Marvin Jacob Lee
There’s a New Age myth floating around that evil is not real; that evil is just an illusion; that if anything evil happens to us, it’s either karma for evil we ourselves did in a past life, or it’s something we chose to have happen to us as a learning experience.
But it’s not true.
Evil is real.
Evil is not an illusion.
And although sometimes we do bring evil upon ourselves, to say that every bad thing that happens to us is the result of our own actions or choices is the ultimate case of blaming the victim.
For those whose minds aren’t clouded by faux-spiritual mumbo jumbo, every day brings news of innocent people harmed by the machinations of evil minds, or by people whose lives have gotten seriously derailed into destructive ways of thinking, feeling, and living.
Here is one such news story from the past week:
For Jefferson Heavner, of Catawba County, NC, it was a family tradition to help motorists whose cars had slid off the road in stormy and snowy weather. Heavner’s father had died in a car accident years earlier. Helping drivers in need was one of the ways Jefferson and the rest of his family remembered and honored him.
So it was all in a day’s good deeds when he and some friends pulled over to assist Marvin Jacob Lee, whose car had slid off the road in a snowstorm.
He couldn’t have known as he pulled over that this would be his last act as a Good Samaritan on this earth.
Good repaid with evil
Jefferson Heavner and his infant son
When he and his friends got out and approached the car that was off the side of the road, they quickly realized that the driver was a bit off. He was clearly under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and he was acting belligerent. So they did what any sensible person would do in that situation: after talking it over, they called the police.
Unfortunately, when Marvin Lee, the driver, overheard them talking about calling the police, he pulled out a gun and shot at them, knocking Heavner to the ground. As his friends scattered, Lee got out of the car, stood over Heavner, and shot him repeatedly, killing him on the spot. He then got back into his car. And it took an armed police swat team to get him out.
You can read all about it in these articles:
- Claremont man charged with murder; victim tried to help stopped vehicle – Hickory Record
- Helping drivers was family tradition for man slain in storm – AP, 7 News Miami / Fort Lauderdale
- Friends remember good Samaritan fatally shot helping a driver – CBS 46, Atlanta
Jefferson Heavner had every reason to live. He was the single father of a one-year-old boy. He was just out to help people in need.
And though he commonly received the gratitude of those he helped, this time he was repaid with a killer’s bullet.
Evil does harm the innocent
Multiply this tragic story by thousands and even millions of times per day, and can we really deny that evil is real, and that it does hurt people who neither deserved it nor brought it upon themselves?
If you think that every bad thing that happens to you is because you did something bad, or you somehow brought it upon yourself, put that idea out of your mind.
Of course if you know you did something stupid or evil that brought harm upon yourself, such as getting drunk and driving off in a car, that’s a different story. If we do something stupid or destructive and get hurt or killed as a result, then it truly is our own fault.
But the reality is that every day, people all over the world get hurt and killed through no fault of their own, because of the intentionally wrong or grossly negligent actions of others. Evil hurts all people, both the guilty and the innocent. That’s what evil is all about.
Jefferson Heavner’s young son will have to grow up without his father. Heavner’s family and friends have lost someone they loved and cherished. And all he was doing was trying to help someone in need.
That’s evil harming the innocent.
And evil harming the innocent is the very definition of injustice.
Spiritual and eternal justice
But there’s one thing evil can’t do to the innocent. Other people’s evil actions cannot kill and destroy the soul of those who are good and innocent.
Marvin Jacob Lee’s actions killed Jefferson Heavner’s body. But no bullet made of lead and steel can kill the soul of a person whose heart is good.
Yes, the destructive words and actions of people who are up to no good cause much pain and grief for millions of innocent people. But the victims of evil who—even in the face of undeserved pain and suffering—continue to love and care for their fellow human beings will preserve the integrity of their own character and the life of their own soul. They may even become stronger for it.
Heavner’s days of doing good deeds on this earth are now over due to the actions of an intoxicated killer. But Heavner’s soul is now moving on to a place where evil can no longer harm him.
And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who from now on die in the Lord.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them.” (Revelation 14:13)
For further reading:
- Evil Lives in a Fantasy Land
- Why is Evil Sexier than Good?
- Strip Search Prank Calls, Domestic Violence: Evil Loves Deception
- Think No Evil, Speak No Evil: The Way of the Angels
- Is there Really a Devil? Why??
- Is There Really a Hell? What is it Like?
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Lee Woofenden is an ordained minister, writer, editor, translator, and teacher. He enjoys taking spiritual insights from the Bible and the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg and putting them into plain English as guides for everyday life.
Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life 
New Age victim blaming has been a profit-making machine since at least the 1970’s. There are so many different beliefs associated with New Age cults, reincarnation and karma.
Ironically the Bible appears to be a tool they use, where they either cherry pick or interpret texts to suit their agenda. New Age snake oil salesmen/women especially like to use the eye for an eye mantra or Galatians verses to ‘prove’ karma.
Even many respectable afterlife and near-death websites have been contaminated by New Age thought, and have turned into religious websites (pretty much). This is sad considering these websites are probably the best in trying to demonstrate there’s evidence for an afterlife. What was supposed to have been unbiased, secular-based research has turned into religious philosophy.
Yes, it’s very sick the way New Age folks look for ways to condemn others, but yet always seem to find a way to justify their own happiness, success and safety. As a result now we have New Age gurus and ‘advanced’ spirits telling people they made deals with other group souls to be both perpetrators and victims on Earth. In my opinion karmic law and the lessons/experiences mantra are not even compatible with each other. On top of this New Age thought renders the afterlife almost meaningless, being nothing more than a vacation spot between lives.
Personally I think these people should have to face sick children in hospitals, violent crime victims or those who’ve lost loved ones and tell them it was ‘their plan’. I’ve also noticed the overwhelming majority of those in agreement with New Age thought tend to be on the better side of life.
Why are New Agers so indifferent to the evil of their beliefs, and the suffering of others one may ask? Personally I think blaming the victim makes people feel better about themselves, and have less guilt about their happiness, success and materialistic tendencies. Many people also don’t want to think bad things can happen to them.
Let’s face it, most people involved with New Age thought are materialistic. It’s extremely clear from their comments that material gain and hedonistic tendencies are their sole motivators, not any true spirituality where service to others is the foundation. Just look at Rhonda Byrne’s cult followers.
I wrote a long post here, and I could of added much more. New Age thought angers me greatly I’ll admit, but I’m not the only one it does. However, even my own dislike of something does not mean it’s not a fact. Hopefully my scepticism of New Age thought is justified.
Hi sparky480,
Thanks for your thoughts. New Age thinking doesn’t work for me, either—and it never has. It’s just too fuzzy, and it doesn’t focus on facing and overcoming the evil and falsity in our own hearts, minds, and lives, which is where our spiritual labors must begin. If you deny the reality of evil, you really can’t deal with it effectively.
Having said that, despite the “snake oil salesmen and women,” and despite the many faulty and objectionable beliefs, such as our being responsible for all the evil that happens to us, there are also many good and thoughtful people in the New Age movement who simply can’t accept the harsh, old, and false “Christian” doctrines that have corrupted the entire edifice of traditional Christianity. So I do have a certain amount of sympathy for many people who have turned to New Age beliefs.
