Wednesday, September 17, 2008
On Evil
Many people enjoy perpetuating the reputation that evil is smart, impressive, and powerful – the equal counterpart to a good creator God. Either that, or evil does not exist at all. Or it only exists, in a Godless world.
Well I believe that evil does exist, but evil is like a homeless, friendless, starving petty thief, who everyday is approached by countless relatives and community leaders. These good people beg the thief to rejoin their society, offering him food, shelter, companions, education, employment, and more, all for free. The only cost will be the unavoidable implicit acknowledgement that the thief was not the greatest power. This admission alone is what the thief daily refuses, so that he might continue to scrounge in the gutter for scraps, hurl insults at passersby, and call himself master of the universe.
Is that smart? Is that impressive? Is that powerful? Is that the equal of anything at all, much less of a God?
Evil is not a human being, but human beings who implicitly worship evil by construing its power become its ignorant lackeys, carrying out evil’s suggestions to do harm to varying degrees, and allowing others to do harm. Is that whom any of us wishes to serve: the most degenerate, low, stupid creature in the gutter, one who subsists on scraps and puffs up to fearsome impotent proportions, rather than study the universe of cooperative abundance? Is there any of us who has not used intimidation to gain an upper hand, made threats or fantasized revenge when we felt profoundly disadvantaged?
In an age when the global crisis, built up over many years of careless self-serving activities and the competetive permissions given to others to do the same, now threatens us all, it is time to eradicate our core infatuations with evil. We human being are capable of knowing when we do a harm, we only prefer to believe as evil does that we are capable of not harming ourselves. By apologies, humilities, forgivenesses and fixing, we can realize how false that hubris truly was, and enter into the greater prosperity that necessarily functions for the wealth of every one involved. How difficult it is to believe that the greatest benefits to self come with the very same actions that benefit others as well, and vice versa, yet not believing clouds our brilliant capacities to perceive the generous choices and solutions which lie beyond evil’s stinking gutter home.
From how deep in the gutter have you looked out into the world? Was evil your nemesis, companion, dark lord, denied shadow, or everything there was? Was evil something you were, they were, irresistible, unstoppable, all that could be counted on? Arriving at a decision to do or accept harm is evidence of error in thinking, not necessary evil; stop, backtrack, do not go on. Have the courage to question a limited view, and the opportunities to leave the gutter will come to you.
Well I believe that evil does exist, but evil is like a homeless, friendless, starving petty thief, who everyday is approached by countless relatives and community leaders. These good people beg the thief to rejoin their society, offering him food, shelter, companions, education, employment, and more, all for free. The only cost will be the unavoidable implicit acknowledgement that the thief was not the greatest power. This admission alone is what the thief daily refuses, so that he might continue to scrounge in the gutter for scraps, hurl insults at passersby, and call himself master of the universe.
Is that smart? Is that impressive? Is that powerful? Is that the equal of anything at all, much less of a God?
Evil is not a human being, but human beings who implicitly worship evil by construing its power become its ignorant lackeys, carrying out evil’s suggestions to do harm to varying degrees, and allowing others to do harm. Is that whom any of us wishes to serve: the most degenerate, low, stupid creature in the gutter, one who subsists on scraps and puffs up to fearsome impotent proportions, rather than study the universe of cooperative abundance? Is there any of us who has not used intimidation to gain an upper hand, made threats or fantasized revenge when we felt profoundly disadvantaged?
In an age when the global crisis, built up over many years of careless self-serving activities and the competetive permissions given to others to do the same, now threatens us all, it is time to eradicate our core infatuations with evil. We human being are capable of knowing when we do a harm, we only prefer to believe as evil does that we are capable of not harming ourselves. By apologies, humilities, forgivenesses and fixing, we can realize how false that hubris truly was, and enter into the greater prosperity that necessarily functions for the wealth of every one involved. How difficult it is to believe that the greatest benefits to self come with the very same actions that benefit others as well, and vice versa, yet not believing clouds our brilliant capacities to perceive the generous choices and solutions which lie beyond evil’s stinking gutter home.
From how deep in the gutter have you looked out into the world? Was evil your nemesis, companion, dark lord, denied shadow, or everything there was? Was evil something you were, they were, irresistible, unstoppable, all that could be counted on? Arriving at a decision to do or accept harm is evidence of error in thinking, not necessary evil; stop, backtrack, do not go on. Have the courage to question a limited view, and the opportunities to leave the gutter will come to you.
