The Presence of Evil

Sometimes it’s the presence of evil in the world that convinces me of God’s existence more than the presence of good. In the October issue of Vanity Fair (the one with Kate Hudson on the cover), there is a story about the conflict in Sierra Leone, accompanied by some incredibly gruesome photographs. When I first saw these images of people raping, killing, decapitating each other, I thought that these humans had been reduced to behaving like animals, and then I realized that animals don’t do this sort of thing to each other. Animals don’t torture, rape, kill. That requires some higher form of consciousness, a soul, if you will. The good here is illumined by its absence. End of rant…

By the way, I really like Vanity Fair. Beneath the celebrity cover, there are always four or five well-researched and well-written pieces, and they’re not afraid to take risks like running the above photos. Even the celebrity pieces are usually less superficial than most.