UU Explanation of Evil (or lack thereof)

[Green Gaia]

I was responding to a question elsewhere on the forum yesterday that involved forgiveness of evil acts. It got me thinking about how do UUs explain evil in the world. We don't blame evil on supernatural forces or a devil deceiving us into wrongdoing. We know bad things happen, people do evil things and often UUs are there in the aftermath to help with those who are effected by it. But we offer no answer about WHY it happened in the first place. We like focus on the good in people, the human potential for goodness. Because of this I think we are positive movement. But in today's society when all you have to do is turn on the evening news to see horrible acts of evil and suffering in the world to be reminded that not everyone is living up to the goodness we UUs believe all people have inside of them. How do we explain this? Can we? Should we?

 

[michel]

Out of interest, maize, "people do evil things" - is that the same as people sinning?

 

[Green Gaia]

That's one way to define it. UUs don't usually use the word 'sin' that much though. For me 'sin' has connection to 'salvation' and 'damnation' which are not UU concepts. So I try not to use the word much.

 

[robtex]

I don't know if UU has an collective stance on it. It is an organization without a dogma. Evil itself is a subjective term but it certainly comes up a lot in UU church and on UU chats because of UU's high percentage of pacifists. In my UU church (which I havent' been to in while cause of work), one of the ministers tends to explain in terms of hedonism without regards for others' and the other is more spritual in explaining it with our connection to the universe. At least that is what I got out of there sermons.

As far as how should we, I am thinking people hurt others for two reasons

1) it is pleasurable to them to do so
2) It removes something painful to them by assoication of the action.

To illustrate # 1 child molester's gain sexual gratification, pleasure from their actions at the expense of the victims. Or sometimes, nations engage in war for economic gain that couldn't be achieved to their best ends through negociation.

# 2 could be illustrated as acts of revenge. I have come to understand that alot of people justify revenge by assoicating it as an relievment to the oringinal act. Alot of american's justifcation for the invasion if Iraq and the bombing of communities over there is justified by removing terrorism.

If we could all agree that premediated murder (aka not self defense) is an example of evil in the context (to create the highest amount of agreement) stalking someone and killing them is an example of evil than I would say that going back and reading every murder in the paper for say the next few months would produce two realities

1) someone killed someone else to gain pleasure (usually sexual pleasure but sometimes economic pleasure)

2) or they killed someone to remove pain associated with that person such as jealously, racism ect ect..

just a theory. Could be wrong.

Maize it is interesting what you said about UU and sin. I don't think I have heard sin come up in UU either unless they are discussing christianty or islam.

 

[Green Gaia]

Rob, I've been thinking about what you posted for the past couple days. I don't think anyone would disagree with you. What I'm left wondering is do we/can we explain why some people choose to do evil acts. Like I said before, we don't have the supernatural to fall back on, "the devil made him do it" excuse. We believe that everyone is inherently good and has goodness inside of them, does this also mean that everyone has the potential for evil inside of them too? I think most people even the most optimistic UU, would say yes, we do. So then the question becomes, where does that source or potential for evil come from? Those of us who believe in a God of some sort either literality or abstractly, would say the goodness, in whole or in part, (not forgetting my Humanist friends), comes from God. Where does the evil come from? I can't agree that evil is subjective. Bad can be subjective, even wrong can be debated. But evil is something more. I agree with Rev. Forrest Church when he said that liberal (UU) theology doesn't take the concept of evil seriously enough.

 

[robtex]

Rob, I've been thinking about what you posted for the past couple days. I don't think anyone would disagree with you. What I'm left wondering is do we/can we explain why some people choose to do evil acts..

Maize, forgive my stubborness but I am thinking that evil is done because

1) it is pleasurable to do so
2) it removes a displeasure to do so

Certainly not a justification but I think if we look at enough motives for rapes murders, mass embezzlement and other acts all can be dumped into # 1 # 2 or both.

I had a luthern friend once tell me that the opposite of love is apathy. Made a lot of sense to me. It explains why husbands kill their wives, and vice versa, why some parents abuse their children and other evils. The constant is that emotion is attached as opposed to hate is propogated. I think collectivly speaking most to all evil acts have a measurable amount of emotional content to them. The emotion associated with a given situation is either to gain pleasure or remove displeasure.

I am thinking evil is subjective and defined by the community at large based on enviromental conditions and human genetics. I am not sure what you are defining evil as but to throw out what I think it is I would say that evil is an action or planned event that creates longterm or permanent gain at the direct or indirect expense of another in terms of hardship and exclusive to the hardship's physical harm and excessive poverty. What is evil could be a cool thread all to its own:bounce

I will have to read church first before commenting on it but can I ask what it is you got from church's take on evil and what when you say evil is not subjective i am assuming you mean objective. Can you explain that?

 

[Green Gaia]

Maize, forgive my stubborness but I am thinking that evil is done because
1) it is pleasurable to do so
2) it removes a displeasure to do so

We're not disagreeing, Rob. Perhaps I'm trying to look too deep for an explanation.

I will have to read church first before commenting on it but can I ask what it is you got from church's take on evil and what when you say evil is not subjective i am assuming you mean objective. Can you explain that?

I was thinking of this article he wrote. He also talks about sin (going back to our statements about sin and UU earlier) I define the word sin simply. It is anything that divides us: within ourselves; against our neighbor; from the ground of our being, the god of all creation. If we use 'evil' in place of 'sin' in that definition. Evil: Anything that divides us:within ourselves; against our neighbor; from the ground of our being, the god of all creation. I don't think that can be subjective.

