Good Versus Evil Quotes

Sorry, Ms. Terwilliger. I'm flattered that you think I'm such an upstanding person, but I'm already caught up in one epic battle of good versus evil. I don't need another.

Battle scars from the war of good versus evil have a unique beauty all their own.

...our souls may be consumed by shadows, but that doesn't mean we have to behave as monsters.

As time moves on the line will blur. It will no longer seem to be the simplicity of good versus evil, but good versus fools who think they are good.

If the idea of loving those whom you have been taught to recognize as your enemies is too overwhelming, consider more deeply the observation that we are all much more alike than we are unalike.

Light can devour the darkness but darkness cannot consume the light.

Sin was not created by God; it was created by us when we tried to transform what was inevitable into something subjective. We ceased to see the whole and came to see just one part; and that part is loaded with guilt, rules, good versus evil, and each side thinking it’s right.

The Untruth of Fragility: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker. The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always trust your feelings. The Untruth of Us Versus Them: Life is a battle between good people and evil people.

Do you think she’s crossed over? I mean, I’ve always wanted her to figure things out, but I never expected her to cross over the very instant she remembered. What if she’s gone?” “We’ll celebrate.” Still, she kept quiet. “I know it’s difficult to believe, but something is going on. Sara is not like this. She would never do anything to hurt me. I didn’t even say good-bye.

Us" versus "them" is not in our genes. It is something we learn.

The only way we'll be saved is if we save ourselves. Good people can't triumph over bad people just by being good; they have to act.

There was this fight, this dance between us. Good versus evil—but I wasn’t perfect, and Kai wasn’t evil. He just did evil things.

Survival is messy. Survival has no morals or kindness. Survival isn’t black and white, good versus evil. Survival is shades of red; it’s blood taken and blood lost.

Sitting at his desk Remy filled out two forms and then played a few games of Tic-Tac-Toe against himself. Playing the “X’s”, he lost a seven game tournament four games to one.

The ending of a book is, in my experience, both the best and worst part to read. For the ending will often determine whether you love or hate the book. Both emotions lead to disappointment. If the ending was good, and the book was worth your time, then you are left annoyed and depressed because there is no more book to read. However, if the ending was bad, then it's too late to stop reading. You're left annoyed and depressed because you wasted so much time on a book with a bad ending. Therefore, reading is obviously worthless, and you should go spend your time on other, more valuable pursuits.

This isn't the work of our people, Delilah. It's a corruption of power. The gods are neutral, good and evil manifests in the deeds of mortals.' 'Or, just maybe-- The power is our own and the credit horribly misplaced.

Kings and dukes tended to appoint wizards as their principal advisors, a practice that often proved catastrophically wrong.

Finally, the sound fades and doesn’t return. Tsula sits alone in the quiet and the dark, shivering with such force that she fears her teeth might crack.

He sits up, grasps his carbine, and sneaks quietly from the tent. Outside the wind flows briskly through the trees, the shushing sound it makes like an admonition to them all.

It's good versus evil, Dan. You don't want to be a post-person. You want to stay human. The rides are human. We each mediate them through our own experience. We're physically inside of them, and they talk to us through our senses. What Debra's people are building--it's hive-mind [stuff:]. Directly implanting thoughts! Jesus! It's not an experience, it's brainwashing!

Over time, it became apparent that no matter who ruled the country of Gundarland, the Godmother ruled the city of Dun Hythe.

Sin was not created by God; it was created by us when we tried to transform what was inevitable into something subjective. We ceased to see that whold and came to see just one part; and that part is loaded with guild, rules, good versus evil, and each side thinking it's right." - Mata Hari

He switched off the car and spun. The woman disappeared. He flipped forward and saw the reflection. The woman stuck out her tongue. “What the hell?” Cole said. “I want answers and I want them now.” “Answers about what?” “I’ve been watching you watching her, all day long,” he said. “Don’t deny it.” “What exactly are you saying?” Karlee jerked her head forward, and her mouth fell open. He felt like a crazy fool. “You know what I’m talking about. The... uh...thing that is sitting in the back seat of this car?

The current needs of survival leave little time for luxuries like sentimentality. It is, he figures, a kind of mercy. No time to dwell on what was lost when there is more yet to protect.

Tell us, my dear,” Ansgar said. “What year is it?” “It’s 1536.” “That means . . . we were sealed up for 211 years,” Ansgar replied. “No wonder I need a beer,” Luc said. “That’s a long time to go without a drink.

The mountains she’d viewed in childhood as nurturing have now taken on a menacing quality. Their stippled surfaces—the dark of trees rising from a background of white—give the impression of something more mythic than geological. Leviathans hibernating in the open, ready to stir at any moment and swallow her whole.

I don’t know if any plot involving Spencer would be good versus evil, more like evil versus slightly less evil.

Tsula and Abbott spy the cabin in a clearing beyond the trees. It appears almost spectral through the gossamer mist—at first, just a hint of a shape. A blocky shadow rising from the ground.

I was coming to realize something very difficult. I was slowly accepting that the way I did things – the way my people did things – might not actually be the best way. In other words, I was feeling humility. I sincerely hope that you never have to feel this emotion. Like asparagus and fish, it’s not really as good for you as everyone says it is. Selfishness, arrogance, and callousness got me much further than humility ever did

Harlan chuckles to himself and shakes his head, as though enjoying a joke only he has heard. ‘Now I guess it’s only fair to warn you,’ he says. ‘This is not going to go the way you want it to.

Sometimes evil wins, nah, child. But it’s always fleeting. Just a temporary ripple in a sea of goodness, brought on by the carnal nature of greed ’n corruption. Sacrifice washes that ripple out in waves of love ’n light, and peace is found when justice is served, even for those who lose, ya hear?

