"The tragedy of common sense
it that it is not
very common."
(Albert Einstein)

"Politically correct Christianity
is tolerated but despised.
Full Gospel Christianity is
respected but persecuted."
(Unknown)

"If you marry the Zeitgeist
you will soon become widow."
(Goethe)

"To reach the source of a river
you must swim upstreams."
(Stanislaw Jerzy Lec)

"I note that all those,
who are positive to abortion
already are born."
(Ronald Reagan)

The Face of Evil

Evil people find their strength in being evil together.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

In the materialistic/atheistic perspective, according to which man is the result of blind natural law combined with chance and coincidence, there is no evil and hence no evil people, because there is no room for any free will. The lion torments its prey, not because it chooses to do so, but because the lion is programmed to do so. People that plague other people are similarly programmed for this. Murderers, assailants, pedophiles etc should therefore not be punished, but reprogrammed. In this perspective, man is reduced to an electro-mechanical-biological robot, who is deterministically governed by input (upbringing and environment), the brain's neural network (software or perhaps "firmware") and genes (hardware). Physical reality is described by long chains of cause and effect (causality) in combination with random factors. Human actions are, in this interpretation, just a consequence of chance and necessity. Although we believe and feel that we can choose, this is only an illusion. Our "choices" are in fact not real choices made by our free will. Instead they are deterministically/randomly determined (the latter factor making certain actions unpredictable). Thus, Man cannot start a causal chain, but is just a soulless part of an almost infinite series of such chains. A prisoner encapsulated in chance and necessity. With such a view, it would be incorrect to say that people commit evil acts. What happens, happens. Hitler was just a product of natural law and random processes. If materialism is true, there exists no absolute morality, no absolute right or wrong. What is right and wrong is based on the opinion of 51 percent of a country's population, if the country has some kind of democracy. In other cases, right and wrong is determined by the ruling class or the dictator. But since populations of democracies, as well as dictators, are integral parts of the causal chains, "right and wrong" is in fact regulated by natural law and chance and nothing more.

In the Christian perspective, on the other hand, man is created as God's image. He has a free will, which means the ability to act "first cause", i.e. he can launch chains of cause-and-effect, without his choices being the effect of a prior cause (which does not mean that we are not influenced by different factors when choosing — but being influenced is not the same thing as being causally determined). Man has also, according to Christianity, a moral compass, given by God (he is after all created in God's image), and he knows deep down what is right and wrong (in the Christian perspective there is thus an absolute right and wrong). This compass is colloquially called conscience. Therefore, humans have a responsibility for their actions. Certain actions can cause great suffering and misery for other people, and of course also for animals. When people consciously make a decision, resulting in the suffering of other beings, the Bible calls this an act of evil. Since human beings have the unique ability to know what is good and evil, and as well to be able to choose between good and evil, he has an overall responsibility for his actions. This responsibility also entails consequences. If Man deliberately and consciously selects evil, the consequence will be, according to the Bible, eternal death.

At a time when evil seems to appear more and more prevalent and noticeable, I think it is important to reflect on the nature of evil. "What is evil?", is a difficult question and I definitely have no complete answer. The question, however, is too important to be totally neglected. A possible and first attempt to answer this is to accept that evil causes suffering. But even the dentist or surgeon can of course cause suffering (at least temporarily — usually you don't feel so great when you wake up after a difficult operation). In this case, however, it's about a lesser suffering preventing a greater suffering. The intent is good and righteous. On the other hand, evil can in short terms bring positive consequences (the Nazis put an end to unemployment and gave people food for the day), but in the long run, its consequences were evil, because the intent was neither good nor righteous. While it is true that evil causes suffering, it does not embrace the whole truth. Evil has many more facets.

The American psychiatrist Leon Goldensohn made, in connection with the Nuremberg trials after World War II, a number of interviews with the accused Nazi leaders, including Goering, Streicher (the worst anti-Semite of them all) and Hoess (commander of Auschwitz). The aim was to explore how people, who had grown up in a country with traditions from Goethe, Schopenhauer, Mozart etc, could resort to the unimaginable savagery of the Nazis. When Goldensohn after the trial was asked, "What is evil?" he replied briefly, "Lack of empathy." I think there is a lot to this. The absence of empathy can make it easier to commit evil acts, or to accept or sympathize with evildoers, as empathy-less individual do not "feel bad" by the victims' suffering.

When I see people who are demonstrating against a mass murderer in the United States, who is to be executed, I, in fact, consider this a form of evil. Where is the empathy for the victims and families of the victims? These people will not lift a finger to ease the family members' distress, while simultaneously fighting tooth and nail to prevent the culprit from receiving the apt consequences of his actions. Priority is thus given to the offender's best, instead of care for the victims and their relatives. I am not talking about a demonstration against the execution of someone who is believed to be innocent. It's a completely different thing. It goes without saying that anyone who is innocent shall be freed. But even when dealing with offenders, who are demonstrably guilty (as far as anything can possibly be proved), and maybe even have confessed their crime, such regular demonstrations do occur. Sure, you may think that the death penalty is wrong. I have full respect for that. However, the total lack of empathy for the victims and their families, speaks volumes. It speaks the language of evil.

Why, then, are some people unable, or have a greatly reduced ability to feel empathy? This in particular characterize psychopaths among others, who are largely indifferent to other people's welfare and feelings. As I see it, being a psychopath is not an illness, but rather more specifically it is about having a rare unpleasant personality. They are people who do not feel any remorse for the suffering they cause others, but only look to their own satisfaction. They have simply chosen to make themselves the center of the universe at the expense of other people. In my opinion, psychopaths are not sick, they are evil.

Something else, that even among "normal" human beings, can reduce the ability to empathize, is scientific specialization and professionalism. In the Holocaust, and even in the euthanasia program that existed in Nazi Germany, eminent scientists took part with enthusiasm. The euthanasia program began long before the Nazis came to power and the initiative for this had been taken by a number of German doctors, psychiatrists and lawyers. In the introduction to The Final Solution (Routledge 1994) writes David Cesarani:

An astonishingly high proportion of the men commanding the Einsatzgruppen and their sub-units or Einsatzkommandos [these groups and commandos murdered around 1,5 million human beings, mainly Jews, by mass-executions — often called "Holocaust by bullets" — eventually this was replaced with gassing, which was less traumatic for the killers] possessed legal training and had completed law doctorates. Such impressive qualifications… legitimated the commission of acts that were grossly illegal and helped to create popular acquiescence. That such men could behave in this way calls into question the ethical scope of such expertise, and suggests that scientific specialization may be one way in which the usual standards of human decency can be short-circuited (p. 4).

The book Die Freigabe der Vernichtung lebensunwerten Lebens (i.e. Admission of annihilation of useless lives), published in Leipzig in 1920, was to change the perception of human value (not only in Germany but also in Sweden and many other countries). Authors were the jurist Karl Binding and the psychiatrist Alfred Hoche, both highly regarded in their respective fields. In the book terms like "life without value" and "lives not worth living" were coined. The authors pleaded for euthanasia of all chronically ill, disabled and mentally retarded people and Binding and Hoche condemned any feelings of empathy, compassion and sympathy for those who were killed, because such feelings are based on incorrect (i.e. unscientific) thinking. The true scientist (superman, or shall we rather say, psychopath) does not allow himself to entertain such "inferior" feelings.

Scientific specialization and professionalism, coupled with the reasoning à la Binding and Hoche, made it a natural thing for the doctors who participated in the Holocaust (including the selection among the newly arrived camp prisoners, of whom were to be gassed immediately and who would become slave laborers) to calmly sit down and single which children should be gassed (only children that were old enough to work were allowed to live). They no longer regarded the children as children or human beings. And they did not see the suffering they caused. Their normal humanity had become short-circuited. People were reduced to objects in ice-cold logical theories about racial survival. Even if they in moments of weakness might have felt some doubts as to what they were doing, they persuaded themselves that what they were doing was necessary and that someone had to do what had to be done. Therefore, it is important to watch out! Even today, when i.e. euthanasia is being discussed, there is at risk of a similar development. But note that although the scientific specialization numbed the conscience and made it easier to be "inhuman", it does not mean that these doctors and lawyers were blameless. They chose to let themselves be "seduced", and the supposedly "scientific" arguments that were used to justify the murders, was just an attempt to vindicate their actions. They could have acted differently. There were many doctors who chose not to participate because they felt that what happened was wrong.

