Skeptic
1st October 2003, 01:32 PM
In another thread, I was asked by someone if my insistence of recognizing evil where I see it means I could be an "evil sniffer" in airports, pointing out evil people to the authorities. Well, I thought about it, and here is my rather long reply.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Yes, "Fool", you ARE correct about me. I CAN be an "evil sniffer" at airports--at least compared to you or to AUP.
No, I cannot see if somebody is hiding a bomb or harbors evil thoughts. But if somebody at the airport comes up to me, and openly tells me (like Jama'at al-Islamia does) that all non-muslims should die and blowing them up is the way to achieve it, my amazingly acute "evil sensors" light up and I reach the conclusion that such a person is evil. Yes, of course, I am not alone. The vast majority of people have this "evil sniffing" capacity. Yes, of course, the evil sniffers would go up if it is a catholic wanting all muslims dead, as well. But you get my point.
But what about you? Could you be such an "evil sniffer"? Judging from your posts, you would have a nice, long conversation with the man, trying to figure out what are the "real reasons" he is "angry" and "frustrated" with non-muslims. (Remember: always use the word "angry" or "frustrated" instead of "genocidal hatered"; the advantage is that these words automatically place at least SOME of the blame on the victim). You would try to discover if he is good at chess, or likes dogs, since "there is good and bad in everything". You would offer a compromise: if only he kills SOME non-mulsims and not all, would THAT be OK? You would try really, really hard to see that him wanting you dead is merely some sort of "cultural difference". And so on.
This is because you pretend to have no sense of evil; to not realize that wanting you and your children dead is evil. Instead, you ask those who claim evil exist to prove their point by a theoretical, deatched, "objective" discussion. But this is like a color-blind person asking me to prove that red exists. Well, I could... for example, I could show that a red paper reflects only certain wavelenghts, etc. But the color blind person will still never have a SENSE of what "redness" is.
I use the word "pretend" on purpose. I don't think you REALLY lack a sense of evil--or, as it is more commonly called, a sense of morality, a sense of justice, or a sense of right and wrong. Only psychopaths are really like that, and it is unlikely in the extreme that you are one. The problem is, you seem to deny your natural, innate understanding of evil, and instead rely on impersonal, theoretical, general views that deconstruct it out of existence. You think that this is somehow more "advanced" and less "primitive". Unlike us poor sods, who still use silly terms like "right" and "wrong", you prefer terms like, say, "social disapproval", "economic deprivation", "frustration of the developing world", "different worldviews", or whatnot, when speaking of evil people doing bad things.
But this is NOT a more advanced view. Nor is it more understanding or better done. This "enlightened" view of evil-as-a-myth is merely more FASHIONABLE, and perhaps more comforting. But it is as logical as claiming that, to know what "red" is, you should NOT look at red things, but instead only at the black-and-white printouts of scientific experiments about the color red.
G. K. Chesterton said it best. In one of his essays, he says that true religion always tried to make the abstract (sin, death, god) concrete--which is why it had pictures of gargoyles and flaming pits in its cathedral, why the dying christ is endlessly represented in it; it is why it has "primitive" things like bread and wine, altars and holy water, when talking about abstracts like sin and redemption. False (or, more precisely, pseudo-) religions try to do the opposite: they try to make the concrete abstract. The bible, which is one of the most concrete books in the world--it does virtually nothing EXCEPT simply tell us that this or that happened, that this kind did that action, that Jesus did this miracle--is not even false, on their view, merely making wrong claims about what happened, but a "metaphor" or a "moral lesson" of some sort; the sacraments are "silly" or "unncessary", and so on.
I am not arguing here for Chesterton's pro-catholic view in particular. In fact, I am an atheist--I do not believe in any god or gods. But I think that it cannot be denied that being an atheist is far more religious (in Chesterton's sense) than being a liberal theologian. For me, god does not exist in the same sense, in the same way, that dragons and fairies and elves don't exist. Their nonexistence is as concrete, as specific as the claim that elephants and whales DO exist. For the liberal theologian, with "god as a metaphor", or "god in the universe", etc., God's existence is far LESS concrete; it is made such an abstact concept as to be totally meaningless. For me, the unlikely event of finding out that heaven or hell exist after my death, it is merely a case of being wrong; for the liberal theologician, it is literally an inconcievable situation, because the whole heaven and hell issue was not denied as false, but reinterpreted as a abstract thing--e.g., platitutes like "heaven is us helping other people", or some other such nonsense. Liberal theology isn't really religion in ANY sense of the word--not even in the sense of rejecting it.
