Few questions are as persistent and prevalent in the discourse surrounding religion as the simplest one of them all. Children and Redditors often ask it and it goes something like this: “if God is real, why do bad things happen?” The answers one gets to this simple question are vague and condescending and “something, something free will” or “God’s greater plan” are the typical answers one is likely to receive. But, anyone who approaches the question seriously and with an open mind finds that it’s a deep rabbit hole that merits a more serious discussion.
Bravo hit the nail on the head. I've said it before and I'll say it again. "God" is not "religion" religion is business an income stream for clerics that want to brand capture the masses. Now is their anything wrong with "religion" not necessarily some people need it, others don't and that's how it should be. "Churchiantiy" I love it! So true Christianity was hijacked and turn into Churchianity tragic but true.
As to evil it damn sure exists. How do I know? I was an orphaned black marketed baby sold to two freaks it's why I'm in the USA today (yeah you read it correctly) and was systematically abused for two decades. I've live among and faced of evil too many times in my life to list. I wrote a memoir details on my substack page. Evil is not the absence of good evil is just that, stand alone evil, evil unto itself. I've face evil and felt my skin crawl, the hair on my neck tingle and my gut telling me I'm in the presence of something very very bad evil. There is good in this world but it's not because evil is absent you've just lucked out and avoided evil for the time being. It's still all around us.
"A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there."
The problem with this interpretation - evil as the work of a dark god - is that it begs the question of why God created him. The whole thing comes down to the conflict between evil and the three omnis. If God is omnibenevolent and omniscient, why did He create evil? The existence of evil seems to require one of those to be dropped. If God didn't create evil, then he didn't create everything, is therefore not omnipotent. Without all 3 omnis, God isn't really God - a god perhaps, but not the God of the philosophers.
If I recall, in the Silmarillion, the creator deity wasn't omniscient, and therefore didn't anticipate Sauron's rebellion.
Actually, there's tension between the omnis and free will, too. Omniscience in particular doesn't seem compatible with it, at least not if it implies perfect foreknowledge. Perhaps a more limited form of omniscience, in which God has perfect knowledge of what has been and what is, but does not have perfect knowledge of what will be, could resolve the issue.
It may be worthwhile to expound a little on Ponerology.People who are unfamiliar with biological roots of psychopathy or the 70 odd years of research into it will immediately misinterpret or dismiss such notions as discriminatory. I've seen this happen elsewhere with people thinking that psychopaths emotionally ''suffer'' from not being able to feel empathy.How one can suffer emotionally without actually having said emotions however is a question that remains ignored.
Jul 15, 2022·edited Jul 15, 2022Liked by Rurik Skywalker
Thank you Rolo for another excellent piece.
Augustine's position that evil is the absence of good and deviation from God's plan has never been part of Christian doctrine, neither Catholic, nor Orthodox. It has been an inspiration for quite a few heresies though, and a favorite topic of academic debate since the scholastic period of the Middle Ages. God's plan for man was renamed predestination and became a central tenet of Protestantism.
Christian doctrine still affirms that the devil is a force independent of God and the actual ruler of this world. It cannot be any different because in the Gospel Christ himself calls Satan the "Master of this world" and demands that his disciples be in the world but not of this world. Thus evil happens in the world because it is ruled by Satan. Why does Satan exist then ? There is a story about the fall of the angels. I suggest keeping it at that. Why ? Because our understanding of the celestial realm is limited by what has been revealed to us and by what mystics have gleaned through their trips. So not much. Hence the devil exists and was created by God.
Could we know more about the celestial realm ? I doubt it because our minds function with concepts derived from earthly experience and are inadequate at grasping spiritual realities. How many metaphors did Christ use to describe the Kingdom of God ? More concretely the notion of infinity is derived as a limit to increasingly large quantities. Is this infinity-as-upper-limit adequate at capturing the powers of God vs the powers of Satan ? Careful observation of small numbers of atoms, protons, electrons has revealed that time does not exist at that level. The notion of time is derived from chains of small changes observed by the eye and it is already insufficient for what we observe in the material world. Using this flawed notion to capture the knowledge of God or Satan about past, present, future is futile. I could go on about the notions of continuum or of space, apparently partially fungible with time in its flawed sense. The consequence is that discussions using the notions of omnipotence or omniscience are pure verbiage or philosophical mind games unrelated to reality.
