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Thursday, April 13, 2023

Why is evil more appealing than goodness?


 How peculiar that in the Bible and in day-to-day life evil is more attractive, more appealing and occurring more often than goodness in the Bible. You read about brothers killing each other, and brothers raping their sisters, and I’ve always wondered why if good manners and right living is ethically and philosophically more beneficial to those around you and to one self, why—especially in the Bible—but also in real life, you encounter evil more frequently. This is very perplexing. It’s always amazing that—as they are called—our first parents, Adam and Eve—that their firstborn son named Cain, who was able to communicate with God at the entrance to the garden of Eden yet killed his brother for a paltry reason like being jealous of his brother’s sacrifice of a lamb to God just because  God was pleased with his brother Abel, but not with Cain’s  sacrifice, a burnt offering, of just vegetables that he had harvested himself. It’s always been very perplexing.

Another thing that always disturbs me is that, again, if goodness is so superior and producing better results and contributing to a peaceful and more desirable society, why most of humanity—except Noah and his family—were destroyed by the Flood along with all the innocent animals, because more people had elected evil and wrongdoing and selfishness instead of an altruistic, mutually beneficial method of living? That is very perplexing

Perhaps I am missing some very basic, and not so obvious explanation for the preponderance of evil, as opposed to goodness and virtue and good living in the  Bible stories, and in world history. It would’ve been more understandable if only half of humanity would  have been destroyed by drowning in the account of the Flood destruction of most of humanity—a kind of genocide, really. If you think about it, why is it that most of the world’s population at the time of the biblical Flood didn’t tend towards a good, honest and productive living as opposed to evil? The destruction of 50 percent of an evil population compared to 50 percent of a good and virtuous population would have made more sense, but the story in the book of Genesis says that only eight people were saved from all of the millions that were alive at the time of the flood story.

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