Forbidden Fruit
Those who claim that there is no good or evil, have not thought the evidence through very carefully. If there is no good and evil, where did the concept come from? If this idea is a lie, then by definition, there is evil, for how could and why would a good individual pass along anything but the truth? To distort the truth is by definition evil, because it can cause harm to others. And no man or woman who was good would commit murder, perhaps the ultimate personification of evil.
If this is not true and we would commit murder anyway, even if we knew the entire truth about our neighbor and ourselves, then murder by definition must be good; in favor of the survival. And those among us who strive for Human and Civil Rights instead of murder and mayhem would by all known logic, be promoters of evil, as doing so would be against the survival of the human race.
The idea of treating our fellow sojourners here on earth as we ourselves would like to be treated, is found in a great many diverse cultures scattered throughout the historical pages of human civilization. Thus by default there must be “evil”. If there is no evil, why do so many diverse cultures find the need to be taught to be good; to love our neighbor as our self?
Why do nations, both small and great, find it necessary to create laws and legal systems? Would we want a murderer and child molester living next door to our children? Why do children in schools accept some children and reject other children? Why do we give our children and adults prizes and awards for being what we perceive to be good? Why aren’t they naturally good from birth?
Why is Jesus considered to be a great teacher of good? If treating other people as we want to be treated is how we define Human and Civil Rights, how we define our humanity and thus, how we define “good”, then why do we need to strive so hard to achieve such a seemingly simple and logical solution? Why don’t we do so automatically without any necessary life-sacrificing endorsement from historical activists such as Isaiah, Jesus, Gandhi, Helen Keller, Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King, Jr.?
If helping the sick and poor, protecting the environment, striving for personal and collective freedom, promoting peace and goodwill toward all and the other basic tenants of Human & Civil Rights are preferable to the current situation of war and rumor of war, global inequality, prejudice, hatred, strife, hunger, pain and other suffering and mass pollution, then by definition, striving to overcome what we don’t really want must be “good”. If it is not good, then why are we universally striving for such and if it is good to do so, then there by all known logic must be evil. What we are trying to overcome would by definition, be “evil”, that which is not good and beneficial for human beings.
If we define evil as sin and there is in reality, no such thing as sin, then why do we universally find the need to teach our children to be good? How could a good parent deliberately teach their child to be bad? And if no good parent would ever do such, then why do we find so much hatred, strife, prejudice, murder, war and rumor of other violence within human societies. From who or where does it originate? Why are ethics classes found at every major university? Why aren’t students naturally ethical on their own?
If hatred, strife, prejudice, murder, war and rumor of war are natural to the survival of the fittest, then why do many of the most intelligent and revered members of the human race strive to promote peace and goodwill? If this is against natural human evolution and against our survival, then individuals who promote human rights must be guilty of promoting evil. If they are not promoting evil, then by default, evil must exist or else, why is their message of peace and goodwill necessary at all? Is it good or evil for someone to sacrifice their life for another person?
Why do we have to teach our children to be morally good? Why are children not automatically good on their own? Do we try as hard to teach our children to be bad as we try to teach them to be good? If not, then why is it so hard to convince them to behave and why does there continue to be hatred, strife, prejudice, murder, mayhem and war after more than 5,000 years of educational, cultural and moral instruction to the contrary? Why do many educated adults continue to promote the opposite of peace and goodwill — -that is, why do they continue to do evil?
In the meetings of Unitarians, Humanists, Christians, Jews and various other religions, educators, scientists, environmentalists and social activists, virtually all of the people in attendance share in common the opinion that the basic teachings attributed to Jesus in the New Testament are fundamentally morally and socially correct, a good idea and healthy for our us to emulate. Similar ideas of treating others as we ourselves would like to be treated are found in many diverse cultures with no knowledge of Jesus, thus indicating that the foundation of Human Rights is universal to the human conscience and of paramount importance to the health and survival of the human race.
If this is not true, then we are left with the following difficult question: Why do so many diverse people think that it is true? If what Jesus taught is not good and correct, then who lied so well and so often and why would someone go to such great length to spread falsehood if there is no evil? If it is true that the basic moral and ethical teachings of Jesus are correct, then we are left with an other difficult question. How did an apparently uneducated son of a probably largely uneducated common Jewish laborer, without the benefit of modern historical, moral, ethical, intellectual and scientific education, become such an all-wise human being by the age of thirty?
If Jesus was so fundamentally correct about morality and ethics, how is it that he was he so entirely incorrect about good and evil? Likewise, if there is no God, why did someone as intelligent as Jesus strongly insist that there is — -and if his claims of the existence of God and evil were only a sham to deceive the simple masses, why would someone so correct about Human and Civil Rights deliberately deceive us about evil and God?
If it is correct that we should treat others as we ourselves wish to be treated, then why did human beings jam a crown of thorns on the head and drive five-inch nails through the hands and feet of our greatest teacher, hanging him on a Roman cross to suffer a most horrendous and painful death? How can such an atrocity rationally be defined as anything other than evil?
How could we possibly crucify our greatest proponent of positive political and social activism if there is no evil and why would anyone regret doing such if there is no opposite of evil, that is, good? How is it that we posses something we call “conscience” at all if both evil and good are not distinct and separate realities? Where and why did our conscience originate and why is there a continual war within our own selves against our individual conscience as to what is right and wrong, correct and incorrect, good and evil?
Truly it is a most irrational and foolish individual who would claim that there is no evil! Calling evil “sin” or sin “evil” or using other terminology such as “improper motivation”, “negative thinking” “unhealthy thought and action” and “psychological maladjustment” does not change the basic reality of the problem. And if there is evil, there must also be good as a distinct and separate reality, otherwise there is nothing to define evil as such.
Why did the song “We Shall Overcome” become the anthem of the modern Civil Rights Movement in America and elsewhere? What exactly are we trying to overcome and why?
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