Fulton Sheen on the difference between a bad man and an evil man/person
“A bad man steals, a bad man kills. An evil man does none of those things but he seeks to destroy goodness in others - like corrupting youth and circulating all manner of evil pamphlets to destroy both faith and morals…”
Hannah Arendt said "most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil".
Her 'Banality of Evil' was the observation that for many people thoughtlessness lay behind participation in evil, a failure or incapacity to consider human consequences.
Arendt said "most evil" for not all evil is banal. The glee shown by Palestinians as they murdered Jews on 7th October 2023 with acts of utter depravity and savagery was not banal anymore than was the depravity behind the so called "grooming gangs". It was not thoughlessness but a religious belief that the kuffar girls were less than fully human.
Evil comes in many forms. Making up our minds to be good matters.
I find it disturbing that 'good people' I know, take absolutely zero interest in the suffering of others, be it the victims of violence in their own country, the victims of rape gangs, or further afield October 7th, the thousands slaughtered in Iran, the hundreds of thousands slaughtered in Ukraine. And we have manufactured fake sympathy now, for favoured causes but not others. eg hysteria for two fools getting in the way of armed police in the US but 20,000 murders a year of zero interest to them. Have people become desensitised by SO MUCH horror in the news/on our screens? The indifference of people who claim they are civilised is depressing.
I happen to think religion is a load of nonsense, yes the Ten Commandments made/make a lot of sense but those 'rules' are surely just common sense, aren't they? Why should any religion claim they are clever for having common sense rules for living?
This is all a bit too philosophical for me but I first became convinced that evil walked the earth after James Bulger was murdered by two children. I cannot think of anything other explanation for such a terrible thing.
Adults have free will and the people involved with Epstein are just bad, wicked people who have chosen to do evil things. Like the people involved in the rape gangs here in the UK, many of whom to my mind made it worse by doing it under the pretext of their religion (ditto catholic priests before anybody jumps on me).
None of us is worthy, but that’s why God’s freely given love and forgiveness is so overwhelmingly powerful and beautiful and good. We are born sinful with the capacity for great evil. Evil is the absence of good. But for the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, we would not be able to be freed from the evil one and reconciled to God. God loved us so much that He made a way back to Himself, through His Son, Jesus. We have to choose who we serve.
I might take an odd stance on this topic. Yet, I will voice it. I know that there is evil in this world. The depth of this evil, I am not sure. I am aware of the stories and reports of heinous acts that have been circulating. My interest is keeping children, youth, and vulnerable people safe from the predators. I do my small part to advocate for children's rights to be safe. If we do anything in our capacity to help children, that is a bonus. If one can light into this world, it is better than darkness.
Children do not have and do not need "rights". They should have and do need PARENTS. Advocate for married, heterosexual, natural, biologically-related mums and dads.
Alex, I am not arguing your point at all. I under that children need parents. I see what you mean about biological parents. I see families as extremely important in the life of a child. I also see the harm of the state stepping in or directing the role a parent should have in the lives their children.
Question: Why is it that "children's rights" are almost NEVER invoked by married, heterosexual, natural, biologically-related mums and dads on behalf of their children; but they are almost always IMPOSED by left-wing, woke ideologues AGAINST married, heterosexual, natural, biologically-related mums and dads? Funny that. Just can't work it out...
My thoughts on what has happened is the organizations that influence policy like the United Nations and the World Economic Forum do not support the tradition family. The reasons could be many. Yet, I see the deterioration of the family as a control mechanism. It also is a way to drive children away from values, beliefs and principles of the family. Children with a strong family unit tend to have more stability and less easily influenced by society.
I see this as a huge problem in Canada, where I am from.
Christian values have deviated over the past 2000 years but in the last few years there has been a return to biblical truth and the words of Jesus and Paul, a welcome reawakening. This can lead us to a moral path that in reality is beyond the religious, knowing what is evil and what is truth is innate morality.
What has surprised me recently over these current indignant reactions to Epstein and his a associates is how our leaders can on the one hand be outraged whilst on the other still refuse to call out and prosecute the many millions of equally heinous acts perpetrated against British girls. They have not been offered rewards or presents they have been brutalized and abandoned by society and these same morally righteous MPs and community leaders.
