Comments on: The Lucifer Effect

by: steven hamilton

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:29:52 +0000

thanks for the recommendation david…i’ll check it out

by: Societyvs

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 19:39:02 +0000

Great post and a great journey I must admit - it is worth knowing and examining - evil. Sounds like a worthwhile read and I tend to agree with the assertions from the book about the capacity to do evil coming from the facelessness of structure - and personally would include any structure in that - including churches, prisons, companies, and gov’ts. Anything with any essence of power also has at it’s core the problem with abusing it for gain…we are humans that’s for sure.

I see the real problem is that structure contains a facelessness to it - a place to hide one’s responsibility for their actions - so as to not even acknowledge one committs this action. I watched a doc on Enron and how everyone ducked and dodged taking fault for the mass abuses of the company - which occured mainly due to greed and power. Why did they do it? They hid behind an entity called a company and no one could see how this was their fault. Same thing happens in all organized structure - or can happen.

As humans we do need to be held accountable for our actions - like children we will allow ourselves to get ‘out of hand’ without someone to help with that. I don’t think we ever outgrow child-hood - we think we do - but the obvious thing is even as adults we need someone to ‘keep us in line’ from time to time. I think we need to be merciful for the very fact - what happens to one person can happen to us - and we best be aware of our weaknesses also. I admire Jesus for those teachings on mercy and forgiveness - it is something we need for our own accountability also (and humility).

by: Allatseawithabucketandspade

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 09:48:15 +0000

I’ve always known my own capacity for evil. It seems to be located just out of my view and just out of my reach all the time. I feel at one with David sometimes. He wanted God to tear people to pieces. He didn’t give much of a care for them as people with lives and feelings, with histories. He was pretty low on the compassion-o-meter. I’m so glad David’s story is in there. God is passionate. He made us passionate. For me, it puts the whole ‘love your neighbour’ and ‘love your enemies’ into context. God knows it’s not our first response to do that. It’s a choice we need to make, to keep making. We slip and fall and have to find forgiveness and remake the choices.

I’ve read the people of the lie and also the jigsaw man by paul britain (criminal psychologist). If anything, they both reassured me that I’m okay. Yeah, I have this capacity for evil and it stalks me. But that’s humanity. But my heart has changed and it is changing. My desires are more for good than they were. And it hurts me more than it used to when I cause other people pain.

Why? Because I’m loved. And love conquers all

by: nakedpastor

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 02:22:26 +0000

for
we
all
have sinned.
can’t get plainer.