See No Evil

Of course we have Boston on our minds and hearts, and some of us in our prayers.  On Twitter, right after the bombing in the Boston Marathon, I saw this conversation.

@TheTweetofGod: Mean people suck

@southboundcat: Mean people? Cut us some slack, God. Boston massacre was not done by mean people. EVIL people.

@JessicaLeBaron: It was done by people. You and I are people. Evil is a myth like god. It's a perspective. Just a thought.

Well Jess, here are my thoughts. It was done by two evil punks, certainly nobody like me.

To acknowledge that evil doesn’t exist is to disdain all that is good.  If there is no evil, there can not be good.  And without good or bad, right or wrong, all issues that pertain to morals becomes mute.  One would have to question why do people do good things? To save the life of a drowning stranger is totally unreasonable. To lay one’s life down for a friend is stupid. What firemen and police officers do daily is not rational. Yet, what they do is good.  And when the world found itself in the throes of slavery and Nazism there were people who risked their own liberty and lives to save others caught the wake of …well, evil.  Can you truly say their unselfish actions were not good and that slavery and Nazism were not evil?

In nature if one animal kills another, it does so for food or preservation whether that is to protect its own life or for a continuation of a gene-pool and thus survival.  Motives in nature can be very familiar human emotions - hunger, fear, etc… - but actions are not driven by any sense of right and wrong.  In nature there is no moral standard. There is no good or evil. The law of nature is be strong or die.  However, this is not the case for people.  

Moral standards preserve society for better or for worse particularly when the standard is not objectively based.  Wisdom is recognizing the source of what is right and wrong.  Don’t confuse morality with what you like or don’t like.  I hate frozen peas. It is not a virtuous issue.

Let’s say that I like to torture cats. Without evil, and therefore good, this can’t be a moral issue. However, I think we know there just isn’t something that sits right with torturing little furry animals.  But the fact that I like to torture cats does not make it right and certainly does not offer any defense for the behavior.  I could reason that I am smarter than the average cat and more evolved than most cats (I know this is so human-centric of me) so I have every right deem that cat torture is okay.  

I can go on to claim that it is in my nature, it is the very essence of what makes me human to torture cats. But this still falls short of a making cat torture acceptable. If ten or ten thousand people agreed with me to accept cat torture, this still does not make cat torture an acceptable practice. It does however illustrate the danger of determining what is right or wrong based on the behaviors of a few or the behavior of the powerful, or the edicts and whims of the mighty. Even if I could convince 99% of the people that cat torture promoted the greater cause of humanity, cat torture would still be wrong.  Why?

If evil does not exist then cat torture is neither wrong nor right. And if evil doesn’t exist you can’t judge me for performing cat torture, even on your cat.  Because to judge is to cast some form of opinion or evaluation. You could only say you like or not like cat torture. If something bothers you about cat torture you can’t say it is wrong.  You can’t declare it as unacceptable.  Cat torture therefore would be as innocuous as a preference for fresh or frozen peas.

One who doesn’t believe in evil might argue that no one has the right to judge. That seems logical because to judge when you have no right to judge would be bad. And if something is bad, that would lead one to think there is a “right”.  But of course, that establishes the existence of evil. How can that be?

Honestly I think those who argue that evil doesn’t exist are making a desperate argument that there is no God. 

The standard nonsense argument goes:  If there is evil, there must not be a God, for why would God let evil prevail?  Isn’t he all powerful?  Either God is not all powerful or God must not exist.  Of course, we can now get into long winded debates about free will and stuff, but I ask four questions?

1. If a cat kills a cat is that evil?
2. If I kill a cat is that evil?
3. If a cat kills a person is that evil?
4. If a person kills a person is that evil?

The honest answers find us pondering morality.  When man is involved the issues arise.  If nature is the perpetrator the actions are not evil. Since God is neither nature or man, God is not the perpetrator of evil.  I say man is the one who perpetuates evil.  This does not logically lead to the conclusion that God doesn’t exist, but begs the question why when man is involved do questions of morality arise?

The next reason to deny evil to deny God has to do with what is acceptable and accepted behavior. Without good and evil there is no difference between the two concepts. Between 1501 and 1865 American slave trade was accepted. That did not make it acceptable. It was never acceptable, nevertheless it was accepted practiced.

Is it obvious that the practice was accepted, but not acceptable? Is it just as obvious that to kill a woman because she brings shame to her Muslim father and brothers is accepted but hardly acceptable?  Why the difference?  If you acknowledge the difference you must acknowledge an absolute truth, an objective morality.   That makes things right and wrong, good and evil.  And if objective morality exists then there must be a source.

That source is God.

Mean boys did not bomb the victims in Boston and terrorize the rest of us.  They are evil. What was done was evil.  Unexplainable evil.  If you can’t comprehend the existence of evil and God, beware.  Mean boys might try eat your cat for dinner tonight and good people will not come to its rescue.

Well, that is my perceptive. Just a thought that could not be wrapped up in 140 Twitter characters.  And if you are some bloody atheist I have not said you can’t be moral. I know many theists who are immoral.