The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

I was going to put Verbal Klint's face here but instead I think this is more appropriate:





This man was "Comrade Duch"
The caption with the photo says: "Duch, head of the Tuol Sleng prison complex, was a former schoolteacher named Kang Kech Eav.
Duch oversaw a precise department of death. His guards dutifully photographed the prisoners upon arrival and photgraphed them at or near death, whether their throats were slit, their bodies otherwise mutilated, or so thin from torture and near starvation that they were beyond recognition. The photographs were part of the files to prove the enemies of the state had been killed. Duch even set aside specific days for killing various types of prisoners: one day the wives of "enemies"; another day the children; a different day, factory workers.
--Elizabeth Becker, When the War Was Over"
He doesnt look like much but when his hell was in session, I would imagine his thin face stuck fear in the hearts of those under his hand. This man was truly evil.

I've been thinking about evil lately.

I was reading Michael Totten’s weblog today: http://michaeltotten.com/.
On his March 3 posting he discussed the museum in Suleimaniya, Iraq that commemorates the attempts by Hussein to eradicate the Iraqi Kurds. (Thankfully he failed).
I’ve also been reading Dawn Eden’s blog: http://www.dawneden.com/blogger.html, where she spends much time in righteous anger shining the light of God’s truth on the evil work of Planned Parenthood.
Both are worth reading on a regular basis.

It’s always tempting to look around us and think that, “With all the evil that men seem intent on doing to each other, ITS ALL GOING TO GO TO HELL IN A HANDBASKET! When in fact it isn’t.” Why is it so enticing to think that the dark night is about to overtake us, pull the door shut, turn out the lights and call Ole Nick to feast, even when we have God’s promise that this isn’t going to happen?

I’m thinking that it might be because even though we have plenty of evidence all around us of its existence, we in our modern, clean, antiseptic culture have attempted to convince ourselves that Evil does not exist. When President Bush referred to an Axis of Evil there were plenty of people who scoffed at the very idea that the leader of a nation would apparently believe in a real evil. They saw it as further proof of his simpleton vision of the world and only reinforced their belief that he was a man of little intelligence. I would say that perhaps it was because they have already sold their souls for power and the asking price was the denial of immorality and the existence of Evil.

When I was much younger a man whose opinion I dearly value and to whom I am forever indebted (Thanks for everything Dad) once told me; “you can learn much about a person by whom they associate with.”

As an observer of our current culture as well as something of an amateur historian and witness to our past, I return to this comment often. While I am sure there are those on the left who are honorable and good people, I wonder when I view the fellow travelers on their common path. For a movement that started with the good intentions of fairness and human rights, they appear to have strayed far a field and have now become a movement that obsessed with death and hatred of life. More than anything it is the aligning with a movement lusting for death, death of death’s sake that has ruined the left in America. As much as part of me would like to be able to agree with much of what the left says it stands for, I cannot because of its marriage with this culture of death in America. I do believe the left has sold out completely in an unholy contract. This is not to say that those on the right are blameless either. We have many who walk with us who are just as willing to sacrifice the innocent in the name of expediency whether it be the old, the inform or the helpless, all that appears to matter to them is the vote.

This wasn’t supposed to be a political rant, I am wrestling with much deeper thoughts here but in the end all of everything that is worth anything is either about religion or politics. As Chesterton said, Religion is about man’s relationship to God while politics is about his relationship with each other so I guess it isn’t all that unrealistic to expect the two to intertwine.
On the rare occasion that I watch horror movies or read really frightening books, the ones that I find most fearsome are those where evil has run amuck and nothing stands in the way of its conquering the light. The stories where cacophony is the norm and dark spirits run legion are those that I cannot read or watch when alone on a dark night. It must be a deeply rooted cultural fear because it is interwoven throughout our literature. It appears to be in the nature of evil to feed upon itself in a conflagration of ever increasing destruction. When the Khmer Rouge took control in Cambodia, they started an orgy of destruction that eventually became so foul that even their fellow communists in Vietnam saw it necessary to invade and put a stop to it. Their bloodlust was insatiable; they killed indiscriminately only to kill more all for no more reason than there was no one to stop them. This also appears to be an earmark of our enemy’s followers. He rules by fear and they attempt to rule by fear as well.

I am a devout Christian of the Roman Catholic faith; I find many of my personal beliefs tested by the necessary decisions required for survival in our modern culture. The obverse is that I also find my faith hard to follow and often personally disagree with the leaders in my church but as a member and a believer I also have to put aside the personal for the orthodox. Belief and agreement are not the same thing. I can agree on something without truly believing and it is possible to believe without fully agreeing.

To believe is not always easy and never cheap.

The first definition in the dictionary for “believe” says: “To accept as true or real”. Each Mass I proclaim publicly that I do accept and believe when I recite the Nicene Creed along with the congregation. Next comes the harder part, just because I believe in my head do I believe in my heart?
Therefore it is imperative that I remember that our Lord has promised he will always be by our side. I must tell myself that Evil will not overcome the Good and that no matter how dark the night it will be followed by the dawn.