Where does EVIL come from?
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Peace all,
Defining evil as pain and suffering is adorably naive (yes Wikipedia I'm looking at you.). Calling natural disasters 'evil'? Come on now.
The definition of 'good' and 'bad' as seen from the perspective of an atemporal infinte being (read god) is certainly different from temporal beings (read us). If it can be stated that god is the progenitor of all then it follows that 'good' and 'evil' do not in fact exist as they are all manifestation of god's design - one cannot inherently be any more good or evil than the other. They basically occupy different ranges of the spectrum that is god's design. What this means is 'good' and 'evil' are purely human constructs and cannot be applied to god or used to discern god's nature in any viable way; they have no value outside of our societies. Therefore it follows that 'evil' comes from man. As does 'good'.
So why does it say in the Qur'an that good comes from Allah? I've always taken that to say that "all that is, comes from Allah"; 'all-that-is' is necessarily a part of Allah's design and whatever follows Allah's design is 'good' by default. In fact it's impossible to not follow Allah's design, so everything is 'good' - from Allah's perspective that is.
As for all this benevolence business why does a deity need to be 'all-loving'? The property of 'all-loving' negates the function of a system. A system exists to lay out a line of reasoning for and against a certain something; 'all-loving' implies the acceptance of both, thus negating the system's purpose to begin with. To be honest, it looks more like feel-good hippy non-sense than actual reasoning.
I totally agree )
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Peace Tay, Neo and all,
Calling natural disasters 'evil'? Come on now.
I'll stand myself corrected on this one, although my reference was directed to "destruction" which got misrepresented. Thanks for pointing and removing my error.
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Peace Neo,
So why does it say in the Qur'an that good comes from Allah? I've always taken that to say that "all that is, comes from Allah"; 'all-that-is' is necessarily a part of Allah's design and whatever follows Allah's design is 'good' by default. In fact it's impossible to not follow Allah's design, so everything is 'good' - from Allah's perspective that is.
As you say, good comes from The God and all comes from The God implies that all that comes from The God is good. On the other hand, bad comes from ourselves. This means that in the big picture of things everything that happens is good. Even rejecters have a good purpose in the big scheme of things because those that are guided can contrast their path to the straight path and be more guided (16-7).
As for all this benevolence business why does a deity need to be 'all-loving'? The property of 'all-loving' negates the function of a system. A system exists to lay out a line of reasoning for and against a certain something; 'all-loving' implies the acceptance of both, thus negating the system's purpose to begin with. To be honest, it looks more like feel-good hippy non-sense than actual reasoning.
But look in the signs around you that you can empirically verify. The God is the Almighty (al-Rahman) and the Merciful (al-Rahim). Those are two contrasting attributes and one can see the result of those attributes in His creation. Look at a beautiful sunset. It is indeed a beautiful sight and the sun provides warmth and energy and supports life on this planet. But the sun is a very violent and destructive place that will evaporate you in a millisecond long before you get to it. These are the signs of nature all around us. We are surrounded by this amazing and beautiful universe that is at the same time extremely violent and inhospitable. If it weren't for The God's mercy making conditions just right for life to exist on this planet, we would instantly perrish.
We can only hope that The God keeps us in His mercy after we die. Judging from the signs around us, not being in His mercy would be very bad.
Peace,
Ayman
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Peace All,
Neo, you stated
As for all this benevolence business why does a deity need to be 'all-loving'? The property of 'all-loving' negates the function of a system. A system exists to lay out a line of reasoning for and against a certain something; 'all-loving' implies the acceptance of both, thus negating the system's purpose to begin with. To be honest, it looks more like feel-good hippy non-sense than actual reasoning.
I understand your view but disagree to the degree that you make this sound awfully mechanical. Where does mercy fit into the equation?
Danish, you're a fine example for all of us.
Ayman, the example of the sun was excellent. I believe we can witness this duality in the many faces of nature, from a tiger, to the surging seas, to snowfall, each represents magnificence and awe while at the same time a stern reality.
We can only hope that The God keeps us in His mercy after we die. Judging from the signs around us, not being in His mercy would be very bad.
