Evil — no other word has a history of causing such malevolence and death.

Is there an evil, malevolent force in the universe known as the devil or Satan? Does this negative force delight in causing human chaos and wholesale destruction on earth? Are people who commit acts counter to the tenets of their respective philosophies—acts known as sins—transported to a place of unspeakable, eternal torment after death, and are such people in hell right now, prisoners to perpetual damnation? More than a billion people would answer yes to these questions because the teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all monotheistic religions claiming Abraham as their common ancestor, have promoted a belief system incorporating evil, the devil, and hell. The evil we perceive, though, is not the outcome of premeditated acts of the devil or any mythical Prince of Darkness; the author of evil is of human origin, due entirely to our gross misunderstanding of ancient mythology.

This mythological worldview had its beginning not by revelation within these religions but in the teachings of Zoroaster, a Persian prophet who lived from ca. 628 to ca. 551 BCE and was the founder of Zoroastrianism. Zoroaster was the first to proclaim the existence of a dualistic belief system in his account of a struggle between good and evil. This belief system was then transported to Israel by individuals returning from captivity in Babylonia. Subsequently, Judaic, Christian, and Islamic leaders all adopted this belief in a power of darkness opposed to the beneficent power of God, and very few present-day adherents of these faiths know that the root of this worldview can be traced to Zoroastrianism.

For example, Pope Paul VI stressed the fundamental and enduring nature of this belief in 1965:

For a monumental struggle against the powers of darkness pervades the whole history of man. The battle was joined from the very origins of the world and will continue until the last day as the Lord has attested.¹