Pratt: Evil’s goal is the destruction of humanity

What we think and how we respond to one another as we navigate life is both simple and complex in its influence.

Our inheritance includes choices encountered along the way to adulthood. Our story begins in a family cultural environment, heritage and location. When it moves into the public sphere, the choices can become overwhelming.

We are particularly noting the difficulty today for children growing up in an “anything goes” environment that includes instant communication, adult confusion and little respect or concern for the damage that is possible when the young encounter all the ills of society via Internet access.

We want our children “armed” with the ability to apply a healthy moral approach to the temptations that assail them, but we also know that they are vulnerable. Maybe it never was easy, but certainly it is much more difficult now to protect them from those with evil intentions.

It is tempting to think this is a “new” problem, and to some degree that is true. But when we really study the history of mankind, we find every age as far back as we can determine has similar issues in terms of building healthy families, the basis of thriving communities of people.

We can become so buried in the details of either the past or the present that we lose sight of how brief is our opportunity to provide the basic “safe” space for a child to grow into a thoughtful, responsible adult.

Children have always been at risk according to the circumstances of their birth. Even today, a child conceived is not necessarily a child birthed as more and more people seem to discount the reality of human life beginning at conception.

While abortion as merely another birth control method seems atrocious to me, so does “forcing” a girl or woman to bear a child conceived through rape appear equally wrong. The main problem I see with the issue is our human propensity to make excuses for bad behavior a legal instead of a moral choice.

We want to “excuse” our responsibility one way or the other. Either way, there is a “scar” on the souls of those who easily dismiss the value of human life. Rape itself is denial of human worth as is the sex trafficking of children. Adults who engage in such activities by choice will pay the ultimate price because they participate in a murderous attack on the souls of the young and vulnerable.

As far as the legal system is concerned, the question is primarily about “freedom of choice” to kill a human. Does the infant in this circumstance have a choice to live? In the case of rape, there is no choice for the mother unless she has access to the drug that can prevent conception.

Evil’s goal is the destruction of humanity, wherever and however it may be accomplished. We see it on the streets of New York this week with the Palestinian influences exerting murderous intent against the Jewish students on university campuses. This ancient hatred is recounted throughout biblical stories and illustrated most globally during World War II in the Nazi ovens built to kill Jews.

Despite centuries of advances in science, communications, space travel and weaponry, humanity remains engaged in the ancient struggle between Good and Evil, most vividly described in the biblical stories of Evil’s attack on all Creation.

Oddly enough, “wars” described by biblical prophets for the end times when God’s son returns a victor over death and devastation to build a perfect kingdom, make more sense today than ever before. Clearly, our growing ability to destroy ourselves and the planet upon which we live, love and thrive or not, and the many variations of peoples around the world, something is brewing.

In 1 Peter 2, the Apostle notes, “For God did not spare even the angels who sinned. He threw them into hell, in gloomy pits of darkness, where they are being held until the day of judgment. And God did not spare the ancient world — except for Noah and the seven others in his family. Noah warned the world of God’s righteous judgment. So God protected Noah when he destroyed the world of ungodly people with a vast flood…”

Peter continues the story by promising “that in the last days scoffers will come, mocking the truth and following their own desires…” (Tyndle NLT Life Application Study Bible).

We humans construct calendars, but with God there is only Eternity. One day, he will call the final word for life as we know it. Until then, we will wrestle with our attraction for evil even as we yearn for good.

Beth Pratt retired as religion editor from the Avalanche-Journal after 25 years. You can email her at beth.pratt@cheerful.com.

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Pratt: Evil’s goal is the destruction of humanity