18

one of the things I think this is the case anyways I think people are always looking for an excuse to have their character corrupted because if your character is corrupted then you get to lie and you get to cheat you get to steal and you get to betray and you get to act resentfully and you get to do nothing and that's all easy it's easier to lie than to tell the truth it's easier to do nothing than to do something so there's always part of you thinking well I need a justification for being useless and

horrible because that that'd be a lot less work and so then if something terrible comes along you think aha that's just exactly the excuse that I was waiting for and then out all that comes you know soier niton when he was in the concentration camps in Russia watching how people behaved you know he said that there were people that were put in the camps who immediately became trustees or guards and they were even more vicious than the people who had been hired as guards and his idea was that they had collected all that he called

it foulness if I remember correctly around them in normal life but they didn't have the opportunity to express it but as soon as you gave them the opportunity it was like there it was right away and so so one of the messages that seems to echo through these Old Testament stories is that just because something terrible happens to you doesn't mean that you get to be that you get to wander off the path and make things worse and maybe it doesn't matter how terrible it is that what happens to you that's a tough call you

know because you see people now in Men in life and they've really got it rough man like 50 bad things are happening to them at the same time and you think it's no wonder if you were bitter and resentful and hostile be like yeah no wonder but then you meet people and soci again talk about this in the like ELO he said he met lots of people in the not lot he met enough people to impress him in the concentration camp system who didn't allow their misfortunes to corrupt them and that's something yeah because maybe

the only real Misfortune is to become corrupted that's a really useful thing to think you know maybe the rest of it maybe the rest of it is Trivial in comparison I know that's a rough thing because you can be in very harsh circumstances but I do think there's something to that and the Lord was with Joseph and he was a prosperous man and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian and his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand

so that's an echo of the idea that we encountered earlier about walking with God right so Adam walked with God before he ate fruit with Eve and then he wouldn't walk with God and then Noah walked with God and Abraham walked with God and so the idea is well that's that alignment with the highest ideal I think it's something like that and you know we could think about that as a metaphysical clim as well but I don't think it is I mean I've got thousands of letters now in the last year from people who have

told me that they were in a pit that's exactly right and that they decided that they were going to try to put their lives together and that it worked and so that's really something you know and they write surprised it's like well I decided that I was going to work hard at what I was doing and I wasn't going to lie any more than absolutely necessary thought I'd give it a try for a few months you know and all sorts of good things started to happen to me it's like maybe that's how the world works

now obviously it doesn't work like that all the time right because you can get sliced off at the knees I mean there's an arbitrary element to existence that's that you can't wish away but that doesn't mean that there are it doesn't mean that there aren't bad strategies and good strategies so I do think that one of the most fundamental existential questions is like if things aren't going well for you in your life is are you absolutely certain that you're doing absolutely everything you can to put things in order now if you need something to Grapple

with you probably do you can find that and just look inside you'll find something to Grapple with you know inadequacy weakness susceptibility to Temptation narcissism Pride Envy Revenge resentment frustration lack of faith all of that that that'll keep you occupied if you really grapple with it and yeah I mean that's an ancient theological question you know what's up with the devil why why is why does the possibility of evil exist why is there a Eternal adversary see that reflected in Cain and Abel right at the beginning of the Genesis stories essentially the first two human

beings are good set against an adversary and that's that's what opens history that story you think well why would God construct such a why would go God construct a reality where an adversary exists and maybe it's because all things considered a World with an adversary is a better world just like a garden with a snake and it is a better Garden these things aren't easy to understand no no snake no necessity to contend with snakes so why be awake at all no adversary no challenge why be challenged because maybe you're better for the challenge and

maybe that's the challenge to see if you can be better for the challenge but that should be internal well fundamentally well if it isn't you'll find it externally because you'll demonize someone turn them into Satan so that you can find an adversary and then that's very unfortunate for you and for them that's problem it's just not as big a battle it's like you you battle with someone external who's malevolent let's say or you think they are and usually you've got that mostly wrong but not always but if the battle is inside which is where it's

supposed to be most fundamentally then well then it's the ultimate it is the ultimate Challenge and that's the infinite game the external one is between Good and Evil on a playing field of Chaos and Order it's the Eternal game and you know you can play that out in the external world but part of what the religious Enterprise is about and the Christians have really contributed to this is the notion that that sacred battle is fundamentally spiritual which is to say in some sense fundamentally psychological it's to be it's to be fought on the battleground of

the Soul internally a subjective issue how do you defeat evil you defeat the evil in your own heart that's that is how you do it and so if that's all being acted out for you in the world well you you misplaced Satan that's a good de thinking about this is another weakness I think of the atheistic position because you can it's pretty hard it's an easy in some sense to dispense with belief in the highest good but it's not so easy to dispense with belief in evil so that's a big problem so then where do

you localize it and you can find evidence of it everywhere certainly in institutions I mean that's the whole systemic racism corrupt patriarchy narrative is that Satan is to be found at the core of our institutions and to some degree that's true because everything we do is corrupt to some degree and so then do you fight it sociologically and you're the good person and the institution is Satan you're you're so good are you you're so sure of that are you got everything in order or do you and you might say well do you have to have

everything in order before you fight evil on the sociological front and the answer is well no because you're never going to have everything in order but you still shouldn't put the cart before the horse it's really it's a spiritual battle and it's taken people thousands and thousands of years to figure this out now first of all it was the snake what's what's evil what's malevolent the predatory reptile fair enough man I mean we've been fighting with predatory reptiles for 60 million years as mammals 60 million years so it's a good first pass approximation it's the

snake the poisonous snake the external enemy The Predator what about the predator and other people oh yeah that's even worse man it's like how pred predators are one thing but predatory people other tribes and they're brutal they're brutal but what about your predatory friend oh that's pretty bad too the friend who stabs you in the back the person who betrays you Judas God maybe that's the ultimate snake well how about when you betray yourself oh yeah do you want to see there's this Association that's very strange that occurred in the development of Christian thought between

the snake in the Garden of Eden and Satan there's no indication in the the original story that the snake has anything to do with the Lord of all evil it's a very weird conclusion that's been drawn it's almost extra biblical because there's almost no mention of Satan in the Bible at all much less any direct connection between the serpent and Satan it's a very very strange idea but it's part of this psychologization of evil like what's the ultimate Predator what's the ultimate Predator what's the enemy you Harbor in your own heart who hates you that's

the ultimate Predator there's these images of Mary uh with her head in the stars and baby in her arms and her foot on a snake like well if that's the Eternal feminine heads in the stars because she's oriented towards the highest good and she's protecting her infant from predators that could be an actual Predator has been the case throughout not just human history but mamalian history could be other people who are predators could be men who are predators could be her who's a predator the devouring mother it's like well what's what's the ultimate local of

genuine evil well the highest religious answer is that's in you that's the proper place to battle it out and I think that's true I think that's lit it's literally and metaphorically true and I I was convinced of that in part because of Soul nen's writings because soulan niton identified the totalitarian state with the willingness of the subjects of that state the subjects and the perpetrators at the same time to live by lies no no La no totalitarian state if people don't lie every time you lie and support of the totalitarian state then you're the perpetrator

and that's a psychological issu is like lie to get along or not well what does it matter I'll go along with it okay we'll see how it matters cuz it matters and that's all a psych drama as far as I'm concerned fundamentally when it's properly placed you've got plenty of problems to take care of on your own front that's where you should concentrate your up