Christian virtues are not ‘values’ . ‘Values ‘ Is a humanistic word that relativises Christian virtue that are absolutes. We can only live Christianly in Christ. We are sinful humans unless we are in Christ. We can only live by Christian virtue by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The hypocrisy of the outrage industry depends very much on who the perpetrators of evil are. The Epstein fines are about white people. The rape gangs are about a Muslims. Rupert Lowe and the others gathered around him are doing a great job in a quiet way.
The people who promoted lockdowns and mandates during the pandemic may have had "good intentions" but they succumbed to the original sin: Pride. They listened to the voice of that serpent in the garden saying: "ye shall be as gods" and they believed it. Once you go down that path, all the good intentions in the world will not prevent you from being evil.
Yes Laura, there is evil around us. In my life I believe I have met two people whom I considered were truly evil. I won't name them or the circumstances as its too personal but one is now no longer with us. Evil corrupts. It weakens. We are unfortunately governed by extremely weak individuals at the moment and evil is running amok. I believe it is spiritual, and a result of decades of neglect of that tree you mentioned. We must look to ourselves, nobody is coming to save us.
100056. I have to admit that in the nearly 80 years I've been on this planet, the word evil wasn't in my active vocabulary. Things were sad, bad, wrong or unfortunate. But since the advent to mainstream acceptance of surrogacy, and the apparent failure to address the supreme wrong inflicted on the child, I do now describe it thus. And some of the extreme sexual excesses I think come under that definition as well. Thanks for this article much appreciated by this Christian woman!
No we are not worthy. We are sinful dark hearted people that succumb to evil every day if we haven’t realised that God sent Jesus to stand in our place and take the punishment for our sin. He made it possible for us to be reconciled to God. Jesus stands in our place if we haven’t realised that truly given our lives to Him. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Man’s righteousness is as filthy rags.
Whatever the truth about all this we have forgiveness in Christ. I don’t need to know how evil and depraved man can be. We see it every day.
An interesting and entirely understandable question, especially when set against the background of various events of a less than salubrious nature. The almost suffocating stench emanated by such events, events exemplified by the actions of Epstein and his cronies almost inevitably lead to the natural judgement that such occurrences are evil; other similarly endowed contemporaneous events reinforce the conviction that there is genuine evil that underpins most of these actions.
The question of defining evil is made difficult because, as far as I know, there is no definition of evil in law. It is an entirely subjective judgement based on the shifting sands of instinctive opinion.
The idea that God is a necessary backstop to arrogant human trivialities is entirely valid but the question of faith is an interesting one, have faith or don't have faith, that is each individual's choice.
Those without faith behave as if they have become deified and behave accordingly; this is a bad thing. Conversely those with faith, the stronger the worse, assume the right to pronounce on behalf of God and dictate to others in keeping with whatever random tenets their particular faith holds to be true; this also is a bad thing.
Which is worse. Arrogantly assuming the rights and qualities of God by stepping into God's recently vacated lodgings or arrogantly assuming the right to claim to speak on behalf of God.
Either way there could be evil. Which would be worse?
Good, evil, all part of the cyclic nature of existence.
Perhaps God is an eternal dilettante who gave mankind free will as an unfinished joke and is waiting for us to write the punchline.
Maybe we are simply eight billion monkeys at eight billion typewriters who occasionally come up with the odd coherent sentence and who, with a bit of luck, might come up with the Ladybird Book of One Liners.
It is all indefinable. To do right. To mean well. To act with the best of intentions
These are the intentions that pave the road to hell.
In a famine situation the well intentioned would want to end the starvation. who wouldn't?
Do a horrible thing: quantify the suffering.
Alleviate the famine and end the suffering.
The erstwhile famine afflicted population doubles resulting in another famine.
There is now double the quantity of actual suffering.
The evil person may decide to not end the initial famine thus causing the deaths of all of those affected.
The quantity of suffering does not increase, much to the annoyance of the evil entity who quite likes to watch people suffer.
They shoot horses don't they?
