The Problem of Evilin various civilizations

piero scaruffi

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Mesopotamia

• Problem of evil

– No concern for evil

– Gods are capable of both good and evil

– Gods are an aristocracy that humans have to obey to

• Afterlife

– Indifference towards immortality

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Egypt• Problem of evil

– No concern for evil– Gods are capable of both good and evil

• Afterlife– Immortality for the king and queen– Osiris: immortality for everybody

• Book of the Dead (1,600 BC): formulas to help the deads in the afterlife journey (regardless of good/evil)

• Anubis places the heart (site of the mind) of the dead on the Scales of Justice and feeds the souls of evil people to Ammit (eternal annihilation)

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India

• Problem of evil (1500 BC)– Karma of the person causes apurva that

causes good/evil to the person– Misfortune is caused by prior wrongful

deeds (is not only deserved but even required)

– Causality is a loop from the individual back to the individual

– Cosmic justice is totally independent of gods– Samsara: endless cycle of death and rebirth,

transience of ordinary life

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India

• Salvation– Moksha: liberation from maya and

experience of the brahman

– Salvation is achieved by transcending the human condition

– Nothing has changed in the world: it is the individual’s state of mind that has changed

Babylonia

• Astral religion (1800 BC - 600 BC)– Gods lose their “human” attributes– Gods are inscrutable– Humans can only have faith– Humans have sinned– Humans are depraved beings

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Persia

• Zarathustra/ Zoroaster (b 628BC)– Dualist: separates good and evil

(Egyptian and Mesopotamian gods were capable of both good and evil)

– The universe is under the control of two contrary gods: Ahura-Mazda, the creator god who is full of light and good, and Ahriman, the god of dark and evil

– Frasho-Kereti (“Rehabilitation”): apocalyptic ending/judgement that takes place on Earth

Judaism• Stage of El the nomadic god of the Jews

– Negative god ("thou shalt not")– Religion is obedience to God

• Stage of Yahweh (Moses, 1,275 BC)– Not infinitely good: capable of both good and evil

• Stage of monotheism (8th/6th c BC)– Yahweh/El is the ONLY god – Just and omnipotent god– Yahweh is an inscrutable god, no longer concerned with the

problems of the Jews• The problem of evil:

– Why does evil exist if God is omnipotent?– Because we disobeyed him

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China

• I Ching/Yi Jing Book of Changes (900 BC)– The fundamental pattern is the cycle– The cycle is due to the interplay of yin and

yang– Contraries are aspects of the same thing

• Religion is natural philosophy: no holy wars, crusades, jihad, etc, no fear of damnation, no anxiety of salvation, no prophets, no dogmas

Greece

• Homeric Greece (900 BC)– Indifferent to afterlife– Hades: not punishment or reward, simply a place

(underworld) where the dead go– Gods are capable of evil– Immortality via• Heroism• Family

Greece

• Cults of immortality outside mainstream religion– Eleusinian mysteries– Dionysian mysteries– Orphic mysteries

Rome

• Roman republic (700 BC)– A religion for the protection of the state, not of the

individual– Morality = patriotism– Roman gods do not mingle with humans and do not

quarrel– Priestly class reporting to the king/emperor

– Romans not interested in individual immortality– Immortality via the state: the Roman Empire is

eternal– Evil: any internal or external threat to the state

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India/ Buddhism• Not evil but suffering (600 BC):

– No atman: no subject (who can perform evil)– No brahman– Life is suffering (“dukkha”)– All suffering is caused by ignorance (“avidja”)

of the nature of reality and by attachment to Earthly belongings (“tanha”) that results from ignorance.

– Suffering can be ended by overcoming ignorance and attachment

– Very difficult to do the right thing (requires meditation and practice)

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China• Confucius/ Kung Fu-tzu (500 BC)

– All humans are born alike– Human nature is not evil or good, humans

become evil or good– Ideal: the “chun tzu” (ideal person,

humanity at its best)

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China• Lao-tzu/ Laozi (520 BC)

– The “Dao” (the “way”): ultimate unity that underlies the world’s multiplicity

– The way things do what they do– Good: harmony with nature– Bad: government (an obnoxious interference with

nature)– Good: spontaneous behavior, action through

inaction (wuwei, flow with the natural order)– Bad: calculated behavior (eg, rituals, education,

learning)– Good: childish behavior– Bad: civilization/progress

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China• Xun-zi/ Hsun-tzu (b 300BC)

– Human nature is evil– Goodness must be learned – Goodness must derive from society's

action (wei) – We need tough teachers and draconian

laws (“legalism”)

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Christianity• Augustine (400 AD)

– Problem of evil •Evil is the absence of good, therefore it is

"less", not "more", than God•Evil (lesser degrees of good) emerged with

free-willing creatures•God created our free will, not evil. Our free

will causes evil•We cannot comprehend why God invented

such free-willing creatures and thus Evil•What appears to us mortals as evil is good in

the context of eternity•From God's perspective, evil is good

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Islam• Islam (600 AD)

– Free will does not exist – Problem of evil: Allah does what he

wishes and it is not a business of any human being to argue or even try to understand it

– Faith leads to Paradise