The Christianity I was brought up with was very different from the harsh, irrational Christianity that still holds sway in so many churches and denominations. And because I was never taught fallacies about God sending billions of people to hell just because they believe the wrong thing, I never had any need to turn to New Age thinking.
At any rate, I do generally agree with your assessment of New Age beliefs. I just don’t want to tar every New Ager with the same negative brush. It’s good to make a distinction between the faulty beliefs many people hold and the goodness in the hearts of those who continue to love their fellow human beings in practical ways every day.
Hello Lee. I should had written ‘many’ New Agers instead. It was my intention but somehow I missed it. Perhaps my emotions got the better of me, and this is one of my trigger warning topics.
I’m probably not as forgiving as you are here concerning many people who seem enthusiastic about karma and lessons. Reincarnation itself does not bother me as much as some of the philosophies behind it.
Yes, there are some decent people involved with New Age thought who really do have good intentions. However, it appears the majority are nothing more than drama seekers with narcissistic tendencies and strong materialistic desires. Do you really think people who buy into stuff such as ‘The Secret’ are interested in doing good works? What about the majority of them on the better side of life who belittle the less fortunate? Something tells me their intentions are not the best either. Why I have little sympathy for many of these types of people is explained in my sixth paragraph in my latter post here.
How can I have empathy for those who don’t have empathy for others? I have some empathy for such people, but there are others much more deserving of it in my opinion, like the victims of horrible circumstances they love to blame. It’s not actions as much as intentions that matter to me the most. I can forgive, but only when people who’ve done bad things start to demonstrate signs of remorse. Maybe this is wrong but that’s me I guess.
I grew up originally in a Catholic home, but when my mom married my future stepdad we became more involved with Protestantism. However, I was always sceptical of my religions even before I was ten.
Eventually I became an agnostic atheist who became highly sceptical of anything considered paranormal. It took the deaths of my brother and stepdad within very close time frames of each other, and the odd events that followed which ended up shaking the foundation of my scepticism. Furthermore, my mom actually dreamt about the death of my brother in vivid detail two weeks before he actually died.
I turned back to my old religions for answers, because at the time I was not aware there was another alternative to the rigid religious and atheistic paradigms.
I myself ended up getting hooked on New Age thought. This was the result of looking at near death experiences and the ocean of New Age websites.
However, even then I was never fond of many things they taught. Ten years ago I’d probably be debating you that you were wrong about reincarnation. My shelves are still filled with New Age and reincarnation books.
Eventually I got in contact with James Webster and Michael Roll online, and they started offering me material that ended up making me sceptical of New Age thought. Webster was one of the magicians who attended the Scole experiments. Michael Roll is an atheist who’s a major advocate of afterlife research. Like I’d written before, I’m still up in the air about whether reincarnation is a fact or not, but I now have a sceptical stance concerning it until I’m provided sufficient evidence to support it.
Hi sparky480,
It sounds like you’ve been on quite a journey of faith—and that it’s still ongoing. I will say that I don’t enjoy listening to most New Age teachers I’ve encountered. I disagree with too much of what they say, and I find their views on many subjects misleading and distasteful.
About reincarnation, I presume you’ve seen my fairly lengthy article on the subject: The Bible, Emanuel Swedenborg, and Reincarnation.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks like that about the New Age movement which has now merged with all other philosophies such as Gnosticism, Marcenism and pretty much all other isms to form a bland of weird but dangerous school of thought.
I have another possible answer to your question: Why are New Agers so indifferent to the evil of their beliefs, and the suffering of others one may ask? My answer is that New Agers are guided and manipulated by dark forces (demons). These wicked but intelligent dark forces know very well that victims need to be righteously angry with what is happening to them to be able to fight it, in Jesus’s name. Karma stories keep the victim feeling guilty by convincing him/her that they deserve what is befalling them, thus emptying them of the sense of righteousness and redirecting their anger against the victims themselves. No wonder Hindiusm (which is an umbrella of many old and new religions like Buddhism) was able to build a long-lasting caste system that’s based on a merciless relationship between the classes. You need only look at the issue of child poverty and homelessness in the streets of India to glimpse the extent of what these religions could do to individuals and societies. These religions are the wide gate to hell.
Hi Sophiat,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your comment.
Though I think these religions are mistaken in many of their beliefs, especially reincarnation, and I agree that those false beliefs do considerable damage, I don’t take quite such a negative view of them. For many people, it’s the best they’re going to do. At least it gives them some sense of spirit in their life, and some sense that they should strive for something better.
Meanwhile, Christianity itself has become so corrupted and false in its beliefs that in many ways it’s hardly better than the religions it replaced. Christians do have the truth available to them in the Bible. But that truth has been so overlaid and encrusted with centuries of false human dogma that it’s hard for many Christians see the truth anymore. That’s why so many people are now abandoning Christianity. See:
The Christian Church is Not Christian
At any rate, I believe that people of all religions can be saved if they have a good heart and live a good life according to their beliefs. See:
If there’s One God, Why All the Different Religions?
I used to be a New Age person myself, so I understand where a lot of this article is coming on. I turned to New Age philosophy after leaving the judgmental and dogmatic Christianity that’s so common these days, and it gave me a lot of comfort, guidance, and help when I was “adrift” so to speak. However, looking back on it many years later, I see the New Age movement as a bit too “Dreamy,” for lack of a better word, and that it places a lot of emphasis on spiritual beings who aren’t God and rather abstract notions of laws of attraction, energy, and karma that, in my opinion, aren’t that helpful in everyday life. And while the belief that evil does not exist, and that everything is love is very appealing, all it takes is a glimpse at the front page of any newspaper to see that isn’t true.
However, I do believe that the majority of New Age practitioners do have their hearts in the right place, are more aware of the faults of religion than most people, and do want to help make the world a better place. I also don’t regret being a New Ager, as with hindsight I can see that it was a critical and important step on my own spiritual journey. Once I had gathered everything I needed, I moved on to other spiritual ideas that were more fulfilling and enriching, and perhaps that’s the best way to look at the movement: It’s a stepping stone to something better for those who want more from spirit than what our cultures traditionally offer.
Hi Ian,
Thanks for stopping by, and for providing a balancing perspective, which I do appreciate. I was never a New Ager myself, but in my younger years I did spend a certain amount of time in New Age circles. I came away with a similar sense to yours. I don’t think New Agers are awful people, and I agree with you that the New Age movement has its uses for many people who need to break away from their old, rather rigid and judgmental religious paradigms.
So thanks for your perspective as one who’s been through that whole process and come out the other side. That’s exactly why I believe God provides and allows for all different religious and spiritual perspectives: because we humans need them at various points in our spiritual development.
Yes Lee, I’d read that entire page and wrote posts on there. The New Age mantra appeared to be my first step away from dogmatic religion, but it was my personal anomalous experiences that changed my scepticism of anything deemed as mystical.
