Good vs Evil

Be prepared!

I was musing over one of my theories that people fit into a continuum from bad to good. I imagine, if graphed, it would look like a typical bell curve, with most people sitting in the middle. The middle would put them in the neither particularly good nor particularly bad category, kind of on the fence, although hopefully skewed to being on the side of good. At the extremes are people who for the most part are particularly evil and on the other side, those that are incredible forces for good. Simple hey?


Now imagine the end of the world has come and God has completed his judgement of mankind. The graph is the then the final analysis of the world. Of course this all presupposes you believe in God, judgement, and a world hereafter! But let’s say you do, and let’s say that this incredibly simplistic representation of good and evil is a good starting point for discussion!

If we start at the extremes, it is easy to see a number of people that could be placed out there. Some names come to mind like; Hitler, Mao, Mother Theresa, and Ghandi. This list could really go on and on, and we could spend hours debating who should be on it and where they would fit into my theoretical graph. Of course all of that debate would be pretty pointless as God will decide in his own way in the end. They all have one thing in common though, through their tireless effort for good or evil, they have changed the world. They are the ones who have held massive sway over this tenuous seesaw between good and evil.

The rest of us still get to chose where we are going to sit on this continuum. We still have life within us and while we have life, we can change the world for better or worse. I imagine it is incredibly hard to be a force for good, or completely evil. Although there must be an element of self fulfilling prophecy at both sides, the more good you do, the more you want to do, the more you do. On the other hand, sitting on the fence in the middle is easy, doing good things when you feel like it and when it suits you.

If we come back to God and put him back into the equation, as this is of course a discourse on the results of his judgement! As a Christian, I believe that it is only with God’s love that we even exist. More than that it is the sharing of his love that brings about goodness. You should know that I am a Christian because I live out my faith through loving and serving others all the time. This means that the graph should be heavily skewed to the side of goodness because all religious people should be seriously influencing this graph. Of course I understand that goodness, morals, and values are not the preserve of the religious. The fact that there are good unreligious people out there also skewing the graph to goodness can only be a plus to the human race! Unfortunately there are far too many religious people quite unconcerned about their efforts to do good!

A question springs to mind; why should anyone sitting in the middle bother to make any effort to move towards goodness, if it is only the people on the extremes who really impact on humanity? Quite simply, it cannot just be the people on the extremes who change the world; every one of us has the ability to change our own worlds by the actions we take, for better or worse! OK, so that does not answer the question of why? All I can think is that we must all respond to the upwelling of love within us, to either let it blossom (at our expense) or squash it away (also at our expense). And perhaps we only have to change our worlds and not the whole world!

You are probably wondering about the point of all of this waffle as we know it is good to do good things! I was really thinking about my children. They too will need to make their own decisions on where they will fit into my theoretical graph. They will need to choose their own level of goodness with which they are comfortable. As a parent, I obviously would like them to take up a role of extreme goodness. Surely this is the essence of Christianity that we love, and an outpouring of love is squarely in the extreme goodness category. Why would I want my child to be on the extreme evil side? One does not think much about Hitler’s parents but he certainly had a set. His father, Alois, died when he was 14 and his mother, Klara, when he was 18. Somehow those parents laid the foundation for the person he was to become through their action or complete inaction. As a parent, I would prefer to err on the side of goodness, although in the end, the decisions will be up to my children.

If I am to lay the right foundation for my children, then it is essential that I show them the right example, through how I live my life. This is where things get difficult. It is far easier to tell someone how to do something that to do it yourself. If I am serious about my children growing up to be forces for good in this world, then not only do I have to love, educate, and guide them but I also have to show them how!

The responsibility of being a parent is pretty awesome!!