One of the strategies which atheists adopt is proving the non-existence of God by demonstrating that He is not divine. ‘There is so much bad happening in this world, if God is out there would he allow all of that?’ It is a fallacy. A true atheist doesn’t want to prove that God is evil. A true atheist should, instead, prove God doesn’t exist at all. It’s laughable. I mean, I can understand westerners using this strategy, for according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, God is considered divine. There is a clear difference between the agents of evil and the agents of good. But if you are someone who has the privilege of knowing eastern philosophy, and you still take this path, which is proving the non-existence of God by proving he is evil, it’s funny and laughable, and a sign of ignorance.

Junior finds what he’s seeking in a swale between two ridges. He glasses down at the elk from a hillside aflame with autumn color. The animal strides through the clearing about five hundred yards due east, dipping its head now and then to nibble on receding grass that soon will disappear for the winter.

I am Bishop Connors of the Snotish Church. Where is the President?” “W . . . hat do you want to see him about?” “I don’t discuss church business with minions. Are you dead?” “I . . . ‘ve been dead for a long time.” “The Snotist Church has vowed to destroy abominations like you.” “Th . . . ank you for sharing that.

From the scene arrayed before her now, Tsula knows this new body means something entirely different. The tight bunchings of onlookers in hushed conversation. The watery eyes and mouths covered by fingers. This is how people gather when the dead is one of their own.

The concept of good versus evil is a handy construct for framing a narrative. When you see someone applying that concept to real-world events, however, be aware that you're in the presence of a peddler of fiction.

The same moment the hiker comes upon them, rounding the bend in the trail, Harlan knows the man will die. He takes no pleasure in the thought. So far as Harlan is aware, he has never met the man and has no quarrel with him. This stranger is simply an unexpected contingency. A loose thread that, once noticed, requires snipping.

Toward the back of the small property, Twentymile Creek flows through a ravine two to three feet deep and three times as wide. The waters of the creek, high and vigorous from recent rains, purl noisily around stones bearded with green moss and swatched with lichen. There she finds the body, stretched across the frothing stream.

He traced a line in the dirt with his toe. ‘This is a battlefield. Has been since Cain killed Abel. And don’t let it get complicated. Gray it ain’t. It’s black and white. Good versus evil. You might as well choose sides right now.

They all looked at Holly. She turned to face the cheerleader and said, “You need to learn that some things are more valuable than good looks. Data manipulation is more important than big boobs. Analytics is more useful than lip gloss.” Wow, she said that? Everyone laughed a bit, surprised, shocked. Holly turned and headed toward the concert hall. Grinning.

He who writes is the martyr, seen through the eyes of the unassuming doll.

Goodness is no weapon against the possessed.

Leticia believed in Snotism. Every morning she began the day with a prayer to the Great God, Gundar. Today was no different. While most of the heroes still slept, she recited the prayer, then took out a small vial and spilled a few grains of crushed pepper into her hand. Holding her palm under her nose, she snorted the pepper. A second later, she let go with an explosive sneeze.

Time is tick, tick, ticking away. How many souls will I capture today? Will they be a challenge or will they be given? Only time will tell as the clock keeps tick, tick, ticking. Your god has arrived with enough hatred for y’all, with enough evil for the big and small, so come one, come all. I will shred your souls and place them in my satchel, call you a settler and make you my peddler. Come one, come all, come stand behind your god. I will lead you into the darkness of Earth's end. Come one, come all, my wilted flowers, come claim your title, speak out and cheer it. Come one, come all, let’s have a ball, my wilted flowers . . . Sweet, Unconquerable Spirits.

Religion played a part in many people’s lives and the largest sect was Snotism. Snotists worshiped Gundar, the god who created the universe with a might sneeze after snorting His favorite recreational drug. Spittle flew through empty space and solidified into suns, planets and comets.

He tips his cap forward over his face and inhales deeply of the moist air. It seems to Harlan that he can smell the whole of these mountains’ lives in that single breath. The gentle notes of wild herbs and grasses, of seedlings introducing themselves to the world. Also the thick and bittersweet must of leaf litter, felled trees, and decaying animals returning to the soil.

Hey!' I called with an annoyed voice. 'Charles!' The little Pteradactyl looked up. 'Ah, my good friend!' 'What about the chaos?' I demanded. 'Done!' Charles said. 'We each moved six books out of their proper places,' called George the Stegosaurus. 'It will take them days to find them all and put them back.' 'Though we did put them into place backward,' Charles said. 'You know, so they could be seen more easily. We wouldn't want it to be too hard.' 'Too hard?' I asked, stupefied. 'Charles, these are the people who were going to kill you and bury your bones in an archaeological dig!' 'Well, that's no reason to be uncivilized!' Charles said.

Why the delay? Why does God let evil and pain so flagrantly exist, even thrive, on this planet?...He holds back for our sakes. Re-creation involves us; we are, in fact, at the center of his plan...the motive behind all human history, is to develop us, not God. Our very existence announces to the powers in the universe that restoration is under way. Every act of faith by every one of the people of God is like the tolling of a bell, and a faith like Job's reverberates throughout the universe.

You're a better person than I'll ever be." "It's all about who you ask.

In my humdrum life, the daily battle hasn’t been good versus evil. It’s hardly so epic. Most days, my real battle is doing good versus doing nothing. In going

History has a way of distilling the complexity of life into oversimplified terms. To them, it will be good versus evil, right versus wrong, freedom struggling against tyranny.” With

The bag also held an umbrella made of iron and cloth. In effect, the umbrella was a lightning rod. Whenever it rained, Remy’s job was to hold the umbrella over Jerado’s head. So far, Remy had been struck by lightning three times, while Jerado, protected by a spell, remained safe.