Why don’t more reincarnationists see these red flags concerning the dangers of relying on spirit communication? How can the following be so overlooked:
1) The Michael teachings convey that criminality is pre-planned for the purpose of lessons.
2) Kardac’s Spirits’ Book states the above is false, and that nobody is encouraged to wrong others. (They do admit that sometimes people take challenges that end up being more than they can handle, getting these people into serious trouble upon entering the spirit world).
3) People like Newton and Olsen deny there’s a hell at all, and claim all is light on the other side.
4) Half of sources claim we only spend a few years on average on the other side before reincarnating. The other half claims the time on the other side is several hundred years.
4) There are major contradictions concerning what ‘Self’ really is.
5) Under the way human emotions and amnesia tend to play out, karma will likely never be resolved.
6) Karma is incompatible with the lessons mantra.
7) A great deal of reincarnation research has had subjects in some instances recall the life events of another person, except that person was still alive at the time (implying something other than past life recall is taking place).
8) My debate with Roy Stemman revealed he believed some cases of past life recall had to be legit, despite the fact with some of these cases these people could not have been on the other side for more than a year. In his opinion vengeance was their reason for reincarnating so quickly. This implies to me if this is so there’s no real order or well a intentioned purpose behind the reincarnation process.
8) Birthmarks can be explained via other paranormal phenomena most reincarnationists never even read about. Examples include hypnotic impression, maternal impression, spirit possession, etc.
9) In a great deal of reincarnation investigations key information tends to be left out that may undermine reincarnation hypothesis. Bowman and Stevenson are good examples of this.
10) The fact that past life regression therapy helps people likely due to the belief they had reincarnated, rather than actually recalling a past life.
There are more I have left out, but does Occam’s razor really side with reincarnation hypothesis? I veered off topic here I’ll admit, and I’m a debater by heart. My intention was to highlight why we should think more critically before accepting anything as a’fact’. I also wanted to highlight why I think reincarnation (with or without karma) can not solve the problem of evil. How can one solve problems if they deny they even exist?
Confirmation bias, fueled by cognitive dissonance can be a major enemy of reason. Information cascades do not help either. Hopefully my post will plant seeds in the minds of anyone who accepts their version of reincarnation as a ‘proven fact’. Any belief can be dogmatic whether it’s New Age, religious or secular.
Hi sparky480,
Ah yes, I see that we’ve already had a conversation in the comments to the Reincarnation article. Hard to keep track of all the comments here, which are now up in the thousands.
Anyway, your questions are all very good ones for reincarnationists to face. As I said in the article, I don’t think reincarnation holds water at all. And I find it to be highly objectionable morally and spiritually. But all of that is covered in the article. I do understand why many people believe in reincarnation. But ultimately I believe it is a mistaken idea, and does not actually occur.
Thanks for your further thoughts!
Hello Lee.
If you don’t think reincarnation is true, what is your concept of the soul? Where does it come from or how is it created at the time of birth? What is its destination after death?
Hi laurisolups,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your excellent questions.
The short version is that I believe that just as our physical body is a new and unique creation whose genetic blueprint is a unique combination of unique offshoots from our biological father’s and mother’s genes, so our soul is a new and unique creation whose spiritual “genetic blueprint” is a unique combination of unique ofshoots from our father’s and mother’s souls. For more on this, see a question asked by a reader named Chuck Gebhardt here, and my responses to his comment.
My second response there touches on our destination after death, which is eternal life in the spiritual world, where we continue to learn and grow as a person forever. For more on these subjects, please see:
I hope this helps! And if you have any further questions as you read, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Hi lee
From what I can gather from your articles we human beings tend to bear evil and everyone bears a certain amount of it and supposedly god only gives us the amount of what we can bear and no more and because we grow spiritually god opens up even greater evils for us to endure my question is will there come a point where we can bear all evil and eventually overcome it thereby never having to deal with evil ever again or is it impossible for us to eventually overcome all evil?
Hi Tony,
Good question.
Being finite, not infinite, we humans will never overcome all evil. That was Christ’s job. However if, during our lifetime on earth, we choose to battle the evil within and around ourselves, and commit ourselves to following the truth and doing good to the extent of our admittedly flawed and fallible abilities, then there will come a time when although we still have elements of evil in us, they have been pushed to the side so that they are no longer a serious problem, but only an occasional nuisance or challenge.
Swedenborg says that angels continue to grow in love, knowledge, and capability to eternity, but never actually reach perfection. Only God is perfect good. We humans are always traveling toward (or away from) God.
Angels in the highest heaven have no more desire for evil, so it has no hold on them, but only causes them to recognize that they are still dependent upon God’s love, wisdom, and power flowing in.
Angels in the middle heaven do still fight against evil, but they are always victorious, through the Lord’s love, wisdom, and power flowing in.
Angels in the lowest heaven still have many areas in the deeper parts of their soul that have not been reborn, or regenerated. However, they are willing to be led and taught to do good rather than evil, and the Lord therefore keeps them focused on good rather than on evil.
Of course, evil spirits in hell have chosen evil over good, so they obviously do not fight against evil, but rather indulge in it as much as they can. Still the Lord keeps them from falling into deeper hells, meaning into deeper evil thoughts, feelings, and behaviors than the ones they chose to put at the center of their lives here on earth.
In short, though we humans never fully overcome all evil, we can, through the Lord’s power working in us, overcome it to the extent that there will be no more possibility that it will take over our life and enslave us to its power. We may still feel its effects from time to time, but it will never rule us. That is the state of all the angels in heaven.
God is love, Jesus died for us and we ought to suffer with Him. This is well explained in ROMANS 8, especially ROMANS 8:17,18. First Apostles, Disciples were martyrs. God never expects more of us than we can take, even when we think we can not cope any more. God loves us, and He is with us with our suffering. Very good book that helped me to understand was written by a Blessed Catherine Emmerich, Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ and Biblical Revelations. She had visions given from Heaven.
I am a Catholic , I was born Catholic, at some point I got interested in New Age, also, what was wrong, is wrong, but I will not write about it here now.I will write about True God and His love for us. At the time I started to question religions, etc. Only after some years I came back to Catholic religion with a solid faith. Just in time of my life when I thought I finally found God again, when I felt that God is with us, and He loves us, I got hurt, by people I suppose to trust. The questions started coming. Only recently I realized that or try to accept, that it is not about our perception of suffering or happiness, it is about doing things, living our life according to God’s Will. We people sometimes create our own image, and if it goes different way we question why. It is difficult to go through suffering, to accept it, it is a tragedy for many in different sufferings – lesser or worse. I feel for family of Jefferson Heavner, and pray for them. God knows the good, He sees the good. God sees all good and bad. For those who suffer I can only say, God loves you, He knows of your suffering, Holy Mary stood and watched her Son Jesus on the Cross , dying for all of us, and she also is with us. With God , in His Sacred Heart we will find consolation, He is with the suffering, consoling us. Life can be very very hard sometimes, but we have to remember, God loves us, and time will come even often here on earth that life will still be calm and peaceful and happy even through tears and through memory of some past, because the Love of God never will leave us, when we believe, and that one day after we die we will finally be happy, free of suffering, than with God in heaven.