The conclusion of this is that we should be humble, recognise the stark limits of our knowledge. Once the notions of infinity, point, continuum, space, time, energy, form improve so will our theological understanding grow.
Jul 14, 2022·edited Jul 14, 2022Liked by Rurik Skywalker
I find this perspective very helpful and judge you have the best map I've yet seen for this issue of Evil, including the multi-generational professional victimizer guild that apparently delights in torturing and murdering our people. Have you seen the Orea Linda Codex/Book?
Your well-written essay amounts to a proof by contradiction.
Why are we all so ready to accept the idea that there's some kind of an all powerful God? I find this monotheistic idea actually a reversion to a psychological state of infantile dependence, where we rely upon some benevolent powerful guy/gal/whatever who is watching over and [protecting everything, especially us. As your struggle with this issue demonstrates, the existence of evil is incompatible with a benevolent and omnipotent God.
Many who see evil in the world react by praying to God, urging and/or expecting him to do something about it. In fact, history has shown that when evil is corrected, individuals are invariably responsible. In that sense, I lean more in the direction that evil is fought by some God-within-us, not all powerful, not necessarily fully moral, but only a positive spiritual force we each can muster to better face and correct the evils we encounter. This picture is admittedly unsettling, in that there's no guarantee of success, and we may even get mangled in these endeavors. It's an moral and intellectual exercise in humility to finely judge how much courage, skill, and moral strength we actually have, to do what we see to be appropriate.
This doesn't necessarilty rule out powerful spirits, but exactly how powerful they are, and where they sit on a moral spectrum are issues that I'll leave that to those who might have actually met some. Maybe some of these spirits even reside within ourselves; I don't know.
Fascinating line of inquiry. Although the terms Good and Evil refer to something very real, when it comes to understanding the ultimate nature and origins of these realities, we've got questions that seem to admit of no tangible, well-defined answers. I think your approach is wise: seeking pragmatic rules of thumb and techniques for navigating a world where these larger metaphysical realities are instantiated and play out. Beyond a "this principle seems to get good results when I apply it" sort of thing, I don't know if we can hope for any real resolution of these questions. But any helpful insights of techniques you can share will be much appreciated!
I've been really enjoying this series so far! Keep up the excellent work!
I bother you with another comment. An attempt at explaining the mass murder of Slavs orchestrated by the Chosen people. God concluded a few covenants with the Jews and made them promises, some of them unconditional. Even though the Jews rejected Christ, God has kept his old promises towards them. Hence when the devil manages to subvert the Jews and make them do his work, he turns God's old promises to his own advantage.
I am no bible expert so I remember only one striking promise made to Abraham: his descendants will hold or possess the cities/strongholds/gates of their ennemies. So God enabled the Jews to take control of Moscow and St Petersburg after the fall of the tsar. Guided by Satan's hench-angels they subsequently conquered Russia and murdered millions. God also enabled the Jews to take control of Berlin and other German cities in the aftermath of world war i. Similarly God enabled the Jews to seize control of Washington, New York, Los Angeles, even though they currently do devil's bidding.
A traditional Catholic trope has been that Satan's might will be reduced when the Synagogue returns to God and recognises Jesus as the Messiah.
Good topic. Very important and thanks to Churchiogy and its Modern minion, Materialism, consigned to the trash heap that is now Public Discourse.
I would have liked to see more exploration of what evil is rather than arguments about the nature of a God that caused it - or not. I recently wrote a series of short essay on my substack about this issue because of late have become increasingly aware that the world is largely run by what can best be described as Evil People or an Evil Mentality. That Evil is something real, whether or not material, and important to consider.
The Buddhist tradition treats it by postulating the Six Realms of Being in this our overall Realm of Desire, in which case Evil is that which creates Hell, the lowest of the six. But this is largely a self-centered view in terms of what happens to the Self when it pursues wicked/unfortunate/negative/selfish/conflicted ways. So it doesn't discuss Evil per se, rather behavior that causes confusion and suffering, the result of which is becoming a Denizen of Hell, either torturing others or being tortured oneself. That said, the language can be graphic and moving, especially for young people (though Buddhism is no longer a dominant paradigm in most countries which before Modernism were considered 'Buddhist' so those cultural elements are fading away rapidly). That said, the formal teachings also go into extensive detail as to what creates bad/evil karma and what creates good/good karma so there is a whole extremely detailed noetic science to it in the Abhidharma that has not been well translated or transmitted.
