Sometimes evil didn't need an excuse. Sometimes evil just was.

Perhaps it is true that, by some definitions, Satan is more religious than God. Many of the particularly proud sinners are deceived into thinking that Satan is anti-religious, that he likes seeing people do immoral things simply because he likes immoral things. Doubtful; Satan likes for people to do immoral things so that he can blame them for doing immoral things. The Father of Lies laughs not with his teammates, but at them.

The critical spirit rises up against itself and consumes its form. But instead of coming out of this process greater and purified, it devours itself in a kind of self-cannibalism and takes a morose pleasure in annihilating itself. Hyper-criticism eventuates in self-hatred, leaving behind it only ruins. A new dogma of demolition is born out of the rejection of dogmas. Thus we euro-americans are supposed to have only one obligation: endlessly atoning for what we have inflicted on other parts of humanity. How can we fail to see that this leads us to live off self-denunciation while taking a strange pride in being the worst? Self-denigration is all too clearly a form of indirect self-glorification. Evil can come only from us; other people are motivated by sympathy, good will, candor. This is the paternalism of the guilty conscience: seeing ourselves as the kings of infamy is still a way of staying on the crest of history.

There's never been an act done since the beginning, from a kid stealing candy to a dictator committing genocide, that the person doing it didn't think he was fully justified. That's a mental trick called rationalizing, and it's done the human race more harm than anything else you can name.

When we look at Abraham, Sarah, Hagar and Ishmael, we see that God's grace can survive our three-ring-circuses of compromise, rationalization and weak faith.

...it is a mistake to reduce every decision about Christian living to a "Heaven-or-Hell issue."For example, some ask if the Bible specifically says a certain action is a "sin" or will send them to "Hell." If not, they feel free to indulge in that action unreservedly and ignore any scriptural principles involved. But this approach is legalistic, which means living by rules or basing salvation on works. It treats the Bible as a law book, focusing on the letter and looking for loopholes.By contrast, the Bible tells us that we are saved by grace through faith, not by our works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Grace teaches us how to live righteously, and faith leads us into obedience. (See Titus 2:11-12; Romans1:5; Hebrews 11:7-8.)