Most of us are drawn to this time period thinking it was a war of absolute good versus absolute evil—qualities rarely found in their purest form—and that’s true. But don’t forget that history isn’t just a study in black and white. Human behavior is comprised of ulterior motives, of gray shades.

The anti-aging spell he used every month kept him alive for the most part. Facially, he looked like a forty-five year old; physically, he was a wreck because the spell was defective. All his teeth had fallen out years ago and he now used a set of ill-fitting wooden dentures. He was bald and wore a cheap reddish-blonde wig that often slipped if he turned his head suddenly. It also had a tendency to take flight in a breeze. His knees were creaky and often ached, and his eyesight had deteriorated.

Sometimes, there’s no running, no fighting. Sometimes, bad shit happens. The bad shit changes you. You can’t look at the world the same. You realize that manners, morals, culture, society, friends, and family are all fake. They’re ideas we cling to, to make existence bearable. When that’s ripped away — the fake optimistic bullshit — the only thing you have left is survival. Survival is messy. Survival has no morals or kindness. Survival isn’t black and white, good versus evil. Survival is shades of red; it’s blood taken and blood lost. My survival was a gun, liquor was my sustenance, and rough sex was my painkiller.

James Heron stepped from the personal transport as Herbert, the family’s outmoded android butler, opened the front door of Scrabo Farm. There were infinitely more efficient and newer model android servants available, but neither James Heron nor his sister Niamh L’Estrange would dream of scrapping the mechanical attendant that had served the family so well, and enlivened their childhood with its fussy care of them both. “Hello, Herbert, is my sister home?” Answering in the slightly mechanical voice that James had liked so much when he was a boy, Herbert said, “She is in her study, Captain. I have alerted her to your arrival.

One day, Remy came across a proposal from Lithgow for a budget increase to re-equip an archer company with newly invented crossbows. Remy modified the requested budget amount by adding two zeroes to it and sent the proposal into Jerado for approval. The sounds of Jerado’s wooden dentures clattering across the desk was most satisfying to Remy. Soon after, Jerado sent Lithgow a strongly worded notice to leave the archers alone.

Stoicism is about developing the tools to deal as effectively as humanly possible with the ensuing conflicts, does not demand perfection, and does not provide specific answers: those are for fools (Epictetus’s word) who think the world is black and white, good versus evil, where it is always possible to clearly tell the good guys from the bad guys. That is not the world we live in, and to pretend otherwise is more than a bit dangerous and not at all wise.

The fundamental human need to belong comes from the desire to associate with others, to cooperate, to accept group norms. However, the SPE shows that the need to belong can also be perverted into excessive conformity, compliance, and in-group versus out-group hostility. The need for autonomy and control, the central forces toward self-direction and planning, can be perverted into an excessive exercise of power to dominate others or into learned helplessness.

Hushlanders, I’d like to take this opportunity to commend you for reading this book. I realize the difficulty you must have gone through to obtain it – after all, no Librarian is likely to recommend it, considering the secrets it exposes about their kind. Actually, my experience has been that people generally don’t recommend this kind of book at all. It is far too interesting. Perhaps you have had other kinds of books recommended to you. Perhaps, even, you have been given books by friends, parents, or teachers, then told that these books are the type you “have to read.” Those books are invariably described as “important” – which, in my experience, pretty much means that they’re boring. (Words like meaningful and thoughtful are other good clues.) If there is a boy in these kinds of books, he will not go on an adventure to fight against Librarians, paper monsters, and one-eyed Dark Oculators. In fact, the lad will not go on an adventure or fight against anything at all. Instead, his dog will die. Or, in some cases, his mother will die. If it’s a really meaningful book, both his dog and his mother will die. (Apparently, most writers have something against dogs and mothers.)

Remy took a chair across from Jerado. A chess board and pieces sat in between them. “Are you sure you remember the moves?” Jerado looked forward to recouping his card game losses. “Y ..es. I . . . I practiced the moves in my office. I . . . I also read a scroll on playing the game.” “Then you won’t object to betting on the outcome of the game?” “N . . . o. H . . . ow much?” “Let’s bet a modest sum. Say, twenty-five silver?” Jerado pushed a stack of silver pennies into the middle. “A . . . ll right.” Remy pushed a similar stack forward. “I’’ll let you have the first move,” Jerado said. Remy moved a pawn forward to start the game. Five moves later, Remy said, “C . . . heckmate,” and scooped up the silver coins. Jerado sat stunned for a few moments. “Rematch.” After Remy won four more games — the last for seven gold pennies — Jerado said through clenched teeth, “That’s enough for tonight, Remy. I’m tired.

In the years that followed, Tsula would find that she could not recall that walk to the edge or the thrust of her legs into the air. Her clearest memory more than twenty years later is of the long, breathless wait as she fell, seemingly forever, and the water swallowing her at last. When she burst from its surface, unhurt, her mind noisy and electric, she grabbed for Jamie and kissed him hard.

The Troll Patrol was an institution unique to Dun Hythe. Long ago, the city leaders had recognized the need to control and direct the heavy wagon traffic that flowed to and from the port area. They organized a patrol of citizens for this purpose and all went well for a while. No one knows who allowed the first troll to join up, but word immediately spread throughout the troll community that one of their number had a paying job with unlimited donuts. Soon after that, every opening in the patrol attracted dozens of trolls who brazenly persuaded non-trolls to withdraw their applications. Within a few years, trolls had taken over the organization. Trolls proved to be particularly inept at traffic control. A member of the Troll Patrol could station himself in the middle of a deserted intersection and, within minutes, he would create a traffic-snarling mess. To keep the enraged wagon drivers under control, the trolls relied upon truncheons. A whack or two in the head always knocked a driver groggy and made him a lot less noisy.

