The Mystery of Evil...

Scott Peck in his book "People of the Lie" suggests that the cause of evil is laziness or a form of laziness called cowardice. It exhibits itself in the lives of people who are unwilling to face the truth and are willing to believe or create a lie instead. When reading the book I asked myself, "What would motivate a person to choose such a painful and foolish path?"

Some religious views on evil have suggested that people are by default evil and unless there is intervention, their lives will exhibit evil. Or evil originated with Lucifer and began a war between good and evil that has spilled over to this planet. One Gnostic view suggests that the god of the Old Testament is an aberration that created a world that is evil.

If one were to ask "What would motivate any being to create evil?" I doubt any answer would make sense. I think the mystery of evil, if evil actually exists, is even more difficult than proving that God exists. It has become apparent that the results of evil actions not only destroy the victim, but also destroy the creator. In the Christian tradition Lucifer was the most advanced being in the universe and yet great power and intelligence seemed rather powerless to bring insight into the futility of evil.

One of the ideas that has been moving into my awareness is that people do evil things out of ignorance and/or the instinct for survival that often emerges in times of fear. If this is true, how do people come to these states of being? And how would one come out of these states? Is there a point where any attempt is hopeless?

In the doctors trials as a part of the Nuremberg trials, after World War II, some of the German scientists were so oblivious to the effect their experiments had on their subjects that they were wondering if they could complete their work. Many justified their actions as war time actions needed to help their soldiers survive. Or they saw nothing wrong with the painful experiments since their subjects were going to be executed anyway. These men didn't look evil, nor did they set out to be evil. Even at the moment of execution some of them still held to ideologies which convinced them of their innocence.

The one thing that really stands out for me in these rationalizations, is the lack of empathy for another person. Its evident that they didn't see their victims as human persons. It was evident, that for some, their ideology bent their ability to feel for another person. I can observe this same power of ideology to create suffering in radical Islamic suicide bombers or Christian crusaders or Stalin's revolutionaries. Or even closer to home, Abu Ghraib.

One of the dangers of rationalism is that once one makes a conclusion about the lack of value and humanity of an enemy or "other," most moral and empathetic restraints go away. Whether that rationalism is based on a holy book, spurious science, or a charismatic leader, it can still lead to terrible actions. The witch hunters of the middle ages saw their methods as the best that science and reason had to offer as contained in the Malleus Maleficarum.

I have come to believe that it is important to personally learn and to teach people how to feel skillfully. I believe that there is far more information and awareness in feeling than there is in thinking. Certain forms of rational debate can point out the absurdity of different beliefs, but this fails if the person lacks the intelligence to understand the argument. And yet even the most simple can recognize when they have been insulted. And it seems the most simple often understand when they are being loved and how to return love more skillfully than their "intelligent" counterparts. What I believe that is common to all definitions of evil is its evil because of its ability to cause suffering and destruction.

At the deepest level pain makes us aware that something harmful is happening. An awareness of the world around us makes us aware of pain in others. When we ignore this and rely only on that which appears to be logical or authoritative we have the potential of creating great harm. At the very least one should wait to discover why something is painful before proceeding to inflict it on someone. But if one isn't even aware of the feeling of pain, one wouldn't even pause to consider this information. As I have mentioned before in the philosophy of Jesus he refers to the awareness of pain in oneself as one basis of ethical behavior. The idea that we should do unto others as we would have them do to us. To me this is clearly a reference to the personal experiential feeling of being in the world. And yet so little is taught or encouraged in this realm of human awareness. The awareness of what it feels like to live in the world.

I think one of the dangers of our culture is our lack of appreciation for feelings. I can't think of an instance where having feelings ever harmed anyone. Actions certainly can harm people, but I don't believe that feelings can. Maybe a belief that feelings can harm may create a feeling of harm, but that is rooted in a cognitive process not a feeling one.

A couple examples of how we can teach that ideology is more important than our own sense of what is harmful can be found in the following videos. The first is a children's cartoon made by supporters of Hamas. This video shows a Hamas style lion King vanquishing rats characterized as Fatah. Or in this video they use a child's natural sense of injustice to implant an ideology. It is a video of the martyrdom of a Mickey Mouse like character.

Another example from a strict Calvinistic theology can be seen in this video. A little way into the video you can see a child singing a song about how God hates the world to the tune of Michael Jackson's We are the World.

