Evil has been around since the beginning of time…possibly even before then. When I say the beginning of time, I mean the beginning of us…we the people, the so called civilization (for sometimes we are not always so “civilized”). Evil is a strong proponent in all religions. To overcome evil, you must… aha! Here perhaps, is its purpose for existence. We are born innocent (seriously, there is nothing evil about a baby!!) but as we grow in the world, we somehow end up becoming sinners (“sin” of course being another word for evil and “sinner” being someone who performs an evil deed). To seek salvation, we must abide by a set of rules (of course, these rules all depend on our faith). This is how our world society works. Even the atheists believe something concerning right and wrong (and anything “wrong” must be a sin, right?). Those who claim to be “spiritual” have just as much to concern themselves with in this issue as those who are “religious”.
I want to explore this whole “evil” thing a little more because that word gets bandied about a LOT these days. I see it in the media constantly…conservatives are evil, liberals are evil, tea-party peeps are evil, abortion is evil, opposition to abortion is evil, anything and everything that is in opposition to an opinion or belief has suddenly become evil. The world, it seems, is an evil place.
A curious thing: have you ever noticed that evil spelled backwards is “live”? Evil is to live. We live in an evil world. And why, I wonder, is that?
Evil as defined in the Encarta Dictionary (whatever dictionary you look it up in, I’m pretty sure the meaning is going to be close enough not to matter what dictionary you look it up in): 1.Morally Bad: profoundly immoral or wrong. 2. Harmful: deliberately causing great harm, pain or upset. 3. Causing Misfortune: characterized by, bringing, or signifying bad luck. Etc. All things associated with evil is quite adverse…none of it is going to be helpful or good in any way. Anything associated with evil is going to be bad, one way or another.
The problem with evil is that it is now used to describe anything and everything that opposes an opinion and/or a belief (as I stated earlier). The way this is going, we are all going to be losers in this evil world. None of us can please everyone and so we are going to be evil to someone. It’s inevitable. It’s unavoidable. Like it or not, I’m evil. And so are you. This being true only if we base such conclusions on the way we are all using the word these days. Don’t agree with me? Well, that’s evil at work! (see what I mean?). This whole “evil” business has gone out of control. Ever heard of the saying, “where your focus goes, your energy flows”? Our focus so often these days is on whatever the media (in all its forms) feeds us. All the horrible things that faction of our society brings to our attention 24/7 in-turn feeds the evil fires. We are now a raging inferno!!
Do you know how volcanoes work? To be very basic: things heat up at it’s core, deep in the bowels of the earth. Heat creates pressure and that pressure must have an outlet, it can’t build and build and be contained within the confines of the earth’s bowels. It searches for freedom…and eventually we have an eruption. That’s what is happening to our world. Evil is getting so much focus, so much attention and is being fed by everyone’s discontent that the pressure is building and building. Somewhere along the line, it must come to some sort of head. All things do. ALL things. No exceptions.
A lot of people are worried about the Mayan calendar and its portent that the end of the world will occur in December of this year. I’m not sure WHY the Mayan calendar ended on that particular date (there are a lot of convincing theories) but I do have to say this much about it…that darned calendar had to end sometime! Was it supposed to go on into eternity? I know that date is supposed to mark the end of a cycle or some such thing but were they supposed to then add the next cycle? And the next? At what point would it have been safe to stop without the world speculating as to that date being the end of civilization? It didn’t say: and here the world ends, the end. No. It just stopped. As all calendars do. Our calendars end on December 31st of each and every year! So, keep that in mind.
Although I don’t believe the world is about to end, I do know that all this evil business going on in the world will eventually cause one hell (so appropriate to use “hell” here!) of an eruption. That’s how wars start. Evil goes to work, spreads, grows stronger, creates more evil deeds and then war breaks out. Speaking of which … to all the “NO MORE WAR” folks (and believe me, I truly wish for world peace) … what would you have us do? Should we not oppose the spread of evil? Yes, we can pray and we do, but in the bible, God was known to favor one army over another and lead them to victory! It seems that even God felt war necessary. Given that, do you really believe we are to allow the evil doers to continue the spread of their evil? They (those who are out slaughtering the masses to gain power through the rule of fear) won’t suddenly become good, law abiding citizens once they’ve killed all their opposition and enforced all their rules and laws and expectations. No. People in the clutches of evil always want MORE. So, if no one stands up to them, what do you think is going to happen? Seriously…I really, truly would like to know what you think about that because I’ve no clue. I can’t for the life of me comprehend what it is you think we are supposed to do about the “big time” evil doers…the terrorists of our day.
But, I digress. You can see that even I fall into the “evil” trap. I use the word as freely as everyone else. We ALL do. So, I just want to do a series of blog posts exploring this phenomena. What is evil? What are we supposed to do about it? How do we conquer it? CAN we conquer it? Does evil have a purpose?
