Book Title: World of Philosophy
Author(s): Christopher Key Chapple, Intaj Malek, Dilip Charan, Sunanda Shastri, Prashant Dave
Publisher: Shanti Prakashan
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unpleasantness when we see some one else suffering. It could be any of the living things, known and /or unknown to us. Do we not feel for the victims of earthquakes and other calamities in locations other than our own?
Evil may be classified into three categories:
(i) Physical evil that arises from outside over which one has no control - in the form of disease/ailments, anatomical defects or weakness due to hereditary/genetic factors (handicaps/disabilities at birth) or bodily injury due to incidents arising from one's own ignorance and apathy or accidents caused due to others' negligence. How many people suffer from chronic illhealth due to environmental degradation, alcoholism, addiction to tobacco or over-eating to just keep their taste buds happy? A law-abiding person of good character may fall victim to cheap synthetic colours (allergies, blindness) thrown at him by others during Holi, or he may just get knocked down while walking on a foot-path due to a drunken truck driver or an over-speeding motorist. There are people who suffer serious head and/or irreversible eye-injury due to stones thrown from the sidelines at moving trains by ruffians who get vicarious pleasure out of it. And there are those who become victims of mistaken identity.
(ii) Some persons become paupers and refugees overnight due to man-made or natural calamities like war and civil strife, building-crash, terrorist attack, earthquakes, cyclones, floods, drought, famine, plague and epidemics. People who live in isolated pockets in inhospitable mountainous terrain or forests suffer due to their peculiar geographical conditions and a lack of communication, transport, educational and health facilities. We have to also accept and come to terms with wild animals and criminal tribes on the prowl, for they have nothing else to do. These are categorized as natural evil.
(iii) Moral evil is not outside us; it arises from within each individual. The feeling of greed, vanity, jealousy, hatred, ego, vengeance, aver'sion, ill-will, etc. is of one's making that leads to acts of cheating, stealing, violence, brutality, destruction, rape, burglary, murder and wanton killing. One cannot fully control physical and natural evil, but only make 'damagecontrol' adjustments; but moral evil is something that an individual can definitely overcome by altering his perspective. That is why a soldier who is trained to capture or kill the enemy is different from a terrorist, whatever his ideology may be.
The fact of evil in the world is one of the easiest and most convenient arguments that the atheist raises against the very conception of divinity and the theist's faith in the existence of God. All religions have their mythology that shows a continuous struggle between the good spirits (divine/godly/ saintly) and the evil spirits (devilish/wicked/asura). Ultimately, good is shown
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