The Good vs. Evil

Good vs. evil

The Devil conjures up a myriad of different images. Horns, cloven feet, a tail are a few of the normal attire that we think the Devil adorns. He is a being, a person if you like, that is very real to a lot of people.

If you think there is a God then you have acknowledge that there is also a Devil. After all you can’t have light without dark; or can you?

The Devil was cast out of heaven and sent down to earth.  So we are told.  He is a black listed Angel who got on the wrong side of his boss and got chucked out of the club.  He now rules here on earth and has recruited an army of demons to help him.

There are hundreds of films about the Devil and his/her minions. Dracula is probably the best known one but I quite like the Dennis Wheatly books and films.  ‘The Devil Rids Out’ is a firm favourite.

We always think of angels as female. So there is a good chance that The Devil is a woman.  I’m not being sexist with this observation, just questioning. Mind you, you could say the same thing about God.  God in the bible is always portrayed as a man, but that was only in a, then, male orientated world.

Anyway, male or female, the Devil is very real to a lot of people.

The Devil was cast down to earth.

The Devils kingdom is also known as Hell. So does that mean that earth is Hell?

There is at least on religion that I know off that says that earth is equivalent to Hell, with earth as the bottom rank or step in the ascent to enlightenment. What you do on earth determines what happens to you once you die and have to account for your self (Karma).

As God represents good then the Devil represents evil.

Basically this is what I and I suspect most of you, were bought up on.  But, what does it mean?

I will tell you what it means to me.   It is up to you to search your soul (?) to answer this question for your-self.

To me there are two forms that evil takes in my world.

Form one is the classic devil: a being that is bent on taking over the world by sending out demons to take over people’s mind (possession) and making the person do evil deeds that, maybe, they wouldn’t normally do.  The exorcist is a book and film that deals with this. The church does not admit to possession, but they do have trained people to deal with it? Work that one out.

Form two is that the devil is really just evil. Evil in the sense of immoral behaviour: how we behave towards each other in any given situation.

When I was a kid I was forced to attend Sunday school.  I think it was to get us kids out of the house on a Sunday morning so Mum and Dad could do what mums and dads do when the kids are away. I expect most religions have the equivalent teaching aid for their children.  Being so young I didn’t mind going and this was the start of my moral and religious indoctrination into the Christian faith. We would sit around while old people would read us stories. (How many cultures did or do the same sort of thing). These stories always had a good ending and good always triumphed over bad. I must have paid attention as I can remember more stories from then, then from school at the same time. Of course these were very gentle teachings but they had a profound effect on me, not so much then but in later life.  The lessons I learnt then, prepared me for the moral conflicts that have presented them selves to me through out my life. I feel that I can make quite high moral distinctions to any situation that presents its self to me.

What it does mean is that any given situation boils down to one question.

Is it right to do this or would it cause any grief if I did it?

How you answer this question depends on your own consciousness. If there was a scale where good was at one end and evil was at the other.  How far would the needle go between them when you ask that question?

I think that we are not born evil.  It is something that we learn as we go through child hood and into our teen age years. If we aren’t taught right from wrong at an early age we will find it hard to tell the difference later on in life.  See the little boy in the picture. As a boy he was bought up in the Roman Catholic faith; even spending time as an Alter boy. You would think he would turn out ok.  His name was Adolf Hitler.  I use him as an example of what can go wrong from childhood to adulthood; this could apply to any of the evil people we have seen and indeed still have in our world today.  We regard Hitler as an evil man who should be first in line for the service of the Devil.  But truth is told he was a Catholic and even went to church well into his leadership of Germany.  What confessions did he tell the priest to which he got absolution for?

He probably thought he was doing what he did in the name of God.  I don’t know for sure, there are some articles that claim this is so, so it is possible. How many of the worst sorts of atrocities are performed in the name of God; which ever God they are doing it for.

This is how I see evil in our world today. So what about ‘The Devil’

This I feel is more about paranormal than normal.  It comes under the heading of ghosts and things that go bump in the night. Stories of the Devil told to us in the bible are probably just that; a story. It was probably easier to express the difference between good and bad behaviour by giving them personalities; Jesus = Good, Devil = Bad.  How much harder would it have been to express the story of the temptation of Jesus if it wasn’t simplified the way it was?

How can we judge what is evil.  That is societies job is the easy answer. We all live in communities that govern the way we act towards each other. These laws are our brief that we have to live by and when some one transgresses then it’s our community law that judges and deals with the offender.  It’s the nurturing that we learnt by as youngsters that determine who we are today. Society judges what is moral and what is amoral in our lives.  Of course we have our own moral standards that we try and live by, but at the same time we are aware when these are likely to transgress against what society expects from us too.  Its when a person tries to exert their own moral beliefs on society is when conflict can occur.  If someone kills or rapes some one else then they are evil. That is what we think, even if the person who did it thinks he was in his right to do it.

Is it evil to have a drink?

Probably not you say.

But what if this person then gets into a car and drives off.

Still not sure?

Then this person runs a child down.

Is he evil now?

Well I think he was evil when he had the drink

.

Why?

Because he had the intention of driving even before he had the first drink.

Society says that you must not drink and drive and so he knew that he was wrong when he had his first drink.

I’m the first to admit that I am not holier than thou.

I did drink and drive, or rather ride, when I was on motor bikes.  If fact I was so drunk one day that I fell off the bike in the car park before I had even started it.  As a group of bikers we used to go from London down to Brighton.  Have a few pints, and then stop at every pub on the way back to London.  How we didn’t kill ourselves then I haven’t a clue.  One of us was killed on his bike but that wasn’t due to alcohol.

The law was very different then than now and drink driving wasn’t such an issue then.

In conclusion I would offer this:

Evil is an amoral state which is dictated by our society.  We are not born evil and learn from an early age what is right and what is wrong.  How we use this knowledge determines our place in society from either being regarded as a good person or an evil one.  We all have our own moral standards that we live by.  You could say we all have a devil on one shoulder and an angel on the other.  This is our conscious that we have to weigh up the rights and wrongs with.

The Devil is a mystical being from folklore and the bible and most religions in the world.  I have done a little research into the devil and it might make an interesting discussion in a later blog.

Tags: good, evil, devil, morals. Moral, Hitler, consciousness, conscious, right, wrong,God,