Their quarry had been cornered in his defenses and their bloodlust was such that they were likely to pay top Julep to watch him escape, so that he might be brutalized and killed before their very eyes, as this was much more gratifying to them than simply watching justice be enacted. They, too, understood that societal constructs for justice were moderate gratification, at best, as they were empty and subject to contradictions and compromises steeped in moral relativism and an unconditional dependence upon overblown semantics that made the law a mockery of itself. As for the ideologies that these hollow systems of jurisprudence sought to define and uphold: these could easily be subjugated through a meticulous analysis of the trivial components of one statute or another. The rule of law had failed them. What the people wanted, in its stead, was rather simple: moral absolutes. Good versus evil. And evil was not to be simply prevailed over. Evil was to be dominated and effectively eliminated, because as long as it was able to while away the time somewhere—in some sweaty prison cell, far away, staring out the barred window with a wry smile, as it plotted its next offensive on the Common Good, a sense of wholeness could not be achieved.

Hegel, the great eighteenth-century German philosopher, maintained that the essence of tragedy derives not from one character being right and the other being wrong, or from the conflict of good versus evil, but from a conflict in which both characters are right, and thus the tragedy is one of "right against right," being carried to its logical conclusion.

[Veda:] History is the best kind of story. We each write our own stories about good versus evil, failure and success, love and hate. It’s all about people and the choices we make. Wars are started; laws are passed; conversations are held. We decide through our actions and the choices we make whether we are the hero or the villain in our chapter of history.

Evil is not destructive of good alone; it also destroys itself

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie recalls that the stories she wrote as a seven year old in Nigeria were based on the kinds of stories she read, featuring characters who were white and blue eyed, they played in the snow, the ate apples. According to Adichie, this wasn´t just about experimentation or an active imagination, because all I had read were books in which characters were foreign, I had become convinced that books by their very nature had to have foreigners in them and had to be about things with which I could not personally identify. We learn so many things from reading stories, including the conventions of stories such as good versus evil, confronting our fears and that danger often lurks in the woods. The problem is that, when one of these conventions is that children in stories are white, english and middle class, than you may come to learn that your own life does not qualify as subject material. Adichie describes this as "The danger of a single story" a danger that extends to stories which, whilst appearing to be diverse, rely on stereotypes and thus limit the imagination

Escape, son, may not be the way," says Mr. Spider. "It would be reassuring if everything was finally reducible to Light versus Darkness, Order versus Chaos, Good versus Evil. However, life is not pulp fantasy. If the Way were easy, what virtue would there be in following it? The teaching of the Daishi is that the Way does not lie in escape, or even in defeating.

Jerado heard a splash followed by the roar of an explosion. Bits of equipment, glass and wood splattered against the back of the chair. A large chunk of table whizzed past his head and smashed into the cave’s wall. Ears ringing, Jerado sighed and waited for what he knew would happen next. “M . . . master?” “Yes, Remy?” “C. . . Can you sew my hand back on my wrist?” “Remy, Remy, Remy. You know how I hate doing mundane chores.” “B . . . but I can’t clean up the mess with only one hand.” “That is true. All right, fetch a needle and thread and I’ll repair your hand.” “A . . . And I need a new tunic. This one is in tatter

We can read a book to learn how to live. Alternatively, akin to any weeping philosopher seeking self-realization, we can look inside ourselves to determine right from wrong. Ethics is not a matter of surveying scripture to determine what constitutes virtuous behavior. A person with high moral character must think about life and act in accordance with their conscientious conclusion(s). My faith is in free will and the ability of a moral person to discern good versus evil, not a person’s ability to describe the intentions of whatever deity his or her faith chooses to worship. Simply put, the godhead exists inside me as a spiritual manifestation that embodies people’s innate desire to go forth and multiply, dance in the Etesian wind, and make an artistic testament to the primacy of his or her existence by their honorable performance of worthy deeds.

They’re into a bit more than assassination,” said the Admiral, aka Mr Brown, “and not all of them are top agents—the ones that use the names of gods and goddesses to identify themselves. Some are called daemons, and they serve as apprentices to the top players. They’ve a large number of people in the mix. Same arrangement. A team of professional killers, safe crackers, explosives—you name it —round each one, and they’re not afraid to sacrifice members for the objective, or to protect the goddess or god heading it. Every time we get close to them we lose people. It’s as if they’re playing with us. We’re pretty sure they’re all very well connected, and some of them indulge in what they call ‘hunting’. Some poor bastard is abducted and dumped somewhere remote without the means to defend himself. Then he or she is hunted by one or more of the Pantheon. They’re psychopaths—but, as I said, they’re very well connected.

The battle of good versus evil is the oldest and most re-occurring story tale in the book of life. It never ends because no matter how you cut off the tail of evil, it will always grow back again and again. This old story will always continue into infinity until we closely examine our past errors to prevent giving the snake a new head in the future. You can destroy a demon, but a new one will always come back later in time. You can bring down a corrupt leader, but another one will rise up again with time. As long as the ego overcomes the heart of a man, evil will always exist, and the enemies of God will continue to multiply and thrive. If a tree is bearing bad fruit, you do not destroy the tree by cutting off its branches or eliminating its fruit, but by destroying its roots. I want you to look at the world as this poisoned tree. Even if we eliminate our enemies today, we will create new ones tomorrow. The forumla to cut off the head of the snake once and fall is very simple, and this basic solution is written in all your holy books — 'LOVE IS THE ANSWER'. The strongest counterspell to destroy all forces of black magic is love. Pure unconditional love. However, to be able to emit the right frequency of love, one must first succeed in their own personal battle of good versus evil: heart (conscience) vs. mind (ego). Once you learn how to use your heart to embrace all living things as you do your own reflection, and use your heart to detect truths and dictate your actions, your heart will not be fully activated to love all of mankind the right way. Where there is love, there will be truth and light. Take away the love or truth, and we will forever remain in the dark. Truth, light and love must all co-exist in perfect harmony to overcome evil on earth. And they cannot just be secluded to one part of the world, but reign as divine royalty across the entire globe.

