Of Heaven and Hell, and All Between

Let me first say that this is my second time writing this paper. I had completed it, and pressed publish post, for it to only display an error message. My work was unrecoverable, and I had wrote hundreds upon hundreds, if not over a thousand words. If that is not evil, I do not know what is. All my hard work and inspiration flushed down the drain. If I was any angrier, I would stroke out. So here it is, take two. You better like it.

I am a Christian. Than means I believe in the goodness of God in Heaven, and the evil of the Devil in Hell.

Yet when it comes to human matters, bound to this Earth, an intermediate plane between the affairs of Heaven above, and Hell below. As human beings, a natural gravity of these two places exert themselves upon us. We on this Earth are in the middle of a struggle of all that is good, and all that is bad.

This struggle is one not limited to our surroundings. Rather it is fought every second of every day within everyone of us. Inside all of us, rest both an infinitely strong tendency to do wrong, and an infinitely strong tendency to do right. In Christianity it is taught that within every single one of us resides the Holy Spirit, the very blessing of God. However, our souls and our spirits are tethered to bodies of flesh and blood. These bodies lust, and hunger, have greed and wrath. These bodies will us to be lazy (remember, this is the second time I am writing this paper. If any human ever knew the struggle between working hard, and being lazy, it would be me, right this very second. I could kick my computer through the wall, but instead I will sublimate my intense, all hungry wrath, in a Christian manner and write a wonderful paper). For this is the nature of original sin spoke of in the Book of Genesis. When Adam and Eve bit into the forbidden fruit, human nature was defined. Ever since, as human beings, an internal war, whose only prize is our soul, is constantly fought between all that is good and all that is evil.

All of us know this struggle. For even if you are an atheist, I am sure you too know this struggle. We all try to better ourselves, and lead more noble lives. This is often met with much resistance, for old habits die hard.

Secularly, this internal conflict between good and evil, between God and the Devil, was explained by Freud's theory of the human psyche. Freud held that human existence could be explained as a battle between the animal id, and the moral super-ego, who in part determined the ego, and all the decisions we make. As Christians, we see this as the conflict between the Holy Spirit and original sin. Thus, it seems that this concept of good and evil is ubiquitous in not only religion, but science. This struggle is impossible to deny.

Yet it is not enough to demarcate the lines of the battle between good and evil, rather we should really explore the nature of the two sides. It is as important to note the way the battle is waged as it is to know the two sides.

Often this internal struggle is symbolized as an angel on one shoulder and a devil on another. However, I think a more apt analogy would be a shepherd guarding his flock of sheep from a pack of ravenous wolves. Every second these wolves stand to eat the sheep. They are every hungry. If the shepherd sacrifices a few of his sheep, he nurtures the wolves and only increases their numbers as they reproduce. Thus, their appetite only grows. Their grand appetites can no longer be sated by a premium of only a few sheep. No, more wolves means an ever increasing demand for the flesh of the flock. The hunger of the wolves only increases with every bite, until only wolves stand, leaving the shepherd fleeced of his flock.

So too is the struggle between good and evil. Evil deeds only breed more evil deeds. This evil is all-consuming and antithetical to the existence of all that is good. In such a way can the indulgence of evil appetites irrevocably destroy one's humanity.

This may just seem like a silly metaphor, but just think back to that one class lat year. At the year's advent, our mischievous appetites were content with just occasionally writing "We will be going outside today," on the board. But as time wore on, we hungered for more. Soon we were playing vuvazelas in class and passing beach-balls around on test day. By the end of the year students planted leaking cans of shaving cream in the bookshelves and stacked tables and chairs all the way up to the ceiling. What started out as mere mischief soon escalated to something much more. We were out-of-control. Yet that's the nature of evil- to lure one further and further to commit acts one originally considered reprehensible.

The breadth and implications of the progression of evil are rarely ever so harmless. Look to sex-offenders. These men first start indulging their carnal appetites with pornography, but as time wears on, such pornography fails to get it done for them. Soon, they began to speak with young children on line. Eventually that too gets boring, and they soon have to meet the children and person, and begin to perpetrate sexual acts upon them. A mere seed of lust can ruin a man just as a spore of ivy can kill off an entire flower bed. These men become nothing short of monsters in the end, and are indeed evil. Yet, at the start, they themselves were no different than us, human-beings with sin, and the Holy Spirit.

My father owns a chain of jewelry stores, and in our twenty years in business, numerous employees have stolen from us. At first, their acts of thievery are relatively small. It commences with a few dollars taken from the drawer every couple of months.  Then every month. Then every couple of weeks. Soon, they start stealing watches and rings, gold and diamonds right under us. Their greed grows like weeds in a wet sunny summer. Evil does not discriminate- over the years, old church-going women, store managers and our own family have stolen from us. These men and women were once decent folk, yet as they indulged greed, they slowly lost themselves, and their goodness. They became absolute monsters. They became wolfish, with an appetite for the wholesome blood of sheep.

This progression holds true to the Nazi party, arguably the most evil group ever to inhabit this Earth. At the start, Nazis only required that Jews be marked with the star of David. Later, the could no longer operate shops. They soon were deprived of property, and then finally rounded up, and slaughtered. Evil lurks in the shadows, just as a wolf, forever sneaking up on us. Before they knew it, the entire German nation committed the most wholly evil acts this Earth has ever witnessed.

Thus, one asks, "Are any humans completely evil?" No human-being is born evil, no human-being is born all good. Yet inside everyone of us is pure evil and pure goodness. And dependent on how we live our lives, we can destroy our souls. We are forever tempted by evil. We feel urges to commit acts that would shred our humanity. We are lured by actions so animal, that in executing one, we would forever render ourselves beasts rather than men. Some acts are so animal, so evil, that they threaten our souls. Thus, goodness is as fragile as a flock of sheep, and easily destroyed by animal appetites. Human beings can become evil. The devil himself was once god's favorite angel. Thus it seems that life is impossible, with the deck stacked against us. Evil seems omnipresent.

This is a trial. This is a labor.

But above all, it is an honor.

For no matter how dark the world around us is, no matter how hopelessly bleak the future is, no matter how pernicious the hunger of evil may be, there is hope. There is hope in every one of us. For just as a flicker of a single candle can light a fire, and expel darkness, so too can the Holy Spirit in a single human being destroy the evil of thousands. There is always hope. The beauty of God knows no bounds.

For there is Heaven, and there is Hell. And here on Earth, as human beings, as beings of flesh and soul, possessing the gift of free will, we possess the unique opportunity to prove that good can and will always prevail. Thus, one should weed  not only the world of evil, but one's own mid and heart of it too.

As a Junior in High-School it may seems as if there is no such thing as good and evil. Rather, life seems more a matter of due-dates and dead-lines. From the view of a computer monitor, it may seems as if your purpose in life is no more than to get rich and die. Yet it is more. In the quest for good, in the battle against evil, there is so much more. For one must first accept the existence of evil to venture to extinguish it. For when one casts away evil, and accepts nothing but goodness into one's body, one untethers one's soul from one's body, and thus finds eternal life. I swear it is true. Tend to your flock as a shepherd, tend to that of other's as a good neighbor. For when we do so, evil stands no chance.