That is His promise.
May peace be upon you,
Tay -
The most simple understanding of evil is choice. Onw should ask where choice come from? Choice/freewill is something given/created by God. Hence evil is the result of choice that disrupt the harmony in the submission/system. Hence God ask us in the Quran to focus on masjid-al-haram, the restrictions in submission. Everything God created "submit" to God totally, because they are not created to disrupt the harmony of the system, i.e they do not have a "choice". Us human species have a choice not to submit or to carry out our function in this world, even those claimed to be submitters, have taken the message wrongly by praying towards the stone-structures and have turned Islam into a ritualistic-religion! Everyone does evil, as God say in the Quran that if he has to punish man of the evil he has done, he will not leave a single being on earth because its the nature of man to do evil. The solution is to contain/control this evil by focusing on the restriction/haram in the submission.
Peace
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Hello, my personal view is that evil comes from within and from our choices.
Peace -
Salaam,
Satan is not an entity, as this was a created myth coming from mythology of polytheism. In the ancient times, Jews and Christians didn't saw the sheitan mentioned as a creature, but as the evil side of man itself. Only with the Christian-faith being distorted by the Persians and Greeks, did it turn into a creature, and Islam adopted this.
Evil is the opposite of good, and will always be possible to commit, even in the later life, but because we are on the higher level, we will not even think of it. So i believe, evil is stagnation, evil is something that makes us not growing. And by thus resulting in harming others and ourselves. Instead of walking up the stairs, we're walking down it. Personifications of human qualities comes from the pagan times, as love was turned into a god, sexuality, wisdom and so on, this also happened with our evil side, as it became a real seperate creature over time that lured us in doing evil, while the idol first only started as a personification. In monotheism all the idol-personifications left, except the personification of evil. As that remained a seperate entity, that only lures us in doing wrong. By this we read the Quran with the wrong glasses, as we don't see that satan is something in us, our ego...Both the words Sjeitan(hebrew=STN) and Iblis(greek=Diabolos) mean the same thing, opponent, adversory.
Iblis came from the Greek diabolos. In French the word is diable which is close to the Greek original.
The guess is that the Greek first syllable ?di? was taken as a prefix and dropped somewhere along the way when the word was in transition. It is further surmised that the word came to Arabic through Syriac and it is there that ?di? got dropped.
In Greek, the word diabolos means slanderer. One can understand it as such because the 'Satan' actually slandered God by sowing doubts about Him and His Reality of creation. English has twisted the word around and derived devil from it, and created a false conception to the word as it being a creature seperate from us through greek-egyptian mythology.
Greek diabolos actually means throwing across, a kind of verbal picture of what a slanderer does with words and truth. ?Dia? means across and the Greek infinitive ballein means to throw. As in throwing across reality, truth, reason and logic. Slandering them and make them things you don't want to follow.
It was the Jews who first got to Persia during the diaspora and got acquainted with the Persian religion of opposites. Hebrew meaning of the word is enemy or he who opposes.
Dictionaries give another meaning to satan. They say it came from a Hebrew verb ?shtn? which means to make wrongful accusation. In Arabic there is a verb which is very close to it ? ?shtm? ? which means the same but is not usually connected with satan.
Our Lughat says shaitan has come from the root ?shtn? which means a long rope. Because a long rope means distance it is opined that shaitan is something that is drifted far away from God. Some Arabic scholars have linked shaitan to shaat which means to burn up. This should connect with nature of satan which is fire according to the Quran. Burning away thruth and logic. Some scholars trace the concept of satan to Egypt where snake was most often used to denote authority, in which case it could be a power turned rebel within the creation.
And by thus gives good allegories for our ego, that slanders against the truth and reality, making illusions(hell) that are barrieres(jahim) for progress, and burn away our growth. In this life and especialy in the next.
Wa-salaam
Arnold
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Peace arnoldyasin. Very good analysis. The satan is a 'state of mind' which we should avoid...I have found dr shabbirs translations (2nd edition,qxp.) of the quran one of the better/ more rational ones...He also clarifies and explains a lot of the symbolisms and terms of the quran...A lot could be learned from his translations.