But let us return to the nature of evil. It could be said that evil is the absence of goodness. Heat is the kinetic energy of the small parts that make up matter (atoms and molecules). Light is photons emitted from a light source. Cold is nothing in itself. It is simply the absence of heat, i.e. lack of kinetic energy. Likewise, darkness is the absence of light (photons). I usually use the term res presens (Latin for "present thing") to denote something that exists by virtue of the existence of something. Heat and light are thus res present. The opposite of this could be called res absens ("absent thing"). This stands for something that exists by virtue of the absence of something else. Darkness (absence of photons) and cold (absence of atomic kinetic energy) are therefore res absens. Evil likewise could be regarded as a kind of res absens. It is simply the absence of goodness. Goodness involves actively reducing this world's suffering, both in a physical and human way. The Bible speaks of sins of omission, i.e, that we fail to do what we know is right. Not sharing your wealth to alleviate the suffering in the world, is for example definitely a form of evil.

But not even the total sum of what we so far have cited, i.e. "causing suffering," "lack of empathy" and "absence of goodness" captures the whole concept of evil. There exists also something active in the evil. Evil is an active force, striving toward a goal. The Bible speaks of an existing spiritual and personal power behind evil, called the Devil, whose goal is to destroy all creation. Jesus says of the Devil, "The thief cometh not, but for to steal, kill, and destroy. I have come to give life and life more abundantly" (John 10:10). Evil can only kill, and destroy. It cannot create anything, just steal what others have created and then destroy it. So there is something active, a dynamic, in evil, which is more than just the absence of certain human characteristics and values. It basically wants to conquer the world and enslave humanity. All evil regimes, ideologies and religions have, and have had, this endeavor. The latest in line is the militant Islamism, which appeared just when Communism fell.

One way to characterize and define concepts is by way of example. By listing a number of characteristics of evil, we can get a better and clearer idea of its nature. The following list can certainly be supplemented with additional points (I am grateful for suggestions). Some of the points in the list overlap. But language is a blunt instrument, so this we have to live with. The order of the points is not a measure of priority.

Note that most people fulfill one or more of the following points, or at least sporadically (this also includes me — of course!). This does not necessarily mean that someone is particularly bad or a representative of evil on this earth. It just means you're human, which encompasses weaknesses and flaws (but also great qualities). The points below however endeavor to show the nature of evil, and individuals, cultures and/or ideologies which consistently characterize the paragraphs below, are undoubtedly a part of the Evil.

1. Evil is stupid. The Lutheran priest Dietrich Bonhoffer, who was executed by the Nazis just weeks before the end of the war, used to talk about "the stupid evil." It does not mean that evil people are necessarily unintelligent. The Nazi leaders were, with few exceptions, hardly unintelligent, on the contrary. But intelligence does not always lead to making the right or just conclusions. If you enter the wrong input data into a logical processor, the result will be wrong, no matter how powerful and fast the processor is. Wisdom is to enter the correct input, and here no intelligence can help us. Wisdom, which is always linked to respect for the truth, and includes humility and experience, always leads to a good result. Evil is always lacking wisdom. Therefore, intelligent people, who indulge in evil, often appears a bit silly. Evil makes stupid. However, there is a sly cunning in evil. That's what makes it so dangerous.

Watching films from Nazi rallies, where hundreds of thousands of people are cheering and roaring and waving their arms before a screaming and yelling Hitler, who pours out his platitudes in a steady stream, you can see the total stupidity in all its glory. Islamists, shooting in the air and screaming and yelling and burning flags and dolls representing Bush, to show their displeasure for the Western freedom of speech, is a further example of the stupid evil. The Islamists' denial that there was ever a Jewish temple in Jerusalem and that the Jews have a connection to Israel, is also a part of the stupid evil. This stupidity boggles your mind. If you move on to Mao's China you will find many examples of the stupid evil. It was planned e.g. to establish a university with just one topic, "maotsetungism", and there the only topic to be studied was Chairman Mao's infinite and inscrutable wisdom. Or how about North Korean newspapers writing about the great leader Kim Il Sung's golf games? They routinely claim that every ball is a "hole in one" (i.e., the ball lands in the hole with one stroke — something that most players never get to experience throughout their lives). Something more absurd and silly is difficult to imagine. That is why political correctness is part of the evil. It is stupefying, since it is not open to alternative views. By isolating themselves from all counter-arguments, the representatives of political correctness are approaching a kind of maximal "thought-entropy", just like a physical system that is isolated from the environment, is moving towards maximum physical entropy (i.e. maximum disorder and chaos, according to the Second Law of Thermodynamics).

The stupefying effects of evil are reflected in how the West's politically correct intellectuals (so called) and politicians ransack themselves and the Western world to excuse Islamic terrorism. Our Middle East policy and the poverty and exclusion of the Muslim immigrants' is the explanation for the terror, they claim. So Islamic terrorism and all the problems in the Muslim World is our own fault. It is interesting to note that in the recent failed car bomb attempts in the UK (late June 2007), 5 out of 8 arrested were physicians. The terrorists who were involved in the September 11 attacks were mostly highly educated. Hassan Butt, a former Islamist but who then withdrew, wrote in The Observer on July 1st, 2007:

When I was still a member of what might best be called "the British Jihadi Network," a group of semi-autonomous, British, Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh whenever people on TV proclaimed that the West's foreign policy was the cause of the Islamist terror, as on September 11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 [the bombings in London in 2005].

By giving the government the blame for our actions, those who criticized Blair's bombings in Iraq did propaganda work for us. More importantly, they also helped to divert attention from the real engine behind our violence: Islamic theology [note: — I am not claiming this, it is Hassan Butt].

To conclude, evil makes stupid and makes it impossible for those who come under it's spell to draw the right conclusions (if by right you mean anything connected to righteousness and truth).

2. Evil lacks humor. Someone once said, "In the world of fanatics, I have never seen anyone laugh. The only one who laughs is the Devil." If evil laughs, it's a mocking laugh. Schadenfreude is the only joy that evil is familiar with (possibly apart from bottled happiness). The stupid grin on the faces of a teenage gang kicking to death a 40 year old man in a schoolyard in an average town in Sweden, is evil's counterpart to humor. True humor, that has warmth and compassion, make us laugh. But we don't laugh at others, we recognize ourselves and laugh at our own weaknesses and shortcomings. All great art helps us understand what it means to be human. The late Povel Ramel (Swedish artist) was a true humorist. He could be funny without swearwords, sex words, scorn and contempt for other people. Most so-called humorists today seem to think that humor means standing on stage screaming profanity and sexual words in a never-ending stream, mixing it with directly insulting other people. Laughing at this type of "humor" is not exactly something that speaks in the crowd's favor. Only evil people laugh at mockery and humiliation. True humor is always on the side of the good! Lasse Åberg is another (Swedish) humorist who can express the warm, loving humor that does not mock, but shows what it means to be truly human. I am convinced that God has a lot of humor (he must reasonably have, to put up with us humans).

3. Evil cannot be negotiated with. When two democracies have a conflict, one party might make a concession. The other party interprets this as a sign of good will and makes another concession, which eventually leads to a workable compromise that is beneficial to both parties. Evil on the other hand interprets every concession from the other party as a weakness and immediately advances its positions. The prelude to World War II is a flagrant example of this. Chamberlain believed all the time that Hitler would be appeased with further concessions. To quote Churchill, after he succeeded Chamberlain, "They tried to buy peace at the price of infamy. First came the disgrace and then came the war anyway." Kuwait tried to appease Saddam Hussein. The invasion came anyway. This is how evil works. The Allies learned their lesson and were relentless against the evil Soviet dictatorship during the Cold War. As a result we probably avoided a third world war. If evil ever agrees to negotiate, it's just because it's at a disadvantage and needs time to strengthen its position. The aim is always to totally obliterate the opponent and no compromise is possible. Today Israel has exactly the same problem when it comes to the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab states (with the possible exception of Jordan). Both Hamas and the PLO have on their agenda Israel's total annihilation (and probably also the extermination of the Jewish people). The difference between them is that Hamas wants to destroy Israel directly, while the PLO is ready to negotiate. Arafat, who was a pragmatist, realized that it was impossible at this stage to eliminate Israel. He said several times, "We take a piece at a time." First a Palestinian state alongside Israel, then chip away parts of Israel and in the end they've got it all. Since you cannot negotiate with evil, it is better to strike directly and be uncompromising. The total amount of suffering becomes smaller. This is perhaps why the God of the Bible is so relentless when it comes to evil.

On Swedish Television 24 on July 8 2007 you could read that Israel decided to release 250 Palestinian prisoners in an attempt to strengthen Fatah, which had lost Gaza to Hamas. The article reads "the Palestinian government welcomed the decision as a good start." A good start to what? To Israel's total destruction, I suppose. Fatah has hardly lived up to any of its obligations with regard to the peace process (e.g. arrest terrorists, remove the hate propaganda against Israel and Jews in school textbooks, prevent rocket launches against Israel etc, etc). An even better start would be if Fatah took the first step to fulfill its commitments. But this is not the way evil works. When Israel releases 250 prisoners, Fatah sees it as a sign of weakness in Israel and a victory for themselves (and a beginning of the destruction of Israel). Any great desire for genuine peace that will benefit both parties seems non-existent.

