From a non-Christian perspective, why is there evil?

[essentialsaltes]

Why not?

Which part?

'You can't derive an ought from an is.'

Hume famously proposed this, and I agree with him in the main.

Just because it would be an evolutionarily successful strategy for men to procreate as frequently as possible with as many women as possible, does not mean that it would be moral to do so.

First of all, I don't think very many men actually believe that frequent indiscriminate procreation is the moral path to virtue. (Some few may believe that frequent indiscriminate intercourse is the path to fun, but that's quite different.) If we were moral slaves to evolution, this would not be the case.

But more importantly, just because it is a successful way to spread your genes and increase your genetic fitness, does not in itself mean that one ought to act that way.

Just because it is a fact that things fall down when you drop them, does not mean one ought to drop everything. To morality, the facts of evolution are just as irrelevant as the facts of gravity.

Now one could adopt or assume a meta-ethical axiom as the foundation for your moral system, like.

One ought to act in a way to increase one's reproductive success.

This is not an is statement. So it can't be derived from other is statements. But if you made this assumption then it would be moral (in this system) to procreate indiscriminately. But nobody but the most backward scientismist (or creationist strawman of an evilutionist) does such a thing.

Most people adopt some other moral system.

One ought to increase the well-being of everyone.
One ought to never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.
One ought to behave in a way that it could become a general rule.
One ought to seek pleasure, in moderation.

 

[J0hnSm1th]

If Jesus summed up the commandments as "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and expanded this in terms of putting other people's welfare above your own; then the beginning of evil is to do the opposite. That is, to be selfish and always put your needs/wants/desires above the welfare of others. This also goes against the genetic tribe/herd imperative that gives a survival advantage to humans who group together into well functioning tribes.

Evil goes further in that some people seek pleasure/satisfaction/kicks in willfully causing suffering in others.

 

[quatona]

I know there some other threads about evil, but I didn't see one specifically looking for a non-Christian answer to the question. Christians have an easy answer to the question of why there is evil. I'd like to hear non-Christian answers to why you think there is evil in the world (deftly avoiding how a non-Christian defines what "evil" is). Thanks.

As a non-theist, I perceive most "Why is there...?" questions as loaded.
"Why"-questions can ask for a lot of very different explanations. E.g. under the premise that a conscious Creatorgod exists, "Why is there...?" quite apparently asks for the motive/purpose/intention behind creating the world as it is. Without this premise, I have no idea what kind of answer this question might even look for.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

There are said to be 4 causes. Formal final material and effieient. Science has allegedly "done away with" the "final cause" or "objective/ end / purpose" side of the cosmos. THe universe is the other three all rolled into one.


My thoughts:

Indeed, it is We who bring the dead to life and record what they have put forth and what they left behind, and all things We have enumerated in a clear register (imam al mubin - clear register, record, leader, path...). (from surah ya sin, koran)

The clear register is IMLO (in my laughable opinion) that very universe "rolled into one"....

the sphere of the expanding universe as it interferes with itself (in wave interference/interaction patterns, in our terms by people interacting in relativistic space-time).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCYv0_qPk-4

No I am not a physicist, I am a "drop out".

 

[essentialsaltes]

A: So not just Child Abuse is a matter of opinion but also Genocide as well?
B: No surprise there. Under that worldview everything is relative.

Me: The OT God's opinion on the Amalekites was that genocide was right. Was that just his opinion or was he objectively right about that? Or objectively wrong about that?

Any response from dysert or Inkfingers? You've accused me of exemplifying the "hideous void at the heart of relativism".

And yet I think that genocide is always wrong.

What's your opinion? Is genocide sometimes right (when God orders it)?

Who's the relativist here, anyway?

 

[dysert]

A: So not just Child Abuse is a matter of opinion but also Genocide as well?
B: No surprise there. Under that worldview everything is relative.

Me: The OT God's opinion on the Amalekites was that genocide was right. Was that just his opinion or was he objectively right about that? Or objectively wrong about that?

Any response from dysert or Inkfingers? You've accused me of exemplifying the "hideous void at the heart of relativism".

And yet I think that genocide is always wrong.

What's your opinion? Is genocide sometimes right (when God orders it)?

Who's the relativist here, anyway?

Would you please cite the Bible reference where "the OT God's opinion on the Amalekites was that genocide was right"? Thanks.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Would you please cite the Bible reference where "the OT God's opinion on the Amalekites was that genocide was right"? Thanks.

1 Sam 15:2-3

2 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.

3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

 

[dysert]

1 Sam 15:2-3

2 Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt.

3 Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.

Thanks for that. Before I get into it, I realize this answer won't sit well with you (and perhaps many others), and I may in fact be wrong. It's what I believe though...

A little history:

Deu 25:17-19--> "Remember what the Amalekites did to you on the journey after you left Egypt. They met you along the way and attacked all your stragglers from behind when you were tired and weary. They did not fear God. When the LORD your God gives you rest from all the enemies around you in the land the LORD your God is giving you to possess as an inheritance, blot out the memory of Amalek under heaven. Do not forget.​

So God was leading His people out of Egyptian bondage and into the Promised Land. The Amalekites, who didn't fear God, picked them off. So God said their memory was to be blotted out when they get to Canaan.

A great battle ensued between the Amalekites and the Israelites as recorded in Exo. 17:8-16. Verse 14 says "The LORD then said to Moses, "Write this down on a scroll as a reminder and recite it to Joshua: I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek under heaven.""

So when the time was right, the Lord kept His word and destroyed them for what they had done to God's people. God's response was based on the aggression of the Amalekites and not of His initiative (if you know what I mean).

That's my human understanding of the events. The spiritual understanding is that whatever God does is right. His destruction of Amalekites -- for whatever reason -- was right. He was not wrong, and He is not wrong in anything He does. Only God has perfect wisdom and can therefore judge with 100% accuracy the justness of His actions. Feeble man cannot.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Thanks for that. Before I get into it, I realize this answer won't sit well with you

In one sense, it sits quite well with me. You believe that genocide is sometimes justified (when God orders it). If God "is not wrong in anything", and God gave this order, then that seems to be the only consistent conclusion.

Of course, since I think genocide is always wrong, I disagree with your conclusion.

 

[dysert]

In one sense, it sits quite well with me. You believe that genocide is sometimes justified (when God orders it). If God "is not wrong in anything", and God gave this order, then that seems to be the only consistent conclusion.

Of course, since I think genocide is always wrong, I disagree with your conclusion.

Ok, so can we then agree that genocide (apart from God's command) is evil? If so, back to the OP, where does this evil come from (again, from a non-Christian perspective)?

 

[quatona]

Ok, so can we then agree that genocide (apart from God's command) is evil? If so, back to the OP, where does this evil come from (again, from a non-Christian perspective)?

From Spain.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Ok, so can we then agree that genocide (apart from God's command) is evil? If so, back to the OP, where does this evil come from (again, from a non-Christian perspective)?

Evil is not a thing. Right and wrong are judgments that people make about the things they see in the world. If we agree that a mountain lake is beautiful, we don't ask where the beauty came from. We have a subjective experience of the beauty. We are describing the lake as beautiful. The beauty that we ascribe to it, is actually a judgment in our heads, not a substance that composes it.

Everyone has his own sense of beautiful and ugly
Everyone has his own sense of right and wrong