It’s about light versus darkness. It’s the primordial battle . . . good and evil, innocence against rotten hearts. Christ and Satan, if that’s your take. That’s why the Dracula angle is everything to this story. We all want to destroy the evil.

The original purpose of third dimension was to explore the vast variety that polarity can provide. Just imagine the amazing variety we have explored around the extremes of polarity. This cycle has ended, and we are winding up the way we did things in third dimension. Things have changed, the rules have changed, and it’s not the same game we’ve been playing for eons. This means that our way of thinking (good versus evil), our way of doing (one person above another), and our way of being (everyone for him- or herself) are changing.

As long as the ego overcomes the heart of a man, evil will always exist, and the enemies of God will continue to multiply and thrive. If a tree is bearing bad fruit, you do not destroy the tree by cutting off its branches or eliminating its fruit, but by destroying its roots. I want you to look at the world as this poisoned tree. Even if we eliminate our enemies today, we will create new ones tomorrow. The solution is very simple and this formula is written in all your holy books. LOVE IS THY ANSWER. The strongest weapon to destroy the snakes of hate and evil is LOVE. PURE UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. However, to be able to emit the right frequency of love, you must succeed daily in your own personal battle of good versus evil: heart (conscience) vs. mind (ego). Once you learn how to use your heart to embrace all living things as you do your own reflection, and use your heart to detect truths and dictate your actions, your heart will not be fully activated to LOVE. Where there is LOVE, there will remain Truth and LIGHT. Take away the LOVE, and you will always remain in the dark.

Narrative writing about our personal experiences and exploring our beliefs is difficult in part because of the web of the lies that we tell ourselves in order to maintain our delicate sense of dignity. Inevitable we are the victims and heroes of our own internal docudramas and we veil everyone else in swatches of black or white, a good versus evil schema prevails. A person is also understandably self-conscious about writing about true emotions. It is a tall task by anyone’s standards to share their unsavory thoughts with strangers, much less family members, and friends.

The foundation of morality on the human sentiments of what is acceptable behavior versus repulsive behavior has always made morals susceptible to change. Much of what was repulsive 100 years ago is normal today, and - although it may be a slippery slope - what is repulsive today is possible to be normal 100 years into tomorrow; the human standard has always been but to push the envelope. In this way, all generations are linked, and one can only hope that every extremist, self-proclaimed progressive is considering this ultimate 'Utopia' to which his kindness will lead at the end of the chain.

Thought Control * Require members to internalize the group’s doctrine as truth * Adopt the group’s “map of reality” as reality * Instill black and white thinking * Decide between good versus evil * Organize people into us versus them (insiders versus outsiders) * Change a person’s name and identity * Use loaded language and clichés to constrict knowledge, stop critical thoughts, and reduce complexities into platitudinous buzzwords * Encourage only “good and proper” thoughts * Use hypnotic techniques to alter mental states, undermine critical thinking, and even to age-regress the member to childhood states * Manipulate memories to create false ones * Teach thought stopping techniques that shut down reality testing by stopping negative thoughts and allowing only positive thoughts. These techniques include: * Denial, rationalization, justification, wishful thinking * Chanting * Meditating * Praying * Speaking in tongues * Singing or humming * Reject rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism * Forbid critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy * Label alternative belief systems as illegitimate, evil, or not useful * Instill new “map of reality” Emotional Control * Manipulate and narrow the range of feelings—some emotions and/or needs are deemed as evil, wrong, or selfish * Teach emotion stopping techniques to block feelings of hopelessness, anger, or doubt * Make the person feel that problems are always their own fault, never the leader’s or the group’s fault * Promote feelings of guilt or unworthiness, such as: * Identity guilt * You are not living up to your potential * Your family is deficient * Your past is suspect * Your affiliations are unwise * Your thoughts, feelings, actions are irrelevant or selfish * Social guilt * Historical guilt * Instill fear, such as fear of: * Thinking independently * The outside world * Enemies * Losing one’s salvation * Leaving * Orchestrate emotional highs and lows through love bombing and by offering praise one moment, and then declaring a person is a horrible sinner * Ritualistic and sometimes public confession of sins * Phobia indoctrination: inculcate irrational fears about leaving the group or questioning the leader’s authority * No happiness or fulfillment possible outside the group * Terrible consequences if you leave: hell, demon possession, incurable diseases, accidents, suicide, insanity, 10,000 reincarnations, etc. * Shun those who leave and inspire fear of being rejected by friends and family * Never a legitimate reason to leave; those who leave are weak, undisciplined, unspiritual, worldly, brainwashed by family or counselor, or seduced by money, sex, or rock and roll * Threaten harm to ex-member and family (threats of cutting off friends/family)

Yes, sometimes things happen that are clearly Divine intervention, but other times we reap the consequences of our or another's sinful choices. From Adam and Eve on down, God has never interfered with man's free will to choose what is evil versus what is good. And we all pay the consequences of that. It's not about whether bad and unjust things happen, but how we choose to react when they do.

For good people to do evil doesn't require only religion, or even any religion, but simply one of it's key elements: belief without evidence-in other words, faith. And that kind of faith is seen not just in religion, but any authoritarian ideology that puts dogma above truth and frowns on dissent. This was precisely the case in the totalitarian regimes of Maoist China and Stalinist Russia, whose excesses are often (and wrongly) blamed on atheism.

