Adam’s Peace

This is a controversial answer to a controversial question. The long and short of it is, evil does not exist. At least, it isn’t definable in words. There is no central entity that creates evil, no ‘dark side,’ devil, demons, or anything of the sort. At least, there is no evil that exists outside of our awareness.

Pursuing this question has led me down a rather long path of meditation and study, ranging from simple personal pain and pleasure to the purpose of all of existence and the nature of divinity. For those who are wondering, yes, this is why I haven’t been posting recently. This question, or rather, this series of questions is what has been occupying most of my time since my last update. Christianity, Wicca, Taoism, and Buddhism all have the answer, neatly hidden in plain sight, and from what I’ve seen of Druidism, the answer is there as well.

The final answer that I have is that evil is a perception, nothing more. In order to understand that, we need to understand a few things first.

The first large question that I wanted to answer was “why does evil exist?” Well, we might as well be asking why we see the color blue as the color blue. Each person interprets the electro-chemical signals from their eyes in different ways, so no two people see blue as the same blue, even though we can all agree that different objects seem blue to us. (Steve Pavlina would argue about purple, since he is color blind. That is his right, though, and nobody can say that he’s wrong, since he perceives purple as blue. ) The same logic applies to evil.

To find out why evil exists, we need to look at its effects on people. By and large, evil causes suffering, and suffering is much more tangible than the concept of evil. That leads to the question, “why does suffering exist?” From a purely physical sense, pain exists as a warning to stop us from being damaged. Other types of suffering are similar warnings, either stop hurting yourself, or start doing something so that others will stop hurting you. Suffering is a tool to motivate us to do better. Stress motivates us to work harder. Depression motivates people to improve their lives (in most cases, that is). Suffering is simply a warning.
That doesn’t quite answer the original question, though, and actually leads to a deeper question:

Why should we improve ourselves?

Well, besides alleviating suffering, the answer largely depends on your point of view. That’s not a good enough answer for me, though, because I have many different points of view, mainly Christian, Wiccan, and Taoist. According to Christianity, the answer is that you must improve yourself because that is what God told you to do. In Wicca, the answer is so that you can eventually become a god/goddess yourself, and with Tao, the answer is that personal improvement is the path of least resistance. The answers don’t exactly cancel each other out, but they’re not united either. This has led me to question the nature of divinity to a very large extent, more so than most Christian scholars recommend to. Thankfully, I’ve never taken that recommendation before, so why should I start now?

To really answer this question, we need to look at what divinity means to ourselves. With me being a universalist for so long, I found this question to be quite difficult, with my standard belief being that everybody’s interpretation of divinity is right for them… There wasn’t much room for my own interpretation, because I was living with everybody else’s. I can’t guarantee that anybody else’s interpretation is right for myself, just as I certainly wouldn’t expect anyone to take my interpretation at face value, so I had to take the time to find the right ‘face’ for divinity for myself.

What I found was very complex, but not complicated. It is only my personal view, and I highly encourage you to find your own view. The clues that I used are in all of the world religions. Christianity’s clue is that we are made in His image. Wicca cites the dual qualities of divinity, represented by the sun and moon, or male and female. The Tao says that Tao is everything. Putting these together may seem to build a contradiction, but there is one paradigm that covers the nature of divinity quite nicely, at least, in my opinion. That paradigm is that divinity is cellular. We are made in His image by being cellular, organic creatures, so we have one body that has different organs. Each of those organs are made up of cells. Those cells are made up of atoms, and those atoms have sub-atomic particles as well. Divinity is dual, having positive and negative charges on the atoms, having a range of PH (acidity) levels on the chemical side, and having male and female creatures, as well as plants that have both male and female parts. Divinity is everything, not ruling from above on a throne of cloud, but within everything because it is made from everything.

Thou Art God

Along that logic, we make up divinity. So too do cats, fish, and trees. Your neighbor is God as well, as are his neighbors. All that you touch, all that you see, all that you taste, all you feel, all that you love, all that you hate, all you distrust, all you save, all that you give, all that you deal, all that you buy, beg, borrow or steal, all you create, all you destroy, all that you do, all that you say, all that you eat, and everyone you meet, all that you slight, and everyone you fight, all that is now, all that is gone, all that’s to come, and everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

Sorry for the Pink Floyd, but it’s a good song to illustrate the scope of what I’m saying. Everything is god. Thou art God. Actually, come to think of it, that song opens up a nice little analogy, and I now feel obliged to use it. Everything under the sun represents a divine perspective… Everything is in tune. The moon blocking that divine perspective is the ego… A solar eclipse only affects one small area at a time, and a total eclipse affects an extremely small area. Disorder exists only where the ego exists, everything else is working in the background. There may be pain and suffering, but it’s in tune. Yes, I realize how bad that sounds, but I’ll get into the ‘why’ later.

