The Existence of Evil :: Philosophy Religion Ethics Essays

The Existence of EvilSix years ago a little girl from my church approached me and asked why the urticate existed, and why bad things happen. At the moment I was a little perplexed and did not know what to say. All that came to my mind was that humankind needed a scapegoat to blame for the occurrence of unfavorable incidents. Blaming adverse conditions on the rally is the easy and obvious way out of either situation. All wiz has to do is to say that the devil was the cause of the situation and wash his hands of the entire problem. At twelve years old, I thought that humanity used the devil as a way to elude responsibility and to ignore the consequences of its actions. It was not until last year that I realized the answer to the little girls question more or less the existence of evil. In English class last year I read Arthur Millers play The Crucible as required reading. According to my English teacher, one theme of The Crucible was that having evil in the world is necessary to b alance out the goodness. If either entity overpowered the other, they would throw off the entire balance. Beside maintaining balance, evilness helps humanity to prise the goodness in the world. Without ugliness, a person cannot enjoy beauty. Without misfortune, a person cannot enjoy fortune. And without evilness, a person cannot enjoy goodness. No one could enjoy goodness in the world, because there would be nothing to compare with it. Concerning religion, if there was no devil in the world to make humanity miserable, then it would not whole tone forward to heaven. There would be no difference between the two, so humankind would not confound to question its actions because there would not be any consequences such as heaven or hell. Imagine a world where everything is perfect, and there is no suffering. Natural laws are bent at the hint of impose on _or_ oppress to humanity. If a plane carrying passengers starts to plummet, gravity ceases and the plane floats down to earth like a feather. Or if a gun is shot at a person, the sluggard turns into a marshmallow so it will not harm anyone. In that world there is no pain nor suffering, just existence. The people do not have to adapt to their environment, because the environment adapts to them. I find this version of life frightening, because the people would take everything for granted.