The Origin of “Evil”

The Origin of “Evil”

Exploring concepts without superstition

First off let me say that in my mind the verdict is still out on the existence of actual “evil”. As Christians, we’re indoctrinated from a young age that there is this supreme evil out there that God and the forces of good are at war with, and this evil managed to essentially infect our species from the very beginning of our existence, leaving us to have had to live with this tainted stain upon us ever since.

This of course raises so many issues, because God created all things in this belief structure, so of course he made sin as well, a point Christians who don’t know their Bible very well will argue against. Then that same loving God is the one who made the place to punish these sinful people for all eternity, not the devil…and so on.

I feel that this entire belief structure came together as a way to excuse the Christian idea of God from any blame, if you look into most Jewish beliefs you’ll see that they let God have credit for the good and the bad, which makes a lot more sense.

I myself see “evil” as something that comes into being from a series of negative choices or actions, and reactions to those choices. This may seem like semantics, but I don’t believe that these sprout up from some all-powerful big bad out there. I think they arise due to less-than-ideal environmental factors and bad parenting in most cases.

Let’s remove any deities or higher powers out of the picture, and see if there is really a unifying theory of what causes all of what we consider “evil” in the world.