One thing that distinguishes you from everybody else is that you have proof that you exist. There is quite a bit of evidence that supports the idea that other people exist, but you know, beyond all doubt, that you exist. This has been used to support subjective reality arguments many times, and those who use that argument can see my point here. Those who don’t accept that argument, however, won’t be swayed simply by hearing it again. For those who won’t accept that they are the only ‘person’ or consciousness for whatever reason (perhaps your point of view is the right one, which would be a very good reason to hold to it), I won’t insult your intelligence by repeating an old argument. In fact, we can’t prove either way whether other people exist, so it’s by far the safer bet to believe that others do, because that is where the evidence stands. I’m also not discounting the Subjective Reality camp either. The model that makes the most sense to me is somewhere in between.

Enter EGO, Stage Left

I once read a book by Orson Scott Card called Ender’s Game. In classic Science Fiction style, there was an enemy species that was similar to insects in appearance and organization. Significantly, they had a hive mind, where one of these beings, or a certain caste of these beings, had the ability to control vast numbers of the worker class as effectively as we can move our own hands and feet. The distinction is that these creatures didn’t have an ego, a sense of self. Except for that central mind, each creature was as expendable as a fingernail, just as individual ants are expendable to the colony, except for the queen who produces replacements. Humans, however, have the distinction of having an ego. We can identify ourselves, and feel that we are important. Our ego supplies us with personal desires, including those necessary for our survival as individuals, and those that bring us larger toys. Keep that in mind, as I explain some other things. I’ll come back to finish off the ego before this is done. It’s interesting to note, however, that the ego is the only thing that can be proven philosophically.

42, or Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Here’s the ultimate answer to the ultimate question: Why are we here? We are here to experience life. Be aware, that is an extremely neutral statement. We aren’t here just to be happy. We aren’t here just to suffer. We aren’t here to reproduce, or to be bitter about being infertile. We are here to experience everything. Of course, this answer only applies to the big picture, not to specific individuals, although all individuals, conscious or not, do have this as an underlying life purpose.

You’re probably asking, why would a creator make us if we are only here to exist? Shouldn’t we have some higher calling? I certainly asked those questions, and have had these questions asked of me a few times. Looking at the perspective I introduced above, though, where we are a distinct part of divinity, we find a perspective that explains why we exist: Because Divinity wants to experience everything. Divinity wants to experience the good things of life, as well as the bad. It does that by becoming us. It becomes all of us, in all of our different forms, with all of our distinct memories, feelings, and desires. We are Divinity, and just by existing, we are doing what Divinity wants us to do.

Ego moves Center Stage

Now, it wouldn’t be very much of a fulfilling experience to Divinity if It knew of Its abilities while It was living as us. (I really wish there was a better word than “It,” but I don’t want to be gender specific, since Divinity is all genders.) Most of the fun in my dreams doesn’t come when I’m lucid, but when I’m enjoying the dream on its own merits. Similarly, Divinity can’t experience the full effect of living if It knows that It can simply remove whatever pain It is experiencing, or multiply whatever joy It feels. In order to experience everything, Divinity must be able to become nothing, since ‘nothing’ is part of everything.

This is where the ego comes in for us. The ego is the tool that Divinity uses to identify an individual. The ego contains all of our memories and experiences. It contains our self-image, which creates our bodies and environment. It contains all of our hopes, dreams, and desires. The ego is also where we get our ‘less divine’ qualities, such as selfishness, anger, fear, and addiction. From an ego-centered perspective, only the ego and the physical reality which the ego creates is important. This is all fine and dandy, since the goal of Divinity is to experience everything. From an individual perspective, and a society perspective, however, this causes a few problems. An untrained ego can not stand to see other egos getting what they want without also getting what it wants. Erin Pavlina recently posted about a sociology experiment that demonstrates this tendency perfectly. (Up Against the Ropes)

The ego can best be described as both a lens, through which Divinity sees the world using all five (or six, or seven) of our senses, and also as a set of rules, which describes how Divinity is to act when experiencing life through us. As a lens, Divinity feels the world through our skin, smells the world through our nose, tastes our food, and sees everything that we see. Divinity also feels our emotions, remembers our memories, and reasons out our problems from our perspective with no more advantage than we have in figuring out the solution. We are also a set of rules, represented by the chemical interactions of the brain. Many people spend most of their time living from minute to minute, simply reacting to what the world throws at them. They don’t take the time to become aware of themselves and what they are doing; they simply concentrate on the task at hand. When we are in that state, we are bound by our habits and the chemical rules in our brains. Fortunately, as humans, we can look at ourselves in a third-person perspective. In that perspective, we can reprogram our habits and resist the chemical urges so that we can live logically and experience the emotions that we enjoy. This is what Steve Pavlina is talking about when he mentions living consciously, and he really does have a point.