4. Evil lacks empathy, and at times even enjoys the suffering of the victims (as is the case with bullying, where the only reward the bully is getting is the pleasure of inflicting torment on other people — also included is an intoxicating sense of power). Evil will not be appeased by anything. Therefore, it can drive adolescents, and even children, to suicide by i.e. the now so popular text-message-bullying ("Why don't you go hang yourself you dirty rotten creep" — text taken from such a text message to a student in Year 7, who later took his own life). On a larger scale, the lack of empathy can exterminate whole populations or ethnic groups, as the Nazis did, as the Turks did to the Armenians and Assyrians in connection with the First World War and the Marxists did in Kampuchea, not to mention the Soviet Union and China. I am reminded of when Palestinian terrorists a few years ago entered a kibbutz and shot a number of people. A 5-year-old boy who had been hiding under a bed, was dragged out crying and then murdered. Again, evil is relentless and indifferent to the suffering of others. It is simply disgusting, repugnant, hideous and hateful.

5. Evil is contradictory. Islamists and left-wing extremists can go side by side and demonstrate against the United States and Israel, despite the fact that these movements represent one hundred percent incompatible ideologies. Fascists and Islamists may both deny the Holocaust while at the same time thanking Hitler because he did what they a few minutes ago said that he did not do (i.e. murdered Jews). Feminists talk about the importance of women in corporate boards, while they simultaneously claim that there are no differences between men and women. If there are no differences, what can a woman add to the board? Some extreme feminists (who are always atheists as far as I know, and thus evolutionists) also claim that there is no (biological) gender. Gender is just a social concept (one wonders, are the genders in the beehive — workers, drones and queen — also a social construction, and who in that case, is behind it?). Simultaneously they claim that Man is one hundred percent a product of a blind evolution (i.e. biology), which then reasonably must determine human physiology and behavior, including gender and their different expressions.

The same people who for years questioned marriage as a form for social relations, now fight tooth and nail that same-sex marriages should be allowed. Suddenly, the hateful marriage has become one of the most important issues. And they don't even settle with the possibility of a civil ceremony, but the right to marry in a church seems to be the most important question and has been elevated to a basic human right, although church weddings before, by the same people, were looked upon with great disdain. When these people now speak warmly of marriage, it's reeking of the worst kind of hypocrisy. They are not really interested in marriage as a form of social life, but the extension of the concept of marriage (same-sex marriage is just the beginning, the next step is polygamy and marriages to animals) is simply a step in the dismantling of the hated family. If you cannot prohibit families, let us instead create parodies of families and make people try to live in constellations that cannot possibly work in the long run, and that definitely cannot provide any eventual children with the confidence they need to develop into well-balanced adults.

Atheism contains its fair share of contradictions. Many militant atheists are for example very angry at me. Why is that? I am, in the atheist's perspective, a product of genes and upbringing and basically my actions are deterministically defined. Hence then this anger? I can in this case not help that I write what I write. Every word on my website is a direct result of processes governed by natural law, and my website contains no real information (the content of information in deterministically defined structures is by definition equal to zero, according to Shannon — the founder of information theory). Being angry at my website, is in the atheistic perspective as contradictory as to be angry with a car engine, which stops when the petrol runs out. Perhaps you should put such a car engine in jail?! Maybe it is precisely due to the lack of coherence in atheism, that many atheists are so angry. Because their own worldview is totally contradictory, they cannot defend it with logical arguments. That leaves only scorn, anger and hatred (see next paragraph).

6. Evil is aggressive, scornful and contemptuous. It always flies into a tantrum when criticized or faced with counterarguments. I never cease to be amazed at the aggressiveness, the contempt and derision that is spilt over someone daring to question the sacred evolution, or the atheistic worldview, or more generally the politically correct standpoint (if you do not believe me, try, in a larger group, to stand up and say that you believe that the blame for the conflict in the Middle East mainly lies with the Arab side — hope you have time to escape before you get lynched). When I would give a talk about intelligent design in Linköping (a Swedish university town), in autumn 2006, it led to a mass media drive. On the headlines in Linköping you could read, "Scientists rage over extreme Christian lecturer." Real scientists don't "rage", they argue. I've never heard of anyone who defended his dissertation with rage (at least no-one who passed). Evil, however, rages. It seems almost impossible to achieve a meaningful and constructive dialogue with militant atheists, feminists, Islamists, Marxists, etc. You are as good as always met with a compact wall of contempt and scorn and anger.

The reader might ask, for this reason, if I think all evolutionists, feminists, atheists, etc. are evil. The answer is both yes and no. The Bible says that all people are evil (but more on this later). But, in general, an atheist is not more evil than a Christian. What I refer to are the militant atheists who basically want to ban the Christian faith, who would want to prevent Christian parents to raise their children according to their Christian faith, etc. They are without a doubt part of the evil, because they chose to side with it! Evil oppresses other opinions. Feminists are themselves not more evil than any other person. However, the feminists who despise anyone who has a different take on things and who want to impose their ideology on everyone else, they are also part of the evil. Evolutionists too are not evil in themselves. The theory of evolution is a scientific theory, which is completely neutral when it comes to matters of faith, morals, etc. But the militant evolutionists, who want to ban any form of criticism of the theory of evolution and who want to make this theory into a comprehensive ideology, which shall constitute a binding and restrictive base of all thoughts that may be thought. They have left science behind and become ideologists. Furthermore, these ideologues also have oppression and intolerance on their agenda. It is definitely evil.

7. Evil uses "newspeak" (the word is taken from George Orwell's famous book 1984). This new vocabulary corrupts words and give them a skewed meaning, which in essence disguises a word's true meaning. No-one speaks so much about peace, tolerance and democracy as evil. There is not a single evil state (nation) that does not have any of the words democracy or republic or people's republic in its name. DDR (former East Germany) was named for example Deutsche Demokratische Republik — German Democratic Republic (i.e. double bonus — both democracy and republic). The Nazis spoke during their time of "life without value" and "lives not worth living" to excuse the murders of hundreds of thousands of disabled and sick Germans (we are not talking about Jews here). The extermination of Jews was reduced to "Holocaust," "elimination of social parasites" and the "final solution" (Endlösung), etc. In the 1970s' golden days, when Marxism was the politically correct ideology in Sweden, they called all who were not Marxists for "reactionaries" and "fascists". This is a very simplistic and lazy way to refute the arguments of the opposition. "Since all who are against us are reactionaries, we are obviously right. Just the word 'reactionary' tells us what type of people our opponents are. The fact that they are also fascists is the icing on the cake."

Our time has its own "newspeak". Abortion, i.e. the murder of children (although not yet born) because of egoism (there are exceptions, but these are few) are called "scraping off of a cell cluster", "removal of the uterine contents" or "instrumental evacuation of the uterus" (Göran Hägglund, Minister of Social Affairs in Sweden, used this latter expression in a government bill) to disguise the truth. They justify their actions by "no one should have to be born unwanted." As if this justifies murder. I was born unwanted and am very grateful for the life I had and still have. Who can determine if a person wants to be born or not? In addition, many children become wanted, even in unplanned pregnancies, once the mother has decided to have the baby. It's very easy to be fooled by this "newspeak" and we have all have to watch out. Words have a seductive power. Especially when used by someone who knows how to manipulate people (like Hitler for example). Doctor Gustaf Johnson, who in the 1950s took care of orphaned boys, was very critical when the word "love" was used regarding making love right, left and center. He thought we should call it for what it was, "the rubbing together of mucous membranes"! Sometimes, calling a spade a spade can be very revealing and liberating. The reader is advised to read Hans Christian Andersen's The Emperor's New Clothes, a very relevant story, regarding evil and political correctness.

8. Evil can never admit that the opposing side is ever even slightly right, not even in a single detail. Some time ago I saw a debate on TV between left-wing leader Ohly and some representatives from the conservative side (I cannot remember who). The conservative politician admitted several times that there was something in what Ohly said, but that the path to this goal could also be achieved in other ways. Not once did Ohly confess that there was something in what the bourgeois politician said. Not once! Not once! I've noticed this so often that it probably can be considered more of a rule than exception. Ohly haughtily received the recognition that he was right, much like a king receives praise from a subservient subject.

It reminds me a little of when I was 27 and worked as a radio operator in the Merchant Navy. When using short wave radio telephony (Morse telegraphy was very common then and in use almost more than telephony), the American radio officers, who worked at the coast station you communicated with, always said "sir" to me. I nodded graciously (though no one saw it) and thought it was absolutely right. As for myself, I never called them "sir" though many of them certainly were older and also knew more than I did. Well, I was not a servant, was I? I had indeed seen the TV series "Upstairs, Downstairs," which meant that it was a little hard to say "sir" because that was how a servant addressed his master. The ships were I worked were, after all, customers of the U.S. coast stations and the various radio companies were overdoing themselves to make us use just their stations, so perhaps they had reason to be polite. Yes, yes, that was then. When you're 27 you believe you are upstairs and not downstairs. Today, I would certainly have been more polite to the American radio operators (I was of course never directly rude to them).

