Do you think someone is not evil
or acts that someone does are not evil unless they intend to harm?
Think for a minute about those whose conscience is deadened or seared or warped by personal distortions or cultural conditioning, how from their perspective, they may think there is no harm being done, when in reality, their good intentions are causing harm. Sometimes they are confident they are doing what is right and good. For example, the pedophile may think, I'm introducing this child to something pleasurable. Or the parent (me😩) may think that their level of force is needed to get through to their child. Or the Chinese parents may have thought that their daughter may not be socially accepted if they didn't bind her feet. Or the husband might think that to hasten death for his wife is justified because it will lessen her suffering. Or people may believe they are helping women by defending, promoting or providing abortion.
Can you consider with me that evil should be defined by the harm or damage done, not by the perceived motives of the person causing the destruction?
Actually I'm wondering if in the spiritual realm, the Devil feels he has made more progress if he can do damage though systems and people that have no ill intent? Then he has not simply gotten someone in a moment of weakness to violate their conscience to cause harm, he has corrupted someone or a system to the point where they easily and continually cause damage with no twinge of conscience; sometimes even feeling “morally justified.”
As I see it, evil cloaked in good is doubly evil; first the harm and then the deceptive covering. This makes it at least THREE TIMES as dangerous and damaging. So, all our simplistic stereotyping of evil could reasonably be a doubly effective strategy of the master deceiver to maximize destruction and implicate many into complicit support, which often allows the destruction campaign to continue unchecked.
Oh, if only we sheep could have better ears for hearing the Shepherd’s voice. Surely we would have been led to safe, green pastures.
But for those who cannot hear the Shepherd directly, please consider that any shepherd that doesn’t care about wounded, lost and stolen sheep is not a representative of the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep. They should be exposed as opportunists and replaced with true servants of the Lord.