That said, your interest is in the Angels and Demons universe, so the dry, analytical, objective Buddhist approach is not where you are headed. The Tantrics of course are filled with Demonology and Deities of all sorts - many looking indistinguishable interestingly, but that's an entirely different bailiwick.
My working understanding of Evil, as far as have thunk it through personally of late, is that it is that which deliberately turns away from the Good, nearly always by deceptively mocking or imitating. And this is all based on valuing Values, something McGilchrest has laboriously posited, in what I regard a contemporary philosophical breakthrough, as an ontological element, or building block, of our world / reality (which I call an 'experiential continuum' in contrast to the objective reality construct of materialist Scientism). This relates to a higher-lower soul notion in that there are two directions: towards the lower and coarser (into form, matter, lit. materialism, selfhood-individuation, the basis of the demonic) and higher and subtler (towards the formless, metaphysical and less individuated, the basis of the angelic). Something like that.
Interestingly, when Horden had his NDE he traveled to more formless realms with evolved souls close to the One Sould, some in his own spiritual lineage with whom he enjoyed extensive further training, but on the way 'up' he passed by millions of souls in Christian Heaven. (So he gives more credence to the power of belief!) For those who have incorporated such belief into their world view, it seems they do indeed go to such places, though at some point the karmic deposits such beliefs have engendered will be exhausted and those souls will leave this temporary refuge (or torment) and get back with the underlying program which is some sort of back and forth dynamic - Universal-One > Particular-Many < Universal-One.
The experiential continuum we inhabit is one in which the universe wishes to engender particularities of experience, otherwise it's just All One All the Time, which is the same as nothing. We are all aspects of the Universe experiencing itself, i.e. experiencing experience, which is qualities. So we are in a universe of limitless self-engendering, self-perpetuating qualia which is the universe playing with itself basically. There is no past of future only a continuously unfolding Creation in the ever-present - like clouds forming and dissolving endlessly. Something like that.
So from the formless and undifferentiated comes form with differentiation, but also appreciation for qualities which leads to pleasure versus pain, higher versus lower, yin versus yang, light versus heavy, coarse versus subtle. This differentiation principle, which originates from the One-to-Many-in-Experience dynamic, is the origin of both Good and Evil. Separating oneself from the higher soul in essence drives the soul into deeper, darker and more dense states of being which also include pain inflicted on self and others, aka Evil.
But this all comes from experiencing the value of Values which do indeed distinguish between what is good and natural and what is evil and unnatural, healthy versus unhealthy, appreciative versus unappreciative, noble versus debased, selfless service versus self-serving and so on. Something like that.
Thanks for raising this important topic. For a detailed Biblical explanation of the continuing conflict between good and evil, I recommend the book, The Invisible War by Donald Grey Barnhouse.
" That there are hostile ethnic groups that want to destroy us."
When looking for examples of evil, this seems to be the default primary source of evil in the conservative worldview. Why is that? Isn't the most obvious and overwhelming practice of evil the class oppression that has been occurring as long as there have been ruling classes in human society - hence for at least the last five thousand years? Do conservatives ignore class violence because they think it somehow "leftist" to acknowledge it?
I don't think you can confine evil to a single ethnicity (or political party). Satan's minions have infiltrated all "groups."
As for the Old Testament, my current understanding is that was pertinent to the Judahites of the Abraham line, that God chose them to introduce the religion of one God, fulfilled his promise to give them Israel, and that his covenant with them ended when they killed his son, Yeshua, who he sent to "collect the harvest," and then refused to acknowledge Yeshua as the Messiah even tho he fulfilled all the prophesies.
And further, that John advised the *former*Judahites who did accept Yeshua as their Messiah to escape to the hills when they observed certain events. And 2 years later, those signs appeared and the Romans leveled Jerusalem and slaughtered all the Judahites who were gathered there for a major holy event.
I've read that the "Jews" who claim to be God's "chosen" are descended from the converts, not Abraham, and that dna studies show little to no semitic influence.
Iow, the Old Testament covenant ended 40 years after the Crucifixion and Resurrection. And the Jews claim to be God's "chosen" and owed Israel is based on misrepresentation and fraud.
At this point, I believe there are many paths to realizing God. I think Yeshua is the "surest" path simply because if you keep your focus on him and his message of love, it's harder for evil to gain a foothold in your soul.