Hi aga,
Thanks for stopping by, and for your story and your good thoughts. Godspeed on your spiritual journey!
What about killing for the greater good or for self-defense? Like, killing a terrorist or a murderer? Those people were going to hurt others, so would you go to hell for killing them?
I’m not going to kill anybody for any reason. I’m just asking.
What about getting drunk or high and driving and ending up killing somebody? It was an accident and you feel guilty for it, but would you go to hell? (I didn’t actually do this, I’m under 21 and I don’t plan to drink or do drugs, but I’m just curious)
Man, I wish religion was easier than this…
Hi Tori,
More good questions.
Killing in self-defense, or to protect the people you love, is accepted in human societies all around the world. And although Jesus’ statements about loving enemies and turning the other cheek have gotten major press, that is only one side of the story. See my article, “Can Christians be Hardass?”
Even the commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” is regularly interpreted as meaning that we are not to murder—meaning we are not to kill with malice and evil intent in our heart.
As far as getting drunk or high and killing someone, there is no excuse for that whatsoever. People who do that deserve the punishment they get. Putting “recreational” drugs into one’s body is a personal choice (and usually a stupid one, in my opinion). But you’re still responsible for what you do under the influence of those drugs. (And alcohol is simply another drug, even if it is legal in most places.)
As for whether you would go to hell for it, that is a more complicated question. Going to hell results from having evil intent, or from simply not caring what effects our actions have on other people. So if someone kills another person through negligence rather than from actual intent, by, for example, getting drunk or high, getting out on the road in a car, and causing a fatal accident, its effect on their spiritual life will depend upon how they react to it, and whether they recognize that what they did was wrong and evil, and commit themselves to not doing that sort of thing ever again. If they do that, and actively deal with the issues that caused them to drink or take drugs and get behind the wheel of a car, then the fact that they caused a fatal accident that killed innocent people will not send them to hell. But if they don’t care that someone died because of their actions, and keep right on living the same way, then they are indeed in danger of hell because they have failed to love their neighbor as much as they love themselves, as Jesus commanded us to do.
And yep, nobody ever said it was easy to live a good and spiritual life. But mainly, it’s hard because we come out of the womb, and even hit adulthood, thinking much more about our own pleasure, possessions, and power than we do about the wellbeing of other people. For more on this, see: “Is it Easy or Hard to Get to Heaven?”
Besides, having an easy life does not build our character and humanity. It is precisely by struggling against difficult circumstances and facing hard tasks that we develop moral and spiritual strength as human beings.
Thanks for replying!
I’m asking about the whole drugs thing because there was a girl that went to our school to tell kids not to do drugs because she did them. She had a VERY difficult life, her father committed suicide and her best friend died so she turned to drugs. I believe she was sorry for accidentally killing that person because she did care for others more than she cared for herself. She got help for herself so thats good. I felt like after all she’s been through it’ll only be fair if she did go to heaven and lived a peaceful life. So thanks for clearing that up for me ^-^
Have a great day and happy new year 🙂
Hi Tori,
You’re very welcome. Glad to help!
It certainly sounds as if this young woman has done some serious re-thinking of her life since her unfortunate fatal accident. Sometimes it takes something tragic like that to get people turned around.
Here are a couple more articles along these lines that you might find helpful:
Meanwhile, Happy New Year!
An atheist argument I heard was that by allowing evil to harm the innocent, it interferes with the free will of the victims of evil — while allowing wrongdoers the free will to commit evil — and thus God appears to favor evil.
Hi K,
If that is the argument, then such atheists would also have to argue that by allowing good to benefit the innocent, it interferes with the free will of the beneficiaries of good, while allowing well-doers the free will to engage in good actions—and thus God appears to favor good.
Further, regardless of the evil effects on the innocent of evil actions by others, each person still remains free to choose good over evil. Each person determines his or her own eternal fate, regardless of the actions of others. For a related article, please see: Can Gang Members Go to Heaven? (Is Life Fair?)
And here are some more in-depth articles about the problem of evil:
What do you think of the Gnostic idea that there’s a good God who made a good existence, and an evil god who created the physical and imprisoned “divine sparks” or souls within it – and if I heard about Gnosticism right, feeds off of the suffering of those trapped in it?
Hi K,
Gnosticism is a complex and varied field of loosely related beliefs, rather than a single belief. I am by no means an expert on Gnosticism.
But as for an evil god creating the physical world and imprisoning souls within it, I’m aware of the idea, but I don’t believe it at all. The Creation stories in Genesis are very clear that God created the universe and everything in it. This is repeated and reflected throughout the Bible.
What is true is that when we focus on material reality more than on spiritual reality and on God, it causes unnecessary illusion, suffering, and pain. This is embedded metaphorically in the story of the Fall of Humankind in Genesis 3. Even in the literal sense, this reality shows itself. The tree of knowledge of good and evil looked good and desirable to Eve, and she acted upon that appearance and desire rather than upon God’s divine commandment not to eat from that tree.
Further, the material universe does naturally have a resistive quality to it. It is like the skin of the totality of reality (divine, spiritual, and material). It holds everything in place by resisting the outward pressure of what is within it. This is a necessary function for our existence. But it also means that our physical body and physical drives tend to be in conflict with our spiritual nature and its love, understanding, and purposes.
The origin of evil is not in God, nor in some lesser god, but in our own inverting of the proper order of things by focusing on and desiring material things and worldly power and pleasure first, rather than seeking God’s kingdom first (and all the other things will be given to us as well).
One argument I’ve seen in favor of the physical being the creation of a lesser evil god is that in this universe, evil works with entropy, while good works against it. The argument went that it’s easier for stuff to get more corrupt than improve. That “survival of the fittest” and positions of power favor those who step on others.
Hi K,
It is true that on its own, the physical universe tends toward maximum disorder, aka entropy. In the purely physical realm, only the initial tremendous supply of energy unleashed at the time of the Big Bang gives the universe something that it can use to organize itself into galaxies, solar systems, ecosystems, and so on. From there it’s all downhill, but locally energy is used to achieve pockets of greater order within the overall descent into heat death, which is a state of minimum energy and maximum disorder.
Certainly this can be used as evidence for the existence of an evil god who created the physical universe with such properties.
However, another way of looking at it—and a better one, I think—is that creation itself is a process of placing limits on the infinite energy and order that is God, so that something other than God (who is infinite and has no limits) can exist. Once such a process of placing limits on infinite substances put out from God (as Swedenborg describes it) begins, it will naturally proceed until it approaches the minimum of energy and order, which is absolute zero. In the process, things will become more and more resistant to the infinite energy and order that is God.
In other words, the universe exists on a continuum or spectrum all the way from infinite energy to zero energy. Zero energy is really non-existence, meaning it doesn’t actually exist, because that is where existence ceases. For anything to exist, it must have at least some residual energy.
As for survival of the fittest, this concept is greatly misunderstood in the popular mind and in junk literature. Being the fiercest, most dominant, and most predatory species is only one mode of survival of the fittest. The basic mechanism is not of dominating other species, but of being the most reproductively successful species within the particular conditions that exist in a particular part of the ecosystem.
