Evil is actually a very simple concept. We as humans tend to over complicate it. I do believe when we over complicate things it is usually to support some agenda. You see evil is small, and it can be large. It can be overt, or covert. It can be hidden inside of a seemingly innocent agenda.

I am on one of my religious writing phases today. So please bare with me. I am fine with people following what religion they want, until they force it upon others or they use religion to justify actions that apply force to others.

As such society is constantly imposing religion upon myself and others. In fact these days it is coming from more than one angle. So occasionally I will write some philosophical and religious themed posts as kind of a pressure relief valve to free some of the mental tension that builds up over the constant onslaught of religious terminology.

This is what inspired this post. I believe in evil. It exists. It is something that can be small or large, and all of us have the potential to do it. I do not feel the need to anthromorphize or deify evil. That is dumbing it down and at the same time over complicating it. Yet there historically is a great push to slap labels on evil. If you stick it in a box you can then blame everything on that box. You can ignore the evil that occurs and happens outside of that box.

The onslaught I am seeing lately is the terms Satanic, Luciferian, blah blah blah. We don't need some religious personification of evil in order to see evil. In fact I kind of think trying to personify it just fuels evil. It creates a target. It is much like the War on Terror is aimed at an emotion and thus a fools errand. The same is true of religions that choose to personify evil and then call everything done the fault of that personification. At that point things outside of the religion become evil, and many insane very evil things are DONE and committed due to the existence of that label. It is just as divisionary in nature as racism and other bigotry.

I am starting to believe that giving evil a label other than evil just opens the path for more evil.

I don't care about Luciferianism, Satanism, etc. I am not of any organized religious faith. Those to me are no different from an evil person committing acts of evil in the name of Santa Claus. It's still evil. Yet I don't need to fixate on Santa Claus.

So I realize a lot of people (including here on steemit) do believe in these personifications. Okay, I am not going to tell you that you are naive and you shouldn't do that. You could be right. Instead I would like to approach this in a different way that does not fixate on or attack any religion. I think you should likely be okay with that.

Solidarity

Tolerance and solidarity are important. Evil is in the act, not in the label. It would be nice if we could stop slapping labels on people based upon religious personifications. Instead of calling them Luciferians, Satanists, etc why not simply call them evil?

There is a reason I believe this is important. Lucifer, and Satan are personfications of specific religious faiths. There are EVIL people that have nothing to do with your religion. They don't believe it. In fact, if you are going to use those labels then the only people that they truly apply to are people who share that religion, and choose to embrace the evil side of the dichotomy rather than the good. So they are part of that religion.

There is a tendency of religions to refer to anyone outside of their faith as a specific label. This can be used to justify attacks and evil treatment of outsiders. Like I said the labels tend to promote evil, rather than fight it. This can be calling people pagans, heretics, apostates, satanists, luciferians, and infidels. A LOT of evil has been done by people wielding those labels. In fact, those that shout those things historically are likely responsible for far more evil than the people they claim to have been fighting.

Once we label and divide populations based upon some arbitrary box, we create an US vs THEM situation. Evil thrives in those situations.

Evil is Simple

I said evil is simple. Yet I didn't really define it. I am going to give you the current simple definition I can think of.

Using force against another person, or their property in a non-voluntary encounter.

Perhaps one word would suffice. Intolerance.

Or another. Mastery. As in "I am your master, you should do as I say".

For those who believe in free will

If your faith believes in free will and it was granted by your deities/gods. Who are you to take that free will away from people? If your faith believes in judgement in the afterlife. Who are you to judge people?

These are the types of thoughts that go through my mind. Plus the famous "Judge not, lest ye be judged."