There is much more to the story of Adam and Eve’s fall in the Garden of Eden than just the temptation to listen to a snake and eat the wrong fruit that would cast all mankind into everlasting sin. There is a recipe for defeating evil that is quite deliberate. Not to pick on snakes, but they are disembodied creatures strange to the touch, complete with a forked tongue and menacing appearance. In the stories of the Bible, and those like it which describe some version of the Adam and Eve story, the snake would go on to form in Western civilization a definite approach to defeating the nature of evil in human beings. A philosophic divorce from the nature of existence that would form the backdrop of an entirely new way of looking at the world and establishing a moral conduct within it. However, in Eastern cultures, essentially all oriental approaches to matters of good and evil, the serpent, or snake, is an object of reverence, representing rebirth and rejuvenation. Dragons, as they are of the serpent family, are worshipped favorably in oriental cultures, whereas in the West, they are meant to be slain. We have dragon slayers in Western civilization, slayers of evil, destroyers of the serpent. Killers of evil. In the East, we have a religious approach that lives in harmony with evil, a yin and yang approach that strives for balance. But in the West, we traditionally strive to defeat evil wholesale. So, in that regard, in a modern world where China and its supporters, some in our own government, are seeking to embrace evil rather than defeat it, and any defeat of evil is frustrated rather than dealt with in the traditional way that our culture measures it. 

But there is more to the story, literally, than just appearances. Western culture’s representation of evil as a snake has a much more literal meaning. Snakes are cold-blooded animals, whereas humans are warm-blooded. Snakes cannot sustain their energy for very long, so their actions are often swift because they run out of energy quickly. Humans can endure over a long time because we are warm-blooded, and can sustain ourselves no matter the climate conditions. Snakes hide in the ground and can be quite terrifying when they emerge into the light of day to sun themselves on a rock to gather up the warmth of the sun, which is yet another aspect of worshipping the sun as the current earth goddess worship is so concerned. The reverence for Eastern religions of nature worship instead of the conquest of it revolves around this central concept of accepting evil, embracing it, or making a conscious effort to defeat it. The two cultures are incompatible; there is no coexistence where good and evil shake hands and get along. And this is a fight that essentially started literally in the beginning; it is at the core of why all mankind was born into sin and had to make a conscious effort to deal with it. What we are seeing now, as in a modern context regarding the vast amounts of evil being presented to us, in many forms, all at once, is this panic by evil to reveal itself to gather energy. We see them coming out into the light of day to sun themselves on rocks, which is scary to look at. Because we are used to evil hiding away from our eyes, just as in nature. Seeing a snake is a startling experience because they tend to hide under rocks and in the ground and don’t make themselves known easily. 

But their sudden appearance everywhere and often is actually a good thing. It indicates their true condition, the status of global evil as it has existed on earth from the beginning of time. It takes energy to hide, stay malicious, and work in the background. Yet now we have evil out in the open for all to see, and the vast amounts of it are intimidating because we just didn’t know there was that much evil out there, at least those living their normal lives not thinking about fighting good and evil all the time. However, it’s good to see the snakes, to see them out of their hiding places. Because it tells us what their true condition is. Just because we can see something, because we can see the truth, it doesn’t mean that there is more evil in the world making itself known, rather it provides an indication of the truth, and now we are seeing it in abundance, for a vastness that just wasn’t part of our daily dialogue, at least until now. Then our natural reaction as members of Western civilization, that understands the keys to success in life, is not to embrace evil and to make peace with it, but to defeat it. So, it is natural for us to look at all these vast examples of evil and want to strike at it with a vengeance because that attitude is the key to all Western civilization, which is the natural outgrowth of human development.   In the beginning, there were snakes, lots of them. And they ruled the earth. And Western civilization made a conscious effort to grow, evolve, and despise evil. And to defeat it. 

With all that known, the way to beat evil is in how the snake actually behaves. Evil looks scary and can strike fast with its venomous bite. But it runs out of gas quickly, making it easy to outlast and overcome. So to answer the question I get all the time about evil as to why I am so patient in dealing with it, as opposed to some sexy defeat of it spectacularly, like the latest Hollywood movie, which would be far more exciting, is because the best tactical opposition to evil is in self-propelled energy, the warm-blooded nature of the human being, the thinking intellect. Evil gets tired quickly because of its cold-blooded nature. When we say that someone is “cold-blooded,” we are essentially talking about the nature of evil itself and how it can appear menacing, but it loses its energy quickly, making it very vulnerable to those with the intentions of good. Good being a long-term pursuit, a divorce from the animal ways of nature. Evil being short-term, live quickly and die just as such in accordance with nature’s impulses. Can we say that the buzzard eating roadkill is evil on the side of the road due to its parasitic nature, or should we expect a buzzard to develop an intellect to grow its food more humanely even to question the life feeding off of life nature of the universe as humans wonder about such things. And they do because they have developed intellects even to behold the thought; thus, Western civilization was born. And the concept of defeating evil became a priority in our culture. Of course, evil is very aware of this, yet they are powerless to defend themselves from the intentions of good because they run out of energy so fast. Which is what we are seeing happening right now. As scary as evil is, it is losing its effectiveness in the world, and they know it. So, they are panicking to strike while still having the energy to do it. But good is outlasting it and causing desperation, exposing this classic struggle with a truth that we have never had the luxury of dealing with. And the victor is going to the warm-blooded nature of existence over the cold-blooded parasite, which is the true message of the Adam and Eve story. The defeat of the snake is well at hand and within reach. Outlasting evil is the best way to defeat it 100% of the time. Never fight the strength of an enemy if you can avoid it. Always attack the weakness with your own strength, and in this situation, warm-blooded creatures defeat cold-blooded creatures whenever the long game is applied because of the lack of energy that the snake has to sustain itself through an extended conflict.

Rich Hoffman