Why does evil exist?

[Aphex_Twin]

and why do innocents suffer, why do bad things happend to good people when God is supposedly omni-benevolent?


I feel this question has been evaded and ill-answered so far. To provide one is the desired purpose of this thread.


Please, stick to the point, no thread-jacking and no trolling.

 

[Warman17]

Good and Evil are just relative. What ever we consider immoral is evil. If we believed killing someone in cold blood was not immoral, and was acceptable in society, it wouldn't be evil.

 

[Aphex_Twin]

I'm playing more on the inconsistencies or paradoxes arised from the existance of a God that is all good. The premises of this thread are that God exists and that good and evil are well definable (but not necessarily in the mathematical sense).

 

[Masquerouge]

Well, you know, life's life. It's only because we, as humans, came up with morals and religions that we're dividing things into just/unfair, good/bad.

Now to me the important point is, do you want morals you freely choose and uphold, or morals imposed by some kind of god ?

 

[classical_hero]

Evil exists because we are inheritly evil. The Bible clearly states that we are evil because we are sinners. It is our own fault that evil exists, not God. He did not force us to do evil, we are very good at doing that ourselves.

 

[GeneralZed]

God is just a symbol to represent things humanity can't explain even with science. So the bible is just something for the people to get their ideals like:
Do not kill
Do not steal
etc.

This is why god doesnt help people because they pray or have a bad life. God won't feed the poor children in Africa. This is why we have to understand the past: Africa was conquered by Europeans, Africa wasn't much improved by the Europeans, was splitted in some parts, there were corrupt leaders and all this conducted to the mass poverty in Africa.

It's up to us to help them have a good life and a good job. We need to get corporations over there to create job and not just give money to the government, for they are corrupt. But I expect an overpopulation in Africa and this would be disastrous for nature: more cars will polute even more, tropical jungles need to be harvested to make more space for polluting industry and many other problems.

 

[nonconformist]

"Evil" is a word attached to actions by people who conside those actions to be in their definition of "evil"

 

[Bozo Erectus]

Human evil is mostly stupidity on the part of the 'evildoers'. Was the tsunami disaster evil? No because it wasnt a premeditated act. Evil exists among us, but not as a force embodied in some spiritual entity opposed to god.

 

[Princeps]

A person thats morally bad, corrupt, wantonly destructive, selfish, and wicked can be considered evil.

('couse the allknowing wikipedia says so )

 

[stormbind]

GOOD & EVIL are just oposite ends of the same scale:

EVIL -infinity .... +infinity GOOD

You see, they are the same thing!

 

[Narz]

Evil exists because people have decided to think it exists.

I don't think it exists therefore there is no evil in my life.

Now someone may approach me with malice or cruelty (intent to do me harm) but I don't see them as evil, I just see them as thinking that is the best way to accomplish their ends. If something thinks kindness is the best way to achieve their ends then they will be kind.

If you want to get biblical... think about Adam and Eve... they were living a pretty peaceful life until God decided to create evil. Note that they had no mental contruct of evil (and therefore did not see each other or anything in the world as being it) until they ate from the tree of knowledge (the knowledge of the concept of evil), then their whole lives fell apart.

Crime and punishment (and judgement) are unknown in the natural world, there is only cause and effect.

If eating apples and getting naked are evil then America watch out, you have a hardcore evildoer in your midst!

 

[cgannon64]

If you assume a benevolent God exists for sake of argument, why do you care when you die? Why do you care if you suffer?

All here is transcience. It loses what little importance it has in the face of such permanence.

 

[sourboy]

and why do innocents suffer, why do bad things happend to good people when God is supposedly omni-benevolent?

"Evil" is a label to describe a type of act that's generally considered poor.

The act itself comes from "choice" or the ability of one to decide which action to take. This choice, in biblical terms, is often referred to as "free will" - something "god" gave to his created people.

Since people can choose their actions, there will be differences in the interpretation of these actions. Based on perspective, these differences will result in "goods" & "evils" - the latter often being dubbed as a result of "satan/lucifer's" acts.

Either way, it's pretty safe to say that "free will" leads to differences that people can either accept or disapprove of. God has nothing to do with it. If god does have something to do with it, than you have to ask one of two things:

1) did god create this evil as an option, then allow us to pawn it off as satan's, even though the bottom line is that it's an option allowing right & wrong (thus joy & pain).

2) are our paths preset, thus free will doesn't exist, and evil is not really evil, but just an alternative - leaving our grand ending (heaven?) or bliss via gods protection (thus upholding the view of "omni-benevoulent").

 

[Shadylookin]

I'm playing more on the inconsistencies or paradoxes arised from the existance of a God that is all good. The premises of this thread are that God exists and that good and evil are well definable (but not necessarily in the mathematical sense).

I would say because an omni-benevolent deity does not exist, but if I have to go with your basic premises then...

god is unaware of us

god is unable to understand suffering

god does not know that the chemical reactions in our brain actually cause suffering

god is unable to stop suffering

god was killed by an omni-malevolent deity

 

[stormbind]

Now someone may approach me with malice or cruelty (intent to do me harm) but I don't see them as evil, I just see them as thinking that is the best way to accomplish their ends. If something thinks kindness is the best way to achieve their ends then they will be kind.

Huhmnumn *and other sounds implying a desire to disagree*

So you think people only do things to get something in return?

This certainly seems true for the more manipulative members of society, but lets take a gentle example where it might be less obvious:

Lets say I did something because I want to make someone else happy. What I get in return is: later, when I recall the situation, I can delude myself into thinking I'm not such a jerk afterall.

That wasn't very convincing: I didn't even convince myself! How does the above - probably hypothetical - scenario factor into your equation?

 

[BasketCase]

See Warman's post: good and evil are relative.

My two gpt: different people have different (and frequently conflicting) ideas of what's good and what's evil. To some people, committing one murder to save a thousand lives is good; to other people, the exact same action is evil.

So there's not even a universal consensus on what good and evil are. On top of which, God never appeared out of the Ether to actually tell us--he simply left us a book who's source can't be verified.

Or, maybe God saw that his creations had evolved beyond his expectations, so he decided to stop changing things around and just see what evolves. He could simply be staying out of our business to see what we're capable of? (Or maybe we're citizens in one of his Civ3 games.....)

Edit: Y'all will have to excuse me for a while--I suddenly have a real urge to go build a road outside. I have no idea why......

 

[Elrohir]

Innocents suffer and bad things happen to good people because this is an imperfect world, full of evil and sin.

 

[general_kill]

god helps those who help themselves.

it means stop praying to god to correct everything wrong in ur life and get out there and take initiatives to make ur life better. u think if god exists, he wants to hear 6 billion people around the world asking him for stuff and make their lives better?

 

[Communisto]

There is no evil, just different points of view

 

[GenMarshall]

I dont beleve that there are clear different points between good and evil. There is a grey region inbetween the extrime good and extrime evil.