Why Is Evil So Attractive?

I’ve often wondered what makes evil so attractive to people. Why is it that when someone spreads a false message that lures men to eventual ruin, many quickly believe it rather than detest it?

Perhaps it’s because evil is able to disguise itself, it takes some bit of beauty and truth to hide that little seed of evil within. And people take it not thinking of the evil but allowing themselves to be seduced with the outward appearance of goodness.

We want to believe we’re choosing what’s good even if we are actually taking the wrong path.

We tend to forget that little evil, thinking it would go away and that it wouldn’t cause us or others much harm. What we fail to consider is that evil grows. From that little seed of darkness, great evil grows and consumes everything along the way.

It is hard to preach what’s good because people tend to veer away from difficult things. We don’t want to be told we’re doing something wrong. We don’t want to be restricted.

Evil is seductive because it comes with the voice of a friend who pretends to be on our side. It gives us permission to do what we want. It makes us believe we’re being brave and strong when we’re actually afraid of looking at our weaknesses. It makes us think we’re the ones helping others to see the light when we’re being used as vessels that spread a lie.

“Now I know the full power of evil. It makes ugliness seem beautiful and goodness seem ugly and weak.” — August Strindberg, The Dance of Death

Now the serpent was more subtle than any animal of the field which Yahweh God had made. He said to the woman, “Has God really said, ‘You shall not eat of any tree of the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees of the garden,
but not the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden. God has said, ‘You shall not eat of it. You shall not touch it, lest you die.’”

The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die, for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

— Genesis 3:1–5 (WEB)