Evil Does Not Exist and Why Our Belief in Evil is Killing Us
Evil Does Not Exist and Why Our Belief in Evil is Killing Us
Opening: Do you want the truth?
In the gospel of John, Jesus says “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)
How many people here think that freedom is a good thing?
There is a great line in the film The Big Short that says, “Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry.”
There is another great line, I believe from the title of a book that reads “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off!”
My goal today is not to piss you off or put you to sleep. My goal is to tell you the truth and set you on fire with the freedom that comes with knowing the truth. That’s why I write about debt. That’s why I record videos on usury and government overreach, and other political and spiritual matters. I want to tell you the truth. But the truth is sometimes hard to hear. The apostle Paul, one of the earliest followers of Jesus Christ and the author of much of the New Testament noticed this as well when he said to Timothy, a young preacher that people “to suit their own desires, will gather around for themselves a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” (2 Timothy 4:3). So I have a problem. There is a gap between what people want to hear and the truth that people need to hear. My job today is bridge that gap so that you listen to me and also hear the truth. Why is that my job? Because if you know the truth from me, the truth will set you free.
So let’s start with what I think you want to hear. I think you are here because you believe something is wrong with the world and you hope that I can describe the nature of that evil in such a clear way that the knowledge of that evil would give you the power to defeat it. Evil exists, right? And good people fight evil people, right? To fulfill that desire, I could and will discuss how since 1913 America has been occupied by malicious banking interest that have destroyed our money and impoverished our people. I could and will discuss how all wars are bankers wars and the propaganda promoting the virtues of WWI, WWI, and all the the subsequent build of American military might was just that, propaganda to make Americans celebrate their own captivity. I could and will have conversations with you about how usury, moneylending at interest, is the cause of all kinds of evil, like gender confusion, alcoholism, depression, corruption, and even illegal immigration. And I can and will tell you why every contract secured with dollars or any other kind of debt is illegal on the basis of natural contract law. That those who create money or interest out of nothing to secure these contracts do not provide proper consideration, that they cannot prove losses if you do not honor the terms of those contracts, and therefore there is no remedy possible in the event of default and therefore their is no jurisdiction possible for any court to enforce. Yes, your debt doesn’t exists and one of the most effective ways of defeating these pirates of usury, like the Federal Reserve and their network of banks is to run up your debt and default. I can and will talk to you about all those things because I think that in part is what you want to hear. You want me to give you evidence that evil exists and strategies for defeating it. But here is why it wont matter or make a difference in your life if that’s all I do.
You believe evil exists and that’s a big problem. You believe evil has power. You believe the government IS evil. You believe banks ARE evil. Perhaps you believe one particular group of people ARE evil. Perhaps you even believe a little bit of you is evil. And that belief scares you. In fact, it paralyzes you. It shames you. It makes you feel small and weak. And small, weak, paralyzed, evil people cannot do good nor defeat evil…
So… how can I help you? I can tell the truth and if I am effective, this truth will set you free, make you strong, and give you the power to defeat something that doesn’t exist, that is evil.
What is that truth? Most people believe that evil exists. I will attempt, as best as I am able, to convince you that this is wrong. To start, however, I want to say that I have no intention of ignoring the evidence of evil nor the problem of evil. I want nothing to do with any arguments or worldviews that seek to evade reality in order to justify its claims. I will therefore start by doing my best to make the case for the existence of evil as efficiently and effectively as I can.
I can say that on first glance it is hard for me to personally believe that evil does not exist. From just my own first hand experience, I am compelled to believe there is something wrong with this world and perhaps even wrong with me. I saw my father held up at gun point when I was 15 and sent to a mental instruction. I rode an elementary school bus past a hangman’s noose erected in my front lawn twice a day. I experienced molestation at age 7, and later fathered a child who has such a persistent and incurable genetic disorder that she will likely never live an independent day in her life. If the smallest atom of evil would be sufficient proof of its existence, it seems that my own life alone could provide all the proof I need. If my own life isn’t evidence enough, there are the pictures and images of pain, torture, and cruelty recounted by writers, journalists, historians, and artists for us to consider. Authors like the 19th century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky who paints such a picture of evil in his novel The Brother’s of Karamazov:
(These stories will be hard to hear. It’s ok to feel strong emotions as you hear them)
Imagine a trembling mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading Turks around her. They’ve planned a diversion; they pet the baby, laugh to make it laugh. They succeeded, the baby laughs. At that moment, a Turk points of pistol, 4 inches from the babies face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the babies face and blows out its brains. Artistic, wasn’t it?… I think that if the devil doesn’t exist and man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.
And again Dostoevsky’s character Ivan recounts:
There was a little girl of five who was subjected to every possible torture by her cultivated parents. They shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn’t ask to be taken up at night and so wet herself, they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother who did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child’s groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can’t even understand what’s done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep, her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her?… Why should mankind know that diabolical good and evil when it cost so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child’s prayer to “Dear, kind God!”
On the individual level radical evil expresses itself in actions of unfathomable cruelty. The closest we get to the reality of evil is our own direct experience of evil in ourselves and others. Perhaps only sociopaths lack this direct intuition. On November 14, 1984 reporters at the United Press International reported:
Cynthia Palmer, 29, and her live-in boyfriend, John Lane, 36, pleaded innocent to burning to death ms Palmer’s four-year-old daughter in an oven. The two, who told neighbors shortly before their arrest that they were “Cooking Lucifer,” were arraigned Tuesday in Androscoggin County Maine Superior court. They were arrested October 27 at their Auburn tenement apartment. Angela Palmer was found stuffed in the electric oven. The door was jammed shut with a chair.