When I've been debating the theory of evolution, I have time and again personally experienced this asymmetry, when it comes to recognizing that the opposing side may have a point. My opponents usually never admit (right now I cannot think of a single case) that there might be something in my criticism of evolution. Never, never ever! Everything I say is wrong? All my quotes are misleading and everything I say is either a deliberate lie or proves that I am ignorant (stupid, they usually hold back on that word). However, it is very unlikely that all I say is wrong. Often, you are right about something, even if you are wrong about other things. If I, in a debate about evolution, should say that Stockholm is the capital of Sweden, the opposing side would probably say that this is wrong. Since it is I who declare it, it must surely be wrong. Right?

9. Evil is ungrateful. Even if you help the representatives of evil, they will seldom, if ever, show any gratitude. They graciously accept the help, as it is the least they can require from a sub-human like I. For example, I am thinking of Islamists who live in London and who, together with their families are provided for by the English government (or rather English tax-payers). Yet they preach hatred of England and the English people. Many immigrants in Sweden are extremely grateful for the opportunity they have had to come here and receiving economic assistance. Of course, Sweden is not perfect, and it can be difficult for immigrants to get a job (but the Swedes face the same problem, and it would be strange if the immigrants took precedence in the job market and education system — this would really pave the way for racism) . But in any case, many immigrants are grateful (I know a lot of immigrants so I know this to be true). Meanwhile, there are also groups of immigrants who are not in the least grateful being provided for by the Swedish tax payer. They bide their time, waiting for the day when they will take over our country. The reader will understand that I am talking about Islamists (not Muslims in general, but Islamists). And hence, they show that they are part of the axis of evil. The Bible speaks of ingratitude being a very serious sin, which arouses the wrath of God.

10. Evil always leaves devastation and suffering in its wake (though it may look good at first). The result of Hitler's dreams was a Germany completely destroyed, with 20 million dead Germans (as I recall) and German cities almost entirely obliterated. Only the major financial assistance of the West, with no demands for war indemnity, saved Germany from total collapse. Nazism, promising a Pangermania where Germany would rule over large parts of the world, instead led to a Pancakegermania. Up like a sun, down like a pancake. When the Soviet dictatorship fell, it left behind a financial and moral vacuum, which the population has not yet recovered from. North Korea is one of the poorest countries in the world that cannot even feed its own population. Evil decomposes, just like putrefaction. And that is not surprising. Evil is, after all, a form of decay.

Some pictures from Berlin, right after the war ended. A perfect illustration of what evil leaves behind.

11. Evil is a kind of inverted theory of evolution. Darwin's theory is based on "survival of the fittest", i.e. the survival of the fittest individuals and the less capable being ousted. In this way, each species will slowly be "refined". Evil on the other hand kill the good ones and reward the bad ones. Regime critics in dictatorships are seen upon as more dangerous than child murderers and bandits. Often the latter group are guarding the camps while Christians standing up for their faith, people fighting for freedom of speech and free elections, university professors and teachers etc, are treated worse than animals. Up till now we have never seen (which maybe we should be thankful for) any regime in the world that has rounded up the "real criminals" (robbers, murderers, fraudsters, rapists etc) in camps and then killed them all (if evolution constitutes the whole truth about Man, this would be quite reasonable — then we would get rid of the worst genes in the population). However, we have all seen how scholars, priests, writers, actors, etc in all evil regimes, have been collected and killed. Thus survives the worst individuals of the human species in an evil dictatorship, and it is no wonder that such a country has difficulties in recovering when it eventually becomes free. Its best genes are gone. At least if we are to believe in evolution.

12. Evil virtually always hates Israel and the U.S. As I have stated many times, neither Israel nor the United States are perfect countries. Both countries have committed heinous acts (but so has Sweden — our iron ore supplies to Nazi Germany during World War II did extend the war by one year according to some historians — it was only when it became abundantly clear that Germany would lose the war that the deliveries ceased). However, all evil in the world is not Israel's or America's fault. It was not the U.S. who attacked South Korea and started the Korean War in the 1950s, it was North Korea. South Korea then appealed to the U.S. and the UN for help. It was not the U.S. that started World War II. It was Germany, Italy and Japan. United States got into the war when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor (how would Sweden react if Russia wiped out Karlskrona or Berga Naval Base?). It was not the U.S. that invaded Kuwait. It was Iraq (therefore you can be critical of America's second war against Iraq). When it comes to Israel, I refer to my pages on the Middle East and Israel (I have a whole section on Israel in my link "Today's adrenaline rush — I also have a number of articles under "Current events").

13. The representatives of evil recognize their brethren. They are drawn to each other like flies are attracted to cow muck (excuse the expression, but I have grown up on a farm and seen a lot of fly covered cow muck — as I see it the picture is very relevant). I have an extensive article about this here, which in many ways is a complement to the present text.

14. There is a clear connection between evil and cowardice. That is to say that cowardice is necessary for evil to be able to manifest itself. Had there not been a bunch of cowardly people in Nazi Germany, the extermination of the Jews would never have been possible. Had there not been a bunch of cowardly brutes, a bully would never be able to get a grip on his victim. He would have been beaten up long ago. The Bible speaks of cowardice as one of the absolute worst sins, and says that the cowards are the first to be thrown into the Lake of Fire on Judgment Day.

You cannot say that evil in itself is always characterized by cowardice. But sometimes it is undoubtedly so. I refer to bullies, and the bullies' adoring crowd of contemptible yes-men. The Nazis, on their part, were not always chickens. SA-men who gave the Jews a beating on the streets, and sometimes killed them, were cowardly wretches. The SS-guards in the camps were surely cowardly funks as well. But of course, there were also incredibly brave Germans. Now, all German soldiers were not Nazis and all did not support Hitler. They fought for their country. But there were also convinced Nazis in the SS, who died for their ideology and who were not cowards, but very brave. Nor are the Muslim suicide bombers cowardly. It requires, of course, a certain kind of courage to blow yourself up (but if you really believe in the mullahs' promises of eternal happiness in paradise, with beautiful women and all the rest, it is no doubt easier). The question is of course, whether those who send out the suicide bombers, posses the same courage. It's one thing to manipulate teenagers who do not understand that much and who, in addition, are brainwashed from childhood, and another thing to be prepared to die yourself.

Among those people who choose to walk the way of evil, there are thus both brave and cowardly individuals. But one thing is for sure, cowardice is a prerequisite for the spread of evil.

15. Evil hates the representatives of good and everything that is good. In Mark's Gospel, we read of Jesus' first miracle:

And He entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand.

So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, that they might accuse Him.

He said to the man with the withered hand, "Get up and come forward."

Then he asked them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent.

And when He had looked around at them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts, He said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He held it out, and his hand was restored.

Then the Pharisees went out and immediately began plotting with the Herodians against Him, how they might destroy Him. (Mark 3:1-6)

First they wathed Jesus to find something to accuse him of. And then, when he healed a sick person, they decided to kill him. He did it on the Sabbath, which was the day of rest when you were not allowed to work. But it was just an excuse. They were looking for reasons to kill him, because they hated him. And now they had received such a reason. Evil becomes very concerned about genuinely good people. As it's impossible for them to understand why a human being would want to spend his entire life helping others without self-benefit, they immediately smell a rat. The way you know others, you know yourself. I have over the years received a number of emails accusing Mother Theresa to have had a hidden agenda. She did what she did, only to gain something from it. The Indian guru Sadu Sudar Singh, who eventually became a Christian, once said:

When an evil person hears of something evil, he immediately believes it, because he knows that that's what people are like. When a good person hears about something evil, he does not believe it, because he cannot imagine that people can be so vile.

When an evil person hears of something good, he does not believe it, because he cannot believe that someone can act unselfishly [he knows his own nature], whereas when a good man hears of something good, he believes it at once, because he takes it for granted that people are like that.

In other words, by the way you know yourself, you know others, and evil obviously feels threatened by the good. And rightly so!

16. Evil lacks humility. There are many examples of this. Let me give you one from my own direct experience. I have on many occasions debated issues of origin, both in public debates and through letters, e-mails and private conversations. Too often you meet with an approach among the more militant representatives of the evolution, that in my eyes is very peculiar. What they basically seem to say is:

It is obvious that a universe could arise by itself out of nothing and that this universe also accidentally got the highly unlikely combination of properties (natural constants, etc) which are necessary for the existence of carbon chemistry (life). Furthermore, it is quite obvious that inorganic substances then put themselves together, through a combination of chance and natural law, to something so wonderfully complex as a cell (the reader can read about this here — note, although we know a great deal about the mechanisms in the cell, we are still light years away from even being able to copy a cell from inorganic building blocks). These cells have then, by chance and selection, evolved into complex, multicellular structures having consciousness, self-awareness, ability to love, ability to distinguish between right and wrong, and who even contemplates his own origins. All this is absolutely one hundred percent obvious, and the one who expresses the slightest doubt of this is either ignorant, stupid, fanatical or vicious and pose a serious threat to both democracy and humanity and must be silenced as quickly as possible.

