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The Face of Evil
No shit, there I was: thinking evil thoughts. Or more specifically, thoughts about how evil compares across the major religions of the world. But I didn’t have to do all the footwork myself, when Google could do it for me!
So the first thing I did was a Google Image search on Satan. Of the results on the first page, fifteen were evil images, one was a happy little Satan, one was the Satan from South Park, and the last image was a diagram of nine “satan fingers” to flash in heavy metal concerts. Oooo, scary!
Next up: Islam. A Google Image search on Iblis turned up thirteen evil images, three interesting abstract designs, a Battlestar Galactica ship, and fan art for what appears to be a series called “Charmed” on WB with the caption, “The Tempting Ones”. Pretty evil, I’d say.
Hinduism is represented by Rahu. A Google Image search on Rahu again returns mostly the god eating the sun, but also with two charts of the orbit of the theoretical planet Rahu, which is the cause of eclipses, and a garnet ring from VedicStore.com. Pretty solidly evil.
On cannot discount the Zoroastrians. The results for a Google Image search for Angra Mainyu were 100 percent the evil god, if you count one instance of evil god on a tee shirt. This guy’s got evil down to a science!
In Egypt, Set is the big man. But the images returned for a Google Image search on Set include a tea set, a drum set, a chemistry set, a movie set, the Mandelbrot set, the Julia set, one image for a set of nude pictures, and setting a Guinness World Record for the number of bikini-clad women needed to form the Olympic rings (1202). As evil goes, Set’s name doesn’t carry much weight.
Finally, we get to Buddhism. In Buddhism, the evil one is known as Mara. But unlike all the other candidates, a Google Image search on Mara returns only one image of Buddha’s temptation, two photos of an Argentinian rodent, and an overwhelmingly abundant fifteen images of beautiful women! Score! Now whose evil do you think is best, huh?
Just thought I’d share, in case you were wondering.