Stories like these move us often more than statistics and chapters in history books but I cannot end this recounting of evil without acknowledging the atrocities of the 20th and 21st centuries:
- Millions dead from Soviet and Chinese Communism
- Millions dead from WWI, WWII, the Vietnam and Korean Wars
- The assassinations of JFK and MLK
- WACO, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Rodney King riots, OJ Simpson Murders
- The Enron and Bernie Madoff financial scandals
- The 9/11 attacks
- The evidence of child sex trafficking and blackmail perpetuated by people like Jeffrey Epstein and Shaun Combs
- The Covid-19 Pandemic
- The ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the surrounding areas. Just this week I saw a graphic video of a person (man, woman, or child I do not know) being burned alive by Israel for committing the sin of existing in a hospital tent in Gaza.
When I say that evil does not exist, I am not ignoring my own life, your life, history, the suffering of the people of Asheville North Carolina, or the very real pictures of pain that we all see every day. In fact, I am constantly shocked by how little I do know and I am sure each of us has a story, whether personal or recounted, that would bring everyone to tears. I assume all those stories are true. How then can I say “Evil does not exist?” To answer that question, I will first explain the problem of believing in evil. I will then explain the absurdity of believing in evil. I will conclude with the power of not only believing that evil does not exist but believing in love. If you wanted to take notes you might use this structure:
- The Problem of Evil
- The Absurdity of Evil
- The Power of Love
If I am right, which my own life and the lives of many others gives testimony to this, then you, like me, will be free and find the power needed to defeat the thing that doesn’t exist, that is evil.
In the gospel of John, Jesus says “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)
How many people here think that freedom is a good thing?
There is a great line in the film The Big Short that says, “Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry.”
There is another great line, I believe from the title of a book that reads “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off!”
My goal today is not to piss you off or put you to sleep. My goal is to tell you the truth and set you on fire with the freedom that comes with knowing the truth. That’s why I write about debt. That’s why I record videos on usury and government overreach, and other political and spiritual matters. I want to tell you the truth. But the truth is sometimes hard to hear. The apostle Paul, one of the earliest followers of Jesus Christ and the author of much of the New Testament noticed this as well when he said to Timothy, a young preacher that people “to suit their own desires, will gather around for themselves a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” (2 Timothy 4:3). So I have a problem. There is a gap between what people want to hear and the truth that people need to hear. My job today is bridge that gap so that you listen to me and also hear the truth. Why is that my job? Because if you know the truth from me, the truth will set you free.
So let’s start with what I think you want to hear. I think you are here because you believe something is wrong with the world and you hope that I can describe the nature of that evil in such a clear way that the knowledge of that evil would give you the power to defeat it. Evil exists, right? And good people fight evil people, right? To fulfill that desire, I could and will discuss how since 1913 America has been occupied by malicious banking interest that have destroyed our money and impoverished our people. I could and will discuss how all wars are bankers wars and the propaganda promoting the virtues of WWI, WWI, and all the the subsequent build of American military might was just that, propaganda to make Americans celebrate their own captivity. I could and will have conversations with you about how usury, moneylending at interest, is the cause of all kinds of evil, like gender confusion, alcoholism, depression, corruption, and even illegal immigration. And I can and will tell you why every contract secured with dollars or any other kind of debt is illegal on the basis of natural contract law. That those who create money or interest out of nothing to secure these contracts do not provide proper consideration, that they cannot prove losses if you do not honor the terms of those contracts, and therefore there is no remedy possible in the event of default and therefore their is no jurisdiction possible for any court to enforce. Yes, your debt doesn’t exists and one of the most effective ways of defeating these pirates of usury, like the Federal Reserve and their network of banks is to run up your debt and default. I can and will talk to you about all those things because I think that in part is what you want to hear. You want me to give you evidence that evil exists and strategies for defeating it. But here is why it wont matter or make a difference in your life if that’s all I do.
You believe evil exists and that’s a big problem. You believe evil has power. You believe the government IS evil. You believe banks ARE evil. Perhaps you believe one particular group of people ARE evil. Perhaps you even believe a little bit of you is evil. And that belief scares you. In fact, it paralyzes you. It shames you. It makes you feel small and weak. And small, weak, paralyzed, evil people cannot do good nor defeat evil…
So… how can I help you? I can tell the truth and if I am effective, this truth will set you free, make you strong, and give you the power to defeat something that doesn’t exist, that is evil.
What is that truth? Most people believe that evil exists. I will attempt, as best as I am able, to convince you that this is wrong. To start, however, I want to say that I have no intention of ignoring the evidence of evil nor the problem of evil. I want nothing to do with any arguments or worldviews that seek to evade reality in order to justify its claims. I will therefore start by doing my best to make the case for the existence of evil as efficiently and effectively as I can.