Someone might think I'm exaggerating. I think not, based on my vast experience in this area (years and years of debating origin, evolution etc). In a bill recently presented in the European Council it was requested that evolution should become the official ideology of the EU, and concern was expressed that creationists and adherents of intelligent design, just as I write above, poses a threat to both democracy and human rights. The bill was referred back on the grounds that it was too one-sided — EU countries from the former Soviet bloc, including Poland, recalled that evolution had been the official ideology of the country that had been their oppressor for nearly 50 years and which had murdered hundreds of thousands of Poles.

I respect those who express a certain wonder that nature itself has had the ability to create something as complex as the universe, life and Man, but who still believes that given an extremely long time, maybe the seemingly impossible could still be possible. But to say that it is obvious that only natural laws and chance is behind the universe, life and species, and that everyone who has a different opinion should be silenced, is something else entirely. It is the naked, vile evil rearing its ugly head from the underworld!

Francis Crick, who together with James Watson discovered the helical structure of the DNA-molecule, once said, "Biologists must constantly remind themselves that what seems designed, in fact, is the result of chance and law-governed processes." The signs of design are thus so strong that the biologists must steel themselves for not giving in to such thoughts. They have to convince themselves again and again that what seems designed, in fact, is the result of natural law combined with randomness. A follow-up question that these biologists never ask themselves is why the laws of nature in a randomly generated universe together with random processes inexorably leads to life. Why has our randomly generated universe obtained such utterly remarkable properties? That is a question that demands an answer. Earlier I discussed how scientific specialization could short-circuit our normal humanity (which obviously happened in Nazi Germany). It seems that scientific specialization may short-circuit, not only our humanity but also our common sense (I am increasingly inclined to believe that the modern superstring theory is an example of this). There are many examples you can find from the history of science. Someone wrote about behaviorism (an unusually stupid theory in psychology), "A theory so incorrigibly dumb, that only a very learned man would be able to come up with it." Note: I'm not anti-scientific! The problem is that many materialists takes advantage of science, that science cannot live up to. A scientific theory, in their version, becomes an ideology with a claim of absolute truth, instead of being a useful model of reality. This is very detrimental to science.

The Bible says:

Who can fathom the Spirit of the LORD, or instruct the LORD as his counselor? (Isaiah 40:13)

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, said the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)

The militant atheists sometimes represented by the so called Humanists (the name of Sweden's major atheistic organization — I do not really understand what this atheist, intolerant association has to do with humanism — it rather represents intolerance and lack of respect for other people's opinions) seem to be totally lacking in humility before the greatness of the universe. They exalt their brains to the measure of what might be true and possible. Which is extremely contradictory given their own views on the origin of Man (random and blind laws of nature). Why would a creature, that according to evolution is only optimized to survive physically in some limited environment, have gained the ability to understand the universe's innermost structure and the origin of everything? The atheist's enormous confidence in his own ability to draw the right conclusions, in terms of the universe and the origin of life, is without any foundation. Rather the opposite! In the Christian perspective, however, according to which Man is created in the image of the Creator, there is an explanation as to why we have such a mental capability (which does not mean that we can understand everything).

Many of mankind's foremost thinkers have had a much more humble attitude to these difficult issues than the representatives of the Humanists have. In the book Out of My Later Years Albert Einstein writes:

The very fact that our sense impressions are such that they can be arranged by thinking (mental operations with concepts, creation and exploitation of specific functional connections between them and the linking of sensory experiences with them), this fact must fill us with awe, even though we never can understand it. You could say that "the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility". (p. 57 in the Swedish edition)

But those who really have experienced the great advances in this field [i.e. in science] must be gripped by a deep reverence for the Intelligence that manifests itself in the Universe. By thinking he achieves a far reaching liberation from his personal hopes and shackled desires, and can thereby achieve the right humble attitude to the greatness of the Intelligence that embodies itself in the Universe and which in all its depth is inaccessible to Man. (p. 30 in the Swedish edition)

The standard arguments of the militant atheists against this type of quotes tend to be:

1. Einstein did not mean what he said.
2. The Quotations of Einstein are ripped out of their context.
3. Einstein speaks about things he does not understand, and is wrong (or senile).

By using such arguments they judge themselves, as I see it. The militant atheists are totally impervious to arguments and their fanaticism is fully comparable with the fanaticism of the most extreme religious fundamentalists (indicating that this type of atheism has strong religious undertones). They signal that everything anti-atheism must be wrong, because atheism is by definition true. I am convinced that had Einstein lived today, and published an article in which he mentions an intelligent Agent behind the universe, the militant atheists would have booed and said "That man does not know what he is talking about. He is obviously senile, or someone else has written the article."

I repeat, you are not evil for being an atheist (all humans are evil according to the Bible and need to be rescued from their own evil), but when dealing with the truth in the way that many atheists do, and also showing a total lack of respect for alternative opinions, then they have actually chosen the dark side. To claim that all citations from scientists, who seem to see a designer behind the universe, life and species (Einstein is far from alone in this), are always wrong is absurd. I have read enough of Einstein and about Einstein to consider myself to have a very clear picture of his views on this issue. The claim that there is not one single prominent scientist, who is convinced that there is a designer behind the universe, is a blatant lie. Lies always run the errands of the Devil (even when Christians are lying). Jesus says that the Devil is the father of lies. The devil lies even when he tells the truth, because he does not report the whole truth.

17. Evil is impervious to arguments. This is close to the previous point. Lack of humility makes you think you do not even have to listen to arguments from the opposite side. You could also say that this characteristic of evil is akin to the stupid evil. Stupidity always knows best. But as I said above, my various points partly overlap.

18. Evil is intolerant and undemocratic. As I discuss in many places on my website, there is now a tremendous intolerance against Christians in Sweden (and many other countries in Europe — hostility towards Christianity is also growing fast at US Universities). The militant atheists basically want to silence the Christian voice (through e.g. legislation) and they want to prevent Christian parents transmitting their faith to their children. In municipal schools an intensive and successful atheistic/materialistic brainwashing of children and adolescents is at work. The opposition against schools with a Christian profile is solid, although much of the hoped-for success failed to appear, so far. But the representatives of evil are working tirelessly to prevent free speech in our country (and Europe). Evil is always intolerant (except towards destructiveness). Intolerance prevents a true democracy. As stated above, evil always speaks a tremendous amount of tolerance and humility. But it's only the "Newspeak" being used. Evil's definition of tolerance is something like, "Provided you think like us, we tolerate your opinions." That the word democracy or republic is part of a country's name does not mean anything. The more evil a country is, the more of such "beautiful" words are listed in the name of the country (something that may speak well for Sweden). The reason is undoubtedly the attempt to replace a lack of real democracy with beautiful words.

The existence of elections is no guarantee that a country is democratic. One person I know a little, studied some years in Leningrad (i.e. during the Soviet era). When he told his Russian classmates that in Sweden there were several political parties, they were totally baffled. "But then there must surely be chaos and anarchy during the election. How do you know who to vote for, when there are several to choose from?", were the common comments. In the Swedish Christian magazine Världen idag (The World today) on July 2nd 2007, Mats Tunehag wrote about real democracy and feigned democracy:

Democracies have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of press, freedom of religion and political freedom. Democracies have functioning and independent judicial systems. Democracies protect religious and ethnic minorities. The state apparatus is transparent and can be examined and criticized. Corruption and nepotism are minimal and controlled. Journalists are not threatened. There is freedom to create and express yourself in literature, art and music. You can launch associations, change your religion, build churches and convey your religious beliefs with others. There is an education system that is not inciting violence, hatred and destruction of other states or ethnic groups. There is a free media that can express different values and opinions. Men and women, rich and poor, Muslims and Christians, are equal before the law. There is no torture. There are open and fair trials. The list can be made much longer.

It is quite obvious that Nazi Germany, the former Soviet dictatorship, Mao's China, North Korea and the countries where Islam has great influence meet few, if any, of these criteria. The organization Freedom House makes an annual assessment of the world's countries as regards democracy. If we choose, for example, the Middle East, Freedom House presents the following result (Sweden is included for comparison):

1 stands for maximum freedom and 7 for minimum freedom (i.e. maximum oppression). Note that in all the countries in the table there are general elections!

