THE EXPERIENCE OF PURE EVIL IS REAL DESPITE RELIGION SAYING OTHERWISE
If evil is just a missing good, a lack? A lack is nothing but real in its
effects. Or is evil something darker and real. Lack or real? Does it make any
difference?
GOD
The Christian and Islamic doctrine is that God is good and all things come from
him. If pure evil exists then God made it or it always existed. Either way, you
cannot depend on God and God is not God. He is just a powerful being and we have
the right to ignore him if we choose for he is not that special. So the
religious claim that there would be nothing without God and God is love would be
refuted if pure evil had to have been created by him or existed without him.
CALLOUS
Saying evil is a mere absence is nonsense and too extreme and is hate. Why? For
if you are depressed or suffering you really do encounter evil as in force. You
are as good as told you are delusional or deliberately fooling yourself.
RELIGION REJECTS PURE EVIL
Those who say that evil is good that is not good enough are not exactly the same
as people who say there is no evil and that it is just an illusion.
Some mystical religions such as Christian Science treat and think of evil as a
complete fiction. They argue that suffering is not real and you only imagine it
is.
But it is obvious that both of them dismiss the experience of evil as real as an
illusion. If you say evil is not real but an illusion then the problem is your
head not evil. If there is evil or anything close to it, it is yourself. If evil
is not real then it is real in your head. I mean it is “really real” in your head
not just something you wrongly think is real. Nobody makes evil but you. You can
only be evil if you go to all that effort to be bad.
Just now let us remind ourselves that those who say that evil is real but a lack
of good or good in the wrong place are in fact saying evil is an illusion in a
different way. They are as bad as those who admit it out right. What is
happening is that believers end up (usually subtly) attacking people in the name
of keeping up the lie that evil is not a thing or power so there is no need to
ask if God made evil. There is nothing there to make. All that happens is that
good is abused. It backfires for it demonises people in the name of faith in God
and to make God respectable.
Finally
If evil is real and a force and a property like the colour red, why do you not
want to experience it as real? You get something not that you think is
real but experience as real. Experience is deeper and more personal than just
thinking. You don't want to do this. You don't want that experience.
Evil being a power or seeming to be makes evil sound stronger than you.
The experience is worse if evil is a power than it would be if it is a lack of
good. The latter is weaker. Thus as a placebo you will avoid saying evil is
real. That will do nothing to avoid the evil experience. It only ensures
that it will be worse when it comes. Your self-deception is not fair on
you. You cannot avoid influencing others, especially in something so
foundational, so what about them? And even if evil is not real that does
not mean it cannot make you experience it as if it is. Your own
psychological scheme is self-defeating and foolish.
If evil is what happens because we have free will then here we have evil being given the power to force itself on you experience fashion. It need not have this power so God gave it the power. God is evil if he exists. Even if he does not exist it is evil to worship him.
Morality is vague if there is that much forcing going on for it is meant to be about being free to do evil, free to abandon evil and free to do good.
Religion says that all comes from God and all is good and evil is just good in the wrong place and time and says it is evil and an insult to God to say evil is real in any real sense of the word. But even if it were not the evil experience is real. That part of evil is real. It is real evil...
