The Most Evil People in the World
By
Doug Soderstrom, Ph.D.
04/17/06 "ICH" -- -- I have come to the conclusion that the
Christian fundamentalists, also known as the religious right,
are the most evil people in the world. Others (such as those of
various Islamic terrorist groups) were considered, but after due
consideration, the Christians won……. hands down. In fact it was
no contest.
However, in order to support my assertion that those of the
religious right are such a nasty crew, it is necessary that I
clarify what I believe it means to be evil. The minimal test of
evil is, of course, one of awareness, an intent, an abject
willingness to be malicious, a willingness to go out of one’s
way to harm others, a lack of concern for the welfare of another
person, an unwillingness to place one’s self into that of
another’s shoes, a grudging reluctance to acknowledge the pain
one may have caused another. Such is bad, but not as bad as
having slipped to the point of having become psychically blind,
effectively unable to face up to what one has done. Such is more
depraved since it represents a loss of integrity, an existential
unwillingness to take responsibility for one’s behavior. And, of
course, worst of all are those who go to the extreme of
regarding themselves to be shining examples, paragons of how to
live a good and decent life, while having chosen to disregard
the fact that they have lived life in such a despicable manner.
And as we will see, the Christian fundamentalists seem to
exemplify such folks at the apogee of evil, the nadir of
civilized life, in that they preach to the world while yet
living the life of a barbarian!
All of the great religions of the world indicate that we should
strive to treat others as we would like for them to treat us, in
essence suggesting that we follow the Golden Rule. However,
considering this the gold standard for how we ought to live our
lives, it is quite clear that Christian fundamentalists have
missed the mark! Regardless of all the wonderful things they
have claimed to have done for the world, it is apparent that the
fundamentalists have been unable to live up to the most minimal
standards for that of a decent life, almost as if they have gone
out of their way to “cast a speck out of their neighbor’s eye,
while refusing to recognize the enormity of the plank in that of
their own.” With no apology, nor even a hint of remorse, they
continue on their way running roughshod over others, with little
or no concern for how their victims might feel. Rather than
caring for others, disregard and disrespect has become that
which defines them as a people.
However, in order to understand the Christian fundamentalist, we
must first take a look at what they believe. What is it that
these folks, as fundamentalists, hold to be fundamental? What is
it that they insist one must do in order to be saved? The answer
is threefold: First, in order to be a Christian, a person must
believe that the Bible (the holy scriptures) is the one and only
infallible, truly inerrant, source of truth, and that the holy
books of all other religions are of demonic origin; Secondly,
one must believe in an afterlife, that every human being will
end up in either Heaven or Hell. And finally, it is essential
that one understand that in order to go to Heaven he must accept
Jesus Christ (the one and only Son of God) as his own personal
savior, otherwise, and without exception, regardless of how good
a life he may have lived, he will be sent to the agonizing fires
of an eternally burning Hell. That is their doctrine…... that is
what they believe to be The Truth of God.
Although not necessarily a fundamental, but as a result of their
contention that the Bible indicates that all authority is given
(and therefore inspired) by God, fundamentalists have been led
to believe that it is unpatriotic, and therefore unchristian, to
question the divine right of what our country has found it
necessary to do……. regardless of how heinous. That is why
Christian fundamentalists have, by choice, chosen to disregard
the fact that “From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to
overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more
than 30 populist-nationalist movements fighting against
intolerable systems. In the process, the U.S. bombed some 25
countries, caused the end of life for several million people,
and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and
despair." (William Blum, Killing Hope). Thus, there is little
doubt that if a Christian fundamentalist was forced to face the
fact of what her country has done, she would have little choice
but to reject her faith in God. For how would it be possible for
one to believe in a God that chose to bless a country that has
done such terrible things? It is such that seems to account for
the fundamentalist’s tendency to have approached the world in
such an indiscreet manner. While having regarded themselves as
having been among the few who know the truth, they have broached
the world with eyes, as well as a mind, that has been, out of
necessity, “kept wide shut!”
Fundamentalist Christianity got its start in authority, that one
the early years of the twentieth century by having rebelled
against two competing historical movements, one a rather
humanistic movement known as The Social Gospel (a belief that a
Christian’s primary responsibility is one of love, peace, and
social justice), and the other a loosely coordinated group of
scholastics known for their interest in that of Higher Criticism
(a belief that the Bible can be understood only if allowed to
undergo a process of rational examination, scientific
investigation, and historical analysis). However, the spark that
ignited the fire, that is burning yet to this day, was that of
the John Scopes “Monkey Trial” in Dayton, Tennessee in which
reason, in the form of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, was
pitted against the faith of Christian fundamentalists who
believed that “man,” along with all other things, was created by
God in six calendar days according to a literal interpretation
of the Book of Genesis in the Holy Bible. Thus, for the past one
hundred years, fundamentalists have been locked in battle with
those suggesting that faith in God can be a rational matter,
that it is important for one’s faith to make sense, that being a
Christian involves nothing more than a sincere desire to live
one’s life like that of Jesus, that one live one’s life honoring
Jesus’ mandate that we love God, our neighbor, as well as that
of our enemy.
