaac for the mountain, but after Abraham had determined he would sacrifice his son?

(If the fact that God is in the story affects your answer, remove Him from it. Would your answers be different if Abraham had done those things without attributing them to a God's will?)

If you would say that you would do something immoral (evil) "if I thought I could get away with it", but you have never thought you would not get away with it, and you did nothing, are you guilty of wrongdoing...wrongthinking?

If you watch a movie and root for the bad guy to get away, is there something wrong with your code of morality?

Ought the contemplation of an evil act, and its consequences, be used as a teaching method in schools?

We know that man is a composite of Mind and Body. Can he be evil in one and a saint in the other?