Meanwhile God weeps because it has occurred to him that maybe the joke has gone too far.
"the question of faith is an interesting one, have faith or don't have faith, that is each individual's choice". Everyone has faith. It is impossible to live without faith. When was the last time you swapped a fiver for a pint? FAITH.
''Can you recognise evil without recognising God? I’m not sure. You can construct moral systems and debate ethics, but if you remove God, look how much becomes negotiable.''
Having been down that particular rabbit hole at the age of 11, I can confirm (at least in my own case) that it is perfectly possible to live a moral and 'christian' way life without having any particular 'god' waiting to cast me into eternal damnation for any 'mortal sin' actions 'they' may perceive I have permitted or caused.
There is a 'god' that watches over my actions and judges my performance, and he isn't omniscient or omnipotent ... I see him in the mirror every morning. So far my perceived sins err on the decidely venal side. I'll try to keep it that way.
The Bible is full of words that describe a strange creature—a monster of the deep. But what exactly does this dragon represent? In this podcast series, Tim and Jon explore the theme of the chaos dragon and the human struggle to win power over it.
A beautiful (odd considering the topic) article, thanks. However "Some of what we know is not speculation, such as trafficking, abuse and a network of powerful men. " made me feel I shouild point out that, while most of the deviants seem to have been men, there seemed to be quite a few women facilitating this evil. Which leads to the interesting query: which is more evil those who do what they desire or those who help those doers because they get paid (or otherwise benefit)?
Fulton Sheen on the difference between a bad man and an evil man/person
“A bad man steals, a bad man kills. An evil man does none of those things but he seeks to destroy goodness in others - like corrupting youth and circulating all manner of evil pamphlets to destroy both faith and morals…”
Hannah Arendt said "most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil".
Her 'Banality of Evil' was the observation that for many people thoughtlessness lay behind participation in evil, a failure or incapacity to consider human consequences.
Arendt said "most evil" for not all evil is banal. The glee shown by Palestinians as they murdered Jews on 7th October 2023 with acts of utter depravity and savagery was not banal anymore than was the depravity behind the so called "grooming gangs". It was not thoughlessness but a religious belief that the kuffar girls were less than fully human.
Evil comes in many forms. Making up our minds to be good matters.
Even if kuffar girls actually WERE less than human, what was done to them was evil. If it was a religious belief, then that belief is evil.
I find it disturbing that 'good people' I know, take absolutely zero interest in the suffering of others, be it the victims of violence in their own country, the victims of rape gangs, or further afield October 7th, the thousands slaughtered in Iran, the hundreds of thousands slaughtered in Ukraine. And we have manufactured fake sympathy now, for favoured causes but not others. eg hysteria for two fools getting in the way of armed police in the US but 20,000 murders a year of zero interest to them. Have people become desensitised by SO MUCH horror in the news/on our screens? The indifference of people who claim they are civilised is depressing.
I happen to think religion is a load of nonsense, yes the Ten Commandments made/make a lot of sense but those 'rules' are surely just common sense, aren't they? Why should any religion claim they are clever for having common sense rules for living?
"Good" is in inverted commas for a very good reason...
7/10 make sense Mrs B ... and some of those are a bit iffy to stick to the straight and narrow at times.
For instance: ''Honour thy father and thy mother''
Supposing your parents turn out to be of the Fred and Rose West variety? ;o)
This is all a bit too philosophical for me but I first became convinced that evil walked the earth after James Bulger was murdered by two children. I cannot think of anything other explanation for such a terrible thing.
Adults have free will and the people involved with Epstein are just bad, wicked people who have chosen to do evil things. Like the people involved in the rape gangs here in the UK, many of whom to my mind made it worse by doing it under the pretext of their religion (ditto catholic priests before anybody jumps on me).
None of us is worthy, but that’s why God’s freely given love and forgiveness is so overwhelmingly powerful and beautiful and good. We are born sinful with the capacity for great evil. Evil is the absence of good. But for the substitutionary sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, we would not be able to be freed from the evil one and reconciled to God. God loved us so much that He made a way back to Himself, through His Son, Jesus. We have to choose who we serve.