These may seem extreme to some of you, but until recently, within a historical perspective, these would not seem unreasonable to large groups of people. Islamic extremists certainly are communicating to a large audience that agrees with them. You can see this revealed in some of the comments on these videos. On a smaller scale sayings within our culture reveal our condemnation of feelings. "Only babies cry." "You need to get over it." "I need to handle it." "I need to be strong." "He or she fell apart." Or someone had an emotional breakdown which simply means they cried. All these imply that having feelings is either a sign of weakness, mental instability, or irresponsibility. Often these feelings are the very vehicles of "getting over it." And they become blocked by judgements and cognitive "interventions" which have nothing to do with how the other person feels, but with our own discomfort with feeling.

So if there is evil present in the world, I believe it is simply another label for fear. When humanity is not valued maybe evil is based on the fear of being human.

Spirituality in the face of suffering

I had a conversation with an up and coming writer this weekend named Morgan Chinnock. She told me about a movie called Water by director Deepa Mehta. It is the last made of her trilogy of movies based on "Elements" that celebrates the lives of women who resist marginalization in Indian society. The movie tells the stories of women who become widows in Indian society in the 1930s. One is an 8 year old girl and the other is a beautiful widow who falls for a Gandhian idealist.

What this movie revealed to Morgan was that these women are marginalized in their society by their religious beliefs. It is estimated that there are over 33 million of these women, almost 10% of the women living in India. Over 50% of them are over 50. And this does not include women who have been raped. Their plight is on a scale of suffering that brings feelings of powerlessness to many people. Many other Hindi movies link a woman's personhood to their sexual purity. Often beautiful widows are "hired out" by the older widows to pay for the survival of the group. It is also common to believe that the death of their husband was their fault. While men are free from these social stigmas and tend to support the status quo, women have been exposed to a life time of these movies that promote a popular culture that teaches them that "rape is, in addition to an assault, a matter of everlasting shame in the eyes of society and the woman herself."

The idea in this country is that if only we could bring them Christian values, then all these problems would go away. It is true that ideas and beliefs form the core block to changing Indian culture. And similar core beliefs formed the poor treatment of women in the Western world for many years. One simply has to look at the various witch trials in Europe and this country to see the power of belief in action.

In my spiritual journey I have had to shift many of the beliefs that my culture at large and my religious culture has taught me. These shifts are difficult at times and when combined with shame are almost too fearful to face. So, in some ways, I can understand the difficulties for Indian culture. The belief that they are of little value and that they are to blame is very strong in the suffering women themselves. Imagine the power of 33 million women, if their beliefs could change all at once.

There have been significant individuals in history that seemed to have the ability to transform the beliefs of large groups of people, all at once. In my country Martin Luther King was one such individual and he was killed for it. In India Gandhi was one such individual and he was eventually killed for his influence. In my tradition Jesus was one such individual and he also was killed for his ability to influence large groups of people.

Jesus is often presented as a solution or salvation if we only accept him as our Saviour and because of this emphasis I think we often miss what he actually was teaching. Maybe we are afraid to look at what he was teaching because it might transform us as a culture. Jesus addressed suffering and injustice in some unique ways. I think injustice and suffering are only the symptoms of something much deeper.

In my journey I was taught that I was born a sinner and that my instinct and desire was naturally drawn toward evil. This created an internal environment where I was taught to never trust my own feelings or thoughts. Because these thoughts came from a sinful nature and would always be tainted with sin, they could never be trusted. I was to look toward Jesus and the Bible for my answers. I never stopped to think that when reading the Bible and looking toward Jesus these interactions went through the same sin tainted mind and emotional filter. This, obviously created an impossible situation, for in reality there was nothing to trust or have faith in. The side effects of this created a lot of suffering for me growing up.

One of the brilliant aspects of the ethical guides that Jesus taught was that they drew upon an appeal to our own suffering. In the saying, "Do to others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:31. Jesus draws on our own ideals of treatment. If our ideal of treatment is that we should be punished then our belief would cause us to punish others. If we believe that we don't deserve to be treated well then we would not believe that others should be treated well. But if my instinct for a life free from suffering is not evil then may I not give in a way that relieves the suffering of others?

Later in that same chapter Jesus states, "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you."

If these ideas were taken in and lived out in our culture, I believe there would be a transformation. I also believe there would be far less suffering. In this context, suffering on a scale that we see in India, I believe, is a symptom of blocks to individual transformation. Ideas that are based on shame and condemnation. Ideas that are based on fear and hording. And ideas that judge some as less worthy. Maybe these are the true causes of suffering.

One of the lines heard in the movie trailer for Water is, "Do not lose your faith." If this world is going to change, maybe its not our faith in God, but maybe our faith in the ability and the possiblity for humans to love each other. Maybe its our faith that when confronted with the great suffering in the world, we might find our compassion for ourselves and others. Maybe we can have the courage to feel those connections and stop being afraid to love one another.