What is evil? It isn't simply chaos, or pain, or feeling bad.?

Question

Real, objective evil is the lack or absence of goodness. That is, the presence of evil presupposes the existance of an objective moral standard that is being violated. If real evil exists, then an objective standard of goodness by which something is deemed evil must also exist. Where could this standard of goodness come from if we are all just cosmic accidents produced by purely physical forces?
The existance of evil is used to argue against belief in God. What then, is the cosmic standard by which we judge evil, if it isn't God?

To zeinzman...Appealing to a social contract or pragmatic basis for acting morally doesn't work. It tells us only that doing the right thing is a good idea, but this hardly shows why we're dutifully obligated to be moral. You've not addressed the fact that for evil to be deemed bad, it must be measured against something standard. Your definition and my definition are different, not constant...neither is societies definition.

To johnmcn49...you didn't even approach answering the question. And rudeness usually indicates weak arguments.

Then answer the question, john, and stop name dropping. Without a constant standard for measuring evil, how do we then decide what evil is?
And where would that standard come from?

Answer 1

Your compass is pointing in the right direction. Evil is the willful act of sin with full conscious awareness of the consequences. And God is the One whose standards do and will judge all evil in that day. The argument from evil against the existence of God actually ends up doing the exact opposite. In an ironic way, evil is its own problem, and so are those led astray by it.

Answer 2

A tough and interesting question, likely to spawn endless answers.

I believe any word such as 'evil' or 'extremely good'(or excellent) is a rough approximation, having many levels, grades, shades, etc of 'badness' or 'goodness'. So between
evil and extemely good persons, there may exist a hundred levels or grades, depending on the seriousness of what sins, crimes or unpleasant actions done. A serial killer or a city cannibal may be considered 'evil' at one extreme end of the spectrum and a Pope or a kind celebrity who gives away millions to the poor and disadvantaged may be termed 'extremely good', at the opposite end.

So i would like to be cautious not to use either terms for every situation but only for extreme cases. Words used correctly can often inspire and make people laugh but they can also do the opposite. Some extreme words have caused fatal fights and some commit suicides after hearing them.

Can we be so sure to say that tsunamis,hurricances, earthquakes, major floods or bush fires, aircraft accidents, or even a giant meteorite crashing onto Earth, etc are acts of God? Millions of innocent people have been killed, yet we cannot say that God or Satan or an unknown Cosmic Force are behind all these. Not correct to say that this is a result of 'evil'. Perhaps one can say, to stretch the imagination a little further, that a Greater Cosmic Force that exists beyond the known Universe could be behind all these happenings of the expansion and collapsing of the Universe, positives and negatives, the good and the evil, and all the strange happenings on Earth. These are yet to be observed and proven.

Physical forces or actions may be generated from mental, intellectual, or cosmic forces, whether evil or good. No one can really say. On Earth and in the Cosmos there are both positive and negative forces, light and dark matter/energy and in-between, thousands of variations in strengths, brightness, etc just like between good and evil. So it is healthy not to take the word 'evil' too strongly in any spoken or printed context, else discrimination, anger, disharmony, panic, etc can set in. It would be depressing for all of mankind to conclude that we humans are all 'evil' just because all of us sin and for the past couple of thousand years, we have not come clean.

The above is just an opinion given at an objective angle. May a set of only benign forces be with you!

Answer 3

1) Evil without any existance of God would then have to present itself in the evolutionary process. Evil being of course the opposite of good would be somewhat theoretical as would gooddess. The thought of a non-God process of any kind would definately be all man made opinions of what is good and bad or evil. Mankind in itself is set up for failure without morals, that being rules, regulations and so on. The world based on a non-God system would have killed itself off early on in the life of evolution.
2) Goodness in the realm of our planet earth under a Creator, God would of course create life forms. Mankind in the begining was given free will, meaning the ability to make choices good or bad. God could have made robotic humanoids, that would bow down and worship and do exactly what God demanded. God is a loving God and so God gave Adam and Eve free will. Just like a child that is born to loving parents. Soon the child does not get their way they cry,throw a fit and disobey the parents. The parent just wants the child then the teenager to obey the rules of the house. The US is filled with so many runaway teens that it is an epidemic. The teen and the parent relationship slowly erodes from the time of pre-teen independence or middle school. They argue and fight and then the parents can't handle their kid and the kid leaves.
In conclusion the force behind evil is disobedience, Satan or the devil introduced disobedience to Adam and Eve. They disobeyed by being deceived/beguiled by the great serpent which is the fallen angel Lucifer. Lucifer disobeyed God in the fact that he wanted to exalt himself above God and heaven.

