Why does evil exist?

There are experiences that the passage of time cannot erase and that time and time again invite us to deep reflections...

As a child I always visited my grandmother's house in the west of Caracas. It was a place of houses very close to each other, separated by small spaces. Many people used to divide their plots of land with cayenne bushes, a shrub that can grow very tall, but by pruning it properly you can achieve very dense barriers that are difficult to cross.

One day I heard a commotion on the sidewalk, I must have been about seven years old. I went to look and saw a group of children, about my age, beating something inside the cayenne bushes. The thick bushes did not let me see what they were hitting, but they all looked very amused throwing blows with some small sticks...

At a certain moment a small face appeared in a clearing, it was a black and white kitten with a bleeding mouth. With great effort the poor little animal managed to get out and collapsed on the ground, probably dying after having received so many blows... The children stood and watched. Then everyone, including me, ran off to their homes...

Although I was a child I knew I had witnessed something very bad, I did not even have the courage to tell my parents...More than once I have wondered why those children had acted that way, why someone could enjoy hitting a helpless being...And although it could be said that it was an unfortunate childish prank, I have no doubt that it was an act of evil.

Throughout life I have seen many times how people do wrong. I am impressed by how ordinary people are capable of lashing out at others to harm them. It impresses me that leaders and politicians use the mechanisms of power to harm many people. Unfortunately, any review of the internet news confirms these facts.

I am convinced that the good guys are in the majority, but I am still intrigued why some continue to do harm, and I would really like to know why things are like this... What would be the origin of the evil...?

I share many of the beliefs of the Catholic Religion, there we are provided with a metaphysical explanation about the origin of evil, which by the way, according to this religion, has been present since the origins of creation.

The problem with this explanation is that we can practically do very little to eradicate evil, because even believing people suddenly do harm. In a way we would be condemned to live with evil until the end of time.

People like the philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) argue that evil is a natural predisposition of human beings, which means that it is within us. For this thinker it is social life that can keep this predisposition in check.

Here I see an interesting clue because if we focus, for example, on educating people better, perhaps evil could disappear over time.

It would be wonderful if science could shed more light on this issue. We know that substances such as alcohol and other drugs bring out aggressive behavior in people, which makes it easier for them to harm others. However, despite this knowledge, we have not found a way to stop these substances from producing such effects.

If the problem of evil were something strictly biological, perhaps at some point an antidote could be found. Just as vaccines have been created against polio, smallpox, or the more recent one against covid-19, vaccines could be created against evil. If this has not been done, it is probably because the problem is much more complex, it goes beyond the biological sphere.

I like to think that humans have an infinite capacity to find solutions. Perhaps there will come a time when we will be able to combine all the knowledge, those coming from religions and those coming from science, to find a solution to the problem of evil.

In the meantime, we must continue to teach by example, so that everyone should strive to do as much good as possible.

I make this publication motivated by the initiative convened by friend @galenkp in its 169th edition.

Thanks for your time.

Cover edited in Canva.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

All your comments are welcome on this site. I will read them with pleasure and dedication.

Until the next delivery. Thank you.

The photos, the digital edition and the Gifs are of my authorship.

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