 

[ayani]

We know bad things happen, people do evil things and often UUs are there in the aftermath to help with those who are effected by it. But we offer no answer about WHY it happened in the first place. We like focus on the good in people, the human potential for goodness.

i really love this view, Maize.

with regards to the world at large, we can not save the planet. we can save one animal, one person, one potentially bad day at a time. we can do seemingly small things out of love and mindfulness that impact others in a good way. we can continue to be positive and realistic, and do what we can to be part of the solution.

i'm liking UU beliefs and ideals more and more, Maize! thank you for your thought-provoking, eye-opening posts and reflections.

:162:

 

[Green Gaia]

Thank you, Gracie. I question UU theology and ideas not because I disagree or am dissatisfied with my religion. The opposite in fact, I question because it helps me to better understand.


On the issue of evil, maybe I've been looking at this from the wrong angle. Perhaps all that needs to be said about evil is that it is the result of human actions, and so we as human beings are responsible for putting things right.

 

[Davidium]

Besides, it is hard for a member to disagree with UU.... as it is creedless. Your beliefs are yours, we are bound by covenant , not creed. If you dont like the associations stand on something, work to change it... it can be done, even by those who are fairly new.

Maize, I just got in from my vacation, but I will offer a few thoughts before I go to put out all the post vacation fires.

As a UU, I begin my search for evil by looking at the converse of the seven principles.

Those who do not affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

Those who do not respect the interdependent web of all existance of which we are a part.

And all of them in between.

This is where I begin my search for evil. I think we do define evil as UU's we just do it in the converse. I will write a longer post on this (it is a future sermon topic) later, once I am more settled back in.

YoUUrs in faith,

David

 

[Green Gaia]

As a UU, I begin my search for evil by looking at the converse of the seven principles.

Those who do not affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

Those who do not respect the interdependent web of all existance of which we are a part.

And all of them in between.

This is where I begin my search for evil. I think we do define evil as UU's we just do it in the converse.

That's interesting, David. I hadn't thought of it that way. That makes sense.

 

[lilithu]

We know bad things happen, people do evil things and often UUs are there in the aftermath to help with those who are effected by it. But we offer no answer about WHY it happened in the first place. We like focus on the good in people, the human potential for goodness. Because of this I think we are positive movement. But in today's society when all you have to do is turn on the evening news to see horrible acts of evil and suffering in the world to be reminded that not everyone is living up to the goodness we UUs believe all people have inside of them. How do we explain this? Can we? Should we?

Namaste Maize,

Wow, you posed a lot of good hard questions while I've been gone.

I agree with you and Rev Church that we UUs do not take evil seriously enough, and in doing so we allow evil to continue. We do like to focus on the good in people, the divine spark, the inherent worth and dignity. We focus on nourishment and support, not control and punishment. And I love us for that. But in focusing so much on the good in people, we experience cognitive dissonance when we see evil in them and therefore we just ignore it. So we're there in the aftermath to deal with the consequences, but we are really bad at dealing with the source and nipping it in the bud. Nipping, afterall, would be a kind oppresive control, an impingement on someone else's freedom, not a nourishing and supportive act.

So how do we explain evil? And can we find an explanation that would help us to respond to evil more effectively without resorting to pre-emptive control? I think that David is right in the examples that he gives but I'd like to spell it out more explicitly. As UUs, we do not believe (or most of us anyway) in an active source of evil, like a Devil. There is no cosmic war between the forces of good and evil. Rather, there is light, and there is the darkness where the light has not yet reached. Evil is a negative, a negation. Evil is the absence of good. Where there is no love, there is evil. Where there is no compassion, there is evil. Where there is no understanding, there is evil. Where there is no empathy, there is evil.

The person who rapes/robs/murders/declares war does so because he or she does not feel compassion/empathy for the other person. Without love, there is only self-interest. The level of evil one commits depends on how much compassion the person is capable of. Most of us would not murder, because we're capable of feeling the horror of being murdered. But a lot of us might occasionally take something that doesn't belong to us or take an unfair advantage if it presents itself, especially if we're not doing it against someone we personally know, because we don't really stop to feel what the consequences will be for others. It's abstract enough that we can ignore it. As the Buddhists say, if one truly had compassion for everyone, if one truly understood the consequences, one could not possibly commit evil.

I prefer this view of good and evil because it also takes into account something that the 'god versus devil' model doesn't, the evil that is commited by inaction. By people not doing anything. By apathy. If I have food and the person next to me is starving and I don't give him any, that is evil. And while we pay a lot more attention to people actively hurting others, whether it's genocide or robbery/rape/murder, most of the evil in this world is done passively, by people not acting when someone else is in trouble. That is as true for the Katrina aftermath as it was for the holocaust.

I also prefer this view of good and evil because it shows that we are all capable of evil. It's not a matter of some people being good and some evil and we should somehow "eliminate" the evil people and then everything will be fine for all eternity. The "battle" between good and evil exists within each of us, on an ongoing basis. Rather than just focusing on the good and ignoring evil, we religious liberals must indeed take evil seriously... by cultivating love and understanding in ourselves and in others. Basically by doing what we've been doing but with greater purpose. If people do not live up to their innate goodness it's because, for whatever reason, that goodness has not been cultivated.

I've been struggling with the last couple of sentences above because they sound so goody-two-shoes naively idealistic to the cynical part of me. But I can't think of any other way to say it other than directly. I believe that there is innate goodness, that divine spark, in everyone. So I have to believe that even the greatest evil can be overcome by cultivating that spark.