As good a treatise on Evil that I have read in awhile. We must keep fighting against Evil! I’m a Native American man and I was at a farmers market recently and an old white man towered over me with contempt as I was eating a delicious sandwich, he asks, “Do you know what god thinks of you people?”
I responded after a bite, “I’ve had my issues with god and I have my own relationship with them, thank you.” I shut him down and he walked away either disappointed or smug. Hopefully, as your article points out he felt he couldn’t live with himself with the “lesson” he couldn’t bestow upon a heathen eating a sandwich. 😆
Native Americans lived here thousands of years before Europeans showed up to take it over wanting to get away from being ruled by money and religion to “…form a more perfect union…” and then they thought it was right to rule over Natives the same way their former governments ruled them…not just to rule over them, but to eliminate them so the Europeans could have the land they wanted for their own use. Yet, if the Europeans had made friends with the Natives, we would have a much better nation, because, while there were battles with other tribes for more land to grow on, the People took special care of those who could not provide for themselves, and responsibly lived in the environment without screwing up the world. The Lakota, with who I am most familiar, would fight an invading tribe, and then go out on the battlefield and find the opposing warriors who were injured but had a chance to live, take them back to their own community, and when they were back to health, the Lakota gave them two choices: stay with the Lakota, or go back home…the majority stayed…but the authoritarian white men won’t do that, in fact, when people come here to escape violence and poverty, they are the bad guys who are criminalized and blamed for many of our problems…so which one is more like “god”…the Indians, or the white people?
The Republican Party and White Nationalists now embody the philosophy of evil, you so well describe, with Trump at their helm. You also exactly described the Southern Baptist Convention I was raised in here in Alabama and Christianity itself. The church uses its false righteousness to defend its abuses of its people and of the land.
We’re fighting a holy war right now for the soul of America. Our founders fled religious persecution and created a country free of a national religion. Yet, here we are, 250 years later, fighting again for our constitutional right to be free of religious tyranny. We have thousands of years of holy wars we can look to that tell us how this ends. Why do we keep repeating the past? Why don’t we learn? Why is ignorance more powerful than knowledge? Why do we continue to allow religious mythology to tear us down leading to repeated destruction? As far as I’m concerned, religion is the most dangerous entity in the entire world.
Du Bois had the right philosophy. His primary concern was to make sure his people knew that they mattered, if only to themselves. He was a founding member of the NAACP, and used the organization's journal, "The Crisis", as a means of expressing that statement. And he didn't expect that any of his white haters would be subscribers to the journal, so he was free to criticize them anonymously and from afar.
Eventually, though, he got so frustrated with America that he left it and spent the rest of his life in Ghana...
I could literally quote every paragraph of this article and write my own article elaborating on it. This is why I write the way I do. Christianity is a system meant to care for and cater to abusers and bigots.
Yep. There is no 'evil.' There are no outside forces or deities trying to tempt us into doing bad things. When we fuck up, that's on us, and nobody else, nothing is influencing us save for our own fear, greed, and lack of emotional evolution. It's just us, being monkey-brained primordial mammals inclined to tribalism and a crippling anxiety over accepting 'that which is different from us,' or 'that which requires us to change our perception.'
This is some real deep information here! It is also very true! Sir, you have done well and put this together in such a way so that anyone can understand it! Thank you for posting this!
Exactly Walter!! Brilliant and clear analysis of the problem. And you touched upon the solution, that the antidote to this evil is that all good people must now be the heroes.
One of the many problems I find with the Marvel superheroe universe is the lack of the very basic understanding that we need many heroes, not just one or two. Each good person has to actively be the hero.
You're either actively anti-racist or you enable and accept racism/evil. Those are the only two positions.
There is another part of this too, which is when they accuse others of cheating etc, it’s because that is what they do and how they think. They cannot imagine anyone could think any differently. They hold tightly to their doctrine if superiority because the damning truth is, they hate themselves first and they are deeply ashamed of themselves and too cowardly to look at themselves. This is how trauma and shame recycle. Instead of healing, their self protection (from self) racket destroys everyone around them.
Patriarchy divorces humans from the possibility of real relationship and sets up everything you name here. I have spent my life trying to understand and change this and it is so entrenched. I am getting beyond weary. Like you, I wanted my daughter to grow up in a better world.
That you write about it gives me some small measure of hope, and I fear we don’t have much time. We have been going backwards for a while. I have so much rage and my heart is broken.
I've never been to a church where the pastor sees himself as pure and better than everyone else. This shouldn't be surprising since Christianity teaches that we ALL have a nature ordered towards sinning. Perhaps your experience isn't ubiquitous?
As good a treatise on Evil that I have read in awhile. We must keep fighting against Evil! I’m a Native American man and I was at a farmers market recently and an old white man towered over me with contempt as I was eating a delicious sandwich, he asks, “Do you know what god thinks of you people?”
