"Martin Willett" <mwillett.org@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:3iipkpFls01nU1@individual.net...

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 ***** 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.

--
Martin Willett


http://mwillett.org

Evil is something that we all know exists. It could have any other name
in the universe but it would still remain what it is. In Christian
theology, Satan is the personification of evil just as God is the
personification of goodness and love.
But when you look over the subject matter carefully, you discover a
curious thing. God (through his "Word") reveals that "he" is the deity
responsible for the creation of evil! Is. 45:7; Jn.1:3; and Col.1:15 are
just three passages of scripture that indicate this. As an Atheist, I ask
myself, "How more evil can you be than to *create* evil?" Logic dictates
that if the preceding is true, it is God, not Satan who is the *true*
personification of evil. (You can't get any worse than creating evil.).
The fact that a "loving" god would let a supernaturally evil creature run
roughshod over helpless man over the course of centuries, only makes
matterw worse and is, in itself, a totally repugnant idea.
The bottom line here is that there is no realistic way to salvage the
situation. Believers can lay all the woes of the world at Satan's doorstep
if they want to, but if they examine their bible and use their "God-given"
(I know. I know. I'm playing here.) intelligence to see the flaws (in all
its forms) that it contains, they'll see that this whole "God is "Love"
and Satan is "Evil" stuff simply doesn't wash.
In fact, the evangelicals only end up hanging themselves when they
stubbornly try and force the Bible into being something that it's not.

Greywolf

< The bottom line here is that there is no realistic way to salvage the
<situation.
<
<Greywolf

Martin Willett wrote:

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.

This newsgroup itself is evil. You see me frequently corresponding
with people who have been blinded by Satan. I'm here in the hope of
enabling at least one individual to see the light.

Isaiah 33: 11-14

"You conceive chaff, you bring forth stubble; your breath is a fire
that will consume you. And the peoples will be as if burned to lime,
like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire." Hear, you who are
far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: "Who
among us can dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us can dwell
with everlasting burnings?"

This newsgroup itself is evil. You see me frequently corresponding
with people who have been blinded by Satan. I'm here in the hope of
enabling at least one individual to see the light.

Isaiah 33: 11-14

"You conceive chaff, you bring forth stubble; your breath is a fire
that will consume you. And the peoples will be as if burned to lime,
like thorns cut down, that are burned in the fire." Hear, you who are
far off, what I have done; and you who are near, acknowledge my might.
The sinners in Zion are afraid; trembling has seized the godless: "Who
among us can dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us can dwell
with everlasting burnings?"

Martin Willett wrote:

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 ***** 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.

<snipped for brevity>

While I do agree with you, I have stopped using the word "evil"
completely. The same thing goes for "moral". You and I, and all
atheists ang agnostics have quite similar understanding of these words
but we live and communicate in a religious environment. And I have
chosen to stop giving this verbal ammunition to religious lunatics.
When I have a discussion with a religious person, no matter which
direction the argument takes, within three minutes they are already
ranting about evil, sex, pornography and general bad morals. What is
really sad about it is that even "moderate" Christians react this way.

While I do agree with you, I have stopped using the word "evil"
completely. The same thing goes for "moral". You and I, and all
atheists ang agnostics have quite similar understanding of these words
but we live and communicate in a religious environment. And I have
chosen to stop giving this verbal ammunition to religious lunatics.