Why do Good people allow Evil to prevail against them?

Question

I know that some believe that God commands us to not fight evil, though I couldn't disagree more strongly, but how do people justify it in their hearts?

I have seen spouse's abuse their partners without fight or flight. I have seen parents abuse their children only to have the children condemn themselves for it and seek their parents' love even more. I have seen girlfriends stay with abusive guys, and justify the violence and condescension or diminish the evil of it, even to great extremes. And so for decades now my heart continually cries out to them, screaming, "Why?!" How do people justify it enough to subject themselves to more without either fighting it or fleeing it?

PS: I need an answer more comprehensive and understandable than because that's what they were taught, or they know of no other way/path. There has got to be more of an answer to it than because they are nothing without the abuse; they are nothing with the abuse. So what gives?

For Miss Practical, people cite, "Turn the other cheek," "Thy will not mine be done," "Forgive thine enemy," and dozens of other hits, er I mean scriptures.

For many other Answerers, I understand psychological abuse, but I chose to fight the abuse from about age 6 at the expense of being thrown out of the house, confined to my room, humiliated, and even hurt. I can't understand why people choose the path of submission, even in religion, so I'm looking to you to shed some light on this. I want to understand, because I refused to "Learn Submission," or whatever, from the earliest of ages. By substantial exposure to it, I grew immune to a large degree of pain, both physical and psychological, in my fight against abuse, control, and Evil. I fought when I knew the war was completely lost. For me, giving up was not the easier path, for the stakes were far too high for such a precedent. So I can't understand arguments along those lines very well at all.

Answer 1

This has nothing to do with God.

Half of the population is too weak and scare to fight evil.

Any person with a strong personality will not let evil rule their life. They will fight it with every ounce of energy in their body.

People are scare for nothing. It does not matter who you deal with...they are just people. If you stand up to them...they will back down. The same apply with bullies...if nobody was weak...bullies would not exist.

Unfortunately we now live in a generation where people expect the government to protect them from everything. Nobody fight for themselves anymore. If you have an argument with your neigbour, you don't try to solve it...you just call the police. Once the police is gone...you and your neigbour are mortal ennemies for life. If people don't learn to fight their own fight...they will keep getting weaker and evil will prevail over good.

Answer 2

With children, as another has stated, parents/adult care givers are all that they have. They MUST hold tight for survival. But you'll notice that as the children grow up, one of two things happen: 1 - they simply cave in to this behavior pattern and never learn to fight it. It's called Learned Helplessness. If one suffers enough abuse and no rescue/escape is ever provided, then 'logically', there is no reason to resist.

The best example of this is the case with circus elephants. For the first several months or so of their life, they are chained to a stake in the ground which they cannot break no matter how hard they fight it. Eventually, they stop fighting and just accept their fate. Once accomplished, the trainer can merely tie the elephant with a loose rope to a stick in the ground and the elephant will never run away, even though it easily could. Why? Learned Helplessness.

2 - The children don't run away, but do in fact start to have anger fester inside of them. Eventually they either do run away/escape in some fashion or they turn on the abuser and seriously hurt or kill them.

As for adults, it can also be a case of Learned Helplessness, but even more so, it is a case of low self-esteem/inferiority complex. They either grew up in a situation like this and so 'seek' it out as adults - it's a comfort zone thing. Unpleasant, but a known environment, so they can navigate it. - or once in a situation like this, they feel themselves unworthy of anything better, so decide that it's better to stay than run. In many cases, manipulative, emotionally abusive males seek out insecure women and mentally beat them into this kind of mindset. It's classic psychological manipulation. The same principle that military boot camp uses whereby they emotionally beat you down, stripping you of identity, and then build you back up the way they want you. Only in abusive relationships, there is never a building back up. Just threats and abuse.

People in this position should not be judged. They are truly enslaved from an emotional standpoint. One does not 'just walk away' from these situations.