Being a successful predator is only one strategy for achieving reproductive success. Another strategy is symbiosis, in which different species help each other in achieving reproductive success. Symbiosis is the exact opposite of the predatory strategy. It involves species mutually benefiting one another to increase the reproductive success of both species. There are other successful strategies as well. It is more a function of human evil than of science that we tend to focus so heavily on predation as the quintessence of survival of the fittest.
In short, nature is not a realm entirely devoted to oppression and evil, “red in tooth and claw,” as the atheists love to say. It also involves cooperation and even (instinctive) self-denial, such as when a mother animal will sacrifice herself to protect her young.
What is a good logical arguments against the idea that there’s a lesser evil god who made the physical universe to torment souls trapped within it, and with the real God seemingly being unable to stop that?
Hi K,
One good argument is that the physical universe operates under a single set of natural laws, not under competing sets of laws that carve out different sections of the universe for themselves. If we consider God to be the creator of the universe, this suggests that there is a single God in control, not competing gods.
Evil is simply defined as “benefiting self at the detriment of others” or “self-gain at others’ losses”, is it not? Or “taking pleasure in harming others”?
Hi WorldQuestioner,
I would say that those are characteristics of evil and origins of evil rather than being definitions of evil.
So what is the definition of evil? I think it’s the word we’ve come to describe unnecessary suffering, whether caused by a conscious agent or not. If our experience didn’t vary on the sufering-happiness scale, we wouldn’t even need or understand such a word.
Hi Lauris,
Good question! “Evil” is surprisingly hard to define.
Usually dictionaries define it along the lines of “morally wrong, bad, wicked,” and so on. But that just begs the question. What makes something morally wrong, bad, or wicked? In other words, what makes evil evil?
Another definition is, “not good, the opposite of good.” But then we have the same problem: What makes something good, the opposite of which makes it evil?
I would suggest that “evil” is anything that harms or damages people, especially on the spiritual level. People, because “evil” really only applies to the human realm. There is no evil in nature. Hence the inclusion of the word “moral” in so many definitions of evil. Only humans have morality, and only humans can violate moral codes.
Evil, then, is whatever hurts people, especially if that hurt is to their mind and heart, which is their spirit.
It’s a simple definition, and it could certainly be refined in various ways. But I think it’s a basic, serviceable definition.
Thank you for your response Lee.
But sometimes harming people is good. Like getting an injection at the dentist’s. It hurts but will prevent greater pain in the future. That’s why I wanted to put an emphasis on “unnecessary” suffering.
I’d agree there is no intentional harm in nature as animals are just following their instincts. Yet on a human level, seeing nature as it is, red in tooth and claw, instead of the secluded and sanitized image, is disturbing to most and begs the question – who or what, if anything, is behind this brutal system where living beings have to eat each other? From an existential perspective and the way I define the word, such a system could be deemed evil.
That is one of the reasons I am not a theist.
Hi Lauris,
That is one of the refinements I would have added. But I wanted to get the simple definition into the conversation before complicating it.
It’s even more complicated than that, because injections given at the dentist do actual harm to the body, in that those injections contain compounds that are toxic to cells, which is why they are capable of dulling the pain. But the harm done is deemed acceptable compared to the good of saving dental patients from extreme pain during the procedure, not to mention avoiding voluntary and involuntary pain reflexes that would make dental operations difficult. The amount of harm done is carefully calibrated to do only as much as is necessary to accomplish a greater good.
Another element is short-term harm vs. long-term good. So yes, there are many refinements to the definition that could be made. But the basic, general idea of evil is that it is something that does harm in the human realm.
About nature, I think the “red in tooth and claw” thing is overblown. We get a false picture of nature by watching Discovery Channel animal documentaries that focus on the “exciting” parts of an animal’s life. For most animals, the amount of time spent dying is a tiny fraction of the amount of time spent living. Yes, the time spent dying is often quite unpleasant for animals in nature. But it is a few minutes at most, compared to years of mostly peaceful eating, sleeping, reproducing, and so on. However, any animal series that gave proportional time to what animals spend most of their time doing would be extremely boring, and would quickly lose most of its viewers. So we get a very unbalanced view of the lifetime experience of the average animal.
By the same token, being killed and eaten means that very few animals ever experience the long, slow, gradual decline into old age that humans and a few species of animals experience (mostly only pets of humans). Any weak or injured animal will usually become prey very quickly. This means that most animals live their lives in their peak condition of health and capability.
Perhaps another way could be designed for wild animals to have almost all of their experience of life being that of healthy vitality. But it seems to me that a few minutes of pain at the end of life is not too high a price to pay. Especially since unlike humans, animals do not have the ability to think about the future, so they have no consciousness of their own mortality until it is upon them, nor do they spend their time fearing the inevitable day when they are taken down by a lion or tiger. And even when it does happen, hormones commonly kick in that dull the pain and put the animal into a state of shock that causes it not to be fully aware of what is happening.
In short, I believe it is mostly from the human perspective that nature is “red in tooth and claw.” From an animal perspective, life is mostly spent eating, sleeping, relaxing, reproducing, and so on—all pleasurable activities.
None of this is to say that nature isn’t a violent place. But it’s nowhere near as violent as many people imagine it to be. And the violence that does exist is carefully calibrated to keep species and the ecosystem healthy and in balance.
However, for a more direct discussion of why nature is the way it is from a theistic perspective, please see this post, which is the second part of a four-part series:
How can we have Faith when So Many Bad Things happen to So Many Good People? Part 2
Thank you for the thoughtful answer, I’ll make sure to read the suggested article.
Hi Lee,
I have a question regarding cults. I remember watching documentaries on Netflix and HBO about cults like Heavens Gate, Scientology, FLDS, Waco … etc. and a lot of them have the same narrative of apocalypse themed and they “Create credible danger and consolidate power by spiritual, sci-fi narratives to promise eternity.” I always wondered what does “create creditable danger” mean and how do these people get huge followings of people? I’ve notice too that the people who join these cults are well educated people not all but a lot are. I see this all the time with groups on Facebook as well espousing the same exact themes the same spiritual, sci-fi narratives as Heavens Gate, Scientology, FLDS, Waco … etc just repackage under a new name? I was always curious about this and just wanted to ask you.
Also, I know this is going back into the conspiracy field but I just wanted to ask you what your thoughts are about this statement because I keep hearing it a lot online across a lot of groups for a while now.
“The whole “they’ve” been lying about history” (a pretty vast “they”) because of alien involvement. So therefore many groups like these scientists in governments and in corporations or everyone for that matter like the elite and historians, that want the Past buried. So these corporations have godlike powers and know “everything” as well like the true human “History”.
Thank you kindly Lee
Hi Sam,
These things are what happen when people do not know the truth, and other people use their ignorance and their fears to gain their confidence and use them for their own ends. The leaders of these cults commonly live like kings and queens while their followers live like paupers. And if they don’t live like kings and queens, they live like gods and goddesses, being worshiped by their followers and having godlike powers of persuasion and obedience with them.
