Again, the ultimate cause is not my idea but one I have heard many times from various groups. In the March/April 2016 Humanist magazine appeared an article 'New Atheism meets Existential Risk Studies'. This is a field being studied in such places as Oxford. it states: "Speculatively speaking, perhaps every intelligent species in the universe encounters a transitional period of awkward adolescence in which the "instrumental rationality" of it's means exceeds the "moral rationality" of it's ends-and perhaps this means-ends mismatch constitutes a great filter (a la Fermi [paradox]) beyond which the existence of beings like us becomes highly improbable."
I do not generally believe there are inherently god and bad people that is not what evolution is about. It is about survival and furthering our species. This is necessary for all life forms. Our planet has limited resources and when those resources become scarce groups compete. For us that means friction and groups trying to get rid of other competing groups. We deem our group as deserving of those resources and others as not. Women and children are usually placed at the bottom. Religion is just one means of saying who gets what. War and suffering are always the cause (a book was written 'A Green History of the World' which highlighted this throughout the ages. Hunter-Gatherer societies knew their numbers were tied to the available resources and tried to limit their numbers. It was once said we need to get away from the cowboy mentality (move west and grow) to a spaceship culture (we have to live within what the spaceship can provide (the Earth, after-all is a spaceship). All the finger pointing and blaming only gets us further from our struggle to survive as a species. We are playing evolution's game and are not smart enough to realize it.
Unfortunately, non-believers are often as guilty as their religious counterparts. They put humans at the center of the universe. We don't seem to understand the 'anthropogenic' causes as being a part of 'anthropocentrism'!

The following are three links I've noticed:
#1 The Phases of the Planets as presented by Hindu and Ancient Chinese horoscopes, as The Age of Wisdom, The Age of War, The Age of Awakening, etc. seem to define "the human experience" as ebbs and flows, predictable by the position of the planets. As the moon affects the tides, it's reasonable to assume geomagnetic changes in the universe can affect our miniscule atoms (and as Professor Cox so brilliantly explained in A Night With The Stars- YouTube, each atom can affect it's neighbour in startling ways!).
#2 Power & Greed are behind every historical "fact" written in a book. Be it the Hebrew uprising to the War on Terror, if you Follow the Money, you'll find the Power, and behind them, the Greed. Since the gold looting of the Americas' by The Church and it's representatives, all information is corrupt (bias and poli-religious influence). There are no books written by the slaughtered INCAS! Even the mass-distribution of information was only done by the holders of a printing press, which were all Church-based until the end of the 18th Century! Even before printing, only scholars from religious convents were allowed to transcribe Hebrew to Latin, or Greek. They've had many centuries to figure out what manipulation works and which doesn't! And don't even look up the Nazi experiment at ions akin to A Clockwork Orange's ending!
And,
#3 Human Nature versus Product of our Society/Environment. A chemical imbalance in the brain and you could be a schizophrenic talking to burning bushes that command you to burn everything down! An Albino born into an African tribe is segregated to the point he flees and sets up a new mixed tribe with the girl that followed Him. Waters reside and their extended family, now a tribe of light brown peoples cross continents and extend throughout Pangaea... The bullied become the bullies. Everybody has yin and yang: I'm sure we've all at least squished a frog, to see what happened, as a child. A little evil inside us all, and not properly directed, it could grow. No matter where, when or how we live. Our beliefs, and what we "think" we know, are as programmed into us as The Matrix portrays!
The son of the God of Thor overthrows evil barbarians with his magic heels. The son of God met many temptations in his 40 days in the desert, like Homer, Zarathustra, Moses, Abraham, and most of the Hindu Gods. All written can be compared to something written way before it.
If we were born in an alternate universe controlled by The Beatles, would we be discussing Yellow Submarines or Sargent Pepper? There's a saying "History is written by the victors'" and I'd add : because the losers are either dead, uneducated, or brainwashed into believing it was God's will!

Furthermore, if we separate religion, the Institution, from Scripture, the compilation of Ancient texts before originals were burnt, from all beliefs in the world, and compare our experiences to the "feelings" from the words...they make sense. Karma. Do good, get good back. What goes around comes around...the magic of serendipity...the first high...the first mushroom trip...the first near-death experience. The wonder at asking the universe for something and a door opens to a path to receive it...if you're in tune. Oldest spiritual practice? Meditation: quieting the mind, controlling your breathing, and melding into "the flow"- better than highs, but I didn't get it the first few tries (more than 15 attempts before it clicked).
Chaucer.in his Canterbury Tales defines human attributes, experiences and feelings comically, but it's not The Bible, and yet what if we read the Bible as a story about human experiences, embellished by the author to sell more copies? When Jesus defends the wrong doer from getting stoned to death, or Zarathustra gives his riches to the poor father of a girl he loves, or any story about compassion in the religious texts we can relate to that feeling. Much like the Us Vs Them theme splattered across ancient Waring tribes, like the Palestinians versus Hebrews, The Romans vs. the Christians, The Greeks vs the Egyptians, then vs the Spartans, then vs the Vikings....etc, etc. The Institution of The Church likes to emphasize the us vs them mentality: only this that eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood, weekly after confessing your sins, which are automatically pardoned, will you enter the fairy kingdom thereafter, and all those that don't, we either burn at the stake, murder with our weapon-manufacturing investments, or hell will torture them for all eternity. As a kid, which ending do you want? Their editing, meddling and corrupting has no bounds!
Yes, I ramble, but just to make my points thorough.
Thank you

That is your hang-up, not an inherent one. I define evil as harmful to the human being, the human species, and/or the natural environment. The sole basis is effect or consequences.

I think you can make good versus evil more atheist by changing the terms to altruistic versus selfishness. Or, are your actions of benefit to others too or just a benefit to yourself?

I don't really care for religious conexts, but some verses of the Bible do have relevance. You often hear the misquote "Money is ht eroot fo all evil", but the full verse reads "The love of money is the root of ll evil." I interpreted this to mean tht to love money more than you care for your fellow humans leads causes all (or at least the vast majority of) evil. Evil being defined as violating the golden rule of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," which appears in some form in virtually every major religion around the world, which is why it was labeled the "golden rule" in the first place, as it is doctrine (not dogma) of vitually every religion... even if it is seldom followed by religious persons.