The Mongols loved competitions of all sorts, and they organized debates among rival religions the same way they organized wrestling matches. It began on a specific date with a panel of judges to oversee it. In this case Mongke Khan ordered them to debate before three judges: a Christian, a Muslim, and a Buddhist. A large audience assembled to watch the affair, which began with great seriousness and formality. An official lay down the strict rules by which Mongke wanted the debate to proceed: on pain of death “no one shall dare to speak words of contention.” Rubruck and the other Christians joined together in one team with the Muslims in an effort to refute the Buddhist doctrines. As these men gathered together in all their robes and regalia in the tents on the dusty plains of Mongolia, they were doing something that no other set of scholars or theologians had ever done in history. It is doubtful that representatives of so many types of Christianity had come to a single meeting, and certainly they had not debated, as equals, with representatives of the various Muslim and Buddhist faiths. The religious scholars had to compete on the basis of their beliefs and ideas, using no weapons or the authority of any ruler or army behind them. They could use only words and logic to test the ability of their ideas to persuade. In the initial round, Rubruck faced a Buddhist from North China who began by asking how the world was made and what happened to the soul after death. Rubruck countered that the Buddhist monk was asking the wrong questions; the first issue should be about God from whom all things flow. The umpires awarded the first points to Rubruck. Their debate ranged back and forth over the topics of evil versus good, God’s nature, what happens to the souls of animals, the existence of reincarnation, and whether God had created evil. As they debated, the clerics formed shifting coalitions among the various religions according to the topic. Between each round of wrestling, Mongol athletes would drink fermented mare’s milk; in keeping with that tradition, after each round of the debate, the learned men paused to drink deeply in preparation for the next match. No side seemed to convince the other of anything. Finally, as the effects of the alcohol became stronger, the Christians gave up trying to persuade anyone with logical arguments, and resorted to singing. The Muslims, who did not sing, responded by loudly reciting the Koran in an effort to drown out the Christians, and the Buddhists retreated into silent meditation. At the end of the debate, unable to convert or kill one another, they concluded the way most Mongol celebrations concluded, with everyone simply too drunk to continue.

Tolkien preferred the still, small voice of Elijah to the resounding horns of Sinai. Accordingly, his commitment to myth as his medium was dogged. He repeatedly denied that The Lord of the Rings was allegory. The reason is this: allegory intends that this particular thing in the story is meant to be that particular thing known outside the story. In a way, it is coercive, forcing the reader to see things in a certain way. For example, Lewis’s lion in the Narnia books, Aslan, is meant to be understood by the reader as a representation of Christ. Tolkien, in fact, was annoyed with Lewis for engaging in allegory, which he found heavy-handed. (Lewis, for his part, denied that his Narnia books were only allegory.) He believed myth to be a more artistically subtle device. Tolkien did not, for instance, intend his War of the Ring to be a battle of good versus evil. He didn’t see matters in such black-and-white terms and did not believe in absolute evil. During the Great War, he didn’t view the Germans as all bad and the English as all good. In the Lord of the Rings, even Sauron, like Lucifer, did not start as evil. Evil for Tolkien was a personal battle within each and every individual. A battle might be won or lost, but the war was unending.

[...] The West, having destroyed its own values, finds itself back at the zero degree of symbolic power, and in a turnabout, it wants to impose the zero degree on everyone. lt challenges the rest of the world to annihilate itself symbolically as well. lt demands that the rest of the world enter into its game, participate in the generalized, planetary exchange and fall into its trap. Then an extraordinary potlatch comes into play between global power and the powers opposing it, between those who wager their own death and those who cannot wager it because they no longer control it.The game does not end there. There is a moral and philosophical confrontation, almost a metaphysical one, beyond Good and Evil. Islam? The United States? lt doesn't matter! There is a confrontation between two powers. lt is an asymmetrical potlatch between terrorism and global power, and each side fights with its own weapons. Terrorism wagers the death of terrorists, which is a gesture with tremendous symbolic power and the West responds with its complete powerlessness. But this powerlessness is also a challenge. Challenge versus challenge. When people make fun of the carnival, the masquerade of the elections in America every four years, they are being too hasty. In the name of critical thought, of very European, very French thought, we do a contemptuous analysis of this kind of parody and self-denial. But we are wrong, because the empire of simulation, of simulacra, of parody, but also of networks, constitutes the true global power. It is more founded on this than on economic control. The essential is in the extraordinary trap set for the rest of the world so that everyone goes to the zero degree of value, a trap that fascinates the rest of the world.

