On Evil

I was seeing this documentary on PBS "The Question of God" which looks at life from two diametrically opposed views, that of the believer represented by C.S. Lewis and that of the non-believer represented by Sigmund Freud. There was a passage where they show some video of the 2nd world war. England is all in shambles and a lot of homeless are shown, the cities destroyed and vulnerable children are being sent in train somewhere. The commentrator says something to the effect that this was the most horrible (evil) preiod in human history and this led many people to question the existence of God.

There is no question that it was evil. But there were have been other such mass genocides during colonialism. The Spanish Inquistion wiped out an entire civilization. Wars were conducted on almost every continent and millions of natives killed. Was that not evil ? No one questioned His existence then. Or was it all justified under the pretext of spreading Christianism ? Maybe it is evil only when the real believers are massacared? I certainly dont find colonialism as a dark chapter in the human history in history textbooks.

Sometimes it makes me wonder how the events of today will be presented to the new ones a couple of century from now.