EVIL AS IN EXPERIENCE SAYS IT CANNOT BE TALKED ABOUT BUT ONLY TASTED AND THEREBY KNOWN

Religion says it sees evil every day and everybody sees it.

So what are you supposed to see?

Christianity says that evil is merely deformed good so we should not think of pure evil as in a power. It says evil is a parasite and cannot exist without good.  It cannot exist on its own.  So it is stupid and dark and fragile which is why it gets vicious when its survival is under threat.

This argument tends to get people to make this mistake, "Evil is not a thing but a negative, a distortion of something, therefore evil is not real and is not created by God for there is nothing to create."

That does not follow.

At best, because evil hides in good and lies about itself you don't really so much see or detect it as you do surmise that it is there and where exactly it is and what it is doing.  It may pose as something neutral or confusing if not good.  And as good is often in the eye of the beholder and nobody sees the proper picture the problem is not just in evil but in the person looking on as well.  It is going to do this whether it is just a negative or whether it is something even darker like a malevolent force.  And especially if it is the latter.

Another problem is that most of the good (I'd say all) we think of is actually not good but necessary evil.  To love your baby means you are raising a being that takes resources from other creatures.  That baby could grow up to be a murderer so in that sense the risk is a necessary evil.

This forces one to let an experience of evil tell you what evil is instead of trying to philosophise and put it into words.

Evil may as well be pure evil for it is possible to experience evil as real. And nobody has the right not even God to tell you this experience is wrong.   Faith is about trying to refute or diminish or ignore this experience and yet believers have the audacity to claim that religious experience gives good grounds for faith and religion.  A faith that says evil is not real but only the absence of a good that is not there is telling the suffering person they are deluded and failing to open their eyes. 

Pay no attention to how religion despite this seems to treat evil as real.  It may be incoherent but it is still erasing the existential experience of those who say evil is real.  It is erasing those people for their experience is a huge part of them and their life at this time.
 
The free will defence alleges that God gave us free will so that we could love for love is voluntary and we abused it so evil is our fault not his. God himself falls short of the good that the free will defence says is so valuable. He has not made himself what he is. So while he is supposed to be perfect you cannot call a being that does not make itself perfect perfect.  He didn't choose to be imperfect for he cannot fail for he is all-powerful and all-knowing. The free will defence says he is right to allow evil so that we will make ourselves good of our own efforts. But he cannot change from what he is and has never sacrificed to be good. So God then by definition is evil and evil reigns and the good we see is a form of evil.

It is not good to accuse us of making evil in the world in order to prop up your God theory.  It is evil and you lose any right to condemn slander when you are doing that.

Some say that because there should be nothing as there is no need for anything to exist that in this sense existence is evil for it should not be happening. Does this view imply that good is a falling short of evil and that there is no good in anything existing and nothing we do is good? Evil would be more powerful than good for our existence is illogical and should not be. This would automatically destroy the doctrine of a good God at a stroke. If existence is evil then it is more appropriate to describe good as the absence of evil for the evil power of existence reigns supreme.

Is good merely the non-existence of evil or is evil merely the absence of good? Suppose the question makes sense. Then the only hope we would have of knowing which is the real thing and which is the unreal is by working out what is the supreme power. Evil is supreme so good is merely the absence of evil if there is any horse sense in the question. Also good cannot be just the absence of evil and evil cannot just be the absence of good for that would mean they were two absences but then we are saying there is nothing real to either. Evil cannot be the mere absence of good if good is not real so one of them is real and the other is not.

If evil is a falling short of good then that is to say that good is the norm, and evil is parasitic on good so evil is abnormal. If evil is merely a falling short of good then it follows that good has to exist before evil can exist. Why? For if good does not exist before evil exists how can evil fall short of it? But suppose there was nothing. Good and evil would still exist. In many ways it is good for there to be nothing at all. In many ways, this is bad as well.

So good and evil are abstract.  Evil is a problem whether anything exists or not.  The argument that evil is only a problem for we abused free will is refuted.  It shows no understanding that evil is not that simple and thus the argument itself rises from evil and is evil.

Evil is evil whether anything exists or not.  Does this suggest that good and evil are in your imagination? Yes if you believe that evil is not a power but a negative. If so then good and evil are not real.

Or there is another suggestion. Here.  Because good needs to be there for evil to fall short of it, this good that exists when there is absolutely nothing is really evil for it doesn't let that happen. In such a case, evil would be the supreme power with good being the exception meaning that good was a falling short of evil. Evil would not be non-being or a non-power. It would not be mere misplaced good. It would be the standard. If evil is the dominant power then we must judge good people as being really bad people with ulterior motives. Also, our good deeds would ultimately result in evil.

The Kalam argument is considered to be a strong opening to the possibility that there is a God. It tries to nudge you towards taking God as the cause.  It is what you have to start with if you want to progress to arguments for the existence of God.  We are told that does not claim to show there is a God but to open the way to intellectual acceptance and from that to personal commitment to God in faith.  That last bit is not true.  If the argument gets you to merely intellectual assent it will not go any further.  If you want the personal relationship implied by faith you need something else to get you there. 

Here is the argument,

1 Whatever begins to exist has a cause

2 The universe began to exist
 
Conclusion: The universe has a cause.

Kalam says first that what begins to exist has a cause.  So here in its Premise 1 we already are talking about particles and matter being existent and organised in some way. 

Then Premise 2 jumps to talking about particles not existing and needing to be created from nothing.

The argument lies for "begins to exist" changes meaning in the two premises.  And both premises assume the conclusion.   Premise 1 sneaks the cause in and 2 sneaks in the idea of creation.

That one has to lie in such a basic argument to allow for faith in God explains it all.  And the lie grows into eventually arguing that people should suffer for they will find God in it and the suffering is part of his plan.  What a foundation!

The Kalam is needed to indicate a possible moral God but then it is a lie.  So if you need a lie to direct people to God then how good is the doctrine of God after all?  It cannot be good at all and it depends on people being bad for endorsement.  That is another red flag.

If evil is real and a force and a property like the colour red then this means that you meet it and it is not something that you just think is real.  It is something that tells you it is real in your experience.  YOU TOUCH IT!  IT TOUCHES YOU!  It is a two-way process.  You don't want to do this thus you will avoid saying evil is real.  You feel forced to hope that if evil can be experienced you will never have to.  We see here an example of how religion tells you you have free will and yet there is no "free".
 

FINALLY
 
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THE WEB
  
www.colorado.edu/philosophy/wes/Tooley2.html
 
THE ARGUMENT FROM EVIL AND THE EXISTENCE OF GOD by Michael Tooley.
 
http://www.nd.edu/~rpotter/courses/finitism.htm
 
FINITISM AND THE PROBLEM OF EVIL, R Dennis Potter,
 
www.ffrf.org/fttoday/august97/barker.html
 
THE FREE WILL ARGUMENT FOR THE NON-EXISTENCE OF GOD by Dan Barker
 

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