Sam’s the man who’s come to chop us up to bits. No wonder I kicked him out. No wonder I changed the locks. If he cannot stop death, what good is he? ‘Open the door. Please. I’m so tired,’ he says. I look at the night that absorbed my life. How am I supposed to know what’s love, what’s fear? ‘If you’re Sam who am I?’ ‘I know who you are.’ ‘You do?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Who?’ Don’t say wife, I think. Don’t say mother. I put my face to the glass, but it’s dark. I don’t reflect. Sam and I watch each other through the window of the kitchen door. He coughs some more. ‘I want to come home,’ he says. ‘I want us to be okay. That’s it. Simple. I want to come home and be a family.’ ‘But I am not simple.’ My body’s coursing with secret genes and hormones and proteins. My body made eyeballs and I have no idea how. There’s nothing simple about eyeballs. My body made food to feed those eyeballs. How? And how can I not know or understand the things that happen inside my body? That seems very dangerous. There’s nothing simple here. I’m ruled by elixirs and compounds. I am a chemistry project conducted by a wild child. I am potentially explosive. Maybe I love Sam because hormones say I need a man to kill the coyotes at night, to bring my babies meat. But I don’t want caveman love. I want love that lives outside the body. I want love that lives. ‘In what ways are you not simple?’ I think of the women I collected upstairs. They’re inside me. And they are only a small fraction of the catalog. I think of molds, of the sea, the biodiversity of plankton. I think of my dad when he was a boy, when he was a tree bud. ‘It’s complicated,’ I say, and then the things I don’t say yet. Words aren’t going to be the best way here. How to explain something that’s coming into existence? ‘I get that now.’ His shoulders tremble some. They jerk. He coughs. I have infected him. ‘Sam.’ We see each other through the glass. We witness each other. That’s something, to be seen by another human, to be seen over all the years. That’s something, too. Love plus time. Love that’s movable, invisible as a liquid or gas, love that finds a way in. Love that leaks. ‘Unlock the door,’ he says. ‘I don’t want to love you because I’m scared.’ ‘So you imagine bad things about me. You imagine me doing things I’ve never done to get rid of me. Kick me out so you won’t have to worry about me leaving?’ ‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘Right.’ And I’m glad he gets that. Sam cocks his head the same way a coyote might, a coyote who’s been temporarily confused by a question of biology versus mortality. What’s the difference between living and imagining? What’s the difference between love and security? Coyotes are not moral. ‘Unlock the door?’ he asks. This family is an experiment, the biggest I’ve ever been part of, an experiment called: How do you let someone in? ‘Unlock the door,’ he says again. ‘Please.’ I release the lock. I open the door. That’s the best definition of love. Sam comes inside. He turns to shut the door, then stops himself. He stares out into the darkness where he came from. What does he think is out there? What does he know? Or is he scared I’ll kick him out again? That is scary. ‘What if we just left the door open?’ he asks. ‘Open.’ And more, more things I don’ts say about the bodies of women. ‘Yeah.’ ‘What about skunks?’ I mean burglars, gangs, evil. We both peer out into the dark, looking for thees scary things. We watch a long while. The night does nothing. ‘We could let them in if they want in,’ he says, but seems uncertain still. ‘Really?’ He draws the door open wider and we leave it that way, looking out at what we can’t see. Unguarded, unafraid, love and loved. We keep the door open as if there are no doors, no walls, no skin, no houses, no difference between us and all the things we think of as the night.

My friends, if there is one gift in my omniscience, it’s the knowledge I have of just how much good is out there. When I’m disappointed in my children near and far who hurt others, I am reminded of the many souls who do not hurt others. I see a smack across the face in one part of the planet at the same time as I see a thousand hugs and kisses somewhere else. Love is everywhere. And if all the forces of good were stacked up against all the forces of evil, it would be a most unfair fight. Good would always win. My dears, good will always win.

Armageddon consciousness is the battle between the lower-self and the higher-self in each person’s consciousness. It is the battle between glamour, maya, and illusion, on the astral, etheric, and mental planes; versus truth! In Christian terminology, it is the battle between Satan, Lucifer and/or the devil, and the Christ. In Buddhism it is the battle between truth and ignorance. In Hinduism, it is the battle between Brahma, Shiva, Vishnu, the Atma, Krishna and Rama and the forces of illusion. In laymen’s terms, it is the battle between good and evil.

The actual, expanded consciousness, reality of our planet is that all of life is LOVE; our very existence is LOVE. Everything that exists is just varying degrees of this LOVE; polar absolutes do not exist. Good versus evil is pure illusion. Even the most seemingly “negative” person with ill intent is still in the spectrum of love.

But evil isn’t a thing. It is a point of view, a perspective. It’s how one behaves and interacts with others that determines good versus evil,

Bush saw issues in terms of black and white. There were no subtleties and no shades of gray. The war in Iraq was a biblical struggle of good versus evil—something from the pages of the Book of Revelation. His decision to bring democracy to Iraq was equally arbitrary and unilateral. Bush’s religious fundamentalism often obscured reality. And he expected his cabinet to fall into line, not debate possible alternatives.

irritatingly moralistic. Democratic globalism sees as the engine of history not the will to power but the will to freedom. And while it has been attacked as a dreamy, idealistic innovation, its inspiration comes from the Truman Doctrine of 1947, the Kennedy inaugural of 1961, and Reagan’s “evil empire” speech of 1983. They all sought to recast a struggle for power between two geopolitical titans into a struggle between freedom and unfreedom, and yes, good and evil. Which is why the Truman Doctrine was heavily criticized by realists like Hans Morgenthau and George Kennan—and Reagan was vilified by the entire foreign policy establishment for the sin of ideologizing the Cold War by injecting a moral overlay. That was then. Today, post-9/11, we find ourselves in a similar existential struggle but with a different enemy: not Soviet communism, but Arab-Islamic totalitarianism, both secular and religious. Bush and Blair are similarly attacked for naïvely and crudely casting this struggle as one of freedom versus unfreedom, good versus evil. Now, given the way not just freedom but human decency were suppressed in both Afghanistan and Iraq, the two major battles of this new war, you would have to give Bush and Blair’s moral claims the decided advantage of being obviously true. Nonetheless, something can be true and still be dangerous. Many people are deeply uneasy with the Bush-Blair doctrine—many conservatives in particular. When Blair declares in his address to Congress: “The spread of freedom is … our last line of defense and our first line of attack,” they see a dangerously expansive, aggressively utopian foreign policy. In short, they see Woodrow Wilson. Now, to a conservative, Woodrow Wilson is fightin’ words. Yes, this vision is expansive and perhaps utopian. But it ain’t Wilsonian. Wilson envisioned the spread of democratic values through as-yet-to-be invented international institutions. He could be forgiven for that. In 1918, there was no way to know how utterly corrupt and useless those international institutions would turn out to be. Eight decades of bitter experience later—with Libya chairing the UN Commission on Human Rights—there is no way not to know. Democratic globalism is not Wilsonian. Its attractiveness is precisely that it shares realism’s insights about the centrality of power. Its attractiveness is precisely that it has appropriate contempt for the fictional legalisms of liberal internationalism. Moreover, democratic globalism is an improvement over realism. What it can teach realism is that the spread of democracy is not just an end but a means, an indispensable means for securing American interests. The reason is simple. Democracies are inherently more friendly to the United States, less belligerent to their neighbors and generally more inclined to peace. Realists are right that to protect your interests you often have to go around the world bashing bad guys over the head. But that technique, no matter how satisfying, has its limits. At some point, you have to implant something, something organic and self-developing. And that something is democracy. But where? V. DEMOCRATIC REALISM The danger of democratic globalism is its universalism, its open-ended commitment to human freedom, its temptation to plant the flag of democracy everywhere. It must learn to say no. And indeed, it does say no. But when it says no to Liberia, or Congo, or Burma, or countenances alliances with authoritarian rulers in places like Pakistan