I can say that on first glance it is hard for me to personally believe that evil does not exist. From just my own first hand experience, I am compelled to believe there is something wrong with this world and perhaps even wrong with me. I saw my father held up at gun point when I was 15 and sent to a mental instruction. I rode an elementary school bus past a hangman’s noose erected in my front lawn twice a day. I experienced molestation at age 7, and later fathered a child who has such a persistent and incurable genetic disorder that she will likely never live an independent day in her life. If the smallest atom of evil would be sufficient proof of its existence, it seems that my own life alone could provide all the proof I need. If my own life isn’t evidence enough, there are the pictures and images of pain, torture, and cruelty recounted by writers, journalists, historians, and artists for us to consider. Authors like the 19th century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky who paints such a picture of evil in his novel The Brother’s of Karamazov:
(These stories will be hard to hear. It’s ok to feel strong emotions as you hear them)
Imagine a trembling mother with her baby in her arms, a circle of invading Turks around her. They’ve planned a diversion; they pet the baby, laugh to make it laugh. They succeeded, the baby laughs. At that moment, a Turk points of pistol, 4 inches from the babies face. The baby laughs with glee, holds out its little hands to the pistol, and he pulls the trigger in the babies face and blows out its brains. Artistic, wasn’t it?… I think that if the devil doesn’t exist and man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.
And again Dostoevsky’s character Ivan recounts:
There was a little girl of five who was subjected to every possible torture by her cultivated parents. They shut her up all night in the cold and frost in a privy, and because she didn’t ask to be taken up at night and so wet herself, they smeared her face and filled her mouth with excrement, and it was her mother, her mother who did this. And that mother could sleep, hearing the poor child’s groans! Can you understand why a little creature, who can’t even understand what’s done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny fist in the dark and the cold, and weep, her meek unresentful tears to dear, kind God to protect her?… Why should mankind know that diabolical good and evil when it cost so much? Why, the whole world of knowledge is not worth that child’s prayer to “Dear, kind God!”
On the individual level radical evil expresses itself in actions of unfathomable cruelty. The closest we get to the reality of evil is our own direct experience of evil in ourselves and others. Perhaps only sociopaths lack this direct intuition. On November 14, 1984 reporters at the United Press International reported:
Cynthia Palmer, 29, and her live-in boyfriend, John Lane, 36, pleaded innocent to burning to death ms Palmer’s four-year-old daughter in an oven. The two, who told neighbors shortly before their arrest that they were “Cooking Lucifer,” were arraigned Tuesday in Androscoggin County Maine Superior court. They were arrested October 27 at their Auburn tenement apartment. Angela Palmer was found stuffed in the electric oven. The door was jammed shut with a chair.
Stories like these move us often more than statistics and chapters in history books but I cannot end this recounting of evil without acknowledging the atrocities of the 20th and 21st centuries:
- Millions dead from Soviet and Chinese Communism
- Millions dead from WWI, WWII, the Vietnam and Korean Wars
- The assassinations of JFK and MLK
- WACO, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Rodney King riots, OJ Simpson Murders
- The Enron and Bernie Madoff financial scandals
- The 9/11 attacks
- The evidence of child sex trafficking and blackmail perpetuated by people like Jeffrey Epstein and Shaun Combs
- The Covid-19 Pandemic
- The ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the surrounding areas. Just this week I saw a graphic video of a person (man, woman, or child I do not know) being burned alive by Israel for committing the sin of existing in a hospital tent in Gaza.
When I say that evil does not exist, I am not ignoring my own life, your life, history, the suffering of the people of Asheville North Carolina, or the very real pictures of pain that we all see every day. In fact, I am constantly shocked by how little I do know and I am sure each of us has a story, whether personal or recounted, that would bring everyone to tears. I assume all those stories are true. How then can I say “Evil does not exist?” To answer that question, I will first explain the problem of believing in evil. I will then explain the absurdity of believing in evil. I will conclude with the power of not only believing that evil does not exist but believing in love. If you wanted to take notes you might use this structure:
- The Problem of Evil
- The Absurdity of Evil
- The Power of Love
If I am right, which my own life and the lives of many others gives testimony to this, then you, like me, will be free and find the power needed to defeat the thing that doesn’t exist, that is evil.
The Problem of Evil
The problem of evil is a problem in theology and the philosophy of religion that arises from any view that affirms the following three propositions: God is almighty, God is perfectly good, and evil exists.
An important statement of the problem of evil, attributed to Epicurus (341-270 BCE), was cited by the Scottish philosopher David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779): “Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?” Since well before Hume’s time, the problem has been the basis of a positive argument for atheism: If God exists, then he is omnipotent and perfectly good; a perfectly good being would eliminate evil as far as it could; there is no limit to what an omnipotent being can do; therefore, if God exists, there would be no evil in the world; there is evil in the world; therefore, God does not exist.
That’s the argument and no one to this day, for over a millennium, maybe two, has solved that problem. It’s like one of those equations that the professor put up on the board in the movie Goodwill Hunting. It’s there to show you how little you know.
The irony here is that once you concede the existence of evil and therefore the non-existence of God, you are incentivized to convince others that evil exists and that God does not. Hence why Dostoevsky, Hume, German philosophers out of Leipzig Germany, Seigmond Freud and their followers took great pains and conjured magnificent eloquence to describe and even commit acts of evil themselves. Yes, in one sense becoming evil is in a twisted way an attempt to not only believe in a world where no one can judge you but also to provide the very evidence that would prevent the God who made you and this world from destroying you. In a twisted way love then is encouraging others to become evil, even if by deceit. You see, the one thing those atheists couldn’t get rid of is their conscience which told them that even though they shouldn’t believe in justice, goodness, and a standard of values that could judge them, they still felt ashamed, guilty, and deserving of punishment. In their minds, the reason they felt ashamed is because too many people still believed in God, goodness, justice, and it is was their cleanish lives that created a deceiptive contrast to their own souls. What to do with this feeling? Blame. Scape goat. Corrupt your neighbor. Make you brother feel how you feel inside. Hate your maker and you own life. Or as Job’s wife recommended to him after he suffered the loss of everything he owned and even his own health “curse God and die.” This is the problem with believing in evil. It makes you want to curse God and die. Let’s look at why this is absurd.