The same applies to evil. For me, evil is a CONCRETE thing. It is evil actions, it is bad men. It is NOT some abstract "name given to socially disagreeable actions". Murder isn't a "socially disagreeable action", it is death and destruction; it is blood and horror. It is, in other words, evil. For me, evil is just as real as the color red, or that feeling of the absurd which leads to laughter. All three are CONCRETE THINGS that we all experience directly.
Once you start treating laughter as merely a "social reaction to situations classified by the opposite of what happens in 99% of cases", you lost your sense of humor. Once you start treating red as "the reflection of electromagnetic radiation in the X angstrom range", you can no longer see it. Once you treat evil as "social interaction" or something like that, you no longer see it; you lost half the battle already, since it became abstract--the first step towards its nonexistence.
I do not, of course, believe in Satan, any more than I believe in the existence of hell. There is no need to invoke a supernatural cause for evil. But, in a sense, I have more sympathy with those who believe in Satan than with those who deny evil is real. Those who believe in Satan often do so because, for them, evil is--as it should be--a concerete, actual thing; and as such, requiring a concretre, actual cause. On the "liberal" moral view, Satan does not exist not because it is an unncessary assuption, but because it is an oxymoron: one can hardly imagine the lord of the bottomless pit coming to earth to temp men to "actions of social disagreement with the ruling inter-class paradigm" (or whatever evil deeds are called according to the deconstructive social theory du jour).
What is going on here? Both the liberals and the satanists (those who believe in Satan, not those who worship him) are, actually, SAYING THE SAME THING. The satanists say that, since they cannot imagine a concerete thing like evil existing without a concerete cause, Satan exists. the liberals, too, cannot imagine that a concrete thing like evil exists without a concrete cause. So, since they (rightly) believe Satan doesn't exist, they must deny also that evil is anything concrete or tangible, and claim it does not exist. At least the satanists keep evil real and concrete, at the price of accepting the existence of an imaginary Satan; the liberals deny it. And, in my view, it is a far greater mistake, a much worse thing, to disbelieve in evil than to believe in Satan.
I am different than both. I believe that evil, a concrete, tangible, specific thing, DOES exist--and can exist, unfortunately, without a concrete, tangible, specific cause that creates it all, any more than there must be a "red color fairy" that makes all red things red, just because "red" is concerete. But I cannot deny the obvious fact that evil exists and that I can tell what it is, any more than I can deny the obvious fact that the color red exists and people can directly see what it is. To deny evil is not merely wrong, like beliving a fictional Satan exist or saying that 2+2=5. It is absurd, like saying that 2+2= a motorcycle.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Yes, "Fool", you ARE correct about me. I CAN be an "evil sniffer" at airports--at least compared to you or to AUP.
No, I cannot see if somebody is hiding a bomb or harbors evil thoughts. But if somebody at the airport comes up to me, and openly tells me (like Jama'at al-Islamia does) that all non-muslims should die and blowing them up is the way to achieve it, my amazingly acute "evil sensors" light up and I reach the conclusion that such a person is evil. Yes, of course, I am not alone. The vast majority of people have this "evil sniffing" capacity. Yes, of course, the evil sniffers would go up if it is a catholic wanting all muslims dead, as well. But you get my point.
But what about you? Could you be such an "evil sniffer"? Judging from your posts, you would have a nice, long conversation with the man, trying to figure out what are the "real reasons" he is "angry" and "frustrated" with non-muslims. (Remember: always use the word "angry" or "frustrated" instead of "genocidal hatered"; the advantage is that these words automatically place at least SOME of the blame on the victim). You would try to discover if he is good at chess, or likes dogs, since "there is good and bad in everything". You would offer a compromise: if only he kills SOME non-mulsims and not all, would THAT be OK? You would try really, really hard to see that him wanting you dead is merely some sort of "cultural difference". And so on.
This is because you pretend to have no sense of evil; to not realize that wanting you and your children dead is evil. Instead, you ask those who claim evil exist to prove their point by a theoretical, deatched, "objective" discussion. But this is like a color-blind person asking me to prove that red exists. Well, I could... for example, I could show that a red paper reflects only certain wavelenghts, etc. But the color blind person will still never have a SENSE of what "redness" is.
I use the word "pretend" on purpose. I don't think you REALLY lack a sense of evil--or, as it is more commonly called, a sense of morality, a sense of justice, or a sense of right and wrong. Only psychopaths are really like that, and it is unlikely in the extreme that you are one. The problem is, you seem to deny your natural, innate understanding of evil, and instead rely on impersonal, theoretical, general views that deconstruct it out of existence. You think that this is somehow more "advanced" and less "primitive". Unlike us poor sods, who still use silly terms like "right" and "wrong", you prefer terms like, say, "social disapproval", "economic deprivation", "frustration of the developing world", "different worldviews", or whatnot, when speaking of evil people doing bad things.
