Does evil flourish when good men do nothing?
I agree with the quote. If good people don’t challenge evil and eradicate it, the evil deprives good people of their rights. Here are some examples. Because there are evil people allowed to bully, intimidate, harm and threaten, I can’t go for a walk at midnight if I want to. It’s too dangerous. Because of evil people my grandchildren can’t go to the park by themselves to play, or roam the neighborhood on their bikes and skateboards without close adult supervision. MY freedom is restricted by evil people, and so is yours. You need someone to walk you to your car after working late. You can’t tell someone your name on the internet without risking identity theft. You can’t get on an airplane wearing a burqa. When evil is insinuating itself, people who are different are treated with suspicion. Maybe these seem like minor things to you, but it’s a slippery slope. Our freedoms slip away because we are afraid to tell the bully to stop and because we rely on the government to do the dirty work
“Evil flourishes when good men do nothing.” ~British statesman Edmund Burke If ‘good people’ are doing nothing does that make them any better than those, ‘bad people’ who are doing something? The quote should be, ‘Evil flourishes when good people wait.’ In the events of the Holocaust, the evil or “bad people” were the Nazi’s, the people who were carrying out the orders, and taking pleasure in killing innocent people. With the Nazis being the bad, that then would make the, “good people doing nothing” the citizens who weren’t the victims of massive genocide and antisemitism. The non-Jews, non-Roma, non-disabled, non-African, non-homosexual, the said ‘approved German’s,’ the socially accepted, the other countries who weren’t directly involved; those were the “good people.” Because of their waiting, 6 million people suffered. When WWII ended fewer than 300,000 Jews were saved. Evil flourished. And Evil will continue to flourish as long as good people wait.
Yes evil will FLOURISH when good men do nothing. As a Christian, I realize evil will be in the world until Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. However, God orders good people to actively oppose evil, not simply to avoid doing evil. I found a short article that has what I think are some good statements, and biblial verses, concerning this issue. I do not know about the particular church, so make no recommendations concerning that. The points made do seem accurate and thought provoking. http://www.padfield.com/1997/goodmen.html Here is a taste of the article: “They Are No Longer Good When good men do nothing, they are no longer good. Many have the mistaken notion that good is merely the absence of doing that which is wrong. Not so! One is good not merely because he does no evil, but because he is actively working for what is good. “Let him eschew evil, and do good” (1 Pet. 3:11). James expl