Amen
I might take an odd stance on this topic. Yet, I will voice it. I know that there is evil in this world. The depth of this evil, I am not sure. I am aware of the stories and reports of heinous acts that have been circulating. My interest is keeping children, youth, and vulnerable people safe from the predators. I do my small part to advocate for children's rights to be safe. If we do anything in our capacity to help children, that is a bonus. If one can light into this world, it is better than darkness.
Children do not have and do not need "rights". They should have and do need PARENTS. Advocate for married, heterosexual, natural, biologically-related mums and dads.
Whoever "gives" "rights" can just as easily remove them. Thanks very much, but I'm happy with simply being made in the image of God.
Alex, I am not arguing your point at all. I under that children need parents. I see what you mean about biological parents. I see families as extremely important in the life of a child. I also see the harm of the state stepping in or directing the role a parent should have in the lives their children.
Question: Why is it that "children's rights" are almost NEVER invoked by married, heterosexual, natural, biologically-related mums and dads on behalf of their children; but they are almost always IMPOSED by left-wing, woke ideologues AGAINST married, heterosexual, natural, biologically-related mums and dads? Funny that. Just can't work it out...
My thoughts on what has happened is the organizations that influence policy like the United Nations and the World Economic Forum do not support the tradition family. The reasons could be many. Yet, I see the deterioration of the family as a control mechanism. It also is a way to drive children away from values, beliefs and principles of the family. Children with a strong family unit tend to have more stability and less easily influenced by society.
I see this as a huge problem in Canada, where I am from.
The UN & WEF are Communists.
"...Canada, where I am from."
FLEE!
Take your kids and grandchildren with you!!!
Christian values have deviated over the past 2000 years but in the last few years there has been a return to biblical truth and the words of Jesus and Paul, a welcome reawakening. This can lead us to a moral path that in reality is beyond the religious, knowing what is evil and what is truth is innate morality.
What has surprised me recently over these current indignant reactions to Epstein and his a associates is how our leaders can on the one hand be outraged whilst on the other still refuse to call out and prosecute the many millions of equally heinous acts perpetrated against British girls. They have not been offered rewards or presents they have been brutalized and abandoned by society and these same morally righteous MPs and community leaders.
Christian virtues are not ‘values’ . ‘Values ‘ Is a humanistic word that relativises Christian virtue that are absolutes. We can only live Christianly in Christ. We are sinful humans unless we are in Christ. We can only live by Christian virtue by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The hypocrisy of the outrage industry depends very much on who the perpetrators of evil are. The Epstein fines are about white people. The rape gangs are about a Muslims. Rupert Lowe and the others gathered around him are doing a great job in a quiet way.
The people who promoted lockdowns and mandates during the pandemic may have had "good intentions" but they succumbed to the original sin: Pride. They listened to the voice of that serpent in the garden saying: "ye shall be as gods" and they believed it. Once you go down that path, all the good intentions in the world will not prevent you from being evil.
Yes Laura, there is evil around us. In my life I believe I have met two people whom I considered were truly evil. I won't name them or the circumstances as its too personal but one is now no longer with us. Evil corrupts. It weakens. We are unfortunately governed by extremely weak individuals at the moment and evil is running amok. I believe it is spiritual, and a result of decades of neglect of that tree you mentioned. We must look to ourselves, nobody is coming to save us.
I agree with you, Toffeepud... apart from... "We must look to ourselves, nobody is coming to save us.".
Yes, He did.
100056. I have to admit that in the nearly 80 years I've been on this planet, the word evil wasn't in my active vocabulary. Things were sad, bad, wrong or unfortunate. But since the advent to mainstream acceptance of surrogacy, and the apparent failure to address the supreme wrong inflicted on the child, I do now describe it thus. And some of the extreme sexual excesses I think come under that definition as well. Thanks for this article much appreciated by this Christian woman!
Late coming... But, you arrived! Welcome aboard.
No we are not worthy. We are sinful dark hearted people that succumb to evil every day if we haven’t realised that God sent Jesus to stand in our place and take the punishment for our sin. He made it possible for us to be reconciled to God. Jesus stands in our place if we haven’t realised that truly given our lives to Him. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Man’s righteousness is as filthy rags.
