“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.
Philip Zimbardo: Why ordinary people do evil ... or do good