tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post558099612803007619..comments2024-03-24T11:30:08.199-07:00Comments on Can you believe?: EvilJohan Maurerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-38239145590900470182010-07-06T06:55:05.564-07:002010-07-06T06:55:05.564-07:00Thank you, Johan. A very provocative essay. I thin...Thank you, Johan. A very provocative essay. I think we probably all struggle with how to define evil and even with the question of whether evil actually exists. I know holocaust survivors, however, for whom this latter question is not just incomprehensible but actually dangerous.<br /><br />I have been trying for a long time to define evil, prompted by an opening I had when it became clear that the Bush administration was deliberately employing torture: that there is such a thing as ideological evil--deliberately harming others because of a worldview, doing violence in service to a set of ideas. I see this as a kind of 'demonic' possession, a la Walter Wink's work on the Powers, in which your conception of reality seems to require redemptive violence.<br /><br />I've finally settled on the following definition, myself: Evil is the rush, the energy, the positive reinforcement, the satisfaction a person or a group or community gets from willfully doing harm. I think it can have a kind of existence or life of its own, as the momentum or inertia behind the rush, and as the lust behind the need for such satisfaction, as the habit of satisfying that need, and especially, as the addiction to the rush, as the compelling memory of how that power felt.<br /><br />The most compelling study of how this works I've seen is the novella by Stephen King titled "Apt Pupil," in which a teenager recognizes one of the people on his paper route from photos in the Life magazine series on the concentration camps published in the 1950s (remember them?) found in a friend's garage (which is exactly where I remember coming upon them, years after they were on the windowsill in our class room. He asks the old man to tell him stories about what it was like as payment for not turning him in. This reawakens the old camp guard's sleeping lust for pain and death and it infects the boy, who becomes a serial shooter.Steven Davisonhttp://www.BibleMonster.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-46627636054879512382010-07-05T10:13:32.087-07:002010-07-05T10:13:32.087-07:00Thanks, Johan. Not long ago, I was thinking about ...Thanks, Johan. Not long ago, I was thinking about evil and realizing how vague and muddled my own notions are. I wondered if other branches of Quakerism had more to say on the subject than my own liberal/unprogrammed tradition. I appreciate your exploration of that question.Eileen Flanaganhttp://www.eileenflanagan.com/blognoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-59145519792143887872010-07-03T13:12:46.732-07:002010-07-03T13:12:46.732-07:00To all--many thanks for these reflections.
I'...To all--many thanks for these reflections.<br /><br />I'm utterly captivated by Churchill these days--somehow, the first time I read this book, as a teenager, I did not notice how seriously he addressed the dilemmas of peace and evil from a national politician's viewpoint. (He even has a kind word to say about Quakers!)<br /><br />I will look up Gregory Boyd. I appreciated N.T. Wright's book <i>Evil and the Justice of God</i>, which I read while I was working on my chapter for the Scully/Pink Dandelion book.Johan Maurerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-31250312236850557342010-07-03T10:43:37.622-07:002010-07-03T10:43:37.622-07:00Thank you, Johan, for another thought provoking ar...Thank you, Johan, for another thought provoking article. Do you know the works of theologian Gregory Boyd, who has a three volume set on the problem of evil: "God at War," "Satan and the Problem of Evil" and I'm not sure what the new one is titled. His approach is academic, but very readable and worthwhile.<br /><br />Concerning Judy's comments above on the need for prison reform, I've been in touch this week with a friend doing time in one of Oregon's federal prisons. A former Quaker, my friend has become a Russian Orthodox and is very active in a prison that seems to be doing some things right. Educational opportunities exist, and my friend is actually teaching a music theory class. But prison is prison. I pray for him regularly.<br /><br />NancyNancyhttp://nancyjthomas.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-27319991684832487992010-07-02T20:43:48.171-07:002010-07-02T20:43:48.171-07:00I think a lot about the prison system, healing and...I think a lot about the prison system, healing and how transformation happens. The line in the first survey comment: "The higher the potential for good, the more evil it is when it is perverted." really struck me. <br />Truly don't our prisons have potentially the greatest capacity for opening up the greatest potential in the very folks that we have dammed as having no potential, no value, perhaps better said negative value, since we will pay $50,000 a year to keep them out of circulation. This then would make our warehousing, make-their-lives-miserable, take-away-all-purpose-to their-lives approach one of the biggest evils of all given the degree of potential possible.<br />What are we taught to do when faced with evil? Pray! Pray with conviction, with power. Please join me in praying that all dimensions of our prison system know healing and peace as their purpose, and activate their divine potential, to activate the divine potential in everyone living and working inside the walls.<br />Glad to see evil getting some press.<br />Judy TrethewayJudy Trethewayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06130527477728085759noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-29915010247154630382010-07-02T19:16:30.666-07:002010-07-02T19:16:30.666-07:00I was once very concerned with the nature of evil,...I was once very concerned with the nature of evil, and found that St. Thomas Aquinas had done the most complete metaphysical account. <br /><br />Basically, for Aquinas, evil goes back to the instant of the creation of Lucifer, as the most powerful angel, who instantaneously rejected serving God. An angel is a purely spiritual being and so evil is not from the flesh or matter as Platonism holds, rather it is when spiritual pride misuses the good that comes from God.<br /><br />It also requires freedom. God, in classical theology, creates a world that can reject God's will, which is metaphysically astonishing, since God is all-powerful. This is the trinitarian mystery behind the crucifixion, Jesus' execution symbolizes the sacrifice of God when he created free beings.<br /><br />I am no longer theologically orthodox, far from it, but I still find a great deal of interest in these speculations.<br /><br />My own view of evil is rooted in psychoanalytic thought, which holds that we are born with a drive for pleasure and survival, which we fulfill at our mother's breast. However, as we grow towards autonomy somewhat against our will, we resist the loss of that original bond, wishing to return to that more passive pleasurable state. Freud labeled this desire to return to a previous infantile state the "death drive" which he theorized laid the basis for our desire for control and ultimately violence.<br /><br />Thank you for the chance to think aloud about this topic.leftistquakerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10452322863147639718noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-17353239717612469702010-07-02T11:10:34.619-07:002010-07-02T11:10:34.619-07:00Thanks for this post, Johan. It got me thinking.
...Thanks for this post, Johan. It got me thinking.<br /><br />MicahMicah Baleshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06849915973708989620noreply@blogger.com