Bravo hit the nail on the head. I've said it before and I'll say it again. "God" is not "religion" religion is business an income stream for clerics that want to brand capture the masses. Now is their anything wrong with "religion" not necessarily some people need it, others don't and that's how it should be. "Churchiantiy" I love it! So true Christianity was hijacked and turn into Churchianity tragic but true.
As to evil it damn sure exists. How do I know? I was an orphaned black marketed baby sold to two freaks it's why I'm in the USA today (yeah you read it correctly) and was systematically abused for two decades. I've live among and faced of evil too many times in my life to list. I wrote a memoir details on my substack page. Evil is not the absence of good evil is just that, stand alone evil, evil unto itself. I've face evil and felt my skin crawl, the hair on my neck tingle and my gut telling me I'm in the presence of something very very bad evil. There is good in this world but it's not because evil is absent you've just lucked out and avoided evil for the time being. It's still all around us.
"A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don't know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox's or bear's, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there."
- Mister Eckhart (1259-1328)
The problem with this interpretation - evil as the work of a dark god - is that it begs the question of why God created him. The whole thing comes down to the conflict between evil and the three omnis. If God is omnibenevolent and omniscient, why did He create evil? The existence of evil seems to require one of those to be dropped. If God didn't create evil, then he didn't create everything, is therefore not omnipotent. Without all 3 omnis, God isn't really God - a god perhaps, but not the God of the philosophers.
If I recall, in the Silmarillion, the creator deity wasn't omniscient, and therefore didn't anticipate Sauron's rebellion.
Actually, there's tension between the omnis and free will, too. Omniscience in particular doesn't seem compatible with it, at least not if it implies perfect foreknowledge. Perhaps a more limited form of omniscience, in which God has perfect knowledge of what has been and what is, but does not have perfect knowledge of what will be, could resolve the issue.
It may be worthwhile to expound a little on Ponerology.People who are unfamiliar with biological roots of psychopathy or the 70 odd years of research into it will immediately misinterpret or dismiss such notions as discriminatory. I've seen this happen elsewhere with people thinking that psychopaths emotionally ''suffer'' from not being able to feel empathy.How one can suffer emotionally without actually having said emotions however is a question that remains ignored.
Thank you Rolo for another excellent piece.
Augustine's position that evil is the absence of good and deviation from God's plan has never been part of Christian doctrine, neither Catholic, nor Orthodox. It has been an inspiration for quite a few heresies though, and a favorite topic of academic debate since the scholastic period of the Middle Ages. God's plan for man was renamed predestination and became a central tenet of Protestantism.
Christian doctrine still affirms that the devil is a force independent of God and the actual ruler of this world. It cannot be any different because in the Gospel Christ himself calls Satan the "Master of this world" and demands that his disciples be in the world but not of this world. Thus evil happens in the world because it is ruled by Satan. Why does Satan exist then ? There is a story about the fall of the angels. I suggest keeping it at that. Why ? Because our understanding of the celestial realm is limited by what has been revealed to us and by what mystics have gleaned through their trips. So not much. Hence the devil exists and was created by God.
Could we know more about the celestial realm ? I doubt it because our minds function with concepts derived from earthly experience and are inadequate at grasping spiritual realities. How many metaphors did Christ use to describe the Kingdom of God ? More concretely the notion of infinity is derived as a limit to increasingly large quantities. Is this infinity-as-upper-limit adequate at capturing the powers of God vs the powers of Satan ? Careful observation of small numbers of atoms, protons, electrons has revealed that time does not exist at that level. The notion of time is derived from chains of small changes observed by the eye and it is already insufficient for what we observe in the material world. Using this flawed notion to capture the knowledge of God or Satan about past, present, future is futile. I could go on about the notions of continuum or of space, apparently partially fungible with time in its flawed sense. The consequence is that discussions using the notions of omnipotence or omniscience are pure verbiage or philosophical mind games unrelated to reality.
The conclusion of this is that we should be humble, recognise the stark limits of our knowledge. Once the notions of infinity, point, continuum, space, time, energy, form improve so will our theological understanding grow.
I now feel compelled read your Reactionary Metaphysics series from the beginning, so I will see your arguments in context.
https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/p/reactionary-metaphysics-i-faith-vs
https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/p/reactionary-metaphysics-ii-problems
https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/p/reactionary-metaphysics-iii-are-all
https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/p/reactionary-metaphysics-iv-the-superiority
https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/p/reactionary-metaphysics-v-the-ethnic
https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/p/reactionary-metaphysics-vi-spiritual
Hi, another interesting article. I recommend the book " Evil: The Shadow Side of Reality
by John A. Sanford " I think you may be interested , and possibly ideas you have not thought of yet.
