Wickedness

So in Iceye's post "Who do you think you are?" the question of evil was discussed in the comments. I just read the latest comment, stated by ShadoWolf that "No one considers themselves to be evil when they do something most would call evil."

I disagree. I can't speak for other people, but I see a lot of wickedness in myself.

Now, I cannot claim to believe in a "universal evil", of course, because that implies some sort of omniscent judge, and while I have what I consider solid evidence of the existence of the Blind Idiot God, I don't believe it judges.

I do, however, believe in a subjective sort of evil - as a sort of "necessary fantasy" in order to properly function. Why have I never killed anyone? The long and short of it is "Because I have been convinced that murder is evil". If I didn't regard murder as an evil thing, I would have no real reason not to do it (disregarding the "I might be caught" angle, but honestly, how likely are you to be caught if you murder a random stranger for the lulz? Not very.)

Evil may be a fantasy, something that does not objectively exist - "as real as Santa" - but unlike Santa, it is a necessary fantasy. It's a made-up belief that we, at least on a personal level, need in order to function as a modern society. It's like how the medieval church needed God to function; the church was objectively useful, it created order and provided employment for countless people - but its authority was (probably, at least) entirely fictive, there was no "real" reason to listen to the Pope. Yet, if nobody had listened to the Pope, we wouldn't have literacy in the Western world.

It's the same with "evil". If we didn't believe in it, society would collapse, because people would undertake any selfish act that they thought they could get away with.

Occasionally, people do selfish things - but often, they regret them afterwards, because they think that the act is wrong; they consider themselves, in some small fashion, "evil" for having done it.

That's how I understand the word, at least.

Hallucinogenic

Sometimes I think that, maybe, I was born with a natural presence of LSD in my body. I have strange hallucinations, chiefly when I'm halfway between sleeping and wakeful, but sometimes I see things even when I'm fully awake, strange things at the edge of my consciousness that I somehow - for just a split second, but sometimes for much longer - actually believe in.

After I had this thought, that maybe my body chemistry maybe naturally includes a little bit of hallucinogenics, I came to think of something: Our body chemistry is calibrated to see the world in a certain way. We would all see it in more or less the same way because we all have more or less the same body chemistry.

But what if there are facets of reality that we can only see while we're on drugs? What I mean to say is, what if some alternate chemical balance - one induced by, say, LSD - allows us to see things that are really there, but that our normal body chemistry can't translate into the proper neural impulses? What if shamans going on vision-quests aren't just hallucinating, but actually re-calibrating their biological make-up to perceive another spectrum of reality?

There actually isn't anything scientifically impossible or even scientifically unlikely about that thought; perception is a very complicated feat of neurobiology, and evolution would seek to make it practical - but not necessarily correct or comprehensive. If there are things we don't need to see to survive, evolution would make it so that we did not see these things.

The body is a prison. Some days, I just really want to see what the world is like outside its walls.

Anti-Immigration

So the governor of Alabama has signed the harshest anti-immigration law of any American state. On June 9, a bill was signed that makes it a crime to be in Alabama without proof of legal presence. The new crime is called "willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document".

All immigrants must at all time carry proof of legal presence. Sure, carrying identification is a necessity in modern society, but only if you want to do something. Ordinary people aren't taken into custody just for walking down the street without their ID card. But in Alabama, that may well be the case for anyone who looks foreign. That's a little creepy.

And then I read this: "If a person knew that they were transporting or harboring an undocumented immigrant, they would be committing a crime and subject to punishment of up to a year of jail time."

Am I paranoid if this looks like the beginning of a slippery slope to me?

(Source: Ethics Daily

Skilled Writing

So I already know that I have a powerful imagination, and can be quite sensitive to fiction and art overall. I very easily empathize with main characters in movies and books and feel a slight twinge if someone has, say, their arm cut off.

But when I found a copy of Chuck Palahniuk's "Haunted" at the library, and remembered that I'd read about the incident when Mr. Palahniuk had to stop reading it aloud because people in his audience were fainting, I thought, "Hey, can it really be that bad?"

Apparently it can.

I made it through the introduction without much problems. After about fifteen pages, I was delighted - "This is really taking me out of my comfort zone", I thought, "It's quite provocative."

After another five pages, I was skipping a few lines because I was uncomfortable reading them. At page twenty-three I think it was, I had to close the book because it was making me physically sick and I was afraid I might throw up on it. The fact that the book had big, suspicious yellow stains all over those pages also made me suspect I might not be the first to do so - which didn't help.

In case you're curious, the book more or less starts with one of the characters relating a bunch of anecdotes on people getting injured while masturbating. It starts with "You know autoerotic asphyxiation? Yeah, that's child's play in comparison to what these guys did..." and, well, then it goes on with "That's child's play in comparison to what happened to me."

This blog post is my recognition that, despite being desensitized by years on the Internet, and despite having seen pictures of some pretty gross stuff, Chuck Palahniuk can still cause me to almost vomit, using nothing but words. I tip my hat to that kind of writing skill.

(In the end, I decided to borrow another book.)

On Jesus

"Michael [Cheuk] posted this note on his Facebook page May 21: "Jesus came back today! He was at our local food pantry waiting in line to receive one of 800+ bags of food that was distributed this morning."

Michael's post brought to mind in a vivid way the passage in Matthew where Jesus reminded his disciples (and us) that when we feed the hungry, we are feeding him; every ministry to those in need is a ministry to the Savior."

--there's a proper, Christian way of interpreting Jesus returning, if ever I saw one. More Christians would do well to remember that lesson: The best way to love Christ is to love your neighbour.

The passage is taken from a very interesting website that I just stumbled upon: Ethics Daily.

Broken

Remember that old Greek myth, about how there were once just humans, but then the gods split them apart into man and woman, and they become obsessed with trying to fit themselves back together?

Maybe that's actually a nice metaphor for sexuality overall, hetero- homo- auto- or what-have-you-sexual. Sexuality is in some way, an attempt to fix what is broken. That is why other peoples' sexual hang-ups can seem silly or pointless - because it's not something we ourselves lack. From our point of view, it seems like the other person is trying to fix something that isn't broken.

Heroes

Abd al-Qadir al Jaza'iri

John Woolman

I spend a lot of my time reading, thinking, and writing about heroes. I think it's about time I mentioned these two men. Their stories deserve to be read.