But this is NOT a more advanced view. Nor is it more understanding or better done. This "enlightened" view of evil-as-a-myth is merely more FASHIONABLE, and perhaps more comforting. But it is as logical as claiming that, to know what "red" is, you should NOT look at red things, but instead only at the black-and-white printouts of scientific experiments about the color red.
G. K. Chesterton said it best. In one of his essays, he says that true religion always tried to make the abstract (sin, death, god) concrete--which is why it had pictures of gargoyles and flaming pits in its cathedral, why the dying christ is endlessly represented in it; it is why it has "primitive" things like bread and wine, altars and holy water, when talking about abstracts like sin and redemption. False (or, more precisely, pseudo-) religions try to do the opposite: they try to make the concrete abstract. The bible, which is one of the most concrete books in the world--it does virtually nothing EXCEPT simply tell us that this or that happened, that this kind did that action, that Jesus did this miracle--is not even false, on their view, merely making wrong claims about what happened, but a "metaphor" or a "moral lesson" of some sort; the sacraments are "silly" or "unncessary", and so on.
I am not arguing here for Chesterton's pro-catholic view in particular. In fact, I am an atheist--I do not believe in any god or gods. But I think that it cannot be denied that being an atheist is far more religious (in Chesterton's sense) than being a liberal theologian. For me, god does not exist in the same sense, in the same way, that dragons and fairies and elves don't exist. Their nonexistence is as concrete, as specific as the claim that elephants and whales DO exist. For the liberal theologian, with "god as a metaphor", or "god in the universe", etc., God's existence is far LESS concrete; it is made such an abstact concept as to be totally meaningless. For me, the unlikely event of finding out that heaven or hell exist after my death, it is merely a case of being wrong; for the liberal theologician, it is literally an inconcievable situation, because the whole heaven and hell issue was not denied as false, but reinterpreted as a abstract thing--e.g., platitutes like "heaven is us helping other people", or some other such nonsense. Liberal theology isn't really religion in ANY sense of the word--not even in the sense of rejecting it.
The same applies to evil. For me, evil is a CONCRETE thing. It is evil actions, it is bad men. It is NOT some abstract "name given to socially disagreeable actions". Murder isn't a "socially disagreeable action", it is death and destruction; it is blood and horror. It is, in other words, evil. For me, evil is just as real as the color red, or that feeling of the absurd which leads to laughter. All three are CONCRETE THINGS that we all experience directly.
Once you start treating laughter as merely a "social reaction to situations classified by the opposite of what happens in 99% of cases", you lost your sense of humor. Once you start treating red as "the reflection of electromagnetic radiation in the X angstrom range", you can no longer see it. Once you treat evil as "social interaction" or something like that, you no longer see it; you lost half the battle already, since it became abstract--the first step towards its nonexistence.
I do not, of course, believe in Satan, any more than I believe in the existence of hell. There is no need to invoke a supernatural cause for evil. But, in a sense, I have more sympathy with those who believe in Satan than with those who deny evil is real. Those who believe in Satan often do so because, for them, evil is--as it should be--a concerete, actual thing; and as such, requiring a concretre, actual cause. On the "liberal" moral view, Satan does not exist not because it is an unncessary assuption, but because it is an oxymoron: one can hardly imagine the lord of the bottomless pit coming to earth to temp men to "actions of social disagreement with the ruling inter-class paradigm" (or whatever evil deeds are called according to the deconstructive social theory du jour).
What is going on here? Both the liberals and the satanists (those who believe in Satan, not those who worship him) are, actually, SAYING THE SAME THING. The satanists say that, since they cannot imagine a concerete thing like evil existing without a concerete cause, Satan exists. the liberals, too, cannot imagine that a concrete thing like evil exists without a concrete cause. So, since they (rightly) believe Satan doesn't exist, they must deny also that evil is anything concrete or tangible, and claim it does not exist. At least the satanists keep evil real and concrete, at the price of accepting the existence of an imaginary Satan; the liberals deny it. And, in my view, it is a far greater mistake, a much worse thing, to disbelieve in evil than to believe in Satan.
I am different than both. I believe that evil, a concrete, tangible, specific thing, DOES exist--and can exist, unfortunately, without a concrete, tangible, specific cause that creates it all, any more than there must be a "red color fairy" that makes all red things red, just because "red" is concerete. But I cannot deny the obvious fact that evil exists and that I can tell what it is, any more than I can deny the obvious fact that the color red exists and people can directly see what it is. To deny evil is not merely wrong, like beliving a fictional Satan exist or saying that 2+2=5. It is absurd, like saying that 2+2= a motorcycle.