The Absurdity of Evil
In her book Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s character Francisco D’Anconia says this: “There are no evil thoughts except one: The refusal to think.”
In other words, according to Rand, the belief in evil is in fact the only evil. Beliefs do not exist. They are merely assessments of reality. An apple exists and in order to use an apple you need to think about it properly. You need to assess its character and its attributes and its usefulness. But if you were to believe something about that apple, the apple doesn’t change. If you were to believe 1000 things about the apple, the apple doesn’t change. It doesn’t get bigger, better, worse, or in any way objectively different. But if you were to act on a false belief about the apple, like for instance the belief that it was nutritious when in fact someone had dipped it in poison, then you would suffer the consequences of the action taken on that false belief, precisely because beliefs are independent of reality. They do not exist.
Let me give you another example. Consider a man who believes his thoughts govern reality and chooses to drink gasoline as if it were water. Then then man’s stomach turns. He feels betrayed by reality or perhaps impotent to change it. He curses his lack of power and dies of poison. Or consider a father who in an act of defiance tests God by throwing his infant over a bridge believing that God can save him if he wanted to and if God didn’t want to, then God can’t judge him for committing the act, since God could have also prevented the father from throwing his child over in the first place. These are the absurd thoughts that emerge when people believe that evil exists.
Our first known recording of these kinds of evil thoughts comes from the book of Genesis chapter 3. In chapter 1 verse 31 it is said that “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.”. This included Adam and a beautiful garden full of trees that were good for food and were given to him to work and take care of it. However, in Genesis 2:16 we see a prohibition: It says, “And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Then in the first 7 verses of Chapter 3 we get the following story:
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.Now I want you to see what is happening here from a matter of belief. Everything that God created was good, including Adam and including Eve, and including the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was established clearly in Genesis 1:31 and that truth was in operation in Genesis 2:16, even though God forbid Adam from eating from that tree, and it was in operation in Genesis 3 in the mouth of Satan and the ears of Eve. What Satan saw in the prohibition given to Adam was an opportunity to get Adam and Eve to believe that God was evil. How could God deprive you of something good? You see Satan could agree with God that everything He made was good and then use that belief to make God seem stingy. God was withholding something good from Adam and Eve and of course love means to want others to enjoy good things which means if God did not want Adam and Even to enjoy something good that must mean only one thing. God does not love them. And in fact, there is no statement at all in Genesis 1 or 2 that God loved Adam and Eve. He is merely the creator who makes good things and thinks about Adam’s companionship and joy and even prohibits Adam from eating something that appears good to eat but is in fact not good to eat.
How often do we find ourselves agreeing with God in Genesis 1, becoming suspicious of God in Genesis 2, and like Adam and Eve reaching out on our own against God’s commandments in Genesis 3 and suffering because of it. How familiar is this story in the lives of our children who need to be told what to do and not to do.
The disciple James writes: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but you do not have so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.“ (James 4:1)
This is us right? We see things we want, good things, and because we can’t have them, either because someone else has them or because someone is preventing us from getting them, we get upset. Are we any different than toddlers throwing tantrums?
The absurdity of believing in evil, in believing that God is withholding good things from us, and that He is doing so because He is evil, is like what a two year old experiences when they reach for the oven and their parent slaps their hand. Or when a parent teaches their children to learn to enjoy vegetables instead of just eating chicken tenders all the time. On what basis does the child cry and throw a fit? What would possibly cause them to conclude that their parents hate them? Why would Adam and Eve believe that God was evil? Ignorance. You see before Genesis 3, Adam and Eve were like spoiled children. They didn’t know God. They only knew what God had made. After Genesis 3, they learned that God was telling the truth and they felt shame. They realized that God wasn’t withholding food from them. He was loving them. Protecting them. Warning them. Caring for them. And then they, without justification, like an ignorant toddler and a petulant teenager, rebelled. That was the first sin. The first error in judgement. The first mistake. From then on, Adam and Eve and all their offspring would be trying their best to not make mistakes like this again but there was a big problem. Adam and Eve HAD sinned against God. They were capable of believing in the absurd. And they were alienated and separated from God for that reason. Perhaps they had no reason to believe in evil before they sinned but surely they had reason to believe in it now. Hadn’t they become evil? Weren’t they rebels? Weren’t they cursed now? Is not that why God was judging them, because THEY were evil?
And you can see the effects of this shame. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent. But the serpent didn’t care. Adam and Eve may have blamed Satan for lying to them but their guilt was guaranteed in believing the lie. Eve may have condemned the snake for being a trickster but by that very condemnation Eve would blame herself for being trick-able.