Answer 3

People do evil because they are sooo depressed and desperate about their own life of unfairness, injustice, discrimination, etc that they no longer believe there's anything good in the world. Thus, they resort to evil as the only alternative they know as a mean of survival.

This is from my personal direct experience.

To those who accept abuse with a willing heart, it's because they feel they are unworthy to be treated good possibly because they were brought up to have these low self-esteem that they are useless, stupid, worthless, etc that they don't think they deserve any kind of goodness. And thus, they tolerate evil and abuse.

Answer 4

God commands us to NOT fight evil? what kind of crap is that? are you christian? if you are, what's all that stuff in the bible about putting on the armor of christ, the shield of truth and the sword of righteousness etc...or whatever. evil is crafty. evil is persistent. evil is strong. it sounds to me like your question is more like, "why do bad things happen to good people?" all the stuff you talk about here that you've seen, what is that? it's just a testament to the fact that evil is real. evil is in your face, every day. unrelenting. you think if everyone perfectly staves off evil and lives peacefully among each other that evil will cease to exist? you can't possibly sit in judgment of the world, man. i'm not talking about just the bad stuff. i'm also talking about the good stuff. you (and i) are not entrusted with the decision making capabilities to determine who deserves what. that's why the commandments were handed down. if left to our own devices, we devise a system that's only set to fail. anything made by human hands or minds is flawed, as we are. i can't tell you why people stay. fear, maybe. the lie that it's scarier to leave than to stay. either way, worry about the people you CAN touch, the people you CAN influence. cuz, though everyone can't do for themselves, God put people here that can do for others. the next time you witness abuse, fight for the abused or help them run.

Answer 5

I learned something interesting recently in my primate behavior class. They did a study on monkeys with fake surrogate mothers made out of wire and cloth. The researchers studied a few different things with these surrogate mothers. One of them was trying to duplicate the behavior of a mother that is actively pushing the infant away when it's trying to cling to her. They tried a few different things to scare the monkey off like having water spray out of the mom or spikes coming out. You would think the infant would let go for this little while and cling on again when the discomfort was over. But nope, the infants actually clung on even harder and waited for the rejecting phase to pass.

The theory they came up with was that infants depend on their parents for survival and if the parent rejects them or tries pushing them away, they don't have any other choice then to just cling tighter... otherwise they'll surely die on their own. Then they made the comparison to humans and exactly what you were explaining.

I think that's a good example of why kids put up with it. And I know you don't want to hear, "that's all they know, or that's what they were taught" but learned behaviors are the hardest to break.

People need to be accepted and loved, and unfortunately a lot of people think that comes with abuse and pain.

Answer 6

It has nothing to do with allowance. Evil and Good is nothing more then personality, which can be molded and changed. In a abusive relationship, one party tends to realize that they can get away with it, and will continue to do so without regards for the others emotions. This will develop an "evil" personality. The "good" party tends to try and see the positive side of things, give more chances, or try to change things which only builds the "evil" personality. Evil doesn't necessarily prevail in any sense, but it only continues.

Answer 7

i`m gonna try to explain this, as far as personal expreince, but when you grow up in an abusive family situation, you think it is normal, cause it`s instilled in you.you have little self esteem, so you are drawn to those, that you don`t realize will do the same. most of the time in a marriage or relationship,you unknowingly bring out the worst in your partner.i was lucky to have a husband who ,together , we worked on breaking the cycle.we are happier than we`ve ever been but it takes a lot of work on both sides.

Answer 8

Because those abusive peoplelearn how to control and hurt other people and they learn that they will always find another person that will allow them to abuse them. Some people dont view other people as people, some people view other people as merely object.

But, when a person hurt ENOUGH, they will change.

Answer 9

Get that idea out of your head; no one is good, no one is bad. People who consider themselves "good" are often blind to the world, seeing everyone including themselves as having a heart of gold.

Answer 10

cause they're too good. they don't want to hurt the evil person so they back down. The only way to overcome evil is to confront and battle it...