Does Evil Exist?

Does Evil Exist?

If so, what is the source?

Being raised Evangelical I was told, like any other Christians are taught, that evil essentially entered the world through Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God. Although there’s a bit of grey here since the devil also is evil, and was the one who according to this story tricked mankind into eating the fruit, so perhaps he is the source of evil? Then again, God does take credit for creating evil…

“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”-Isaiah 45:7-KJV

Ok, so even with religion as your background perhaps it isn’t that clear-cut where evil originated from, but according to Christians it’s obviously bad and you should steer clear of it since it’ll land you an eternity in hell if you get sucked in by it, and there are evil individuals out there looking to do evil for the sake of doing evil.

Perhaps I should pose that question instead, not whether there exists evil since we see the results of that around us in the world, but rather whether the individuals committing these acts are willfully evil.

Therein lies the nuance… In movies, books, games, and even religion we’re told that there are things that are inherently evil. These big bad boogiemen are just plotting all the time for how much evil they can commit in a day. You know, the evil genius trying to figure out how to destroy the world, that sort of thing. But if you really try to be empathetic and see every individual as they began, as a baby, something that entered this world with presumably a clean slate, how did they end up being this “evil”?

Christianity would have you believe that they are stained with original sin, that humans in general are inherently evil to some extent, unclean. That we all have this corrupt drive to do bad, and that we need redemption through Christ to be worthy of God. Really Judaism and Islam also teach that humans more or less aren’t worthy of God, humans are a highly flawed creation that is just lucky for whatever mercy we receive from God, even though he’s the one who made us this way.