Have fun
I find this perspective very helpful and judge you have the best map I've yet seen for this issue of Evil, including the multi-generational professional victimizer guild that apparently delights in torturing and murdering our people. Have you seen the Orea Linda Codex/Book?
typo:
This should sound sound familiar
Your well-written essay amounts to a proof by contradiction.
Why are we all so ready to accept the idea that there's some kind of an all powerful God? I find this monotheistic idea actually a reversion to a psychological state of infantile dependence, where we rely upon some benevolent powerful guy/gal/whatever who is watching over and [protecting everything, especially us. As your struggle with this issue demonstrates, the existence of evil is incompatible with a benevolent and omnipotent God.
Many who see evil in the world react by praying to God, urging and/or expecting him to do something about it. In fact, history has shown that when evil is corrected, individuals are invariably responsible. In that sense, I lean more in the direction that evil is fought by some God-within-us, not all powerful, not necessarily fully moral, but only a positive spiritual force we each can muster to better face and correct the evils we encounter. This picture is admittedly unsettling, in that there's no guarantee of success, and we may even get mangled in these endeavors. It's an moral and intellectual exercise in humility to finely judge how much courage, skill, and moral strength we actually have, to do what we see to be appropriate.
This doesn't necessarilty rule out powerful spirits, but exactly how powerful they are, and where they sit on a moral spectrum are issues that I'll leave that to those who might have actually met some. Maybe some of these spirits even reside within ourselves; I don't know.
Fascinating line of inquiry. Although the terms Good and Evil refer to something very real, when it comes to understanding the ultimate nature and origins of these realities, we've got questions that seem to admit of no tangible, well-defined answers. I think your approach is wise: seeking pragmatic rules of thumb and techniques for navigating a world where these larger metaphysical realities are instantiated and play out. Beyond a "this principle seems to get good results when I apply it" sort of thing, I don't know if we can hope for any real resolution of these questions. But any helpful insights of techniques you can share will be much appreciated!
I've been really enjoying this series so far! Keep up the excellent work!
I bother you with another comment. An attempt at explaining the mass murder of Slavs orchestrated by the Chosen people. God concluded a few covenants with the Jews and made them promises, some of them unconditional. Even though the Jews rejected Christ, God has kept his old promises towards them. Hence when the devil manages to subvert the Jews and make them do his work, he turns God's old promises to his own advantage.
I am no bible expert so I remember only one striking promise made to Abraham: his descendants will hold or possess the cities/strongholds/gates of their ennemies. So God enabled the Jews to take control of Moscow and St Petersburg after the fall of the tsar. Guided by Satan's hench-angels they subsequently conquered Russia and murdered millions. God also enabled the Jews to take control of Berlin and other German cities in the aftermath of world war i. Similarly God enabled the Jews to seize control of Washington, New York, Los Angeles, even though they currently do devil's bidding.
A traditional Catholic trope has been that Satan's might will be reduced when the Synagogue returns to God and recognises Jesus as the Messiah.
Good topic. Very important and thanks to Churchiogy and its Modern minion, Materialism, consigned to the trash heap that is now Public Discourse.
I would have liked to see more exploration of what evil is rather than arguments about the nature of a God that caused it - or not. I recently wrote a series of short essay on my substack about this issue because of late have become increasingly aware that the world is largely run by what can best be described as Evil People or an Evil Mentality. That Evil is something real, whether or not material, and important to consider.
The Buddhist tradition treats it by postulating the Six Realms of Being in this our overall Realm of Desire, in which case Evil is that which creates Hell, the lowest of the six. But this is largely a self-centered view in terms of what happens to the Self when it pursues wicked/unfortunate/negative/selfish/conflicted ways. So it doesn't discuss Evil per se, rather behavior that causes confusion and suffering, the result of which is becoming a Denizen of Hell, either torturing others or being tortured oneself. That said, the language can be graphic and moving, especially for young people (though Buddhism is no longer a dominant paradigm in most countries which before Modernism were considered 'Buddhist' so those cultural elements are fading away rapidly). That said, the formal teachings also go into extensive detail as to what creates bad/evil karma and what creates good/good karma so there is a whole extremely detailed noetic science to it in the Abhidharma that has not been well translated or transmitted.
