Why is evil - part 1: are we really all that bad?

And now we move on to the next "lighthearted" topic. What really disturbs (and intrigues us in a totally scary way) isn't what evil is but why evil is. It's not just something really really bad, it's something really really bad that human beings do to each other.

So we search every crevice of our psyche, every shadow of our history, every anomaly, every wart and pimple on our soul and unconscious mind, trying to answer the question of why people do evil. We ask our philosophers, theologians, psychiatrists, biologists and bartenders and then blame the devil for all of it.

From generation to generation, across cultures and continents we worry about what could go wrong in the human heart that would cause this.

Christians have struggled philosophically and theologically with what they call "the problem of evil." By which they mean: "how could a God who is both all-powerful and all-loving not prevent evil in the world?" Every theologian worth his or her wall plaques must address this issue and come up with a doctrine that gets us, and God, out of this tangled briar patch.

The answer which many conservative Christians have gotten from the writings of St.Paul is termed "original sin". For those of you not familiar with this view, it is a particular Christian interpretation of the Genesis stories in the Bible which holds that Adam and Eve were created perfect, without sin. But when they disobeyed God and committed the first sin, it corrupted not only their own souls but permanently altered the state of their beings, thus corrupting all their descendants as well. So everyone is born in a state of natural badness. In other words, the default condition of everyone is bad.

In Christianity, the doctrine further explains that we have to be saved from this condition - our basic motivations and intentions converted to a different point of origin - or we will just keep on doing bad things to each other and if you do enough bad things you start doing evil things.

Judaism holds to the same biblical creation story, but interprets it entirely differently. Jews understand the story to mean that we each have a choice at every moment to do good or to do harm. Evil is not God's fault, not Satan's fault, it is our fault and at every moment we can choose to do good instead of evil.

Jewish theologians say that humans have a tendency to do wrong, but also a tendency to do right. And every choice has its consequences. When we choose to do harm to others, it brings consequences of harm to ourselves. That's the meaning Judaism puts on the Genesis story of Adam and Eve; it's meant to graphically illustrate the consequences of choosing to do wrong. Each of us starts fresh and makes our own choices.

The Bible records over 600 laws of God that explain in detail how to live a righteous life. The antidote to evil in Judaism is to immerse our mind in study of God's laws. When our thoughts are absorbed in the good, the actions will follow. It's like turning the steering wheel in the direction you want to go.

so much for the top two western religions - what about the rest of the world? see the next blog.