You Learn Something New Every Day

Good, evil, and the divine

(Continued from How Did Life Come Into Being?)

One thing about my belief that I don’t generally share with many Christians and Muslims is that of there being static definitions of what is good and evil. Of course, I have known some Christians and Muslims to agree with me on this as well.

What I do believe is that there are general consequences for certain actions: if you step out in front of moving cars, the chance you will get hit by one is greatly increased.

But is this good or bad?

To suspend your reflex to call something like this good or bad can be a very radical concept—but I believe it’s a necessary one if you really want to follow God and/or live to your full potential.

I’m not saying you should never think of anything as good or bad. We are not rocks; we are human beings with feelings. We cannot help having positive or negative experiences.

I am saying that dogmatic classification of things as good or evil is an obstacle to finding truth and fulfillment in life.

Have you never heard stories about poor people who got rich and thought they had it so good, and yet things only got worse for them? How their new wealth drove them farther from family and friends, and how their new friends only cared about the money? How the great fame these newly rich celebrities have becomes a prison since they can go nowhere and be left alone?

Think about it. Why do so many celebrities end up divorced multiple times, taking drugs, drinking, in jail, etc.? It’s because they believe the lie that it’s all good, because “I’m rich, so it must be so!”

What about the Jonathan Swains of the world? People who go through the greatest hell imaginable, and yet find blessings in everything? That man has had AIDS ever since he was young, and yet he and his brother have taken care of each other through it all, even when both their parents weren’t around. Though AIDS is not something to be wished on people, I dare say that, looked at from a less obvious perspective, some good has come out of his situation. So many of us who have been through less would love to feel as together and at peace as he does.

There are varying amounts of good and bad in everything and everyone. I believe that attempting to just separate life into good and evil brings a person further from understanding, not closer.

This is one of the major reasons I am not an adherent of any one religious stream of thought. In the same way as many members of a particular faith will say that not following the faith is an excuse to let yourself go, I see a dangerous trend in modern religion towards using one’s faith as an excuse not to be open to other perspectives and ideas.

Of course, in every faith, I do find people who do not do this…at the end of the day it’s a matter of your own perspectives and choices. But I have found that, by suspending my gut urge to celebrate or vomit when something good or bad happens, I have left myself open to see many things that others miss. I think this is quite a valuable viewpoint to have in today’s world.

July 16th, 2007 Posted by Michaell at 02:34pm | God and Belief | one comment

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