Evil
It came to me today that evil is yet another concept. A Judeo-Christian-Islamic concept.
And therefore so is good.
We categorise (or at least the media and the leaders categorise) all sorts of people as evil: The axis of evil, Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, The Taliban, Hamas, any cult that springs up.
It no longer means anything to me. It is a label with which to call these people. Once we label them as evil we can ignore whatever motivations they may have. They don't do it because they are oppressed or have been pushed into believeing they have no other choice. They do it because they are Evil.
No one wakes up on a day and says today I am going to be evil. The greatest show up of this is Dr. Evil, fantastic. All those Bond films and Indy films where there are bad guys to defeat. People just don't act like that. They have reasons for acting the way they do. They see us as the evil ones.
And yet before Jesus, there was no such thing. The Greeks and Romans had no concept of evil, of a satan figure. There were Hades and Ares but these were Gods who were not neccesarily of an evil bent. they were what they were. If I remember correctly, the monsters battled by Odysseus are not intrinsically evil, not named as such, they are placed in his way by the Gods or simply doing what monsters do, or like the Cyclops, they have a good reason for behaving as they do. Odysseus invades his island, and technically he is food.
Can you imagine erasing your concept of evil? And that of good? what we have left is right and wrong, honour and dishonour. We would have to find a reason for Harold Shipman, we can't simply call him evil anymore, for Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, for Saddam Hussein, for all of them. Perhaps we would have found solutions to the mental illnesses or paranoias faced by these people. perhaps we would realise that events in the Middle East are our own fault, not Bin Laden's
To the ancient peoples death was simply a doorway to the next life. Death was ambiguous. You could die without fear, because there was a future. Upon this idea, the Greeks built the greatest democracy the world has ever seen. they did not believe that slavery was evil, it just was. The Romans built the greatest empire of the day. They did not believe that the bloodsports were evil. Gladiators and Christians had a future life.
Then comes along Judaism, then Christianity, then Islam. And with them they bring Satan, the great deciever. Suddenly if you want a future in the next life you have to follow a predefined path of Good and not Evil. The Greeks built their essentially good democracy on Philosophy. Chr-Jud-Isl built their goodness and democracies on Blackmail. And with blackmail, you can twist the idea of goodness, suddenly goodness is wiping out the enemy as per religious relations.
The Aztecs and the Romans and the Mongols were bloodthirsty barbarians, but without a perception of Good and Evil they truly believed in their own righteousness. We do good out of Blackmail to our heaven, and the Christians and the Muslims and the Jews are now being blackmailed, as they have been for thousands of years into destroying each other. Destroying the fundamental righteousness of philosphical equality between man for a piece of heaven that they are told will come to them.
Evil is not an act, it is it's own concept. Satan quotes the scripture to us once again.
And therefore so is good.
We categorise (or at least the media and the leaders categorise) all sorts of people as evil: The axis of evil, Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, The Taliban, Hamas, any cult that springs up.
It no longer means anything to me. It is a label with which to call these people. Once we label them as evil we can ignore whatever motivations they may have. They don't do it because they are oppressed or have been pushed into believeing they have no other choice. They do it because they are Evil.
No one wakes up on a day and says today I am going to be evil. The greatest show up of this is Dr. Evil, fantastic. All those Bond films and Indy films where there are bad guys to defeat. People just don't act like that. They have reasons for acting the way they do. They see us as the evil ones.
And yet before Jesus, there was no such thing. The Greeks and Romans had no concept of evil, of a satan figure. There were Hades and Ares but these were Gods who were not neccesarily of an evil bent. they were what they were. If I remember correctly, the monsters battled by Odysseus are not intrinsically evil, not named as such, they are placed in his way by the Gods or simply doing what monsters do, or like the Cyclops, they have a good reason for behaving as they do. Odysseus invades his island, and technically he is food.
Can you imagine erasing your concept of evil? And that of good? what we have left is right and wrong, honour and dishonour. We would have to find a reason for Harold Shipman, we can't simply call him evil anymore, for Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, for Saddam Hussein, for all of them. Perhaps we would have found solutions to the mental illnesses or paranoias faced by these people. perhaps we would realise that events in the Middle East are our own fault, not Bin Laden's
To the ancient peoples death was simply a doorway to the next life. Death was ambiguous. You could die without fear, because there was a future. Upon this idea, the Greeks built the greatest democracy the world has ever seen. they did not believe that slavery was evil, it just was. The Romans built the greatest empire of the day. They did not believe that the bloodsports were evil. Gladiators and Christians had a future life.
Then comes along Judaism, then Christianity, then Islam. And with them they bring Satan, the great deciever. Suddenly if you want a future in the next life you have to follow a predefined path of Good and not Evil. The Greeks built their essentially good democracy on Philosophy. Chr-Jud-Isl built their goodness and democracies on Blackmail. And with blackmail, you can twist the idea of goodness, suddenly goodness is wiping out the enemy as per religious relations.
The Aztecs and the Romans and the Mongols were bloodthirsty barbarians, but without a perception of Good and Evil they truly believed in their own righteousness. We do good out of Blackmail to our heaven, and the Christians and the Muslims and the Jews are now being blackmailed, as they have been for thousands of years into destroying each other. Destroying the fundamental righteousness of philosphical equality between man for a piece of heaven that they are told will come to them.
Evil is not an act, it is it's own concept. Satan quotes the scripture to us once again.
posted by Caractacus at 23:23
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