First, on Billy Gates...

Lets say there was this person who, every time they got behind the wheel crashed their car into something. Very quickly we take away their drivers license.

Billy Gates has left a trail of destruction behind him. Whether he knows or not, did it deliberately or not, he is a menace to society.

It would be more appropriate to say that i make an appeal to "knowing" and not an appeal to authority.

But, from the viewpoint of someone who doesn't know, hasn't developed the mind to even know, then of course it sounds like an appeal to authority.

So, if you become a highly spiritual person, the order of business to know-thyself.
And one of the things you find is that you are not "one person", that you are a person in a string of people.
You find all kinds of bleed over from other lives.

Thus, from looking into yourself, you know that you are part of a larger collection.
It is not told to you, it is not explained to you. It is something that everyone on this path encounters, even some without ever being told.

Of course, there are all kinds of charlatans. People who, of course, were the Queen of Sheba in a past life. There are more people that say they have been queens then there are queens who have existed.

Here in the west, all of the stuff on reincarnation was written out of the Bible (can't control people with promise of heaven, if they know they will be reincarnated on earth) and so, the idea of reincarnation is laughable requiring great proof (that can never come)

However, in Buddhist traditions, reincarnation is just a given.
Reincarnation is just assumed, and most people plot their lineage not just in physical family, but also in spiritual family.

The Dalai Lama is one of the best examples. Each lifetime, at the age of five, he takes on the mantle of being the Dalai Lama again. Imagine a kid, suddenly continuing the conversation you had with his older self 6 years ago. Kinda hard to dismiss that kind of in your face evidence. And that is just one drop in the bucket. The evidence just mounts and amasses until you would consider yourself insane to thing against reincarnation.

But, of course, the real proof, is that you learn who you were. Then, you KNOW.

Now EVIL is an energy structure. It is quite visible to people with eyes to see.

You could think of EVIL as a spiral going toward the middle, a whirlpool going down the drain, energy going into oblivion.

Likewise you can think of GOOD as a spiral going outward. Always opening up, always allowing more.

EVIL is destructive, and not in a way of destroying something to make room for new growth, but a destruction that permanently makes the world a poorer place.

We, as a species, will develop discernment for seeing the effects of GOOD and EVIL.
Later we will create items that allow us to see those energy patterns. (look up Dr. Emoto's pictures of frozen water drops and their effects from words/energy)

But first, we have to understand that there is EVIL.