I responded after a bite, “I’ve had my issues with god and I have my own relationship with them, thank you.” I shut him down and he walked away either disappointed or smug. Hopefully, as your article points out he felt he couldn’t live with himself with the “lesson” he couldn’t bestow upon a heathen eating a sandwich. 😆
Good for you Forrest! It probably caused him some angst, but he's got no way out. Thanks for the comment!
“Yes, but you’re clearly oblivious to what he thinks of you PEOPLE.”
Rude, but possibly rescuable.
What - people that eat sandwiches? I’m pretty sure he loves them too.
Native Americans lived here thousands of years before Europeans showed up to take it over wanting to get away from being ruled by money and religion to “…form a more perfect union…” and then they thought it was right to rule over Natives the same way their former governments ruled them…not just to rule over them, but to eliminate them so the Europeans could have the land they wanted for their own use. Yet, if the Europeans had made friends with the Natives, we would have a much better nation, because, while there were battles with other tribes for more land to grow on, the People took special care of those who could not provide for themselves, and responsibly lived in the environment without screwing up the world. The Lakota, with who I am most familiar, would fight an invading tribe, and then go out on the battlefield and find the opposing warriors who were injured but had a chance to live, take them back to their own community, and when they were back to health, the Lakota gave them two choices: stay with the Lakota, or go back home…the majority stayed…but the authoritarian white men won’t do that, in fact, when people come here to escape violence and poverty, they are the bad guys who are criminalized and blamed for many of our problems…so which one is more like “god”…the Indians, or the white people?
The Republican Party and White Nationalists now embody the philosophy of evil, you so well describe, with Trump at their helm. You also exactly described the Southern Baptist Convention I was raised in here in Alabama and Christianity itself. The church uses its false righteousness to defend its abuses of its people and of the land.
We’re fighting a holy war right now for the soul of America. Our founders fled religious persecution and created a country free of a national religion. Yet, here we are, 250 years later, fighting again for our constitutional right to be free of religious tyranny. We have thousands of years of holy wars we can look to that tell us how this ends. Why do we keep repeating the past? Why don’t we learn? Why is ignorance more powerful than knowledge? Why do we continue to allow religious mythology to tear us down leading to repeated destruction? As far as I’m concerned, religion is the most dangerous entity in the entire world.
One of the most destructive elements in our society today is Christianity as it is currently practiced in these United States.
Du Bois had the right philosophy. His primary concern was to make sure his people knew that they mattered, if only to themselves. He was a founding member of the NAACP, and used the organization's journal, "The Crisis", as a means of expressing that statement. And he didn't expect that any of his white haters would be subscribers to the journal, so he was free to criticize them anonymously and from afar.
Eventually, though, he got so frustrated with America that he left it and spent the rest of his life in Ghana...
America always loses its best people.
He was one of those, no doubt about it.
I could literally quote every paragraph of this article and write my own article elaborating on it. This is why I write the way I do. Christianity is a system meant to care for and cater to abusers and bigots.
Yep. There is no 'evil.' There are no outside forces or deities trying to tempt us into doing bad things. When we fuck up, that's on us, and nobody else, nothing is influencing us save for our own fear, greed, and lack of emotional evolution. It's just us, being monkey-brained primordial mammals inclined to tribalism and a crippling anxiety over accepting 'that which is different from us,' or 'that which requires us to change our perception.'
This is some real deep information here! It is also very true! Sir, you have done well and put this together in such a way so that anyone can understand it! Thank you for posting this!
Thanks for reading!
Thank YOU! I will be reading it again and again!
Exactly Walter!! Brilliant and clear analysis of the problem. And you touched upon the solution, that the antidote to this evil is that all good people must now be the heroes.
One of the many problems I find with the Marvel superheroe universe is the lack of the very basic understanding that we need many heroes, not just one or two. Each good person has to actively be the hero.
You're either actively anti-racist or you enable and accept racism/evil. Those are the only two positions.
“Othering” in all its forms.
Another awesome piece!
There is another part of this too, which is when they accuse others of cheating etc, it’s because that is what they do and how they think. They cannot imagine anyone could think any differently. They hold tightly to their doctrine if superiority because the damning truth is, they hate themselves first and they are deeply ashamed of themselves and too cowardly to look at themselves. This is how trauma and shame recycle. Instead of healing, their self protection (from self) racket destroys everyone around them.
Patriarchy divorces humans from the possibility of real relationship and sets up everything you name here. I have spent my life trying to understand and change this and it is so entrenched. I am getting beyond weary. Like you, I wanted my daughter to grow up in a better world.
That you write about it gives me some small measure of hope, and I fear we don’t have much time. We have been going backwards for a while. I have so much rage and my heart is broken.
I've never been to a church where the pastor sees himself as pure and better than everyone else. This shouldn't be surprising since Christianity teaches that we ALL have a nature ordered towards sinning. Perhaps your experience isn't ubiquitous?