Good and Evil

Evil is not really the opposite (in the sense of the opposing and equal counterpart) of good. Trying only to do the opposite of an evil, by studying some particular sin and avoiding it at great effort, doesn't necessarily lead to doing good, but may lead to engaging in quite a different form of evil. The truth is that it has to go in the other direction; the goal must not be just to NOT be evil, it must be to actually BE good. Good is not only that which is not evil; at least, that isn't a useful definition,  not a practical one for understanding which acts or attitudes are good and which are evil, for one can follow a list of things not to do, and still do no good; instead, evil is that which is not good. Goodness is like light, or warmth, or sound; it is a thing in itself. Evil is the absence of it, like darkness, or cold, or silence. Evil is the echo, or the distortion, or the shadow, Good is the original sound, the original image, and the Real Thing.