Whatever the truth about all this we have forgiveness in Christ. I don’t need to know how evil and depraved man can be. We see it every day.
Brilliantly put. It sums everything up perfectly. Hopefully good will conquer evil!!
Hopefully? That's a bit weak!!
An interesting and entirely understandable question, especially when set against the background of various events of a less than salubrious nature. The almost suffocating stench emanated by such events, events exemplified by the actions of Epstein and his cronies almost inevitably lead to the natural judgement that such occurrences are evil; other similarly endowed contemporaneous events reinforce the conviction that there is genuine evil that underpins most of these actions.
The question of defining evil is made difficult because, as far as I know, there is no definition of evil in law. It is an entirely subjective judgement based on the shifting sands of instinctive opinion.
The idea that God is a necessary backstop to arrogant human trivialities is entirely valid but the question of faith is an interesting one, have faith or don't have faith, that is each individual's choice.
Those without faith behave as if they have become deified and behave accordingly; this is a bad thing. Conversely those with faith, the stronger the worse, assume the right to pronounce on behalf of God and dictate to others in keeping with whatever random tenets their particular faith holds to be true; this also is a bad thing.
Which is worse. Arrogantly assuming the rights and qualities of God by stepping into God's recently vacated lodgings or arrogantly assuming the right to claim to speak on behalf of God.
Either way there could be evil. Which would be worse?
Good, evil, all part of the cyclic nature of existence.
Perhaps God is an eternal dilettante who gave mankind free will as an unfinished joke and is waiting for us to write the punchline.
Maybe we are simply eight billion monkeys at eight billion typewriters who occasionally come up with the odd coherent sentence and who, with a bit of luck, might come up with the Ladybird Book of One Liners.
It is all indefinable. To do right. To mean well. To act with the best of intentions
These are the intentions that pave the road to hell.
In a famine situation the well intentioned would want to end the starvation. who wouldn't?
Do a horrible thing: quantify the suffering.
Alleviate the famine and end the suffering.
The erstwhile famine afflicted population doubles resulting in another famine.
There is now double the quantity of actual suffering.
The evil person may decide to not end the initial famine thus causing the deaths of all of those affected.
The quantity of suffering does not increase, much to the annoyance of the evil entity who quite likes to watch people suffer.
They shoot horses don't they?
Meanwhile God weeps because it has occurred to him that maybe the joke has gone too far.
I'm off to do dinner now.
Good evening.
"the question of faith is an interesting one, have faith or don't have faith, that is each individual's choice". Everyone has faith. It is impossible to live without faith. When was the last time you swapped a fiver for a pint? FAITH.
''Can you recognise evil without recognising God? I’m not sure. You can construct moral systems and debate ethics, but if you remove God, look how much becomes negotiable.''
Having been down that particular rabbit hole at the age of 11, I can confirm (at least in my own case) that it is perfectly possible to live a moral and 'christian' way life without having any particular 'god' waiting to cast me into eternal damnation for any 'mortal sin' actions 'they' may perceive I have permitted or caused.
There is a 'god' that watches over my actions and judges my performance, and he isn't omniscient or omnipotent ... I see him in the mirror every morning. So far my perceived sins err on the decidely venal side. I'll try to keep it that way.
That was a very interesting read, thank you Laura.
This podcast series is a fascinating listen relating very much to this topic and it might be of interest to you and others.
https://bibleproject.com/podcasts/series/chaos-dragon/
The Bible is full of words that describe a strange creature—a monster of the deep. But what exactly does this dragon represent? In this podcast series, Tim and Jon explore the theme of the chaos dragon and the human struggle to win power over it.
A beautiful (odd considering the topic) article, thanks. However "Some of what we know is not speculation, such as trafficking, abuse and a network of powerful men. " made me feel I shouild point out that, while most of the deviants seem to have been men, there seemed to be quite a few women facilitating this evil. Which leads to the interesting query: which is more evil those who do what they desire or those who help those doers because they get paid (or otherwise benefit)?