I just dislike some of my perceived 'implications' of his 'enemies of islam' writings... -
As you say, good comes from The God and all comes from The God implies that all that comes from The God is good. On the other hand, bad comes from ourselves. This means that in the big picture of things everything that happens is good. Even rejecters have a good purpose in the big scheme of things because those that are guided can contrast their path to the straight path and be more guided (16-7).
Agreed.
But look in the signs around you that you can empirically verify. The God is the Almighty (al-Rahman) and the Merciful (al-Rahim). Those are two contrasting attributes and one can see the result of those attributes in His creation. Look at a beautiful sunset. It is indeed a beautiful sight and the sun provides warmth and energy and supports life on this planet. But the sun is a very violent and destructive place that will evaporate you in a millisecond long before you get to it. These are the signs of nature all around us. We are surrounded by this amazing and beautiful universe that is at the same time extremely violent and inhospitable. If it weren't for The God's mercy making conditions just right for life to exist on this planet, we would instantly perrish.
We can only hope that The God keeps us in His mercy after we die. Judging from the signs around us, not being in His mercy would be very bad.
Peace,
Ayman
I don't believe not being "all loving" implies that one can't be merciful. ) Tay, I think this addresses what you said as well. It's possible to be both mercifula and not-all-loving (but just 'loving' at the same time.
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What this means is 'good' and 'evil' are purely human constructs and cannot be applied to god or used to discern god's nature in any viable way; they have no value outside of our societies. Therefore it follows that 'evil' comes from man. As does 'good'.
If Good and Evil is human constructs so is God?
Regards,
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What this means is 'good' and 'evil' are purely human constructs and cannot be applied to god or used to discern god's nature in any viable way; they have no value outside of our societies. Therefore it follows that 'evil' comes from man. As does 'good'.
If Good and Evil is human constructs so is God?
Regards,
If you believe "god" is a construct of the mind, why are you here?
Also, if "god" is a construct of the mind explain the origin of everything.
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If you believe "god" is a construct of the mind, why are you here?
I am little surprised with the last bit of your statement above D
I think you would have answered it like this "What that's got to do with it?"
The question was legitimate was it not?
If you say Good and Evil is human construct then the question follows Is God is also a human construct?Also, if "god" is a construct of the mind explain the origin of everything.
Perhaps this is for another thread...
Regards,
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If you say Good and Evil is human construct then the question follows Is God is also a human construct?
For the purposes of this discussion, No.
OK. But I am still troubled by the "Good" and "Evil" being human constructs and "God" is not...and yet scripture says do "Good" and not "Evil" if that is the case then if God does not adhere to this sense of "Good" then that "God" would be a monster...
Regards,
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If you say Good and Evil is human construct then the question follows Is God is also a human construct?
For the purposes of this discussion, No.
OK. But I am still troubled by the "Good" and "Evil" being human constructs and "God" is not...and yet scripture says do "Good" and not "Evil" if that is the case then if God does not adhere to this sense of "Good" then that "God" would be a monster...
Regards,
I explained this in my post.
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Hi LoteTree,
Everything we 'see', be it outside or inside our heads, are human contructs. Not that the thing we're viewing is manufactured by us humans, but it's the very manner in which we perceive - the way we interpret our senses - that is a human contruct. Therefore, in our heads, 'god' is a human construct, though in reality, It is not.
Did that make sense?
Nadeem.
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Hi LoteTree,
Everything we 'see', be it outside or inside our heads, are human contructs. Not that the thing we're viewing is manufactured by us humans, but it's the very manner in which we perceive - the way we interpret our senses - that is a human contruct. Therefore, in our heads, 'god' is a human construct, though in reality, It is not.
Did that make sense?
Nadeem.
Ah young Nadeem I missed your response.
Yes I get you - that everything that we percieve is a human construct. It can't be nothing more. Therefore even "God" is a human construct though we we can't know that for sure. But this ties in with the insights of the past sages who have also stated that "God" is beyond human constructs and is unknowable through human concepts...
Regards,