There are probably few topics which have been more contentious in religious discussions than that of the nature of evil.  Are we essentially good beings that are led astray by a malevolent influence, or are we naturally evil creatures who require divine guidance to become good?  This question has plagued humanity since we first became cognizant enough to ponder the true nature of good and evil.  If we examine the mythologies of various cultures throughout human history, it becomes quite apparent that this philosophical quandary has been personified through any number of deities, spirits, demons, heroes, and villains.

In our modern western culture, this conflict has perhaps been simplified to its purest form through our depictions of a benevolent god and malevolent devil locked in some sort of endless conflict for our immortal souls.  Although this allegorical concept may be satisfying on a dramatic and poetic level, I believe it to be inherently dangerous to society.

In order to explain this point, it is necessary to briefly discuss the question of the origins of religious belief.

This is by no means an easy question to answer, as religion seems to have always been a part of humanity.  We can attempt to trace the evolution of belief back through our history, but its origins become obscured in the fog of antiquity.  In many ways, it seems almost counterproductive.  In evolutionary terms, it is quite expensive and yields no obvious benefits to our survival as a species.  However, the fact that it seems to be an intrinsic aspect of human nature implies that its origins must have somehow been beneficial to our species at some point in our development.

Anthropologist Pascal Boyer provided an excellent theory on this subject.  In an effort to understand the evolutionary origins of religion, he distilled the mythology, dogma, and philosophies of all religions down to their most basic components.  He payed particularly close attention to the beliefs of preliterate cultures, as their beliefs were less likely to have been cross-contaminated with those of others.  After a great deal of work, he was able to find only one unifying theme that permeated all known religious beliefs, both past and present.

What Boyer found was that all religions contain a belief in “the presence of unseen agents in the environment”.  These agents were often used to explain the causation of certain natural phenomenon.  However, the most prevalent beliefs seemed to imply that these spirits were malevolent entities that wished to bring some sort of harm to their unsuspecting victims… much like the devils and demons of our modern mythologies.

It is this simple fact that shines a light on the evolutionary origins of belief.  Like all primates, sight is our primary sense.  We do not have the heightened sense of smell or hearing that so many of our mammalian cousins enjoy.  Since our species evolved in the canopies of African rain forests, sight proved to be the most effective sense to use from our high vantage points.  As such, our ability to survive was entirely dependent on our ability to see potential dangers.  If we could not see predators in time to take the necessary evasive actions, we would not survive to pass on our genes to the next generation.

This obviously put our ancestors at a distinct disadvantage in situations in which they were not able to see potential dangers.  In darkness or in the dense foliage of the ground, they were little more than an easy meal for any of the larger, faster, carnivorous creatures that preyed upon them.  Essentially, that which they could not see could easily cause their gruesome demise.

The connection to Boyer’s “unseen agents” now becomes quite clear.  The primates who had an innate fear of the invisible did not venture into situations where their sight would be limited, whereas those who had no such fear didn’t survive for very long.  In this instance, natural selection favored a primal form of superstition.  Millions of years of selection hard-wired it into our ever growing hominid minds.

From an evolutionary point of view, old habits die hard.  We’ve been bipedal for a few million years now, yet we still suffer from many of the problems caused by our transition from our ancient quadrupedal forms.  In much the same way, our giant sentient brains still fall prey to one of our most basic primal fears… unseen malevolent entities.

Our modern understanding of psychology has shed a great deal of light onto what we have traditionally categorized as good and evil.  The human brain has an unparalleled ability to experience empathy, an intellectual understanding of the feelings of others.  It is our ability to feel empathy that has formed the very foundation of human society.  By understanding the wants and needs of others, we are able to peacefully function in larger communities.  This leads to the sort of individual specialization that allows us to function as a greater whole and achieve far more than any individual member of our species ever could alone.  By utilizing our advanced sense of empathy, we commit acts of altruism which often benefit others more than ourselves.  This is, in essence, what most would define as “good”.

In contrast, we still possess our primal instincts (the aspect of our psyche that is often referred to as “the lizard brain”).  This is an even more ancient form of hard-wiring.  It represents the most basic needs an organism has to survive and pass on its genes.  The lizard brain gladly kills, steals, and rapes to serve its own self-interest, as it does not concern itself with the needs of others.  In modern humanity, we define these characteristics as “evil”.  While they served our very ancient ancestors, they are detrimental to a species that is dependent on its need to function as a society.

When we examine good and evil in this light, it becomes quite easy to see why the belief that evil is caused by the influence of an external, malevolent entity is fundamentally dangerous.  By personifying evil as something which exists outside of ourselves, we provide ourselves with the false comfort of believing that it is not an intrinsic part of our psyche.

Given the right set of circumstances, any one of us is quite capable of abandoning our sense of empathy and reverting to our most primal instincts.  It is essential for us to realize this and understand that we alone bear the responsibilities for our own actions.  When we cling to our archaic notions of demons and devils, we create a sort of loophole.  We tell ourselves that the evil that we do is no fault of our own… that we are somehow little more than the hapless puppets of some imagined demonic entity.  Once we become convinced that anything else bears the responsibility for our actions, there is no limit to the atrocities we could allow ourselves to commit.

Many of the faithful will surely argue that they will never commit any such atrocities, as their faith in an all-powerful benevolent entity shields them from the influences of evil beings.  This sort of thinking is even more dangerous, as the believer has engaged in a sort of magical thinking.  The belief that our attachment to a good being protects us from the influence of evil is an incredibly dangerous rationalization… “Because I have faith, I am righteous.  Because I am righteous, I am good.  Because I am good, my actions are not evil.”  This is the twisted logic that has led to countless atrocities committed throughout human history in the name of any number of gods.

We have reached a stage in our evolution in which we have the cognitive ability to understand the true nature of evil.  It is not something that is forced upon us by malevolent entities, but rather the result of any number of factors which damage our psyche to an extent to which we abandon our empathy and revert to our more primal nature.  It is time for us to cast aside the imagined ghosts of our primitive ancestors and embrace a rational view of what makes us good or evil.  Only by doing this can we hope to overcome the demons of our minds and strive to create a world in which we truly embrace that which is good for all humanity.