First on the fundamentalist’s agenda was their use of the Bible
to make the case for racial separation, that blacks and whites
should remain “unto that of their own kind,” that black folks
and white folks should not mix, that people would be better off
if they remained apart. And in looking back at how blacks were
treated in earlier years, fundamentalists seemed to have had no
problem with the fact that black people, as chattel, had been
auctioned off as livestock. Then later on, in the 1950’s and
1960’s, Christian fundamentalists were at the forefront doing
everything they could to prevent black people from achieving
civil rights. There is little doubt that The Reverend Martin
Luther King, who did so much to enable blacks to take their
rightful place in American society, was among those most hated
by the fundamentalists for, as it turns out, he was fighting for
everything that they in fact were against, the right for black
people to be treated as full-fledged human beings. In addition,
and as one might expect, the fundamentalists were right there at
the side of the Senator from Wisconsin (Joseph Raymond McCarthy)
as he did so much to destroy the lives of so many innocent folks
accused of being a communist.
Add to this an assortment of other misdeeds such as: an
insistence that the United States of America has been blessed by
God enabling fundamentalists to fully support our country’s many
wars of aggression (Viet Nam, a multitude of military intrusions
into Latin American, the war in Kosovo, the Persian Gulf War of
1991, and, of course, the egregious invasion of Iraq in 2003);
an acceptance of the idea that the United States has the right
to overthrow any and all governments whose interests are in
conflict with that of our nation’s foreign policy; continued
attempts to limit civil rights legislation; a desire that women
remain in subjection to men; an absolute disdain for the women’s
liberation movement (even for a women’s right to be paid the
same as a man); a presumption that young people should not be
allowed to think for themselves translated into contempt for
public school efforts to teach students critical thinking skills
(an expressed abhorrence for that of the values clarification
program); a belief that corporal punishment, otherwise known as
spanking, is a good thing (spare the rod and spoil the child); a
belief in the moral virtues of capital punishment (legalized
murder by the state); hatred of homosexuals; xenophobically-inspired
efforts to keep Mexicans from entering the United States
(unless, of course, needed as low wage/slave laborers); a
propensity to support republican congressmen so often controlled
by the corporate community; a belief that capitalism (an
economic system based upon greed) is God’s approved way of doing
business; a love affair with guns (as represented by their
support for the National Rifle Association); a belief that
economic development trumps that of a clean and healthy
environment; an ethnocentric tendency to reject anything and
everything that is inconsistent with that of the American way of
life (e.g., socialism, Islam, and love for one’s enemy); a
dogmatic insistence that anyone who happens to disagree with
their particular version of truth is wrong…… and therefore in
danger of going to Hell; and last, but certainly not least, an
absolute reluctance to deal with the greatest problem with that
of their faith, what I refer to as the vexation of vexations, an
insane presumption that a “loving God,” such as theirs, would
allow such a huge majority, the bulk of the human race (as many
as 94% according to the Southern Baptist Convention’s Map of
Lostness), to be condemned to the eternally burning fires of
Hell.
So, as a psychologist, I am compelled to ask: what is it that
seems to have motivated such people to have become so depraved,
to have chosen a style of life so opposed to everything that
Jesus taught? What is it that has led fundamentalists to become
such a mean-spirited gathering of folks? What is it that such
people have in common, that which might serve to explain why
they have led such horrid lives?
The riddle of why such folks, who look upon themselves as being
so very good while having behaved so terribly bad, can be
understood by realizing that fundamentalists suffer from an
axiomatic inability to face who they have, in fact, become. In
having followed the dictum to be “in” the world, but certainly
not “of” the world, they began to set themselves apart, to
disengage from the rest of the world, effectively creating an
inner sanctum, a world of their own, an imprisoned partition
separating them from the rest of humanity. And, of course, all
of such in order to protect themselves from being contaminated
by an outer world of sin. Thus in having symbolically reached
for the heavens, while yet remaining so deeply mired in a rather
cognitively truncated, black and white, world of their own
making, they have become unable to even touch the sky. In
believing themselves to have become the true remnant of God, the
special elect, the keepers of the keys to the kingdom of God,
they allowed themselves to have been lulled into worshiping a
deity who has turned out to be nothing more than a figment of
their own imagination, an extension of their own rather neurotic
needs, a red, white, and blue god willingly ready to allay their
fears, fill their pockets with gold, and to destroy each and
every one of their enemies. Falling right into line, they began
to look upon the neo-conservative leadership of our nation
(George Walker Bush, Richard Bruce Cheney, Donald Henry Rumsfeld,
et al.) as men inspired by God, men, no doubt, appointed by God
to take charge of the world, and to do whatever they might deem
to be necessary in order to redeem the world. Consequently, the
fundamentalists, supposing themselves to be at war with an, as
yet, unsaved world, have become convinced that they can do no
wrong as long as they continue to faithfully obey the commands
of their hallowed leaders, each and every one a crusader,
struggling to restore the once lost kingdom of God…….. a people
crying out for “the blood of the Lamb” to cleanse the world, in
perfectly-pitched and four-part harmony, chanting “Onward,
Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus
going on before! Christ the royal master, leads against the foe,
forward into battle, see his banner go!”
Perhaps the foregoing has shed a bit of light on the mystery of
how, and, perhaps even, why such a self-righteous group of folks
has become so terribly evil…….. why it is that the Christian
fundamentalists have been led to believe they have been set free
to do what they may, to live above and beyond the normal
restraints of man (a law of the heart requiring that we respect
the rights of others), that they, as the faithful followers of
the Old Testament’s readily rendered red in tooth and claw claim
for the right to extract an “eye for an eye,” have declared for
themselves the divine authority to take charge of, to rule, to
plunder and pillage, even, if necessary, to bring on Armageddon
……. and all of such in the name of a “thoroughly providential
and loving God.”
Doug Soderstrom, Ph.D.
Click below to read or post comments on this article