A glaring example of evil intolerance is Comhem's cable TV offers (Comhem is the largest cable TV provider in Sweden). When choosing what is called "Comhem Large" (a package of channels) most channels are included. One of them is the Playboy Channel (a porn channel). The package does however not include any Christian channels (God Channel etc). You can choose God Channel for 29 SEK/month extra (on top of the price for Comhem Large). When I wrote to Comhem and asked why God Channel was not part of Comhem Large, I got the answer that it initially was included, but that "many" viewers had complained. They were not amused being jumped upon by "Christian propaganda" when zapping through the channels. When I then asked why it was OK to be attacked by porn programs, when zapping through the channels, while viewers should be simultaneously "protected" against Christian programs, they had of course no answer. The woman who answered me was honest and actually agreed with me that it was contradictory. If a Christian person calls or writes to complain about a program that blasphemes the Christian faith, the normal response will be, "Well, change your channel then" or "There's an off button on the TV set! ". And with that I agree. It is possible to change the channel or turn the TV off. However, why then is not the answer, when someone calls and complains that there is a Christian channel in supply, "Well, stop watching it then!" No, that's when they say, "I'm so sorry, we will immediately remove it. Sorry, sorry, sorry." Moreover, the category complaining about Christian programs is a very small but vocal crowd, many of them linked to the Humanists (why not rename the Humanists to the "Ists," as humanity does not seem to be included in their agenda — the fact that the Humanists "hijacked" the word "humanism" I regard simply as part of the evil's "newspeak").

It is the same small crowd that managed to get Scandic Hotels in Sweden to remove all the Bibles in their hotel rooms (but it was OK to provide porn TV). However, the disapproval among Christians was so strong that Scandic Hotels backed off on its decision. The Bibles were allowed to remain. It is interesting to see how the undemocratic and intolerant evil performs its actions. At the same time the militant atheists claim that Christians are intolerant and undemocratic. A claim that is so absurd that a lot of people will probably swallow it. Indeed, it is quite the opposite — it is hardly a coincidence that modern democracy arose in the Jewish-Christian part of the world. The Bible speaks of all peoples' equal value, which is the basis of all true democracy. From the atheistic perspective, humans have no value at all, and by all means, this can be called equality. But hardly an equality that ensures respect for life, or even respect for free thought.

19. Evil will in time lead to a widening gap between is and ought. What do I mean by that? Well, evil paints a worldview using its "newspeak" and political correctness. The longer a certain evil ideology is active, the bigger the gap between ideological claims of reality and reality itself will be. In the end it's all about Potemkin villages. Reality does not let itself be limited by ideologies. It is what it is. In countries and contexts where evil has great influence, and is allowed to operate for a long time, mendacity finally becomes almost total. In the Soviet Union you lied to your friends, your wife, your children and even to yourself. The newspapers lied, television lied. Everything was based on a gigantic lie. The Soviet state was the workers' paradise, where workers had it better than anywhere else on earth, and woe to those who did not agree with this. Even children could report their parents if they expressed doubts on the blessings of Communism. In today's Sweden mendacity is becoming increasingly troublesome. One alarming poll after another talks about how bad people are feeling. Prescriptions of psychoactive drugs are dramatically increasing, especially among young people. One-third of the Swedes suffer severe insomnia and anxiety. Children feel bad. The school system is as close to a parody as you can get. A Swedish Jew cannot take a walk wearing his kippah (special hat). Then he risks getting beaten up (or worse). While all the while Sweden is described by the authorities and the media as close to paradise. The paradise of freedom and peace. Where there is no need to be afraid. The gap between the official self-image and reality is increasing and we are moving towards total dishonesty.

When the Nazis came to power in Germany, they immediately began to rearm. They built great highways, and the devastating unemployment quickly gave way to work for almost everyone. The problem is that evil cannot create something that lasts. The whole thing was a gigantic Potemkin village. You cannot create true wealth by manufacturing weapons and build highways. The gap between Nazi propaganda and economic reality grew dramatically, and around 1939 Germany was almost bankrupt and for the country not to collapse financially the war was a necessity.

20. Evil always hates Bible-believing Christians (can there be any other Christians?). Always, always, always, always, always, always, always!!! It is so obvious that it needs no comment. The God of the Bible is the absolute enemy of Evil!

21. Evil is indifferent to the suffering of others. Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, had the following message in a speech to President Bill Clinton and the U.S. Congress in 1999:

Indifference to suffering is what makes humans inhuman. Indifference is more dangerous than hatred and anger. Indifference favors the oppressor — never the oppressed, whose pain gets worse when he or she feels forgotten.

Indifference, not hate, is the absolute opposite of love. The class mates' indifference to the suffering of the bully's victim, the rich West's indifference to the suffering in impoverished parts of the world and the German people's indifference to the suffering of the Jews in the Nazi-controlled countries during World War II, are part of, and a prerequisite for, evil!

22. Evil assumes the right to denounce others, but is deeply hurt when self criticized. Here I could find countless examples. In an article in UNT (a Swedish Newspaper) a few years ago, during a debate on creation/evolution, a professor at the Biomedical Center (BMC) in Uppsala, wrote as follows:

At Uppsala University, I have on several occasions met with students, who are members of the Word of Life Church. They have found it very difficult to understand some biological and biomedical theories because of their resistance toward evolutionary biological information.

The professor thus suggests that members of the Word of Life Church find it difficult to understand important arguments in biology, if these conflict with his or her worldview. Firstly, I do not think he is right (in general — and if the statement does not apply in general it is irrelevant in a debate on creation/evolution). To disagree with something is not the same as not understanding. I know several people from the Word of Life Church who both graduated as Majors and took their doctor's degrees at BMC. I consider the claim to be deeply insulting to Christians based on what it suggests. A week later, I wrote a counter-article in UNT. In this I formulated myself rather strongly, but in my opinion not particularly caustic. And it was definitely not insulting. In that case, UNT would hardly have published my article. Sometime later the aforementioned professor wanted to meet me for a lunch conversation. What this would be about, I had no idea. It turned out that he had been deeply insulted by what I wrote. Well, to give and take is all part of the game. But evil does not accept that. It assumes the right to offend and insult, but as soon as it's met with sharp arguments and opposition, it feels threatened and offended (nowadays there is much talk about hate crimes on the Internet — and all too often it is not about hate crimes in the strict sense, but about someone disagreeing with what I use to call the Choir of Goodness — not to join in the howling of the "wolf pack" is today apparently regarded as a sign of hatred). And that's what happens when you don't have any sound logical arguments for your cause. You cannot then tolerate to be questioned. And instead of a debate you end up with a meta-debate about the debate, i.e. you don't respond to the arguments, but question the other party's motives and morals and whether it should be permitted to debate the controversial topic in question or not.

23. Evil always hates the victim and blames the victim for what is happening (i.e. evil is incapable of feeling guilt). I have repeatedly seen this happening in divorces cases. I am talking about traumatic divorces, where maybe one party has seriously deceived or betrayed the other party. Or where abuse has been part of the picture. There I noticed that it is almost always the one who wronged who hates the injured, while the latter often have an attitude of forgiveness. The offending party thus gives the other party the blame for his/her own infidelity and demands possession of the house and all the cars and sole custody of the children, although you would think that the person in question instead should die of shame and do everything possible to make amends. But that is not how evil acts. It takes everything it can get. It only takes and never gives. And it is always right (in its own eyes). Another example is the bully, who often gives the mob victim the blame for bullying ("the victim is so disgusting that it provokes me to become a bully," is a common excuse). A further example can be found in the Islam world, where raped women are being stoned ("because of the victim's velvet eyes and sensual body language, it was impossible for the poor man to resist," the saying goes).

Just before Christmas 2009, BBC made a program about a Catholic orphanage in the West Bank or Gaza (cannot remember which), where most of the children were severely disabled. The circumstances were the following: Palestinian teenage girls had been raped by their uncle or cousin, and become pregnant. They dared not say anything, because they (rightly) feared that they would be accused of having seduced the uncle or cousin, and then murdered by their own families (this is what I would call a perverted culture). Because of the way Muslim women dress, it was easy to hide the pregnancy from those around them. Meanwhile, the girls were trying to induce miscarriages, thus hoping to save their lives. Many of the babies were injured during the inexpert abortion attempts, and were born deformed. It was these children that the nuns at the orphanage were taking care of.

In the same fashion the Nazis blamed the Jews for the Holocaust. The bystanders or indirect participants of the evil sometimes partake in this perverted description of reality (and thus showing their own evil), when, for example, the school moves the bullied victim to another school instead of moving the bully. Or when a woman who for years have been stalked and threatened by a man, is forced to move to another city or go underground, when reasonably the man should be the one forced to move (far, far away added with a long prison sentence if he comes within 1000 miles from where the woman lives) — it's not the victim who should have to walk around being scared the rest of her life — if someone should walk around being scared, it's the active aggressor, the culprit! In the same spirit oppression is justified by claiming that it is the victim's fault that he/she is oppressed. All the victim needs to do is change his/her point of views, the logic goes, and the repression will stop immediately (though it's seldom that simple — repression usually continues anyway). Here we touch upon paragraph 18 above, dealing with the intolerance of evil (as I initially pointed out, the different paragraphs might merge).

