Why is there evil in the world, if God is all-powerful and good?

[ReimTime]

Soundwave said:

Illusion said:

If good and evil is strictly a human invention I find it odd then that even a young child feels guilt after hurting his sister.  Furthermore, if you look at history and even remote cultures that have been highly isolated from the rest of the world, these societies still almost always view as wrong common activities such as stealing, killing, rape, etc...  Yes, each culture may enforce correct behavior differently, but there are certain behaviors that are prohibited or are at least viewed as a legitimate injustice in society and that should not be embraced.

If there is no such thing as good or evil, then were the allied forces truly justified in opposing Hitler?   If there is no right and wrong then under what basis should the death-camps be condemned by society?  If good and evil is just an invented concept then why can't somebody else come in and change morality to make the death camps a morally virtuous activity?  Even the Nazi's themselves knew that the death camps were wrong and for this reason they kept the  vast majority of their heinous atrocities sheilded from the German public.  All the propaganda in the world can't re-write good an evil because somethings are just wrong and every human being (no matter the age) has a tug in their conscience telling them thus. 

Our nature calls us to do what is easy and what furthers our own interests while morality invariably is difficult and requires our self-sacrifice for others.  Morality runs contrary to our nature but when morality is disregarded all of nature (and society) invariably suffers.  There is even a conflict inside our ourselves between our desire to do what is easy and profitable versus doing what we know to be right.  This is a small microcosm of the spiritual battle that exists between good and evil.

Morality does not run contrary to our nature. It's a very powerful evolutionary platform actually. 

Human beings would not have survived as a species if they were constantly killing each other and not able to cooperate with each other. We are by no means the strongest or fastest or most vicious animal on the planet, we would've gotten our asses handed to us by other predators if we didn't have a strong compulsion to live in groups and work together. Humans are not a nomadic species. 

The person who violates the rules of the group (ie: killing others, being "immoral") would be a danger to the group.

Our compulsion to be "good", at least to the degree that we can function and be accepted by our peer groups, is likely born out of a survival instinct. 

Sure you can be an "asshole" but if you got kicked out of the tribe/group for being so ... you would last how long in the wild on your own? 

This is where this instinct IMO comes from and its basically been evolved into our genome, that's why every culture in the world with a thousand different religions more or less have the same morality rules by and large. 

Having a strong compulsion to "obey" the rules of our peer group and not be a trouble to everyone else is not just about "being nice". It's very likely a product of our survival instinct and this predates any religious philosophy. 

That's an interesting way of looking at it, as the idea of conformity is likely a product of the need to stick together - but I do have a few objections/exceptions I would like to point out:

a) Humans were a nomadic species before we domesticated crops, and settled down in settlements around our agriculture. We were never sedentary prior to that; moving from place to place as hunter/gatherers. We would not have populated the whole of the Earth if we were not a nomadic species. I think what you mean is that we are not a "lone wolf" species, as we were nomadic in groups and not solitary.

b) I'd argue that it was within these first few settlements that our "morality" and "rules" were born. It could be argued that prior, as a nomadic species, there were not that many social mores that the various hunter/gatherer groups relied on. For example, it's not like every male alive had a sexual partner in order to pass on his genes, or that every human being was treated with morality. The most evolutionarily advanced male (aka the strongest, most dominant) likely copulated the most for the good of the future species. The sick and the weak were likely outcast or left behind - "survival of the fittest". Maybe that sick dude obeyed the rules to the outmost, but he was still biologically shafted and outcast as a result. Furthermoe, at that point in our history, the male who killed another male would most likely establish his dominance over the group - not be outcast. So to summarize, there is an "immoral" fight for dominance that would occur within these groups, as well as leaving behind the incapable - which could be considered immoral.

c) You are right that the fear of being outcast or to be negatively branded socially is one of themost effective punishments in most egalatarian societies. Once we as a species got to the point of sedentism (and even before that), the human who is socially shunned and/or kicked from the group is the one whom receives the smallest share, or is royally fucked for being on their own. Nobody wants that.

I think the "universal morality" you are getting at is the "good of the species/group" mentality as opposed to the "good of myself". Good point. Alas, that type of moral mentality has been largely abandoned in a capitalist society as opposed to a collectivist one.