Answer 4

Evil is not used to argue against gods, but merely to show either the lack of control of said gods or other simple holes in theology. Essentially, what you consider evil is societal standardizing. Is murder evil? What if its in self defense. There is no objective definition and as such it serves as much purpose as the term good. Hence, good and evil are not independant notions but a societal "grading" system of sorts based on action. When one puts to test the monotheistic gods by this notion, they clearly do not indicate the "all good" moniker that they are given by their followers. This is not an insult to your gods, but rather a justification and logical analysis for why there would be no perfect being. At least not one in tandom with our existence, which clearly is not any more devoid of "evil" than it is of "good".

Answer 5

Try good the basis of honor . to paraphrase Ayn Rand the major difference between good and evil is those things that promote life are good and that which diminishes life is evil . Most of common law is based upon the idea of what a reasonable man has a right to and life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is a life worth serving .W/g-d or W/out morality is important to us not to g-d .In the Hindu system of belief they call creation Avidya meaning the the beginning which was chaos and ignorance then Buddha from the Hindu school contemplated life and found suffering and formulated ways to diminish pain and suffering but the nature of life will have suffering until science advances beyond it and nature is neither good nor bad but neutral and it is worth working to harness it for a better life .One need not argue against g-d for their is no proof of g-d but argue for better ways of leading good lives and if by some freak occurrence there is a god who cares if he is so evil as to hate good people we should not allocate wasted fear of g-d but fear of our own ignorance . Ethics in the justice system exemplify the fact that morality can be attended to in a secular manner;it's still young and has room for improvement as does our grasp of morality and how to aim for it .
peace

Answer 6

What a brilliant question. Any standard other than God's must be created by man, who is himself inherently evil, at least by God's standard. What other cosmic force is there to produce this cosmic standard other than God and man? Any standard man creates cannot be absolute, because we are limited in our understanding of perfect good. So evil really is the absense of God.

Answer 7

quote:

"A university professor challenged his class: "Did God create everything?" A student replied, "Yes." The professor continued: "If God created everything, then He created evil too. And since our works define who we are, then God is evil." The class became silent. Suddenly another student raised his hand and asked, "Professor, does darkness exist?" The professor responded, "Yes." The student replied, "No, sir, darkness does not exist. Darkness is just the absence of light. Light, we can study, but not darkness. In fact we can use Newton's prism to break the white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. But you cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Darkness is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present." Then the young man asked, "Sir, does evil exist?" Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course." To this the student replied, "No, evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. It is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness, a word that man has created to describe the absence of light. God did not create evil. It is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. Evil is like the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no light." The professor sat down. The young man's name was Albert Einstein."

Answer 8

We are not accidents, but the product of evolution by natural selection Dogs, when accepting the submission of an inferior show an evolved moral sense; even if ultimately it is only to avoid combat. Chimpanzees have been observed in empathy. Elephants apparently show something akin to mourning.
Do not be an ignoramus all your life; get an education.

No. In this case, rudeness indicates disgust with your ignorance. Read " Moral Minds ", by Mark Hauser, for a simple, not technical work, expounding on our evolved morality. I could of brought forth the work of Robert Trivers, on reciprocal altruism, but it is highly technical and full of mathematical paraphernalia. Your ill posed and ignorant question shows that you are not even capable of countering a weak argument.

Answer 9

Evil is more than a simple belief in the absence of God. Evil came about as a result of a belief that someone thought they were more wise and important than God Himself.

Answer 10

according to einstien, evil is like darkness... darkness is nothing more than the absense of light-- and evil is just the absense of good

i hope this helps...


*here's your inteligent answer from an athiest wildatheart*