The problem of evil has plagued philosophy before Christianity came about dating back to plato and socartes. Too many people think god = ultimate goodness. Why does anything have to be moral and good why should god be?.
What we have in our universe is foremost suffering everything suffers in one way or another. Now divine retribution if you believe thats its some godly being dishing out punishment for living like a asshole for eternity then you are mistaken.
I believe in the karmic laws of creation and infinite dimensions in a infinite reality all which encompases is god. So god is everything this also includes all the bad shit it balances out to a fine scale.
Unconditional love is a state of oneness reconnected with source realizing that all is one and connected we are all the same deep down and that first message from creation is love is all. This is duality and non duality.
Karma is the result of your own actions if you commit harm agaisn't life you will be accuring negative karmic energy and will thus pay for a finite amount of time in more hellish realms to teach you to be a better being in your next life.
Eventually all beings will achieve unconditional love and oneness with god again even if they are currently in hell serving their karma.
I hold no supernatural beliefs as it leads to the speculative form of all you have put on karma.
I sometime call it speculative nonsense.
You also break the law of the excluded middle with your, "This is duality and non duality."
I have no problem with evil as I see it as just a small part of the greater good of our continuing evolution.
I wrote the following a while back. See if it makes sense to you. I have it as a question for Christians.
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Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?
And if you cannot, why would God punish you?
Christians are always trying to absolve God of moral culpability in the fall by putting forward their free will argument and placing all the blame on mankind.
That usually sounds like ----God gave us free will and it was our free willed choices that caused our fall. Hence God is not blameworthy. Such statements simply avoid God's culpability as the author and creator of human nature.
Free will is only the ability to choose. It is not an explanation why anyone would want to choose "A" or "B" (bad or good action). An explanation for why Eve would even have the nature of "being vulnerable to being easily swayed by a serpent" and "desiring to eat a forbidden fruit" must lie in the nature God gave Eve in the first place. Hence God is culpable for deliberately making humans with a nature-inclined-to-fall, and "free will" means nothing as a response to this problem.
If all do evil/sin by nature then, the evil/sin nature is dominant. If not, we would have at least some who would not do evil/sin. Can we then help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?
Having said the above for the God that I do not believe in, I am a Gnostic Christian naturalist, let me tell you that evil and sin is all human generated and in this sense, I agree with Christians, but for completely different reasons. Evil is mankind’s responsibility and not some imaginary God’s. Free will is something that can only be taken. Free will cannot be given not even by a God unless it has been forcibly withheld.
Much has been written to explain evil and sin but I see as a natural part of evolution.
Consider.
First, let us eliminate what some see as evil. Natural disasters. These are unthinking occurrences and are neither good nor evil. There is no intent to do evil even as victims are created. Without intent to do evil, no act should be called evil.
In secular courts, this is called mens rea. Latin for an evil mind or intent and without it, the court will not find someone guilty even if they know that they are the perpetrator of the act.
Evil then is only human to human when they know they are doing evil and intend harm.
As evolving creatures, all we ever do, and ever can do, is compete or cooperate.
Cooperation we would see as good as there are no victims created. Competition would be seen as evil as it creates a victim. We all are either cooperating, doing good, or competing, doing evil, at all times.
Without us doing some of both, we would likely go extinct.
This, to me, explains why there is evil in the world quite well.
Be you a believer in nature, evolution or God, you should see that what Christians see as something to blame, evil, we should see that what we have, competition, deserves a huge thanks for being available to us. Wherever it came from, God or nature, without evolution we would go extinct. We must do good and evil.
There is no conflict between nature and God on this issue. This is how things are and should be. We all must do what some will think is evil as we compete and create losers to this competition.
This link speak to theistic evolution.
The Roman Catholic Church is pro-evolution and Big Bang, but with a twist
www.smithsonianmag.com
If theistic evolution is true, then the myth of Eden should be read as a myth and there is not really any original sin.
Doing evil then is actually forced on us by evolution and the need to survive. Our default position is to cooperate or to do good. I offer this clip as proof of this. You will note that we default to good as it is better for survival.
Can you help but do evil? I do not see how. Do you?
And if you cannot, why would God punish you?
Regards
DL
