One of the things I admire about President Bush was his willingness to face evil in the eye and name it for what it is. "Evildoers" sounds like a comic book word, but the people who attacked America last year were not sick, misunderstood, or disenfranchised: they were evil.
Ravi Zacharias says in answer to the problem of evil in the world that we must first address the evil within ourselves. Like Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi, we must take a stand and refuse to become like the evil people who cause so much pain and misery in the world. Luke chose to admire his father for the good man he had been, and refused to take part in the evil his father had come to represent. I think it's important to have heroes, people of character and selflessness we can admire and imitate, as well as repudiating the evil we see.
The Christian standard is to allow anger, but refuse to use that anger as an excuse for sin. I will not let the hurt and pain rising from the evil events of a year ago drive me to become like those who caused them.
The terrorists who shoot at isrealis, bomb uk shopping centres, blow up cars in spain and kidnap journalists all have their reasons. Their reasons may be misguided, ignorant and implausable but they are still reasons.
Evil implies a passion, a wish to do something 'evil' for its own sake not for a reason or because of something else.
everything has its cause, not to blame america or those who died a year ago, but something caused it to happen. Bin Laden and his followers didn't just wake up one morning and decide that they really wanted to maim and kill officeworkers, passers by and fireman in new york.
Had that been the case they would have bombed a mall or something not symbollic but that would satisfy the goal of 'evil'.
Chaos and mayhem are mistaken for the goals of evil, but any kind of disturbance, peaceful or violent can cause chaos and mayhem, natural disaisters cause chaos and mayhem but are not evil.
Until people can start looking at why Sept 11th happened instead of what happened the west will be fighting the symptoms of terrorism and never the cause.
There is always a cause. Some parts of the cause will never be possible to remove - there will always be fanatics and people easily misled into irrational acts. but if you remove the motivators of terrorism one by one then many more lives and economies will be spared than by merely fighting the hydra of terrorism.
Bush's attempts to chop off the heads of this hydra have lead to 2 to replace each one removed. Isreals actions have lead to an increase in volounteers to suicide bomb rather than a decrease.
The only way to beat terrorism is to strike at its heart and remove its primary causes - poverty, repression and the brutal cycle of vengance.
Re:evil?
chromatic on 2002-09-11T17:37:04
I don't want to be simplistic, but I'm not sure how you say poverty is a primary cause of terrorism. I understood people such as Hussein, UBL, and Arafat to be particularly well-funded. Guns ain't so cheap, if you can't afford food.
Re:evil?
TeeJay on 2002-09-12T07:56:09
Hussein and UBL are well funded, but that doesn't mean those that actually do the work on the ground are well funded.Thats like saying all Americans are rich just because Bush own oil wells, when fireman, nurses and teachers are underpaid (as they are in the UK) and people can't afford education or healthcare or even sometimes a roof other their head.
Many of the palestinian suicide bombers are in a life of poverty and repression - further made worse by isreal's policy of desteroying the houses of those who die, punishing the innocent and already berieved families who have often lost their only hope out of poverty.
Afghanistan is still stricken by poverty and starvation, as is a huge part of africa and south america, and funnily enough that is where a lot of terrorism is occuring.
There is a direct link between desperation fed by repression, poverty and powerlessness that leads to lashing out at the innocent as happens in terrorism.
By improving the situation for catholics in NI it was possible to bring a 30 year campaign of violence (funded by American Citizens no less) to an end.
By stopping repression, empowering those who are powerless and providing the resources to help them out of poverty the roots of terrorism will wither and die.
Re:evil?
chromatic on 2002-09-12T16:57:02
It still sounds simplistic to me, but perhaps I'm still missing your point. It makes sense that front line recruits tend to be young and idealistic, perceiving that they have no money or power. I just find it hard to believe there's a strong causitive relationship between poverty and terrorism (or poverty and crime, which is probably my main objection), at least on an individual basis.
Of the millions of Palestinians in Israel, how many are (or were) suicide bombers? That's an awfully low percentage. There are millions of dirt-poor people right next door in Egypt, too, and how many of them are suicide bombers or terrorists?
Yes, you also threw in repression, and that's fine -- but out of all of the people in the world who have little cash and have been repressed, I'd expect to see many times more terrorists, if your equation were true.
Re:evil?
TeeJay on 2002-09-13T13:22:10
As well as poverty, repression and powerlessness you need the person to a) be easily led b) be irrational and c) have the conviction and d) believe it is right.Much as in the fact that crime results from poverty, etc it is also key that there are other causes such as a lack of compassion, selfishness.
Being poor adds excuses for those who think that they deserve what they don't have.
poverty and repression and more often than not in the case of terrorsim vengance adds justifications to these actions as well as pressure from peer groups, etc.
Re:evil?
chromatic on 2002-09-13T16:39:29
Much as in the fact that crime results from poverty, etc...There's what I don't buy. (Most of the rest of your message makes sense, especially the justification bits.) If there's quite a bit of stuff covered in etc, maybe I'm focusing too much on the idea that poverty causes crime.
I don't accept that, though, because crime knows no income level. There are poor people who will never commit a crime, and there are rich people plotting and executing crimes right at this minute.
If you want to talk about "poverty of character", though, I'm right beside you.
Re:evil?
vsergu on 2002-09-12T01:32:25
It seems to me that by your restrictive definition of "evil" the word is applicable only to comic-book villains and a few insane people. People who do bad things in real life don't dress up in elaborate black costumes and cackle about how evil they are. Most evil is done by people who don't think of what they're doing as evil.
Now, if you were trying to say that the word "evil" isn't useful in discussions, I might agree with you.Re:evil?
jdavidb on 2002-09-12T02:10:53
People who do bad things in real life don't dress up in elaborate black costumes and cackle about how evil they are. Most evil is done by people who don't think of what they're doing as evil.
I think that's part of what Ravi Zacharias meant.