For the sake of my exploration on this topic, I first want to be sure that anyone reading this post understands my definition of evil. First off, let me explain one thing…there is “bad” and there is “evil”. To me, bad is anything that has the potential to cause minor harm. Bad is one of those things that you know isn’t 100 percent okay and yet it doesn’t fall over the fence into evil territory either (white lies for instance, or sneaking a cookie without asking). Bad, in other words, won’t send you off to hell. Bad deeds are like minor infractions. They might earn you a slap on the hand (figuratively speaking) but no more than that. Evil, on the other hand, is seriously bad. Evil causes a great deal of harm. Evil deeds will bring injury and/or death to its recipient. Evil creates misery. The doers of evil can expect a direct ticket to hell. And if you are someone who doesn’t believe in hell, I’m sure you probably understand the concept enough for my meaning to be pretty clear.
Evil is serious business. It’s too bad we pin that word on everything these days. But then most of the churches were really guilty about this method back in the day … back before we had governments to lead the people (not that there’s any government in existence that isn’t guilty of one sin or another!). When I say “back in the day”, I am talking about the early days of our social development. Back then we were led by religious/spiritual leaders. They, after all, were the ones supposedly in the KNOW about matters of right and wrong. As for the societies led by Pharaohs and the like, their advisors were the spiritual leaders of their sect. Since it was rare for leaders to go against their religious/spiritual leaders, then it’s pretty safe to say that it was the advisors that were really in charge. The leaders we read about in the bible (those who had any sort of power over the masses) taught their interpretations/beliefs/understandings on what was evil – basically, anything that went against their church or spiritual doctrine. Though I think some religions are really rigid, their dogma hard to live by, I surely don’t think any of them are evil!! The sad fact is, no matter what your religious or spiritual beliefs are, SOMEONE is going to consider those beliefs and your conduct in relation to them as being evil. It’s all quite fascinating, discouraging and alarming.
There’s a war going on in our world right now, and I’m not just talking about what’s going on in the Middle East. I’m talking about the war between good and evil. If one is to watch the news, it would appear that evil is winning (but I don’t believe that!). And that’s why I want to explore this subject in greater detail.
So, I’ve introduced the subject. I’ll stop for now. In my next post, I’d like to look at how evil is affecting our world. I touched on it in this post, but would like to expand on that a bit more. I am also interested in your opinions! Does your definition of evil match mine? Do you have a different definition? I truly, truly want to know! Until my next post, many blessings to all of you and Peace Out!
Related articles
- Good and Evil (teachingsofmasters.wordpress.com)
- Good vs. evil? (prettybeautifulscarecrow.wordpress.com)
- Why There Must Be Evil (adalamar.wordpress.com)
- Good or Evil? (aionofiris.wordpress.com)
Evil is overused. Many things as you say are ‘bad.’ In today’s hyped world, we tend to over-dramatize and escalate things way out of proportion. What ever happened to the graciousness of opponents who ‘agreed to disagree.’ In today’s politics we brand any opponent as ‘evil’ and go out on a witch hunt to destroy them.
On the other hand, as an author I need ‘evil’ to create conflict in my writing. A hero always needs a good villain to challenge him. I always have trouble creating my villains. Where’s evil when you need it?
Fictional stories would be rather boring if we didn’t have some good conflict going on! The more “evil” the protagonist the better. (smile) So true that we over-hype everything! I truly dislike watching the news, it gets me all in an uproar. As it does everyone else! I truly wish we could get back to the days of respecting each other instead of “hating” anyone whose viewpoints don’t match our own. Thanks for reading and commenting! I hope to get some great discussion going on here.
The book I am presently working on is a good old-fashioned Good vs. Evil. I will be watching what you write as research.
A long time ago I read a book called Only Begotten Daughter by James Morrow. I remember at the time I really liked it (maybe need to read again). The basic premise is that God’s daughter, Jesus’ sister is born of a “holy ovum” and can heal the sick, walk on water, etc. etc. This one scene stayed with me. At some point in the story, she finds out her best friend is the devil, and because she’s feeling burned out from all the demands being made on her, he offers to take her on vacation – to hell. She agrees, and they board a ship and sail into hell. Along the way they pass islands, one after another, and the devil points to each as they pass, saying “There’s the Baptists, there’s the Catholics, there’s the Jews, the Muslims, the Buddhists…” You get the picture. Then he asks her if she wants to know the criteria for getting into hell, when she says yes, his answer is pretty telling. “Someone else has to think you belong here.” She asks “Then who is in heaven?” It takes him a little longer to answer, “God, the angels. Maybe a saint or two.”
I guess I do need to reread it. My apologies to Mr. Morrow for my paraphrasing. It really was a good book.