This is the cycle of blame and condemnation that many of you likely find yourself in, not only in general but many times throughout your life. Perhaps your life was good, but then you fell. Perhaps your marriage was good, but then you messed it up. Perhaps you were a good father, but then you made that mistake. Perhaps America was a great nation, but then it collapsed. Now you are trying so desperately hard to earn good favor again, to cover over the past, to not be such an idiot again, to save America, to make America Great… Again. To make God love you…again. In the end, we all wind up asking, how could God allow for this to happen? How could my parents like me touch the stove? How could my father let me fall down and skin my knee? How could my mother let me experience that hurt? How could she hurt me that way? How could they? How dare they? In the end we all ask, why God? Why did you let the serpent trick me? Why did you give me this woman? Why did you let me experience your curses? Why am I being forced to live stream a genocide? Why are they being forced to die so cruelly? Why?
The absurdity of believing in evil is that it leaves us cursing a God that cannot exist for the sin of not trusting Him. This is why the answer to evil is not to fight it or make up for it but to believe in its opposite, namely love.
The problem of evil is a problem in theology and the philosophy of religion that arises from any view that affirms the following three propositions: God is almighty, God is perfectly good, and evil exists.
An important statement of the problem of evil, attributed to Epicurus (341-270 BCE), was cited by the Scottish philosopher David Hume in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779): “Is [God] willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?” Since well before Hume’s time, the problem has been the basis of a positive argument for atheism: If God exists, then he is omnipotent and perfectly good; a perfectly good being would eliminate evil as far as it could; there is no limit to what an omnipotent being can do; therefore, if God exists, there would be no evil in the world; there is evil in the world; therefore, God does not exist.
That’s the argument and no one to this day, for over a millennium, maybe two, has solved that problem. It’s like one of those equations that the professor put up on the board in the movie Goodwill Hunting. It’s there to show you how little you know.
The irony here is that once you concede the existence of evil and therefore the non-existence of God, you are incentivized to convince others that evil exists and that God does not. Hence why Dostoevsky, Hume, German philosophers out of Leipzig Germany, Seigmond Freud and their followers took great pains and conjured magnificent eloquence to describe and even commit acts of evil themselves. Yes, in one sense becoming evil is in a twisted way an attempt to not only believe in a world where no one can judge you but also to provide the very evidence that would prevent the God who made you and this world from destroying you. In a twisted way love then is encouraging others to become evil, even if by deceit. You see, the one thing those atheists couldn’t get rid of is their conscience which told them that even though they shouldn’t believe in justice, goodness, and a standard of values that could judge them, they still felt ashamed, guilty, and deserving of punishment. In their minds, the reason they felt ashamed is because too many people still believed in God, goodness, justice, and it is was their cleanish lives that created a deceiptive contrast to their own souls. What to do with this feeling? Blame. Scape goat. Corrupt your neighbor. Make you brother feel how you feel inside. Hate your maker and you own life. Or as Job’s wife recommended to him after he suffered the loss of everything he owned and even his own health “curse God and die.” This is the problem with believing in evil. It makes you want to curse God and die. Let’s look at why this is absurd.
The Absurdity of Evil
In her book Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s character Francisco D’Anconia says this: “There are no evil thoughts except one: The refusal to think.”
In other words, according to Rand, the belief in evil is in fact the only evil. Beliefs do not exist. They are merely assessments of reality. An apple exists and in order to use an apple you need to think about it properly. You need to assess its character and its attributes and its usefulness. But if you were to believe something about that apple, the apple doesn’t change. If you were to believe 1000 things about the apple, the apple doesn’t change. It doesn’t get bigger, better, worse, or in any way objectively different. But if you were to act on a false belief about the apple, like for instance the belief that it was nutritious when in fact someone had dipped it in poison, then you would suffer the consequences of the action taken on that false belief, precisely because beliefs are independent of reality. They do not exist.
Let me give you another example. Consider a man who believes his thoughts govern reality and chooses to drink gasoline as if it were water. Then then man’s stomach turns. He feels betrayed by reality or perhaps impotent to change it. He curses his lack of power and dies of poison. Or consider a father who in an act of defiance tests God by throwing his infant over a bridge believing that God can save him if he wanted to and if God didn’t want to, then God can’t judge him for committing the act, since God could have also prevented the father from throwing his child over in the first place. These are the absurd thoughts that emerge when people believe that evil exists.
Our first known recording of these kinds of evil thoughts comes from the book of Genesis chapter 3. In chapter 1 verse 31 it is said that “God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good.”. This included Adam and a beautiful garden full of trees that were good for food and were given to him to work and take care of it. However, in Genesis 2:16 we see a prohibition: It says, “And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.” Then in the first 7 verses of Chapter 3 we get the following story:
The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Now I want you to see what is happening here from a matter of belief. Everything that God created was good, including Adam and including Eve, and including the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was established clearly in Genesis 1:31 and that truth was in operation in Genesis 2:16, even though God forbid Adam from eating from that tree, and it was in operation in Genesis 3 in the mouth of Satan and the ears of Eve. What Satan saw in the prohibition given to Adam was an opportunity to get Adam and Eve to believe that God was evil. How could God deprive you of something good? You see Satan could agree with God that everything He made was good and then use that belief to make God seem stingy. God was withholding something good from Adam and Eve and of course love means to want others to enjoy good things which means if God did not want Adam and Even to enjoy something good that must mean only one thing. God does not love them. And in fact, there is no statement at all in Genesis 1 or 2 that God loved Adam and Eve. He is merely the creator who makes good things and thinks about Adam’s companionship and joy and even prohibits Adam from eating something that appears good to eat but is in fact not good to eat.
