What Color is Evil?

Less than five minutes of the evening news lead-ins will convince even the most determined optimist of the evil that is out there in the world.  As I've reached this mellow age, I've become a very skillful avoider of the bad and disturbing realities of our lives. I despise movies or books or news of serial killers, terrorist, various kinds of torturers and child and animal abusers and killers.  I close my ears and eyes in a stubborn ignorance of the fact that all the true evil does exist.

I'm not saying that this is an admirable strategy for dealing with nastiness. Obviously, we all need to fight against, combat evil in any way that we can. Like Einstein said, The world is a dangerous place, not because of those that do evil, but because of those that look on and do nothing.

It's a fact that humans have evil around and within them. And, the easy way to cope with the unspeakable is to put some kind of tag or name or face on it that gives you a false security of not being touched by it.  We convince ourselves that this is what true evil looks like and if we stay away from it, we'll be safe.  Aren't human beings so totally self delusional?

I believe that evil is a bad gene, it has survived in some people, defying the evolution of people from primitive to civil compassionate human beings.  It does not live in one race or culture, is not one color. Evil is not inherent in one religion---as far as I'm concerned, if you abide by what you call your religion and it is a belief in the death or harm of other human beings---that does not fit the definition of what I call religion. 

Even the Christian religion is based on there will be "hell to pay" for sinners, that you will literally burn in Hades.  However, the ultimate punishment for bad is left to their God. Human believers are not to be making the judgement and doling out the damnation. 

What I'm talking about is true evil with no conscience or compassion. It is totally human and a necessity for survival that we wish our enemies to be dead.  Eliminating your enemies, removing a threat to your family, your people or yourself is a million miles away from inflicting as much pain as you can on your enemy and causing a slow death. Though many will disagree, the American punishment of death is not intended to be torture, it is intended to be a removal of a dangerous human from the rest of society.

Chopping off someones' head, blowing up people, nailing a person to a cross, stoning, burying someone in an anthill, starving and torturing for the pure pleasure of it, that is not religion, that is not a belief or a culture. I do not believe that EVERY single person of a certain color or religion or culture wished to participate in horrendous rites or rituals or actions of their chosen or possibly inherited society.  Untold numbers have paid the ultimate price of their lives for saying, Wait, that's not right. Though fear and the influence of other people can make many follow, I do still believe in the humans that have good in them---good that can kill the evil.

The horrific events in our world are the evil gene in some humans revealing itself in the most destructive way. If that defective genetic flaw gave everyone that carries it a big red dot on their forehead, it would be easy to eliminate them. We would see that evil is a unique race of it's own, it's just part of it's instinct to try to blend in with real human beings.   Do not think that you know what evil looks or sounds like. Standing next to you in the check-out line may be the carrier, smiling and looking like your familiar neighbor.