The two ruling loves from which all evil comes from are love of self and love of the world, to use the traditional translations of Swedenborg’s terms.
The fuller version of love of self is love of dominion from love of self. Meaning, in present-day English, a love of power for its own sake, and for its benefits to oneself. It is a love of dominating other people and getting them to serve you as if you were a god. This is very commonly the motivation driving cult leaders who gain absolute power over all their followers to the point where if the cult leader commands them to have sex with them, or to commit a crime, or even to kill themselves, they will do it.
Love of the world, in more ordinary terms, is greed. It is wanting money and possessions for oneself, and not caring about who gets hurt in the process of acquiring it. People driven by this ruling love are less likely to become cult leaders. But there are exceptions, such as the leaders of so-called Prosperity Gospel churches. They are all about becoming wealthy on the backs of poor people. See:
Prosperity Gospel is Spiritually Bankrupt
Cult leaders who are driven by love of the world do not demand that their followers treat them like gods and become slaves to them. Instead, they treat their followers as cash cows. It’s all about donating to the church. And the bulk of that money goes to support the extravagant lifestyles of the church/cult leaders. In the so-called Prosperity Gospel churches, the leaders flaunt their wealth, living in fancy mansions, driving expensive sports cars, and wearing expensive clothes and jewelry, promising (but it is a lie) that those who donate all they can to the church will be blessed by God and will also become rich. It’s disgusting.
Cult leaders who are driven by love of self do demand that their followers treat them like gods. Sometimes they even explicitly say that they are gods. Other times they don’t say this, but they position themselves with their followers as demigods who must be fully and instantly obeyed, no matter what they are ordered to do. And so you have people in the cults assigned to clean out latrines all day—and they do it, because they believe that their eternal salvation, or whatever godlike status their cult promises they will achieve, depends upon it.
Cult leaders who are driven by a love of power destroy the lives of their followers far more fully and profoundly than cult leaders driven by love of money. Prosperity Gospel churches and other money-driven cults impoverish their members, but eventually those people can see the light and realize that they are getting poorer, not richer, by belonging to that church or cult. They can then leave those churches, poorer but wiser.
But cults led by people who seek godlike power grind down their followers psychologically until they believe they are worthless and doomed, and have hope and value only as much as they worship their cult leader and obey everything he says, no matter how crazy it may look to people outside the cult. People who stay with these cults long-term, and are followers rather than in the leadership circle, become so torn down mentally and emotionally that even if they do eventually manage to break free, it can take many years for them to achieve any kind of mental and spiritual health and wholeness—if they ever do. It is horrendous what these cults do to their rank-and-file followers. To this day, there are still people who follow Rajneesh and worship every word he ever said, even though Rajneesh himself was a horribly evil person, who I have no doubt is rotting in hell as we speak.
Where do the apocalyptic sci-fi scenarios come in? These are ways to promise vast cosmic rewards to the faithful, and horribly humiliating and painful ends to the unfaithful. In the Bible, these things are metaphorical, not literal. But even for those who read them literally, they serve to give hope to the faithful, and to warn the unfaithful. But by “faithful” and “unfaithful” the Bible means those who live kind and loving lives and those who do not, respectively, as Jesus tells us in the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25:32–46.
In cults run by people whose ruling love is personal power or wealth, these same apocalyptic scenarios serve, not to urge people toward a good life and warn them away from an evil life, but to scare them into turning their possessions and their lives over to the cult, and serving the cult and its leader. It is a perversion of the purpose of apocalyptic prophecy. Instead of motivating people to live a life of love, understanding, and kindness toward their fellow human beings in service of God, it motivates them to live a life of poverty and slavery in service of the cults and their leaders.
True religion sets people free. False religion turns people into slaves.
Hi Sam,
You ask:
As I suggested at the beginning of my previous comment, this is why it is important for people to learn the truth about God and spirit.
Many people have a sense that there is more to life than just working, making money, eating, sleeping, having sex, and so on. They sense that there is a spiritual element to life, or at least an element to life that is deeper and more profound than this material world and its demands and pleasures.
Unfortunately, the existing so-called Christian churches have become corrupt. They are no longer teaching the truth as it is presented in the Bible. Over the centuries, they have sidelined the teachings of the Bible and especially the teachings of Jesus Christ, and have replaced them with false human doctrines such as the Trinity of Persons, the satisfaction theory of atonement, penal substitution, faith alone, and many others that are taught nowhere in the Bible, still less by Jesus Christ. These teachings worked reasonably well for people for many centuries. But when the Enlightenment arrived in the eighteenth century, people became more thoughtful and analytical, and those old false “Christian” teachings began to be exposed for the horrible distortions of God’s love and wisdom that they are. And people began abandoning those churches.
But where to go?
People still wanted some deeper or spiritual element to their lives. But the churches they came out of could no longer provide that for them. So they went looking. And there were plenty of spiritual hucksters and charlatans lying in wait for them. These false “spiritual leaders” wove entertaining and plausible-sounding narratives about the spiritual realms that hooked and reeled in the minds of many of these people who had abandoned the old false “Christianity,” and were looking for something to fill the void this left in their lives.
They were sheep without shepherds, and they fell right into the clutches of wolves in sheep’s clothing.
The “creditable danger” created by these spiritual wolves was that if people don’t follow them, horrible things will happen to them in the afterlife. They painted lurid pictures that outdid the Bible of the excruciatingly painful and degrading fate that would befall those who fail to perfectly follow the cult leader’s decrees. And of course, those decrees are often nearly impossible to follow, which gives the cult leader an excuse to reduce them to abject slaves even while they are still living here on earth, leading them to believe that the only way to expiate their sins so that they don’t have to live this way forever is to spend all their waking hours obsessively cleaning the toilets and the basements and every dark and dirty corner of the cult’s earthly “heaven.”
Meanwhile, the same cult leaders give promises of the godlike status of those who perfectly obey his teachings and his orders. (Cult leaders are almost always men.) Followers who are especially obedient and useful are raised up to higher positions in the cult. But they hold those positions only as long as they slavishly praise and serve the cult leader. As soon as they diverge from him even a little bit, they are punished. If they seriously break with the cult leader, they are deprived of their high position in the cult. If they don’t manage to escape the cult altogether, they are made into the lowest of slaves for the cult. They become the ones who clean toilets and scrub out filthy basements all day. They are already in hell even while they are still living on earth.
How do these cults and their leaders get such enormous followings? Because people are searching for something to give meaning to their lives. And since the Christian Church has destroyed itself through its false teachings that were originally hatched by church leaders who were motivated by the greed and desire for power, many people have lost faith in those churches, and are looking elsewhere. They still want a spiritual element to their lives. But they don’t know where to turn to get it. And a certain number of them get swept up by the cults.
These cults do have some understanding of human psychology, and they play on people’s desires. Often people are lured into these cults by their own self-absorbed desires, such as the desire to be like gods themselves, or the desire to be wealthy and successful. Combine those desires with a superstitious character, and such people are drawn to the cults like moths to a flame, even if they are otherwise intelligent and high-functioning people. Something is missing in their lives. They think they will find the missing piece in this or that cult whose materials or recruiters they come across.
