Obama's speech and the idea of evil

President Obama made his speech accepting the Peace Prize, and, ironically, he devoted much time to the subject of war. Agreed, there are times you must wage war to arrive at peace, as in the defeat of Hitler. But, rather than get mired in the question of whether war is justified or not, I found with I consider a serious problem in Obama's remarks.

He said, "For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world."

My question is why did he have to invoke some vague supernatural force, some ancient reference to gods and devils, implying enlightened beings and dark forces? This is only one step removed from, "We have God on our side."

This whole notion of good vs. evil goes back at least to Zoroastrianism with the good god Ahura Mazda in opposition to the evil one, Angra Mainyu, now renamed "God and the Devil." It all reads much like J. R. R. Tolkien's Ring Trilogy. The whole notion seems too easy an explanation, while not explaining much at all. Like the idea of the soul, good and evil aren't something you can put under a microscope or weigh or make any other determination about. These are labels, and we always use the "good" label to identify ourselves, and the "evil" label for the other guys.

I'm more comfortable with labels such as, "Ignorance, religious fanaticism, criminal activity, sociopathic personality and thugs for hire" to explain why some people do really nasty things, such as murder, rape and other kinds of abuse. At least these terms are descriptive, and we can address what actually happens. If the Taliban's education extended beyond the Koran, perhaps they wouldn't be so hostile to differing viewpoints. As far as religious fanaticism, that has a brutal past in all religions. Also, if people are dirt poor and someone offers them $250 per month to kill the American invaders, that's not evil, it's just trying to keep food on the table.

With statements like "Evil does exist in the world," Obama sounded, not like the super rational person he is supposed to be, but much like Bush, in whose world view everything was either black or white.