How often do we find ourselves agreeing with God in Genesis 1, becoming suspicious of God in Genesis 2, and like Adam and Eve reaching out on our own against God’s commandments in Genesis 3 and suffering because of it. How familiar is this story in the lives of our children who need to be told what to do and not to do.
The disciple James writes: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but you do not have so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.“ (James 4:1)
This is us right? We see things we want, good things, and because we can’t have them, either because someone else has them or because someone is preventing us from getting them, we get upset. Are we any different than toddlers throwing tantrums?
The absurdity of believing in evil, in believing that God is withholding good things from us, and that He is doing so because He is evil, is like what a two year old experiences when they reach for the oven and their parent slaps their hand. Or when a parent teaches their children to learn to enjoy vegetables instead of just eating chicken tenders all the time. On what basis does the child cry and throw a fit? What would possibly cause them to conclude that their parents hate them? Why would Adam and Eve believe that God was evil? Ignorance. You see before Genesis 3, Adam and Eve were like spoiled children. They didn’t know God. They only knew what God had made. After Genesis 3, they learned that God was telling the truth and they felt shame. They realized that God wasn’t withholding food from them. He was loving them. Protecting them. Warning them. Caring for them. And then they, without justification, like an ignorant toddler and a petulant teenager, rebelled. That was the first sin. The first error in judgement. The first mistake. From then on, Adam and Eve and all their offspring would be trying their best to not make mistakes like this again but there was a big problem. Adam and Eve HAD sinned against God. They were capable of believing in the absurd. And they were alienated and separated from God for that reason. Perhaps they had no reason to believe in evil before they sinned but surely they had reason to believe in it now. Hadn’t they become evil? Weren’t they rebels? Weren’t they cursed now? Is not that why God was judging them, because THEY were evil?
And you can see the effects of this shame. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent. But the serpent didn’t care. Adam and Eve may have blamed Satan for lying to them but their guilt was guaranteed in believing the lie. Eve may have condemned the snake for being a trickster but by that very condemnation Eve would blame herself for being trick-able.
This is the cycle of blame and condemnation that many of you likely find yourself in, not only in general but many times throughout your life. Perhaps your life was good, but then you fell. Perhaps your marriage was good, but then you messed it up. Perhaps you were a good father, but then you made that mistake. Perhaps America was a great nation, but then it collapsed. Now you are trying so desperately hard to earn good favor again, to cover over the past, to not be such an idiot again, to save America, to make America Great… Again. To make God love you…again. In the end, we all wind up asking, how could God allow for this to happen? How could my parents like me touch the stove? How could my father let me fall down and skin my knee? How could my mother let me experience that hurt? How could she hurt me that way? How could they? How dare they? In the end we all ask, why God? Why did you let the serpent trick me? Why did you give me this woman? Why did you let me experience your curses? Why am I being forced to live stream a genocide? Why are they being forced to die so cruelly? Why?
The absurdity of believing in evil is that it leaves us cursing a God that cannot exist for the sin of not trusting Him. This is why the answer to evil is not to fight it or make up for it but to believe in its opposite, namely love.
The Power of Love
As a father, I would often find myself teaching my children the necessity of trusting in me. Their desires combined with their ignorance would lead them to suffering needlessly. For instance, they would ask me for something and if I wouldn’t give it to them, they would start to complain, asking why. You can hear echoes of the garden in their complaints. I then learned that I needed to get them to trust me. This is how I did it. I told them that I wanted them to ask me for things but that I knew things that they didn’t know and that it would be unloving for me to forget those things and give them what they wanted just because they wanted it. I told them that I wanted to share this knowledge with them but first, I needed them to learn to trust me. That’s when I came up with the “Okay but why” method for them. Whenever they asked me for something, before they could ask why, they first had to say (and really mean it) “Okay, Dad. I understand.” This single act of faith in my love for them freed them up to ask for anything they wished and caused them to learn humility. As their father, this method put the burden on me to prove to them that I really did love them and knew wise things. After they said “I understand” then they could, if they wanted to, ask me why I made that decision. They knew they weren’t entitled to an answer but more often than not, I tried to explain it to them. I don’t think a single act of parenting has given my children more freedom and peace and knowledge of my love for them than the “Okay but why” method. Now they are hungry for lessons and they realize that the more wise they become, the more competent they become and the more able they are to not only get more from me, but get more for themselves.
When we consider the fact that there seems to be evil in the world and are tempted to ask “Why?” we must first learn to become like my children. We must first be eager to believe in the power of love and say “I understand that you are in control and that you are good. Just like “Okay” was the beginning of my ability to transfer my wisdom to my children, “I surrender” is the beginning of our journey to learning the wisdom of God. In Romans 8 verses 20 to 21 the apostle Paul writes, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”
When we believe in love, the arms of the father that could kill a bear become the arms of a father who gives us bear hugs. When we believe in love, the fires that destroy become the fires that refine. When we believe in love, the lions that could tear us to pieces because our pets and friends. When we believe in love the cross that condemns becomes the very evidence of God’s love for us.
Paul writes in Romans 5:8 “But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
And John writes to his readers in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
And Paul again writes in Romans 8:28-39
And we know that in all things (including all Ponzi Schemes, CIA operations, Presidential Assasinations, Instances of child sex trafficking, hurricanes, divorces, genetic disorders, and even the existence, persistence, and prevalence of the suffering caused by usury) God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose… For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”For those who believe in the love of God, the power of evil disappears. You know what the right thing to do is. You know paying taxes is wrong. You know paying your mortgage is wrong. You know supporting genocide and pretending that voting will do anything about it is wrong. But you have continued giving to Caesar and serving money because you are afraid of loss. You believe in evil and because of that you suffer.