Other people are simply lost, and someone from the cult tells them that their life will mean something if they join this heavenly-sounding group. The cults, of course, do not call themselves cults. They give themselves fancy ethereal-sounding names that are attractive to people who want to have some meaning to their life and feel that they are in the know.
And that’s another way these cults get their followings. They appeal to people’s natural desire to be in the in-crowd. They appeal to people’s desire to be among the inner circle that understands the deep mysteries of life that the common crowd does not know or understand. People want to feel that they have the secret knowledge that is hidden from everyone else. They want to feel that they are special, unlike the ordinary unwashed masses all around them. So they go for cults that promise them secret knowledge that is hidden from the world. Very often, the crazier that knowledge sounds to people who have ordinary common sense, the more attractive it is to people who want to feel that they are among the Illuminati.
I’ve read a little bit about what Scientology and some of the other cults, and even the Mormons, teach their people about the cosmic realms. It’s all insanely laughable. But it appeals to people who are sure that there’s more to life than this ordinary material rat race. If some guru or New Age priest or priestess comes along and tells them that there is amazing secret knowledge that the world thinks is crazy, but that is the secret truth behind this ordinary existence, they’re all ears. The more outlandish, the better! Especially if it promises that the inner circle of in-the-know people will live as gods and goddesses in amazing luxury ruling whole planets while others serve their every wish and whim. In the Bible, these things are meant to be read metaphorically. But the cults commonly make them very literally, just as fundamentalist and evangelical Christian churches do for their followers.
And so people are lured in by the promise of power, or wealth, or even just some greater meaning to their lives. And once they are roped in, the cult starts its work of breaking down their mind and their sense of their own self and worth, and making them completely dependent emotionally and spiritually on the cult and its leader. The goal is to make them utter slaves to the cult, willing to do anything the cult leader tells them to do. The leaders of these cults live like kings and queens, or like gods and goddesses, while their followers live like serfs and slaves.
That in itself is enough to clue us in that these are false religions. Jesus said that those who wish to lead should be the servants of all. He washed his disciples’ feet—which in that society was such a demeaning task that only the lowest servants and slaves did—to drive it home to his disciples that he was serious that true followers of the Lord are to serve people, not be their masters. When we see a church or cult in which the leaders are living in luxury while their followers are living in poverty, that is enough to show that this is a false religion based on power and money, not a true religion based on love of God and love of the neighbor.
But to get back to my answer to your question, this appeal to people’s desire for secret knowledge, and to be in the inner circle of the people who are in the know, compared to all the ignorant masses, is why the conspiracy theories commonly invented and peddled by cult leaders and shysters of all sorts have so much appeal. If someone gets on YouTube and says that “they” have been “lying about history,” and presents some alternate theory about what happened in the past, such as the theory that aliens impregnated the early ape-like humans and that’s how we became human, it has great appeal to many people who think there is some secret to life, and who want to be among the ones who know the secret.
It is no accident that “secret” is one of the most common clickbait words used in clickbait headlines. Everyone wants to be in on the secret. And the secret has to be something that “nobody knows,” or how good a secret it can be? Never mind that millions of people click on these clickbait titles and read what the “secret” is. Only the gullible think that somehow they are among the special few who have come across this amazing hidden knowledge!
But this is also why many cults forbid their followers from “revealing the secret” to other people. In Scientology and similar cults, new recruits are only gradually introduced into the “secret knowledge” of the cult as they are drawn deeper and deeper into its web. The promise of gaining access to deeper secrets is one of the most powerful pheromones these cults use to draw people in deeper, and make them even more dependent upon the cult. People who are deep into the cult and its crazy theories of other planets where they will live like gods can’t say these things to anyone outside the cult, because people not “in on the secret” will think they are crazy. (And they are crazy!) But within the inner circles of the cult, they are surrounded by people who will assure them that all these things are absolutely true.
And so they are kept tied to the cult. They are terrified to leave it lest their entire world be shattered so that they are left spiritually naked and helpless. Nakedness, in its negative correspondence, means a complete absence of spiritual truth and understanding. This leaves a person vulnerable to being taken advantage of by any cunning and abusive person passing by. As long as cult followers stay in their cult, they are surrounded by people who assure them that they are wearing the finest robes, when in reality, spiritually they are walking around in scraps and tatters of clothing so that they are practically naked. The spiritual meaning of Jesus’ words about clothing the naked is giving genuine spiritual truth to people who are ignorant, lost, and vulnerable—people who want the truth, but do not have it. These are the same people who are easily lured into the cults. There, instead of being clothed with beautiful spiritual truths so that they can hold their head up and live a good and happy and respectable life, they are spiritually beaten and raped and reduced to the status of abject slaves. This is exactly what happens to people when they first arrive in hell.
In Swedenborg’s descriptions of the spiritual world, he says that underneath every heaven there is a corresponding hell. The lower heavens are mirrored by the higher hells. The mid-level heavens are mirrored by the mid-level hells. And the highest heavens are mirrored by the lowest and worst hells. Heaven, he says, is like a beautiful human being standing upright on the ground of the world of spirits. Hell, he says, is like a horribly misshapen and disfigured upside-down human form, whose feet are pointing upwards toward the world of spirits, and whose head is pointing downwards, away from God.
Psychologically and spiritually, what this means is that the best things, when corrupted, become the worst things. The opposite of the highest heavens, where everyone is motivated by love for God, which moves them to love and serve their fellow human beings, is the lowest hell, where everyone thinks of himself as a god, or herself as a goddess, and wants to be served by everyone else, whom they view as abject slaves who have worth only if they worship them and serve their every whim.
The worst of the cults are the earthly version of those deepest hells. They are run by people who believe they are gods and goddesses, and that everyone else should worship them. They demand that all their followers live lives of poverty and devote every waking moment to slavishly serving the cult and its leaders.
Genuine religion that teaches people the truth about God and spirit, and leads them to live good and loving lives that form a pathway to heaven, is the highest and greatest thing on this earth.
But when religion becomes corrupted and falsified in the hands of people driven by a love of power over others or by a love of wealth and luxury, it becomes the worst and most destructive thing on this earth, impoverishing and destroying the lives of everyone it can get into its clutches.
This is why it is so important to continue spreading the truth about God, the Bible, spiritual rebirth, the afterlife, and all the other human and spiritual questions and longings that people have. Those who seek will find, but only if there are workers in the Lord’s vineyard. Truly the harvest is great, but the laborers are few.
Hi Lee,
Thank you for the wonderful very in depth information and what you said really gets to the root of how these people and cults work and most importantly why they are like they are and how they spread these toxic ideas. And how certain people become susceptible which is very eye opening. Even in these documentaries they don’t offer the clarity like how you explained it and of course how it corresponds spiritually to heaven and hell.
