Is It Good or Evil?
Is It Good or Evil?
Everything in the world is identified as a certain stereotype such as, good or evil. People believe in many different things no matter if they are good or bad. Society is different in many ways which is why everyone will always have a different opinion. People identify certain things as good or evil with the thoughts that are put into their heads. Jesus is a man who gave up his life for other people’s sins. He sits on a Cross and this is suppose to represent how much Jesus has done for us. Catholics believe what Jesus did is a good thing but others do not. Others believe that what happened to Jesus was cruel. An object can symbolize both good and evil because people interpret the meaning of it in different ways and what seems right to them.
The “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding is a book that focuses on the thought of what is civilized or savage. Boys are stranded on an island and they go through a series of changes in their actions and emotions. Towards the beginning of the book when most of the boys are introduced, they set a rule for the conch. “I’ll give the conch to the next person to speak. He can hold it when he’s speaking.” (33) The conch was a shell used to bring all of the boys together. The boys could never get everyone to be silent while one of them was talking. It gave the right to only let one of the boys speak at a time. If one person was not holding the conch, they did not have the right to speak. The boys wanted to keep rules so that everyone would be kept under control since there were leaders, who were Ralph and Jack. The conch set boundaries for the boys and played a part in ways for them to gain respect for each other. It helped them keep an organized system and it had some type of good power to it. It represented good in the beginning because they were using it in a way so that everyone would have a voice.
In some families, hanging Crosses around the house symbolizes good. People believe that having the Cross in their home will keep the demons out and they will be protected at all times. A man named Billy Graham wrote an article called “The Meaning of the Cross”. It talks about how the Cross shows the depth of people’s sins. Sometimes someone does not realize the actual meaning of their sins, but seeing the Cross reminds them of that. The Cross acts as a pardon for those who aren’t ready for death. “Now,” said the man, “write this beneath them all: The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth from all sin” (Cf. 1 John 1:7). Having the Cross around gives people the thought that they will go to heaven even if they have sinned. It shows that there is always a way for God to forgive everyone for all the bad they have done. In these ways the Cross symbolizes good since there is so much positive meaning to it just as the conch.
The conch didn’t last long at all. The boys were pushing away the system they had created because each boy wanted to be heard and the conch couldn’t control that. Since the boys were stranded on an island, they began to show savage-like behavior. The conch began to represent evil because before they stopped using it, they were using the conch to have a voice over everyone else’s. “You’re hindering Ralph. You’re not letting him get to the most important thing.” (34) Piggy, who was one of the other boys on the island, was never really heard from the boys. He had a little more sense of the situation they were in and the boys were not listening to Piggy, which is why the conch did not go as planned. The leaders set up these rules so that they could follow a system, but having the conch really only made one person overpower the rest. The main people being heard in the group were the leaders, but mostly Ralph.
What happened to Jesus on the Cross was crucial. People think that Jesus being nailed to the Cross was not a good thing at all since it was torture. He was treated like an animal and suffered in one of the worst ways possible. People who do not believe in Catholicism may think that what happened to him was also bad and even people who believe in Catholicism. A church in North Philadelphia wrote an article called “7 Things the Death of Jesus Accomplished”. They go into depth for the “actual” reason Jesus was crucified. The people who killed Jesus did not believe Jesus was working against the Devil but with the Devil. Jesus was being punished for what they had thought he was doing. He was being punished for not only working with the Devil but for incited riots and engaging in treason. This is a way why people think the Cross is an evil thing since what happened to Jesus was being done purposely. Since the conch began to represent evil, it’s an example of the Cross since there are both good and evil sides to it.
Objects are seen in different ways since not everyone is the same person. Everyone has a different opinion and everyone believes in what they think is right. The boys thought the conch was a good thing since they had a system. In other eyes it is an evil thing since only the leaders were actually the ones being heard. The Cross is good for people who believe in Catholicism since Jesus sacrificed himself for us. It gives us hope to move on each day and it shows us how we aren’t different from others. People who have sinned sometimes can feel different or not cherished by God. Having the Cross can mean so much to one person and gives them an understanding of what they did can be forgiven. It is also an evil thing for others outside of Catholicism and even in Catholicism because they actually see different views of the Cross that some Catholics may never see. They could look at it how God was a human being and he was tortured. Since he was a human, can that happen to anyone? Can anyone be easily treated like an animal? It gives people the thought of how easily someone can take a person’s life away, even if it was for a good or bad reason.
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