Be instead like Job who, when faced with the loss of all that he had said “The Lord gives and the lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)
Be instead like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who refused to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar’s idol, knowing that their refusal would lead to their deaths in the fiery furnace. Their faith was not in avoiding suffering but in doing what was right, even if it meant being consumed by the flames. They stood firm, saying, "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, but even if He does not, we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up" (Daniel 3:17-18). Their faith was tested by the prospect of certain death, yet they were willing to face it for the sake of their conviction.
Be instead like Christ, who when facing the reality of his own brutal murder “fell facedown and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)
Then, like Job, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, like David, like Abraham, like the Hebrews fleeing Egypt, like Christ watch as God shows up for you in a big way.
(Insert insight that faith and action are two sides of the same coin. You can’t get faith merely by saying you believe. It comes by putting yourself in risky scenarios, for the sake of love and continuing to belive. ***You can’t learn to ride a bicycle in a seminar***)
There are no evil thoughts except one: The refusal to think. There is no evil except the belief in it. Choose today to believe in the love of God for you, the goodness of all that exists, and the impotence of evil in the face of love, and I promise you you will live in power and have all that you need to defeat these demons who are running this world.
When I came to this belief, I was released of all shame and fear. I quit a job that was paying me $550,000 a year, ran up $1.25M in debt, and then purposely defaulted on it. I destroyed my credit score in 3 months and took it from 760 to 341. Most people would say I was suicidal. I have never been more alive in my life. I have spoken to lawyers, judges, and even sheriff’s and I promise you, when you stand on the truth, there is nothing they can do to you. I’ve also lost daily access to my children and experienced the heartbreak of ridicule, loneliness, and deliberate character assassination. I have found a woman who loves me, loves herself, and who is carrying my fifth child. I can testify to the power of this life and the power of love and the truth. It is not a power that saves you from suffering. It is a power that saves you through it. And it’s available to all those who believe. I pray that you today accept God’s love for you, his power to work in your life, and that I get to witness that power flowing through you in how you live in bold obedience to Him.
I'll close today with the lyrics from one of my favorite hymns, Amazing Grace, written by John Newton, who was born in London and published the hymn in 1779. This was the same year that David Hume, the Scottish philosopher I mentioned earlier, who promoted the belief in evil and the death of God, published Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Notice how Newton sees past his own wretchedness, past the dangers, toils, and snares, and even past his own death to the everlasting love of God.
1 Amazing grace (how sweet the sound)
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see.
2 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
and grace my fears relieved;
how precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed!
3 Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come:
'tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.
4 The Lord has promised good to me,
his word my hope secures;
he will my shield and portion be
as long as life endures.
5 Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
and mortal life shall cease:
I shall possess, within the veil,
a life of joy and peace.
6 The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
the sun forbear to shine;
but God, who called me here below,Will be forever mine
7 When we’ve been there ten thousand yearsBright shining as the SunWe’ll know less days to sing God’s praiseThan when we first begun
Now may you, by the grace of God believe in Him who is rich in mercy, who out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. May you know the truth that sets you free. And may you submit yourselves to God, resist the Devil, and watch him flee.
As a father, I would often find myself teaching my children the necessity of trusting in me. Their desires combined with their ignorance would lead them to suffering needlessly. For instance, they would ask me for something and if I wouldn’t give it to them, they would start to complain, asking why. You can hear echoes of the garden in their complaints. I then learned that I needed to get them to trust me. This is how I did it. I told them that I wanted them to ask me for things but that I knew things that they didn’t know and that it would be unloving for me to forget those things and give them what they wanted just because they wanted it. I told them that I wanted to share this knowledge with them but first, I needed them to learn to trust me. That’s when I came up with the “Okay but why” method for them. Whenever they asked me for something, before they could ask why, they first had to say (and really mean it) “Okay, Dad. I understand.” This single act of faith in my love for them freed them up to ask for anything they wished and caused them to learn humility. As their father, this method put the burden on me to prove to them that I really did love them and knew wise things. After they said “I understand” then they could, if they wanted to, ask me why I made that decision. They knew they weren’t entitled to an answer but more often than not, I tried to explain it to them. I don’t think a single act of parenting has given my children more freedom and peace and knowledge of my love for them than the “Okay but why” method. Now they are hungry for lessons and they realize that the more wise they become, the more competent they become and the more able they are to not only get more from me, but get more for themselves.
When we consider the fact that there seems to be evil in the world and are tempted to ask “Why?” we must first learn to become like my children. We must first be eager to believe in the power of love and say “I understand that you are in control and that you are good. Just like “Okay” was the beginning of my ability to transfer my wisdom to my children, “I surrender” is the beginning of our journey to learning the wisdom of God. In Romans 8 verses 20 to 21 the apostle Paul writes, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.”
When we believe in love, the arms of the father that could kill a bear become the arms of a father who gives us bear hugs. When we believe in love, the fires that destroy become the fires that refine. When we believe in love, the lions that could tear us to pieces because our pets and friends. When we believe in love the cross that condemns becomes the very evidence of God’s love for us.