Also, you definitely hit the nail on the head regarding Christian Fundamentalist distorting Christianity because when I first started on my spiritual journey I went to Christian websites like Billy Gram and others (it’s laughable now but I didn’t know) for answers and all it did was dismiss spiritual experiences and gave a very grim future which led me to the New Age community which I am trying to shatter now as Swedenborg calls it. (I watched a OTLE video about that) But like you said true spiritual knowledge gives people free will and having the responsibility to be accountable whereas these cults they take away your free will and cannot think for yourself or find things out for yourself. I hear Conspiracy theorists often refer to themselves as “truth seekers” since they always say that normal people are afraid of “hearing the truth”. But I think this is just psychological manipulation like you said to make people think “oh these people must know something” which is very persuasive because it’s all over the internet using that catchphrase “truth seeker” to spread their cult ideas.
Just for example fairly recently I heared that the singer or one of the members of a fairly popular band called Blink-182 has “alien element 115” or whatever it’s name is but supposedly they have UFO material and information and how the Military is looking into it for antigravity devices. That’s why people dress up as aliens when attending their consorts because they have “proof”.
I still don’t know what to make of this but these kinds of cult behaviors now even gone past the computer screens and into other forms of entertainment like the music industry which is very scary because they do attract a legion of followers to the so called “truth seekers”.
Thank you kindly again Lee
Hi Sam,
You are most welcome. Keep reading and learning, and you will complete the process of breaking free from all these cults and conspiracy theorists. Your fears will be a thing of the past. Your life will be in your own hands, not in the hands of some guru or “truth-seeker.” For a true Christian, the first and foremost relationship is always with the Lord God directly. All human teachers and relationships are secondary to that.
Is Swedenborgianism not also a cult?
Hi World Questioner,
No. It has none of the characteristics of a cult. The fundamentalists and evangelicals that like to call everyone else, including Swedenborgians, cults, are far more like cults than we are. Not only are their doctrines false and unbiblical, while ours are solidly based on the Bible, but they use fear of damnation to scare their people into staying in their cults . . . I mean . . . churches.
Never be a prisoner to the doctrines of your own denomination.
Hi World Questioner,
Falsity makes us prisoners. The truth sets us free.
On the practical level, for the past decade I have maintained only a very loose connection with the denomination I grew up in and in which I hold my ordination. I do my work independently from the church. This website is not funded or sponsored by any organization.
Hi Lee,
That is a very powerful saying and I appreciate the inspiring words.
This may sound sacrilegious and like a dumb question as well, but how can we trust God to allow a good afterlife, when he allows this life to be so full of endless and horrific suffering?
A skeptic could make the analogy that God is like a negligent parent (given the state of this world), implying that such a parent may be untrustworthy to provide for children later.
Hi K,
Skeptics will raise one doubt after another to support their own lack of belief, and to attempt to break down others’ belief. They are engaged in what Swedenborg calls “the negative principle.” See Secrets of Heaven #2568. As you’ve discovered, skeptics can continually vomit out a torrent of objections to belief in God and spirit. There is no end of them.
It is true that we are God’s children. But we are also grown adults, who can make our own decisions. And if we decide to be selfish, power-hungry, and greedy, it will result in exactly the state in which our world currently is.
Earthly parents are not negligent if, having given their children a good upbringing, some of their children choose in adulthood to become criminals or lechers or drug addicts. Parents must let go of responsibility for their adult children precisely because they are adults. It is the same with God as our heavenly parent. God will not intervene and override our choices, and the inevitable consequences that follow. This is what parents often must do with their minor children. But once their children reach adulthood, they are responsible for themselves, and for the consequences of their own actions.
My response to those skeptics would be, then, “Grow up, and stop blaming God for the problems we created ourselves.”
Thanks for the reply.
Although God allows this world to be hellish, how can we know that at least Heaven isn’t hellish?
I guess people who go there get there get their evil “locked out”, so only the good is free, and that good gets reflected in the spiritual environment as Heaven?
Hi K,
This world isn’t hellish. It’s mixed. Yes, there’s a lot of bad, but there’s also a lot of good. Many people have good lives. Most people have at least some good in their lives.
The world of spirits, where we first go after death, is also a mixture of good and evil, just like earth. But there, good people are sorted from bad people. The good ones go to heaven. The bad ones go to hell. People who go to heaven therefore no longer have to deal with crime, fraud, corrupt governments, slums, and so on.
“This world isn’t hellish.”
I disagree, at least subjectively. This world is not hell, but it is hellish: the balance seems tilted towards evil. Also Swedenborg even claimed that this is the most corrupt world or something like that.
Anyway, hopefully any World of Spirits is not a place where good spirits can get messed with by evil spirits, even in the first state after death (before any sorting is done?).
PS: In any case, this world is bad enough (to me) that I do not want to bring any children into it.
Hi K,
Is your own life hell? Or is this just what you hear reported in the news?
My personal life is not the best but is nowhere near as bad as it can get for a number of people.
As for this world, the general nature of modern life and society in general, the history of civilization, and various statistics and anecdotes (also including but not limited to the news), the many flaws in the genetic design of people, and how it is in nature with disease and predation support my view that this world is undeniably hell-leaning.
On the plus side, this world is not as hellish now as it was for most of the history of civilization. So at least there is some improvement, and of course this world is not all bad, unlike a true hell.
Like I said, hopefully in any World of Spirits, good spirits cannot be harmed by evil spirits, even in the first state after death where people still act according to their outer nature.
Hi K,
The world is nowhere near as bad as depicted in the major news outlets. Those outlets are looking for eyes and clicks, and what gets them is sensational stories, most of which are negative. But the actual lives of most people is pretty decent these days. It’s just that reporting on the decent and good days that billions of people have every day would be a snoozefest, so we hear about all the death, disaster, and poverty instead, even though that’s not the experience of most people day in and day out.
In real life, poverty is way down. More people are living better lives than ever before. Even the average poor person today is living better than kings and wealthy people used to live. It is therefore especially unfortunate that the news media gives such a false picture of the world and the lives of the bulk of its population.
Certainly there are hellish things going on in this earth, some of them quite big. But that does not represent the lives of most people on the face of this earth.
In general, good spirits cannot be harmed by evil spirits even in the first stage after death. But in some instances this is unavoidable because some people who have good hearts have gotten involved in bad company or bad habits, and can’t throw them off without going through hard things. What’s definitely true though is that no innocent person can be hurt by evil spirits even in the world of spirits. Only people who have gotten mixed up in evil even though they are good in their heart of hearts. And that lasts only as long as necessary to break them away from that evil so that they are free to follow what is in their heart.
Referring to “What if Mace Windu Arrested Palpatine with Anakin in Revenge of the Sith” (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr0RN_TgCOE) by Star Wars Theory at around 8:42. ‘What if Anakin Skywalker Never Killed Count Dooku in Revenge of the Sith’ (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f-RwECiuJCo) at 9:32…
Wouldn’t it be nice if fury and hatred granted superpower like that in real life like it does in Star Wars?
Wouldn’t it be nice if sadness and heartbreak granted a superpower to heal and repair, while anger, fury, and hatred granted destructive superpower?
Spectaculous, huh!
Hi World Questioner,
Spectaculous, maybe. But of course, here on earth that would lead to complete chaos. In the spiritual world, where the force of good is able to keep the force of evil in check, it is different.