Were the events of September 11 an example of evil?
Since I don’t find the concept of evil to be very helpful, my answer is obvious. But for those who feel evil is an important concept I would certainly say that this event is an excellent one to explore. Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives. 19 of them committed suicide. These 19 were indoctrinated in a religion at an early age, some might say brainwashed. It was this brainwashing that made it possible for them to carry out this horrendous act. They killed themselves in the name of their god and for their beliefs.
This goes against the natural instinct for survival that all living organisms have. Ayn Rand wrote “An organism’s life is its standard of value: that which furthers its life is the good, that which threatens it is the evil.” If you accept this definition, then certainly the events of nine eleven were evil. 3,000 lives lost and many more threatened.
What of the 19 who took their own lives? How could they be driven to do such an unnatural thing? What great “evil” force must have made this possible? The answer is really pretty obvious. It is the same evil force that has driven people to kill abortionists. It is the same evil force that drives people to threaten and kill homosexuals. It is the same evil force that is killing people regularly in the “Holly Land”.
Is religion an evil force? No. Let me repeat that as emphatically as I can. NO!!!
If not, then why does it seem to be central in so much that is evil? I believe it is because people are brainwashed into believing that a certain belief system is truth. If their belief is truth, than anyone who believes otherwise must be wrong. If one is right and believes the other is wrong there is a conflict. The more passionate the belief, the stronger the conflict. Or, as Blaise Pascal wrote, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.”
Religion is not the evil force, at least I don’t think it is, but it is certainly fertile ground for evil. If I were to admit to an evil force, I would say it was intolerance or a lack of acceptance. Any religion, doctrine, belief system, teacher, preacher, leader, spoken or written word that accepts intolerance is “evil”. Yep, that’s it. The only thing we should not accept is intolerance or, put another way, intolerance must not be tolerated.
Comments 2
Simply believing that evil exists, and that anything must be done to extinguish it, leads to becoming evil in the name of extinguishing it. Of course, the fighters of the evil doers don’t recognize their Manichean paranoia, and that ignorance further feeds their spiral into committing evil acts in order to fight that which they have labeled as evil, when in fact, evil is as evil does.
Posted 19 Oct 2008 at 4:44 pm ¶The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
Posted 22 Jul 2009 at 10:12 pm ¶– Joseph Conrad
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