Most manifestations of evil are a mixture of the above. Let me give some examples.

In the "Call P1" (a Swedish radio program where listeners can call and express their views on all subjects) a woman recently pleaded that we should "stop killing the killer slugs" (there has been much discussion about how to deal with this scourge that can completely destroy a garden in a very short time). "They also have the right to live," she said. Respect for life in other words. It was not long ago that you could read about the National Road Administration invested in frog crossings somewhere in southern Sweden. And certainly, I'm not saying it's wrong to build a crosswalk for an endangered frog species. It is obviously no easy matter for a frog to cross a busy road. And if you want to fight for killer slugs' right to live, be my guest (though the killer slugs do not seem to have that much respect for the plants' right to live). Respect for animal rights is the height of fashion today. And I do not think this is wrong in itself. But it all becomes rather contradictory, when you simultaneously think about the lack of respect for the unborn child's rights. Evil is indeed contradictory. Though even more striking than this is: Should I criticize the "friends of the killer slugs", they would surely be very angry with me. At the same time they would probably be really angry at me — a friend of the unborn babies — for defending the unborn child's right to live. Evil is, as I said, always angry! And contradictory!

When it comes to children and adolescents committing crimes, their actions are judged differently compared to adults doing the same thing. I saw on the news that three youths were suspected of arson in a garage in Uppsala. 80 cars were destroyed. If convicted, they will receive a much milder penalty than were it perpetrated by adult offenders. If these young people should have to pay for what they did, they would probably be financially bankrupt for many decades (80 cars that might be worth SEK 150 000 each, will be a total of 12 million — that is a pretty heavy debt to pay off for three youths). But they will not have to pay anything other than a symbolic sum for damages, if they are convicted. Why is that? Well, because it would be unfair to young people, who can not foresee the consequences of their actions (whether for themselves or for others) to get the rest of their lives ruined for a stupidity they did at age 15. I totally agree. For the same reasons, no 14-year-olds can become flight captains, they cannot drive a bus or a car, they cannot buy alcohol etc, etc. They are not ready for this, and without these limitations, it would end in disaster for both themselves and for others. I am convinced most people think this is reasonable. But now we arrive at something very interesting and contradictory. The National Agency for Education (NAE) and the intellectuals in Sweden are all very pleased with the Swedish school system and its lack of restraint. Young people must have the freedom to control their lives and their future! Ummmmm .....?! But they're not supposed to become pilots or brain surgeons. Just now, we noted that they were not mature enough to make long-term decisions, the consequences of which might last a lifetime.

The freedom, or rather parody of freedom, as we see in today's Swedish schools, is simply the freedom for young people to destroy their own future. The ruffians and slouches who go through school without basically learning anything, will surely repent deeply when adults, and feel cheated. Young people are not mature enough to realize the life-long consequences of not taking school seriously. They need a certain amount of force and support (I'm not talking about iron discipline). For example, all training requires a certain amount of order in a class. Teachers must be respected. You have to be quiet when the teacher or others speak. You must do your homework. Etc, etc. The school must have the tools to implement this. The NAE is very angry at Christian schools, as these represent orderliness. And here we see the nature of evil. Freedom, in the evil version, implies the right of young people to commit serious crimes without having to take the full consequences of their actions (I concur with this to a certain degree — very serious crimes must result in very harsh penalties even for young offenders). Hence freedom is a kind of catalyst to commit evil acts. Freedom in schools also amounts to young people not taking education seriously, but slipping through without learning very much (some students learn virtually nothing at all). And besides, these students often destroy the lessons for the ambitious students. This freedom, implemented by the NAE, entails not only the freedom to ruin your own future, but also the freedom to destroy the future of your classmates. So here we have a brand new interpretation of the concept of freedom — the freedom to ruin yourselves and others. True freedom is the freedom to be able to fully develop on your own merits, without oppressing others. It's the only freedom that brings real satisfaction. Freedom, or the right of the well-behaved students to benefit from their education, assumes that the freedom for the ruffians to ruin the lessons is strictly limited. Why does NAE prioritize the freedom of the ruffians above the freedom of the well-behaved students? Well, because this is the way evil functions. Evil is always destructive. The definition of evil is just that, the "freedom to destroy".

I saw today, July 18 2007, a program in a series called "Battle planes" on the History Channel. The series is not about airplanes, which you would think, but of various well- known military operations. This particular program was about battle in city environment, and they had chosen as examples the battle of Stalingrad during World War II, and the North Vietnamese attacks on South Vietnamese cities during the Vietnam War. North Vietnam's principal commander was General Nguyen Giap. He was undoubtedly a capable military man. Giap's plans included not only a military victory, but also that the whole of Vietnam should be under the Communist flag. Behind the regular North Vietnamese troops followed the Special Forces, whose task was to murder teachers, senior officials, policemen etc., who would otherwise hamper the Communist indoctrination. Evil is terrified of independent-minded people and honest debates. This is why Communism and all other evil ideologies regard criticism of the doctrine to be the worst of all crimes (so much worse than mass murder). Why? Well it's very simple. Evil is so absurd, and the doctrine so stupid, so if people would really take the time and opportunity to calmly consider and examine the sound and well-reasoned counterarguments, they would soon realize that "the emperor is naked." When Hitler spoke, he did so in front of giant crowds and there were torches and flags everywhere, and everyone cheered and applauded. Nor should we forget the evocative music and songs. Had Hitler instead distributed his speeches in brown envelopes (note the joke) to the German people for reading and contemplating at home, most of the Germans would probably have been repelled by Hitler's arguments and he would have lost the people's support. Adolf Hitler's speeches lacked in both substance and real logic, and was based on the use of "newspeak" in combination with mass suggestion.

Evil works much like a waiter carrying a high plate stack and the stack starts falling forward (a problem that Donald Duck encounters every now and then). The waiter has to run faster and faster to prevent a total collapse. Likewise, evil craves a constant escalation; its representatives have to become more and more vociferous and impetuous. They need constantly to escalate the propaganda and the lies to maintain the grip on the people. Finally the evil ideology runs out of steam (the stack collapses) and all that remains is terror to control the people. Had not Hitler started World War II, the Nazis would probably have lost the people's support rather quickly. Germany was, as mentioned earlier, almost bankrupt when the war began and had to steal wealth from other countries (oil, labor, agricultural products etc.). You cannot create real wealth by building highways and rearming. Any evil leader who does not possess Hitler's oratory gifts (alas, he was also backed by the brilliant Dr. Goebbels — probably one of the greatest PR consultants of all time) must use other means at his disposal. Indoctrination of children in school is an important one. Repression and terror another. Hitler would never have been able to sit and discuss calmly in front of a TV camera with an intelligent and eloquent opponent (TV actually existed at this time, although ordinary people did not have their own box at home). Had it been so, he would immediately have been unmasked. Imagine how interesting a debate between Hitler and Churchill on German TV in 1939 would have been. It probably would have gone down in history. Evil is thus reduced to being loud, angry and sardonic. And manipulative. But fortunately, it will still fall in the end. Unfortunately, it seems that immediately after the fall of an evil ideology or system, a new evil system pops up. But its basic attributes are the same, and its goal is the same.

The other day you could read in the newspapers about how two burglars broke into the home of a family in Connecticut, USA. The man was knocked unconscious and tied up in the basement. The thieves then raped the man's wife and two daughters (Haley 17 and Michaela 11 years old). After which the three women were murdered and they finished it off by setting fire to the house. The man managed to free himself and get out before the house burned down. Thankfully, the creatures (I would not call them human beings) were arrested. Another, just as horrible event took place in Florida a few years ago. A man kidnapped a nine year old girl from her bedroom and took her to his caravan. There, she was raped repeatedly. In the end, the man buried her alive, where she was found (obviously dead), clutching her toy dolphin. When I read this, I cried uncontrollably. I can feel the tears coming right now as I write this. Anyone who does something like that deserves to die! Although I am a Christian, this is my firm belief. Nothing can excuse such an act! I seem to remember that the offender, who thankfully was arrested, was sentenced to death. I guess we will see demonstrations when he is about to be executed. It can be guaranteed that the protesters will not show any empathy whatsoever for the girl's parents, who will never recover from what happened. And if some of the protesters would feel some sympathy for the parents, they would never show it. And it is the action that counts, not the thought!!!

