If there were no evil in the world, would good cease to have meaning?

Answer 1

To many people think that having evil in the world means that God is not merciful and not an all loving God. But really what would happen if everything was good and that God made the world for everything thing to be a perfect peaceful place. He did that already with the Garden of Eden and look how that turned out. Humans become to complacent and took his gifts for granted. Without bad in this world there cannot be any good. The saying "Good has to come with the bad" is great in explaining this. Without hate how would we know what love is? Without suffering how would we know what prospering is? Without greed how would we know what giving is and selflessness?

Answer 2

I've said it a million times, I'll say it again: there is no evil, simply the lack of good. So if everything was good, then I guess it might have no meaning. The sad thing nowadays is that good seriously stands out. Everyone's shocked when someone does something for someone else because everything else is pathetically evil (or lacking in good.) Real life example: I went into the store the other day and after I had paid for what I bought, I said "Have a nice day" to the cashier. She gave me a look of sheer surprise because nobody expects politeness from a teenager or anyone else. It's really sad.

Answer 3

I would have to say no. Imagine if you woke up tomorrow and all bad things were gone. Wouldn't the memory of bad for you make all the good that you feel everyday amazing?

And what if you were born into a world that was only good? If you had a child, wouldn't you want him or her to grow up in a world where there was no pain or sorrow caused because of people's bad actions? That would mean everything to just about any parent.

Answer 4

This question has no meaning.

But I know what you mean! It's just that "good" and "evil" aren't abstract qualities, but expressions of the relation between particular things. Hence heat is "good" for hot dogs but "evil" for ice cream.

Religion insists that there is such a thing as "Absolute Good," identified with God, and "Absolute Evil," identified with Satan. But the most casual examination of the facts tends to undercut this idea. In the above example, is God on the side of the hot dogs or the ice cream?

When God thunders "Thou shalt not kill" from Horeb, and then commands the siege of Jericho, is God a moral relativist? What about the POV of the innocent children of Jericho? We know that God is "good" for the Israelites - is He not then "evil" for Jericho's children? Where then is our quality of "Absolute Good"?

Answer 5

Ah yes, which is why religion's basic "good/bad" dichotomy (and the idea of "perfection" either in heaven or on earth) is so puzzling. There are certainly actions that are more harmful to the actor or more or less harmful to others around, but when are actions "evil"? And without this idea of "evil," where would good be?

I agree with you that this is a sticking point for me in struggling with religion, especially some sort of "perfect" afterlife.

Answer 6

I think it would cease to have meaning because no one could say something is good if there wasn't any bad. This is simply so because if things couldn't be any worse how could they be any better..or GOOD...if there was no bad to begin with. so yes i think good would cease to have a real meaning...

Answer 7

If there were just good, we wouldn't know evil is.
If there we're no evil we wouldn't really have to worry about what is good and bad.

Evilness is the absence of goodness.
I hope that helps somewhat.

Answer 8

A corollary to this is, if there were no falsehood, would truth cease to have meaning? We would not, of course, have anything to compare it with, so linguistically it's meaning may become dilluted, but since the thing itself would continue to exist, we would continue to have a need to quantify it.

Answer 9

Without evil, good, in escence would cease to exist. Everything has to have an oppisite to exist. There cannot be cold without hot.
There couldnt have been music without silence.
And if theres no evil "good" would seize to exist.

Answer 10

The normal opposite of "good" is "bad" - so good will live on. Evil has some sort of moral connection. There will always be "bad". i.e. bad ideas, bad questions, bad people. Why did you use the word "evil" instead of "bad"?