“I form the light, and create
darkness:
I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
(Isaiah 45:7)
e·vil
adj., e·vil·er, e·vil·est.
Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects of a poor diet.
Characterized by or indicating future misfortune; ominous: evil omens.
Bad or blameworthy by report; infamous: an evil reputation.
Characterized by anger or spite; malicious: an evil temper.
n.
The quality of being morally bad or wrong; wickedness.
That which causes harm, misfortune, or destruction: a leader's power
to do both good and evil.
An evil force, power, or personification.
Something that is a cause or source of suffering, injury, or destruction:
the social evils of poverty and injustice.
Christians sometimes ask me whether I believe in evil. Yes, of course
I believe in evil. Evil as an adjective, but not as a noun.
Actions can be evil. Quite clearly instigating genocide is evil,
without a shadow of a doubt, and many actions carried out during a genocidal
episode must rank as thoroughly evil and unforgivable. It could be argued
perhaps that some actions during a genocidal episode were not of themselves
evil because the people committing acts which might in other circumstances
would be unambiguously evil were not fully free to resist and were carried
up in events almost as much victims as the obvious victims: but that does
not cause us any great difficulty in saying, on the whole and other things
being equal, genocide is really rather nasty. There's really not much
wriggle room here, some actions are evil pretty much regardless of whatever
subjective morality you bring to bear on the matter. Murder, rape and
robbery are acts that take a hell of a lot of rather special circumstances
to define as anything other than evil. So I can say that evil is real.
It exists as a property of human actions. But that isn't the way many
religious people define evil.
Religious people define evil as a noun, a force, a Thing That Is.
To the religious evil is something that has been specially created. It
exists separate from actions and people. Just as God could create light
one day and the sun on another day so they argue about how and why God
introduced Evil into the world.
To me this idea is preposterous. Evil is an adjective. An action can
be evil and by extension a person whose actions are regularly evil can
said to be an evil person but evil isn't a thing that can be added to
or withheld from a universe. In any universe that could ever be shit will
happen. It does not need to be allowed or created, it is inherent in the
concept of a universe of sufficient complexity for there to be a capacity
for suffering there must be a capacity for evil to occur. There does not
need to be a specific creation of evil or a supernatural embodiment of
evil, a Lord of Evil or a specific capacity for evil added to a species.
A god could no more create a universe without evil than he could create
a universe without beige, crinkly or tepid.
I get asked do I deny the existence of evil. No I don't. But if you do
think of evil as A Thing do you believe in a Lord of Speed and all things
fast, the sprite of beige or the angel of feeling a little bit queasy?
Speed, beige and queasiness are all real things, do you deny their creator
and their master?
Evil is a property of actions and intentions viewed in regard to morality.
Actions, plans and desires can be evil. People whose actions, plans and
desires are in large measure evil are evil people. But they are not people
taken over by devils. They are selfish or vindictive individuals, or sometimes
individuals who are seeking a reputation for ruthlessness.
The Satan Hypothesis is that when men do evil things it is because Satan
tempts them. This is quite absurd. Satan is portrayed as the enemy of
God, therefore surely what Satan would most want people to do is to stop
believing in God, and after that any sin is as good as any other. But
that isn't the way human frailty works, is it? Many Bible believing Christians
believe in God and love Jesus and cheat on their wives and husbands. Many
God loving people cheat on their taxes. Why is Satan so pathetic about
getting his agenda across? There are millions of people who don't believe
in god, Satan has them to himself apparently, but they don't start out
indiscriminately sinning their way down Satan's list from arson to zoophilia.
Why? Because the Satan hypothesis is a worthless load of shite.
The simple fact is that people act evilly because they want to. In most
cases they want to do something for their own selfish motivations which
other people label as evil and they have to put up with the label, or
more usually deny it and make up some other justifications for their actions
that sounds well intentioned. In a minority of cases people actually want
to do evil because they want the notoriety, it's much easier to get yourself
into the local newspaper by kicking down some headstones in a Jewish graveyard
than it is to get record high marks at school. Pretending that men sodomize
children or set fire to Mosques because the voice of an evil angel spoke
to them is absurd and it makes understanding, anticipating and trying
to prevent evil actions so much harder. The Satan Hypothesis cannot help
anybody predict who will behave in an evil way, when or where. Whoever
is weak enough to listen to The Dark Lord, that is a pathetic answer.
We will do ourselves and the future of our species a lot more good by
developing a better understanding of psychology and sociology than we
could ever achieve with the applied bollocks of theology.
Some atheists decide they don't want to believe in the god of their parents
because they want to have promiscuous sex and take drugs (sometimes they
manage to find the sex and drugs, sometimes not). They think that the
supreme creator of the universe will exist or not exist depending on their
whim. This is not so. There either is or is not a god or gods. That is
fact. What you choose to believe will not alter that fact one iota. You
can't make a god exist or disappear by wishful thinking, praying or research.
You could spend sixty years kissing the sores of lepers or sodomizing
goats and playing Marilyn Manson records backwards the fundamental reality
of the universe is unaffected either way. God is as real or imaginary
at the end as at the beginning. That's just the way reality is. Doesn't
it make sense just to live a good life and avoid doing anything you will
later be ashamed of? That's not to presume there is a life after death,
just a working hypothesis that there is probably going to be a day after
today and most people want to feel comfortable in their own skin.
Don't bother asking yourself what would Jesus do because unless
you want to be the judicially murdered virgin penniless beggar leader
of a new cult it isn't likely to be a useful answer, ask yourself what
the future you would have wanted yourself to have done. |