Paul writes in Romans 5:8 “But God proves His love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
And John writes to his readers in John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
And Paul again writes in Romans 8:28-39
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
For those who believe in the love of God, the power of evil disappears. You know what the right thing to do is. You know paying taxes is wrong. You know paying your mortgage is wrong. You know supporting genocide and pretending that voting will do anything about it is wrong. But you have continued giving to Caesar and serving money because you are afraid of loss. You believe in evil and because of that you suffer.
Be instead like Job who, when faced with the loss of all that he had said “The Lord gives and the lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.” (Job 1:21)
Be instead like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who refused to bow to King Nebuchadnezzar’s idol, knowing that their refusal would lead to their deaths in the fiery furnace. Their faith was not in avoiding suffering but in doing what was right, even if it meant being consumed by the flames. They stood firm, saying, "Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, but even if He does not, we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up" (Daniel 3:17-18). Their faith was tested by the prospect of certain death, yet they were willing to face it for the sake of their conviction.
Be instead like Christ, who when facing the reality of his own brutal murder “fell facedown and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39)
Then, like Job, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, like David, like Abraham, like the Hebrews fleeing Egypt, like Christ watch as God shows up for you in a big way.
(Insert insight that faith and action are two sides of the same coin. You can’t get faith merely by saying you believe. It comes by putting yourself in risky scenarios, for the sake of love and continuing to belive. ***You can’t learn to ride a bicycle in a seminar***)
There are no evil thoughts except one: The refusal to think. There is no evil except the belief in it. Choose today to believe in the love of God for you, the goodness of all that exists, and the impotence of evil in the face of love, and I promise you you will live in power and have all that you need to defeat these demons who are running this world.
When I came to this belief, I was released of all shame and fear. I quit a job that was paying me $550,000 a year, ran up $1.25M in debt, and then purposely defaulted on it. I destroyed my credit score in 3 months and took it from 760 to 341. Most people would say I was suicidal. I have never been more alive in my life. I have spoken to lawyers, judges, and even sheriff’s and I promise you, when you stand on the truth, there is nothing they can do to you. I’ve also lost daily access to my children and experienced the heartbreak of ridicule, loneliness, and deliberate character assassination. I have found a woman who loves me, loves herself, and who is carrying my fifth child. I can testify to the power of this life and the power of love and the truth. It is not a power that saves you from suffering. It is a power that saves you through it. And it’s available to all those who believe. I pray that you today accept God’s love for you, his power to work in your life, and that I get to witness that power flowing through you in how you live in bold obedience to Him.
I'll close today with the lyrics from one of my favorite hymns, Amazing Grace, written by John Newton, who was born in London and published the hymn in 1779. This was the same year that David Hume, the Scottish philosopher I mentioned earlier, who promoted the belief in evil and the death of God, published Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Notice how Newton sees past his own wretchedness, past the dangers, toils, and snares, and even past his own death to the everlasting love of God.
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind, but now I see.
2 'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
and grace my fears relieved;
how precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed!
3 Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come:
'tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.
4 The Lord has promised good to me,
his word my hope secures;
he will my shield and portion be
as long as life endures.
5 Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
and mortal life shall cease:
I shall possess, within the veil,
a life of joy and peace.
6 The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
the sun forbear to shine;
but God, who called me here below,
Practical Application:
Now that you know that evil doesn’t exist in any tangible way and that its only power that it has is what we choose to give it, now you know the key to doing what is right: The is no real risk for those who know the love of God. There is no real negative consequences for those who trust in Him. There is no justification for worrying about what you will eat or drink and where you will sleep. There is no justification in worrying about your children in the hands of people who wish to harm them. You now have every reason to seek out these phantom risks knowing that your problems aren’t bigger than Goliath and that your suffering isn’t greater than the cross of Christ. You are problems are not bigger than God who is the creator of all that is and can easily deliver you from your enemies. You can now be generous, knowing that everything you have, you have because of God’s generosity. You can now love sacrificially, knowing that you cannot out give God. You can have the courage to stare down those who wish to harm you knowing that you will be delivered, and even if you aren’t, you will be raised by the same power that raised Christ from the dead.
So here’s what I think people should do:
1. They should stop obeying all man-made laws.
2. They should stop working for dollars.
3. They should take on as much credit as possible and default on it all.
4. They should start teaching others about their duty to the natural law.
5. They should start serving each other in love, including your police officers, sheriffs, judges, lawyers, and yes, even bankers.
6. They should buy emergency supplies like food, water, and silver because things are about to get cray cray
What questions do y’all have?
Answering the Question About How to Judge Actions as Right or Wrong:
If we base our morality on love, how can we justify actions that may appear harmful to others, like discipline or defense. Without believing in objective evil, how can we determine which actions are truly harmful and guide our moral decisions effectively?
- If our moral compass is guided by love, our actions reflect intentions for the well-being of ourselves and others.
- Actions that harm others—such as murder, theft, and deception—violate our duty to love humanity and the source of all that is good.
- While we must never choose to harm others, our perception of harm is not the sole measure of morality; sometimes, love requires difficult actions that may initially seem harmful, like a father disciplining his children.
- Love entails defending ourselves and others against genuine harm, while recognizing that only God can judge whether our actions stem from genuine love or are abusive under the guise of discipline.
- Ultimately, recognizing love as our guiding principle transcends the concept of evil and provides a standard for judging all actions as either good or harmful.
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