by Ariel M

Created on: April 17, 2008

Evil is an interesting concept for humanity. Evil is an inherently religious word. Evil denotes doing something immoral or wicked. As long as humanity accepts religion then evil will be the nature of humanity. Evil is often used by religions to protect the 'perfection' of their God. After all if you blame all the horrible things on something imperfect,like humans, that's fine and understandable. Blame it on a perfect being and , well, he's either not perfect, not benevolent or not powerful. Religious man can not deal with the concept of a God that is not a 'God'! Goodness on the other hand is seen by religions as 'God's work'.

Our prayers have been answered, God is love and so on. Man is generally not given credit for great things by religion.

Religion is designed to ensure human beings are driven to please, comply and do well. To prevent anarchy,to evolve and to survive as a race. It is the nature of human beings to need ' a carrot on a stick', a bribe to do things. 'If you are nice you will go to heaven'! Unfortunately if it is something superior to humans judging humans then I'm afraid we are doomed. My idea of good is not necessarily the same as yours, and well, who knows if it is the same as a Gods!

We have holy men that tell us how we should live, 'it is written in the scriptures' and so on. Again this is a simple case of comply or die. Who are we to question what is 'written', we are stupid, imperfect beings who can only do wrong! Our overall purpose for living is to avoid doing 'evil thing's be honest man may as well be told not to breath!

Of course Atheism may not acknowledge 'evil' but does accept wrong doings. The concept of right and wrong is far less sketchy and certainly not persecutory. Man wants to be good and generally does good things. Sometimes people do terrible things ,that is life. The person will be punished by society and be encouraged to avoid the wrong actions in the future.

It goes against man's desire to exist to do predominantly wrong things. Man is a selfish being and does good to 'get on', to ensure his safety and long term survival. If someone is set on doing wrong things the individual's future is at risk,It just does not make sense to be like this.

So is evil the nature of humanity? For religion it is, for Atheism it is not.

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