Atheists/agnostics: how do you explain evil?

Question

Obviously you do not appeal to religious explanations. (Or do you?)

So how do you explain the problem of suffering in the world?

Why do you (Phyllis, CD) assume I am religious and immediately jump to insulting me?

Answer 1

Truthfully, there is no such thing as evil.
I know there are thing people do that are extremely anti-social (911, the holocaust, Stalin's Purges, Enron, and so forth) and the people that break these laws of the social contract should be punished.
But people's suffering is a cause of selfishness, greed, cruelty, bigotry, or just plain natural disaster, not "evil". Just like people can be benevolent (nice, kind and loving) with out a super good (God).

Answer 2

I don't necessarily believe there is such a thing as 'evil' as it is generally thought of. That implies that there are certain things that are innately wrong. While some may be bad for our situation, I think it's a bit much to jump to the conclusion that they possess this quality of evil. As for suffering, I think it's much easier to explain this in a godless world than in one with a supposedly almighty and infinitely loving god. If the universe doesn't care one way or the other what happens to you, it's only natural that suffering would exist to some degree.

Answer 3

It's a little childish to explain what WE do to ourselves and others as "evil". Can we not take responsibility for what we do as a society anymore?

There are a ton of things wrong with the world, all of which can be explained by so many countless reasons; One big one being of course ignorance and miseducation. But I suppose it's easy to imagine that all our our ongoing problems are the work of the devil. A lot easier than looking deeper into any real issues.

I wish life was truly that simple.

Answer 4

Well....a lot of it depends on the specific evil act you are referring to. People steal because they want what someone else has. They murder (often) because they are angry and lose control. They lie to get what they want when they shouldn't. The biggest reason for evil is simply that sometimes people do bad things. No one makes them do it, they aren't predestined to sin. But people aren't perfect and some are down right broken. So we all do things that are wrong sometimes.
A lot of suffering is because people don't help other people. They get so caught up in what they want that they don't realize we have a responsibility to help others too. This is the only life any of us have; we owe it to ourselves and those around us to help make this a good life for everyone.
Christians and other religions that have an afterlife forget about this. They teach their followers that this life isn't as important as the life to come, which makes it easier to ignore suffering on this earth.

Answer 5

Most of the "evil" in this world is caused by religious nuts who believe that they are superior to everyone else, who believe they are God's chosen people and they can screw up the whole planet if they feel like it because the end times are right around the corner and they won't be around to deal with the mess they have created.

Answer 6

"Evil" and "suffering" are two different concepts.

There is suffering in the world because the things from which we humans suffer are unavoidable. There are natural disasters because of the way that weather works; we just happen to suffer from that (so do other animals). We suffer because of other people's actions because not everyone behaves nicely all the time, and we can't control what other people do.

As for evil...I think that "evil" is completely subjective. I don't personally believe that there are any people who are completely evil (that is, completely devoid of any goodness, compassion, empathy whatsoever). The only people who could be defined that way are those who are true sociopaths, in which case they aren't accountable for their actions.

I digress. "Evil" actions are defined by us. How to explain the presence of "evil" in the world? We as humans by our nature define and categorize everything. For most everything we have named, there is an opposite. We define what is "light" by opposing it to what is "dark." We must do the same with "goodness" and "evil." It is all dependent upon our definition.

Answer 7

I think I can be called an agnostic. You do not need religion to tell you if something is right or wrong. Good and evil is basically morals. People who are evil know they are doing it but are selfish and self serving. People who do good things are more interested in helping mankind. Since when do you need religion to tell you murdering someone is wrong? Religions do have moral guidlines put into them yes. However moral rights and wrongs are built into a society by its citizens. What is considered evil in one society could be considered completely acceptable in another.

Answer 8

Suffering and Evil are 2 different things. I think that what you call Evil is something that I call "lack of love". Suffering is part of life. We all suffer at one point or another. Even religious people.

Answer 9

Um, the world's imperfect?

Entropy?

Evil is only a 'problem' if you believe in an All-Loving and All-Powerful deity.

Otherwise, it's just a psychological thing; some people just aren't moral due to a combination of environment and genetics.

Answer 10

the world is made from ignorance and intelligence has developed naturally and is over riding that ignorance in time .
notice how the formation of the universe imposes it's natural laws of form into the function of it's nature but intelligence looks first at function through understanding and then designs a form to the desired results . hence in nature function follows form and in mans endeavors form follows function . that's the difference between chance and natural selection or the intelligence of man that came later.