Weil supplants these contradictory images of God (the omnipotent willing God versus the good and loving God) with her version of Plato's dual causality. The real dilemma, for Weil, is that God is simultaneously the author of all that is and only that which is good. Her solution is to transpose Plato's dual causality of Reason and Necessity (Timaeus 48a) into two faces of God: (i) love or grace, as God the Son, the eternal self-renouncing sacrificial Lamb and (ii) necessity or gravity, as God the Father's created order of mechanical secondary causes. The distance between necessity and the Good in Plato thus becomes the distance between God the Father and God the Son in Weil, bridged by the Cross. She then offers this hermeneutical key: 'power' is always a metaphor for necessity or natural and supernatural consequences rather than a direct act of miraculous intervention. Thus, the 'power of God' (whether in wrath or deliverance) in the Bible is an existential description of secondary causes. The reality, she says, is that God is impartial (i.e., 'God causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust' or 'Zeus's golden scales' ). 'Force' as we experience it is the mechanism (necessity) of the world (like gravity )—not arbitrary intervention. Beyond that, force is evil, because it is the opposite of love, which is consent.

Cicero’s orator is a man built to heroic proportions. He must be a man of eloquentia, with the speaking skills necessary to move great crowds. He must be a patriot whose profound love of country allows him to identify with his audience, to feel what they feel and understand their needs and desires. And he must be a man who understands the true nature of good and evil. As with Aristotle, this last is the most important quality for a great statesman and orator.

Good versus Evil When we treat people as humans, this is good; When we treat people as objects, this is evil. Goodness is the ability to feel empathy with others; Evil is compassion only for oneself.

By giving your opponent a strong (though wrong) justification, you avoid the simplistic good-hero-versus-evil-opponent pattern and give depth to the opponent.

This is a battlefield. Has been since Cain killed Abel. And don’t let it get complicated. Gray it ain’t. It’s black and white. Good versus evil. You might as well choose sides right now.” He nodded back over his shoulder. “Thanks to you…” He lifted my hand and stared at the center knuckle. The cut had spread open. “… those boys in there are reconsidering their choice.

If a laissez-faire society is attainable, why haven’t men established one before now? The answer is that essentially good people have prevented it by their unwitting support of slavery. The majority of people throughout history have accepted the idea that it was both proper and necessary for some men to coercively rule over others. Most of these people weren’t basically bad, and probably only a few of them have had a lust for power. But they have held a terribly wrong idea which has caused them to support a social system that institutionalizes slavery and violence. It is this idea—that it is proper and/or necessary for some men to coercively govern others, which is the idea of government—that has prevented the establishment of a laissez-faire society and which has been responsible for incalculable human suffering and waste in the form of political and religious persecutions, taxes, regulations, conscription, slavery, wars, despotisms, etc., etc. To achieve a laissez-faire society, it is only necessary to enable enough people to change this idea in their minds. All that is required for the defeat of evil is that good men stop their unwitting support of it. There is a great and growing conflict in our world between those who want to be free and those who want to rule (together with those who want to be ruled). This great conflict has been taking shape for centuries, but the vast majority of people have never understood what it was all about because they haven’t seen that the issue was freedom versus slavery. Because they have believed that men must be governed, most people have been, however, unwittingly and apathetically on the side of slavery. Until recently, no more than a tiny handful of individualsts have realized what freedom means and how necessary it is for man’s happiness and well-being. The great conflict between freedom and slavery, though it has taken many forms, finds its main expression in a conflict between two powerful and opposing human institutions—the free market and government. The establishment of a laissez-faire society depends on the outcome of the war between these two institutions—a war whose most crucial battles are fought on the field of ideas.

The Untruth of Fragility: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker. The Untruth of Emotional Reasoning: Always trust your feelings. The Untruth of Us Versus Them: Life is a battle between good people and evil people.

It all went back to Aristotle’s Ethics where he proposes that all moral action is about making the right choices, and choice is about intention: “Intention is the decisive factor in virtue and character”—a point Thomas Aquinas made a cornerstone of Catholic moral teaching. On the other side, Aristotle’s teacher Plato argued that doing good versus evil was a matter of knowledge versus ignorance: in other words, the man who is ignorant of the good can no more choose good than one who is ignorant of algebra can solve a quadratic equation. Saint Augustine extended that definition of ignorance to include ignorance of God. Truly knowing God, Augustine asserted, having that blind faith in Him that suffuses our lives and gains us salvation, is impossible for our corrupt human nature unless God acts to put it there. He, not us, determines our capacity for virtue, just as He determines our fate.

For Aquinas as for Aristotle, human freedom boils down to the power to make choices. In the end, the morality of our actions must always be judged by the active will and the intentions behind them. It also implies the freedom to choose good over evil and the mental capacity to know the one from the other (which is why dogs and infants can’t commit mortal sins).