Anyone raised-up in, exposed to, familiar with, taught the tenants of Christianity can clearly see that it is the evil-one who is winning on this earth.

The non-negatable conclusion must be that the Devil rules, has more power than has the creator-god.
Thus many choose to be evil because their conclusions are wrong.

Whether one seeks to overcome, to join, or to oppose (so-called) evil, one is accepting evil as reality.
Only when evil is accepted as truly existent, can evil enter the heart.

The wise choose the way of Tao, rather than the oat(er)-way.
The other-way is a detour.

The term locus of control seeks to differentiate two ways of thinking—the belief that some people are able to control the outcome of their lives versus the belief that outside factors have the greatest effect, and individuals cannot determine their situation. An internal and external locus of control are forces at play in all of humanity.

A person that has a strong inner locus of control,also has to a lesser extent an outer locus of control.

The outer exists because regardless of having an inner locus of control shit happens and a person with empathy feels what they feel,body reacts,cant control certain things or events in life ect.

Controlling yourself has a partial effect as does circumstances that happen to you.

Reality sometimes is out of control,and to pretend otherwise is denial.

So control monkey,hold onto that wild tiger within. If you be honest he might let you ride for awhile instead of eating you right now.

Belief in a higher power is inherently corruptible for malevolent purposes. Once you can convince people you represent a higher power, the next steps are to get them to:
1) Give you money
2) Do your bidding
3) Give you sexual favors
4) Excuse bad behavior
5) Pretty much anything else you want

If there actually were a higher power who was actually benevolent, that higher power would have prevented these things from happening. The fact it didn’t happen just goes to show the alleged higher power wasn’t all that benevolent to begin with.

Being aware of your own beliefs and the reasons behind the choices of why you believe,takes a good bit of honesty and courage to look at it.

Also not being a damn dark triad toxic manipulating asshole helps.

If those who believe in opposing metaphysical forces of good and evil wanted to be perfectly honest with themselves, the question they should be asking is how they could possibly tell which is which.

It seems like religion has taken a much bigger place in the US these days. I don’t remember religion being such a force, certainly in politics, when I was young. I remember a few main stream religions like Catholics,baptist, Methodists, Lutherans, etcs. They had fairly humble places of worship where people would go on sundays and not think much about otherwise. The first time a saw a large evangelical church was in the 80s. Now they’ve sprouted up everywhere and are supported by tons of money. When I think about it, it’s obvious they figured out how to acquire a lot of property and money. Definitely places of evil.

The GOP has figured out how to combine religion and demagoguery to their advantage, which is nothing new as people have been doing that at least since recorded history.

What is different today as opposed to decades ago is they also have enough control of media to counter anyone who dares to call bullshit.

Take something and add a lot of glitz and entertainment.