March
1, 2005
Hate Evil
By
Dennis Prager
Do you hate evil? Much
of humanity doesn't. But if you embrace Judeo-Christian
values, you must.
A core value of the Bible is hatred of evil. Indeed, it
is the only thing the Bible instructs its followers to hate
-- so much so that love of God is equated with hatred of
evil. "Those who love God -- you must hate evil," the Psalms
tell us.
The notion of hating evil was and remains revolutionary.
The vast majority of ancients didn't give thought to evil.
Societies were cruel, and their gods were cruel.
Nor did higher religions place hating evil at the center
of their worldviews. In Eastern philosophy and religion,
the highest goal was the attainment of enlightenment (Nirvana)
through effacing the ego, not through combating or hating
evil. Evil and unjust suffering were regarded as part of
life, and it was best to escape life, not morally transform
it.
In much of the Arab and Muslim world, "face," "shame" and
"honor" define moral norms, not standards of good and evil.
That is the reason for "honor killings" -- the murder of
a daughter or sister who has brought "shame" to the family
(through alleged sexual sin) -- and the widespread view
of these murders as heroic, not evil. That is why Saddam
Hussein, no matter how many innocent people he had murdered,
tortured and raped, was a hero to much of the Arab world.
As much evil as he committed, what most mattered was his
strength, and therefore his honor.
As for the West, with notable exceptions, Christians did
not tend to regard evil as the greatest sin. Unbelief and
sexual sin were greater objects of most Christians' animosity.
Over time, however, many Christians came to lead the battle
against evil -- from slavery to communism. And today, it
is not coincidental that America, the country that most
thinks in terms of good and evil, is the country that most
affirms Judeo-Christian values.
In the contemporary Western world, most people who identify
with the Left -- meaning the majority of people -- hate
war, corporations, pollution, Christian fundamentalists,
economic inequality, tobacco and conservatives. But they
rarely hate the greatest evils of their day, if by evil
we are talking about the deliberate infliction of cruelty
-- mass murder, rape, torture, genocide and totalitarianism.
That is why communism, a way of life built on cruelty,
attracted vast numbers of people on the Left and why, from
the 1960s, it was unopposed by most others on the Left.
Even most people calling themselves liberal, not leftist,
hated anti-communism much more than they hated communism.
When President Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union an
"evil empire," liberals were outraged -- just as they were
when President George W. Bush called the regimes of North
Korea, Iran and Saddam Hussein's Iraq an "axis of evil."
Ask leftists what they believe humanity must fight against,
and they will likely respond global warming or some other
ecological disaster (and perhaps American use of armed force
as well).
In fact, the Left throughout the world generally has contempt
for people who speak of good and evil. They are called Manichaeans,
moral simpletons who see the world in black and white, never
in shades of grey.
As the leading German weekly magazine, Der Spiegel, recently
wrote: "Mr. Bush's recent speeches have made no retreat
from the good vs. evil view of the world that the Europeans
hate."
Patrice de Beer, an editor of the leading French newspaper,
Le Monde, wrote that in the European Union: "The notion
of the world divided between Good and Evil is perceived
with dread."
Entirely typical of the Left's view of good and evil is
this series of questions posed on the leftist website Counterpunch
by Gary Leupp, professor of history and of comparative religion
at Tufts University: "Questions for discussion. Was Attila
good or evil to invade Gaul? Saddam good or evil to invade
Kuwait? Hitler good or evil to invade Poland? Bush good
or evil to invade Iraq? Are 'good' and 'evil' really adequate
categories to evaluate contemporary and historical events?"
Western Europeans and their American counterparts loathe
the language of good and evil and correctly attribute it
to religious -- i.e., Judeo-Christian -- values. Among those
values is fighting evil and "burning evil out from your
midst." And to do that, you have to first hate it. Because
if you don't hate evil, you won't fight it, and good will
lose.
Copyright
2005 Creators Syndicate
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