If there is a God, why is there evil?

[JPhillips]

There is evil because there is ignorance. God gave us free will to choose between good and evil . We choose evil over good when we think it will make us feel good at the moment or best serves our own selfish desires and purposes. We commit evil and are willing to risk the consequences based upon how good it makes us feel in the moment. Usually we think it will more than likely go unpunished because we do not expect to get caught. Sometimes people get so caught up in their own bad behavior that they allow it to spiral out of control. The more a person behaves a certain way, the more it becomes an established pattern or a bad habit which becomes extremely difficult to break. Additionally, we become desensitized and feel less guilt after numerous repetitions. When we knowingly choose to do something we know is wrong, either we are not concerned as to how our actions affect others, or we feel the benefits outweigh the costs such as the feeling s of the impending guilt that may come later.

On a smaller scale of committing evil, you have men cheating on their wives or people cheating other people out of money in a business transaction. On a larger scale, you have sadistic dictators who enjoy hurting the people they should be protecting. It is much easier to understand the former than it is to understand the latter, since sadism does not appeal to most of us. A desire for power and control over others undoubtedly plays a major role. Also, it has been shown that many people who hate others and want to hurt others also hate themselves. This could become a vicious cycle, as the more they hurt others, the more they hate themselves. Think of how many times you’ve heard of abused children who grow up and abuse the people they love. Their sense of worth was surely greatly diminished as children. They tend to blame themselves. They feel unworthy of love rather than to cast blame on the parent who abused them. Feelings we have as a child can be most difficult to overcome as we get older.

If you truly understand the concept of free will, you know that God cannot choose to allow the small sins and act against the large sins, in a way which would violate the laws of nature which He created. God acts through his faithful flock of people who fight against evil and are willing to die to do so. In our day to day existence we think God has deserted us. When we stop and realize how little time we are on earth compared to how long we will live after we die, it becomes more meaningful as to why God allows us to hurt each other in order to learn to love each other. We are all connected so that evil committed against one is committed against all. Until we all learn this lesson, we will remain ignorant and we will continue to hurt each other. Once we realize the principle of Karma, or the Golden Rule, or the meaning of the Christian teaching of an eye for an eye, we will understand that in order to be free from pain we must stop causing pain.

I believe we are still in the early learning stages of our spiritual development. If you compare where the world is today, as a whole, as to where it was in the Dark Ages, you might agree. In the Dark Ages, crowd of people sometimes entertained themselves by viewing prisoners as they were being publicly tortured and executed by order of the king. Surely the world as a whole, and especially the more advanced nations, has made progress.

When each and every one of us is capable and strives to live in accordance with the teachings and examples set by the Buddha, or Jesus Christ, or Gandhi, then we will see the disappearance of evil in the world.

[Meleagar]

[Philosophallic Soda]

If everything was nice and peaceful, life would be boring.

But thanks the Lord Almighty, life is all about having enemies and spending your time thinking about how to screw them up.

[SpiralsHappen]

Evil is only a byproduct of mans various degrees of sickness. Certainly what wild animals and insects do to each other is never looked upon as evil. So if man with his freewill were not on the planet then there would be no evil even among all the other creatures, including dinosaurs.

Insead of calling it sin, consider the macrobiotic perspective and call it what it really is "sickness". Man with his freewill and greedy five senses will almost always find trouble. There is a order to the universe and from this order comes balance. We can notice balance when we realize something like our solar system and how its planets do not crash into each other. This would be chaos if the planets were not healthy and with out order. Man is no different. If he lives out of order then he becomes unhealthy and with chaos in his life. Live out of balance and live with less health and order.

[JPhillips]

SpiralsHappen

You make a valid point. Out of all God's creatures, man is the one who is concerned about what life will bring and what death will bring. Man's life is so complicated. He don't know what we want and usually when he thinks he wants something and gets it, he realizes it really wasn't what he wanted. In short, he drives himself crazy then does crazy things.

People blame God for evil, then get to the point they refuse to believe God exists because a loving God would not allow evil to happen. Funny, we are the ones who are responsible for evil and yet God still believes in us.

[Belinda]

If there is a God why is there evil? may be two separate questions.

There is moral evil such as bearing false witness or stealing.There is natural evil such as earthquakes, epidemics and wildfires.
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Socialist

[OTavern]

[Meleagar]

[Wiggety]

[quote="MyshiningOne"]

[Santini]

True, Wiggety, and nicely put.

Also, to say as some have said in this thread, that in essence "The ways of our Lord are mysterious" is to engage in one of the world's biggest cop-outs. Even fundamentalist believers, in some dark, barely explored crease in their brains, probably realize that.

All such an "answer" really means is that there is no known reasonable answer that explains a benevolent, omnipotent, omniscient God's inaction in such a horrific situation.

If one seriously examines this problem, one quickly surmises that the belief in an omnipotent, omniscient, and always benevolent god who exists in a world in which natural evil occurs must be relinquished

. . . or that one must declare oneself to be a lunatic on this matter who is not open to reasonable persuasion.

[OTavern]

[Belinda]

Wiggety wrote