Back to the First Question, “What is Evil?”

So, we are Divinity with the goal to experience everything that life has to offer. We are also our Ego, a set of ‘rules’ that govern how Divinity behaves through us. There are many egos, but it is probably safest to say that the number of Consciousnesses can be debated. There is, however, a surety that several people can be Divinity at the same, at least from the perspective of individuals. I won’t get into the time/space hypothesis that explains this, though, because it tends to make people’s thinking a little “loopy.” (that’s a pun, by the way… loopy being the shape that time would have to take if Divinity focused on only one person in Its perception of time… Yeah, I admit, it really was a bad pun.)

The ego, in this perspective, creates evil. Everything that happens, good or bad, serves to give Divinity more experiences, so overall, Divinity feels neutral about what goes on. If you can’t die, but you can dream about dying, wouldn’t you think that it is an interesting experience? The ego is more easily damaged, and death for the ego means that the ego won’t exist anymore, at least, from the ego’s perspective. Evil is nothing more than a perception, a way of looking at the world and identifying those things that cause suffering. Being lonely is, from the ego’s point of view, something which causes suffering, so needlessly secluding a person is seen as evil. Fear is an uncomfortable emotion for the ego, so spreading terror is evil. Death is seen as dangerous to the ego, so the ego calls murder an evil act. The ego recognizes that what it does to other people can also be done to itself, which is one of the primary reasons that most people don’t cause suffering to others.

This is how, from a divine perspective, everything is in tune. Obviously from the much more refined perspective on the ego, evil is very real and tangible, just as much as my car is black. In reality, what we call evil serves to give divinity as much experience as what we call good. (Before you start saying that I’m recommending people to act in evil ways, read on.)

Evil is not a thing. Evil is not an action. At best, evil is a description, such as saying that an object is red or fluffy. People can not perform evil, only evil actions. Evil is a subjective description as well; what is evil for one person is normal life for another. An example would be requiring that women do not gain an education. Another example is placing corporate retail chains on every street corner. To Americans, the first example is evil, while the second example is normal life. To an Arab, the first is normal life, while the second is evil. To many Native American tribes, owning land was heresy, but today, being a landowner is a mark of status.

Why we should improve ourselves, revisited.

Let’s set a couple of definitions down in stone. Evil is a perception of actions that causes suffering. More simply (less politically correct), evil actions cause suffering. The reverse side of that is good. Simply put, good actions relieve or prevent suffering. Good is another perception, and it is just as subjective as evil. Christian ideas of good are vastly different from Wiccan ideas of good, where the first believes that it is good to force people to be good, and the second believes that the act of forcing is evil, so it can not create any good, no matter what the intentions. (Sorry, Christians, but I’m going to have to side with the Pagans on this matter… It’s not often that I choose a side, but the topic of personal freedom is one that is near and dear to me.)

So, why should we improve ourselves? Well, from my perspective, Divinity has suffered enough. I might be wrong, and Divinity may want to suffer some more, but I’m going to go out on a limb and assuming that because I want to be happy, Divinity wants to be happy as well. We should improve because it makes Divinity feel good. When we smoke, we aren’t just harming ourselves, we’re harming our concept of god as well, very directly. When we exercise, we are strengthening our god’s body. When we eat baked potatoes, we are fattening our god, and when we drink alcohol, our god becomes drunk.

Of course, you could improve yourself simply because you want a better life. That’s a perfectly valid reason, and if it works for you, then use it. If you need a less selfish reason, then what would be better than helping Divinity directly?

The Conclusion (finally)

To conclude (isn’t it odd how conclusions tend to start with those two words?), evil is not a ‘thing.’ Evil is only a perception that is used by the ego to define actions that it would not want happening, especially to itself. We exist in order to experience life, and Divinity lives our lives through us so that It can experience everything in as much detail as we do from the same perspective. Finally, one reason that we should strive to improve ourselves is because, in my opinion, Divinity has gone through enough suffering, so it’s high-time that we start doing a bit more good in this world.
As always, feedback is welcome. Insults will be chuckled at and discarded. Questions will be given honest consideration before answering, but they will most certainly be answered. Debate will be entered into willingly, though if you do decide to debate, an open mind is the first requirement.

The proceeding commentary does not represent the views of ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, Pepsi co., The Science Channel, my cats, nor that of any other sponsor that I wish I had.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 31st, 2007 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Recovered Archive, Inner Peace. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.