25A043 The Source of Evil? by Jim Davies, 10/28/2025

Some pious observers of the widespread chaos and violence polluting the world insist that it's the work of Satan. Some of those, who found their way to the social-media platform which I haunt, have attributed the scary images of Halloween to that same malefactor. Are they right?

I don't care for those images, of ghosts and body parts and tombstones and things that go bump in the night. I'd far rather kiddies' minds were influenced by pleasant things and ideas; of life and beauty and kindness and real music, of freedom, not force.

But to attribute the problem to an allegedly powerful but invisible being outside the human race is a cop-out. Evil is done by real people, and responsibility for it rests 100% with them. And evil consists of forcing a person to take (or not to take) actions against his will. Accordingly, the main evil is government and if that seems back to front, try LIVELLAFOTOOREHTSITNEMNREVOG .

Back, though, to the Devil. Responsibility for doing evil things rests with the doer, but is there a Satanic influence at work? Does he exist? As with any comparable question, we must first enquire: what is the definition of the entity referenced? Otherwise there is no fixed point for discussion.

At once, difficulty arises. In dictionary.com "Satan" is defined as "the chief evil spirit; the great adversary of humanity; the devil" but that begs a lot of other questions. What's a "spirit"? Where can I find one (other than in a liquor store)? How do I know they exist? We can imagine the devil, and comedian Rowan Atkinson does an excellent job of that, welcoming some recently deceased humans to his domain (with a group of lawyers in one of the first batches) but that's all it is; imagination.

A "chief evil spirit" was devised as part of Judeo-Christian theology to account for the existence of evil. If God the universal creator is perfect goodness (as alleged) from where can evil come? That logical impasse was overcome by supposing that a counter-influence also exists, a "fallen angel", no less, and so that in some great invisible dimension good vs evil are personified as opposing powers, God vs Satan. A pair of problems, with that: unless God created evil ready for angels to choose, there would be no way for them to fall; and secondly God can not be defined either, nor therefore proven to exist, so the whole system exists only in imagination. It's elaborate and detailed, but not founded on anything solid and objective.

Therefore, evil takes place only by human action; "the Devil made me do it" is not a valid excuse at any level. Such a plea would need to be verified, starting with proof that this "chief evil spirit" exists, and that cannot be done. The evildoer is on his own. Responsibility is all his.

So when you vote for a candidate who will support even a brief continuation of any government program to redistribute wealth, or prohibit drugs, or wage nondefensive war, or forbid use and ownership of any means of self defense, or force children to undergo 12 years of government brain washing, or compel participation in a retirement scheme, or give police powers normal people don't have, or do anything else which violates the self-ownership axiom (SOA) all over the map, you do evil.

When you steal from or injure or kill or defraud someone directly, obviously you do evil. When in any way you act to prevent someone enjoying his or her right of self ownership, you do evil.

When you work for an organization whose every activity violates the SOA, you do evil.

It's not the devil. It's you.