Monday 7 May 2018

Good or evil?

BBC Horizon made a ground breaking documentary about 5 years ago.  Google  [ "Are you good or evil?" youtube 1hr documentary] to find it.  Everyone should see it. It is presenting cutting edge scientific evidence that evil is a genetic disorder.  Why does this matter?  Firstly because it means evil is real and identifiable even if we don't yet have the technology to do anything about it. Secondly because it means it is not just a moral or religious judgement and thirdly because it means it is not just a psychological problem and the result of a bad childhood.  We cannot fix a problem if we don't know what we are dealing with.  As a matter of interest science has again caught up with teachings from the spiritual law.  Jesus said that there were two species wheat and darnel.  Darnel is a weed that looks like wheat when it is green.  It is invasive and destructive and intertwines its roots with the wheat and kills it. When it matures it is black upright and twisted unlike wheat which is golden and bowed down with grain.  The metaphor of "intertwined" is interesting.  Firstly the evil is in the gene pool in the DNA.  Not only has science found that it is possible to change the DNA when it was thought previously it couldn't be changed, and not only can it be changed in one generation but scientists using scissor enzymes are working on changing the DNA in small organisms.  There is another connotation to intertwined:  that the darnel and wheat the good and evil ones are interwoven into our families and our communities.

According to the documentary people who are termed evil have a different brain pattern that can be recognised by amongst other things gaps in the frontal lobe which governs cognitive functions, an extra gene called the "warrior" gene and a lack of chemicals associated with compassion.  Two groups were looked at serial killers and CEO's of companies.  It turned out 25% of this latter group had the different brain pattern. There are scientists working on synthesising compassion chemicals and maybe one day soon we will be able to do brain transplants or give people compassion injections.  In the meantime they are people who are characterised by coldness and emotional and physical violence to others.  They seem to like seeing people suffer.  If they rule a country they cause havoc.  If they have a family they are extremely destructive to their children.  Especially as seems to often happen they marry someone like themselves.  They are very good actors and often are involved in church groups and on the local Council and use philanthropic activities as a cover because they know people don't like the way they really are.  They generally don't think there is anything wrong with them and tend to blame others including their children for their behaviour.  Back in the 80's Scott Peck the author of  The Road Less Travelled and a child psychiatrist wrote a book called People of the Lie.  He used the term evil to describe the parents of the children he worked with.  He noticed two characteristics they shared:  they blamed others  and they were very concerned about appearances.  The book was ahead of its time and "dropped off the radar".

The BBC documentary goes to a place of compassion.  There was a court case in Tennessee where a man committed a horrible violent crime  A psychiatrist presented the evidence of his genetic condition and  in a landmark decision the jury came back with a finding of involuntary manslaughter on the grounds that the man couldn't help what he did.  He couldn't help his genes or the horrible childhood he had which may have potentiated his genes even more.  But he was never to be released.  Compassion is the order of the day since people cannot help and do not want to help their genetic disorder.  However these people are dangerous. And they are not just in some other country or some other decade they are here now and in our workplaces and families and communities.

I have strong spiritual beliefs.  Light is stronger than darkness and good stronger than evil.  Evil isn't sustainable because it destroys the host.  It is temporary.  I believe the spiritual technology is already available to deal with this condition:  it is the state of transformation called "being born again". I have experienced it and know of others who have been radically transformed  Science is working on catching up.