In August 2002, school caretaker Ian Huntley murdered two ten-year old girls, Holly and Jessica (in Soham, just outside Cambridge). The girls were going to the gas station to buy candy, but never returned home. Their burnt bodies were found two weeks later in a ditch. Huntley, who knew the girls, claimed that the girls called at his door, since one of the girls had a nosebleed. Up in the bathroom, she happened to stumble and kill herself on the edge of the tub. The other girl then began to scream and Huntley became nervous and covered her mouth, when she unfortunately choked. Because he realized that no one would believe his story, he disposed of the bodies. Nothing was obviously Huntley's fault, it was all an accident. He had only tried to help the girls. Only a brain dead idiot would believe such a story. What in fact happened we do not know and probably never will. Maybe we don't even want to know about the horror that these little girls endured?! A former girlfriend could testify to Huntley's interest in underage girls, so one can at least guess what the motive was. Huntley was sentenced to two life sentences (Expressen — one of the major Swedish news papers — on December 19 2003). Had the same happened in Sweden, he would probably be out again after a few years. He might even get his own TV-show after his release (in Sweden many murderers are hailed almost as heros by the so called intellectual elite — which to be honest rather should be called the "intellectual scum").

Jessica Chapman was just ten years old. She and her best friend were murdered by school caretaker Ian Huntley

In Aftonbladet (another major Swedish newspaper) on 2/27 2003 there was an article about the murder of five-year-old Pascal. He had since the age of three been abused by a pedophile group in the German city of Saarbrücken. Pascal was abused by 12 adult men before he was murdered on September 30 2001. The entire event, both the abuse and the murder, was filmed. Afterwards the body was buried in a sand mine. Such repulsive evil blows your mind. It is easy to steel yourself and not take it to heart, but then you side with the evil, because lack of compassion is just one of evil's most distinct characteristics.. If you really try to put yourself in Pascal's situation and how he must have suffered, what kind of life he had had (his mother was a prostitute), it feels like something is bursting within you. The thought is almost unbearable. What did the little boy think when one adult man after the other raped him? An unimaginable suffering! The Bible's allegation of an eternal hell sometimes feels immensely satisfying. No penalty is enough for such an obnoxious, diabolical act.

Pascal, five years old, sexually exploited and then murdered by a group of pedophiles in the German city of Saarbrücken.

The reader may wonder why I show pictures of murdered children. It is because you, the reader, shall not get off lightly. I want you to be affected. When you read about murders of anonymous people, it is easy it just turns into statistics. When you don't connect it with your heart, it all becomes intellectual and theoretical. But when you learn the names and see the pictures, it all suddenly comes alive and you will be affected. Look at the pictures of these children who have suffered so much, imagine how they must have screamed, full of anxiety, when they were murdered. Feel the obscenity of evil! The stinking evil. The Bible talks a lot about God's goodness and love. But when it comes to evil, it says, "God hates the evil." For evil awaits a terrible judgment at the end of time.

I could carry on with endless examples, but I think the reader with normal intelligence by now have understood what I'm getting at (even though he may not agree with me).

I am convinced that some people who have read this far, right now are very angry and upset. I would like to remind the reader that this article is available under the section "Today's adrenaline rush." So at least you cannot say that I have misrepresented this article and its content. You got exactly what I promised — an adrenaline rush!

When discussing good and evil, you often get the comment: "You divide people into good and evil, and of course, you count yourself to the good ones. And on top of that, you define evil in a way that by definition makes all Christians good."

I do not agree with this criticism. First of all, I meet with evil every morning. I look straight into the naked face of evil when I stand in front of the bathroom mirror and shave. I am also a part of the evil. Many of the evil qualities which I have named above, are part of my nature. Unfortunately!!! I admit it fully. And I am ashamed of my wickedness. That's why I became a Christian. I realized that I was a slave to the evil and needed help. And it is really this that Christianity is all about. Supernatural deliverance from evil and its consequences.

Secondly, according to the Bible (and in my own experience) all human beings are evil. Even Christians. Or rather, all people are a mixture of good and evil. In every human lives both Adolf Hitler and Mother Theresa. It is we ourselves who decide which of these personalities we want to put forward. I am sure that both you, reading this, and I, could have been camp guards at Auschwitz, if we had had the misfortune of being born in Nazi Germany. Had we been born in Syria or Saudi Arabia, we might have been the one who drove a car into a market place and blew up a hundred people, including many children. Maybe we should be grateful that we never have had to show our true nature. Neither you nor I know if we'd pass the test. Had we chosen the good or the evil? It's easy to sit at your desk and say that you would have made the right choice. Evil is a universal human problem.

Every human being has the potential to do terrible things, but he also has the potential to put himself at the service of the good. Above I have tried, by using examples, to show you the nature of evil. Few people are only good or only evil. I am not saying that everyone who does not think like I do is wicked. And I do not claim to be good myself. But I long to be good. But to just desire is not sufficient. You must also be willing to change. You must be ready to submit to the truth. Being a Christian does not mean being perfect and solely good. Rather, it means that you are on God's side against your own evil, your own fallen nature. That is, when you act wrongly, you turn away from yourself and side with truth and justice. Obviously Christians also do wrong things. I have been cheated out of money by Christians. Christians get caught for both theft and murder. However, there is a difference. A true Christian admits his guilt and feels shame! And tries as much as possible, to put things right (which can be difficult when it comes to murder). We must not forget Jesus' own attitude to the fallen people he met. They were thieves and robbers (who certainly were murderers as well) and prostitutes. When they met Jesus and felt God's true love, they realized that there was something better. And Jesus said to them, "Your sins are forgiven. Go and sin no more." When the self-righteous Pharisees heard this, they were furious. And that is how the self-righteous people always react to Jesus' message. In his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:6) Jesus says, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness. They shall be filled." In God's eyes, no Man is righteous by his own efforts (this was exactly what the Pharisees claimed to be). The closest we can get is to "hunger and thirst" (i.e. long) to be righteous (that we can become/be righteous by God's grace is quite another thing, which I discuss in several articles in my section about Christian faith).

Thus, I do not divide people into good and bad in any light manner. What I am saying is that evil exists. What is evil and what are its characteristics, I have tried to capture above. Of course I have not been a complete success, far from it, but I still think there is a lot in what I write.

To summarize: Man has both a good and an evil side. This applies to all people. Just as there are people who become servants of the good, there are people who openly and deliberately seem to choose the dark side. When you enter evil, you also become its slave and evil can take on increasingly horrific expressions in such a man. The choice lies with us, and one day we will be judged for the choices we make. The judge, God, cannot be fooled. God is absolutely fair and possesses all information. In Psalms (103:14) King David writes, "For He [God] knows how we are formed, He remembers that we are dust." God knows how hard it is to be human. God knows all temptations and all our weaknesses. But apart from all temptations and weaknesses, and that all people are influenced by upbringing and environment and genetic inheritance, we do have a choice. It can be difficult sometimes. Yes! But we can choose! Our conscience is an unerring compass to show us what is right and wrong, that is, we have the ability and the knowledge to choose the right. A suicide bomber driving his car into a marketplace full of women and children in order to blow them all up, knows deep down that this is wrong. Thereby, he/she judges him/herself. The Nazis knew that the euthanasia program and the Holocaust were wrong. Therefore they tried to cover their tracks at the death camps and those who were directly involved fled (if they had the opportunity) or committed suicide (like Himmler). Those who remained or were arrested (Goering, Hess, Speer etc.) denied for the same reasons any knowledge of the Holocaust and swore that they were not in any way involved. Or their defense was that they only obeyed orders (like Eichmann). They all knew that what they did was wrong. In the same way, a person who steals, bullies, abuses, murders, lies etc, knows that what he is doing is wrong. And has the choice to refrain from stealing, bullying etc.

It is said that "opportunity makes a thief". Thus, it is the circumstances that determine whether we steal or not. This reduces Man to a robot (in accordance with the materialistic perspective). The Bible says, instead, "opportunity shows who is a thief." There are people who find a thousand dollars on the street. No one sees them. Some choose to give the money to the police, others choose to place them in their own pocket. The opportunity thus reveals who is a thief and who is not. The guilt is ours, ours alone, and there is no doubt that some people openly and deliberately side with evil, i.e. the Devil, while others have chosen to show solidarity with the good, that is with God.

It seems that evil appears ever more palpable in our time. We seem to live in the upside-down world, where Bible-believing Christians (could there be any other Christians?), Jews in general and Israel in particular, and the U.S. are regarded as the major threat in the world, and it also seems to be more important to be politically correct than to be a good and honest human being. It seems that our society is becoming more and more evil. Politicians seem to believe that a society's health and success can be measured in technical and economic terms. And the more avant-garde a society is, the better. Away with marriage, crush the family, kill the unborn children, everything is normal (may I make a little prediction — in no more than 25 years, pedophilia will be widely accepted and permitted, we will have polygamy, and marriage between humans and animals will be legalized — there is of course another possibility which is hardly better and not at all improbable, that Sharia law will be applicable in Sweden and Europe, which implies that homosexuals will be stoned to death). A society's prosperity is not about social engineering and economy, or freedom from morality and honor. Political correctness does not create a high standard of living and happiness in a country. A good society is created by the character of its people. Prosperity is a consequence of morality and truth!

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