That said, your interest is in the Angels and Demons universe, so the dry, analytical, objective Buddhist approach is not where you are headed. The Tantrics of course are filled with Demonology and Deities of all sorts - many looking indistinguishable interestingly, but that's an entirely different bailiwick.
My working understanding of Evil, as far as have thunk it through personally of late, is that it is that which deliberately turns away from the Good, nearly always by deceptively mocking or imitating. And this is all based on valuing Values, something McGilchrest has laboriously posited, in what I regard a contemporary philosophical breakthrough, as an ontological element, or building block, of our world / reality (which I call an 'experiential continuum' in contrast to the objective reality construct of materialist Scientism). This relates to a higher-lower soul notion in that there are two directions: towards the lower and coarser (into form, matter, lit. materialism, selfhood-individuation, the basis of the demonic) and higher and subtler (towards the formless, metaphysical and less individuated, the basis of the angelic). Something like that.
Interestingly, when Horden had his NDE he traveled to more formless realms with evolved souls close to the One Sould, some in his own spiritual lineage with whom he enjoyed extensive further training, but on the way 'up' he passed by millions of souls in Christian Heaven. (So he gives more credence to the power of belief!) For those who have incorporated such belief into their world view, it seems they do indeed go to such places, though at some point the karmic deposits such beliefs have engendered will be exhausted and those souls will leave this temporary refuge (or torment) and get back with the underlying program which is some sort of back and forth dynamic - Universal-One > Particular-Many < Universal-One.
The experiential continuum we inhabit is one in which the universe wishes to engender particularities of experience, otherwise it's just All One All the Time, which is the same as nothing. We are all aspects of the Universe experiencing itself, i.e. experiencing experience, which is qualities. So we are in a universe of limitless self-engendering, self-perpetuating qualia which is the universe playing with itself basically. There is no past of future only a continuously unfolding Creation in the ever-present - like clouds forming and dissolving endlessly. Something like that.
So from the formless and undifferentiated comes form with differentiation, but also appreciation for qualities which leads to pleasure versus pain, higher versus lower, yin versus yang, light versus heavy, coarse versus subtle. This differentiation principle, which originates from the One-to-Many-in-Experience dynamic, is the origin of both Good and Evil. Separating oneself from the higher soul in essence drives the soul into deeper, darker and more dense states of being which also include pain inflicted on self and others, aka Evil.
But this all comes from experiencing the value of Values which do indeed distinguish between what is good and natural and what is evil and unnatural, healthy versus unhealthy, appreciative versus unappreciative, noble versus debased, selfless service versus self-serving and so on. Something like that.
Thanks for raising this important topic. For a detailed Biblical explanation of the continuing conflict between good and evil, I recommend the book, The Invisible War by Donald Grey Barnhouse.
Wasn’t Augustine a Manichaean before converting to Christianity?
" That there are hostile ethnic groups that want to destroy us."
When looking for examples of evil, this seems to be the default primary source of evil in the conservative worldview. Why is that? Isn't the most obvious and overwhelming practice of evil the class oppression that has been occurring as long as there have been ruling classes in human society - hence for at least the last five thousand years? Do conservatives ignore class violence because they think it somehow "leftist" to acknowledge it?
I don't think you can confine evil to a single ethnicity (or political party). Satan's minions have infiltrated all "groups."
As for the Old Testament, my current understanding is that was pertinent to the Judahites of the Abraham line, that God chose them to introduce the religion of one God, fulfilled his promise to give them Israel, and that his covenant with them ended when they killed his son, Yeshua, who he sent to "collect the harvest," and then refused to acknowledge Yeshua as the Messiah even tho he fulfilled all the prophesies.
And further, that John advised the *former*Judahites who did accept Yeshua as their Messiah to escape to the hills when they observed certain events. And 2 years later, those signs appeared and the Romans leveled Jerusalem and slaughtered all the Judahites who were gathered there for a major holy event.
I've read that the "Jews" who claim to be God's "chosen" are descended from the converts, not Abraham, and that dna studies show little to no semitic influence.
Iow, the Old Testament covenant ended 40 years after the Crucifixion and Resurrection. And the Jews claim to be God's "chosen" and owed Israel is based on misrepresentation and fraud.
At this point, I believe there are many paths to realizing God. I think Yeshua is the "surest" path simply because if you keep your focus on him and his message of love, it's harder for evil to gain a foothold in your soul.