If you define evil as “human suffering” then why does evil exist?
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um, I can’t say I or many other people here would define evil as “human suffering”. Hence, your question sort of becomes slightly invallid…
However, I might offer a few other definitions of evil:
“the opposite of good”
“a reference by which we can comprehend what ‘good’ is”
etc.
I feel human suffering is actually a good way to think of the word evil, if you have to use the word evil. I think, in fact, the sum total of all factors that cause and transmit suffering, lumped together in a big ball, should be called “evil.” I think that would be fair – to call that evil. Only problem is it exists by necessity, and much of that foul smelling debris is comprised of and intertwined with aggregate forces and causes that can and do bring good feelings and neutral events as well. So we come up with evil because life sometimes can be a bitch for humans, and life is a bitch thanks to physics, and the case of the natural universe. It’s Darwinian – at least that’s the only apparent answer. It’s empty and incomplete feeling, but at least its not fabrication.
Evil exists because we hurt. We hurt because we evolved that way, due to physical surroundings. To understand why, you’d have to not only study cosmology and QED, you’d have to resolve these fields with a theory of everythign. Even then, who can say you’ll really know why things are the way they are.
Usually it’s because that person grew up in a somewhat abusive childhood. If they, say, rape a six-year old child, or even kill several people and not feel terrible about either of those things, then to them being evil isn’t such a bad thing.
Here is my stance: (Remember it is late, I haven’t gotten much sleep as of late and I shall elaborate on my point of view at an appropriate hour).
I believe that evil exists in this world because without evil, there cannot be any good. With every action there comes good or evil. Giving money to charity is labeled as good. Killing someone is labeled as evil and cruel. If good exists in this world, evil must, because evil is the absence of good. And good is the absence of evil. If good exists in this world, there must be an opposite of good, otherwise good cannot exist. If good cannot exist, our actions are just actions, nothing more, and whatever we do is labeled as nothing.
Okay, I can give you a bit more credit than before…
but, if evil can be roughly defined as human suffering, and we agree that God, by definition cannot be evil…then no one who agrees with such a definition has any right to accuse God of causing man’s troubles. correct?
does evil exist or is it just what humans don’t like and is therefore egotistically labelled evil. good and evil have developed because through development of societies we needed to know what has good and bad effects, upsets people or endangers the life and well being of humans. on the other hand, if evil and good are absolute then evil teaches us how to be good because the possibility of being bad was there but we didn’t take it therefore making us ‘more good’ then if evil was not a possibility