Religious and non Religious view on Evil and Suffering
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Course
A2 Unit 4 - Religion and Human Experience
Institution
AQA
This essay covers the following religious and non religious views of evil and suffering : Buddhist, Stoic, Scientific, Islamic, Christian, Determinist.
All views are compared and developed in regards to the essay title.
Religious and non religious views on evil and suffering
In this assignment, I will be examining the views people hold on evil and suffering, analysing
the reasons for their beliefs and the consequences of them. I will then establish which view I
believe is the strongest and explain my reasons for this
One religious view on evil and suffering is Buddhism. One of the central ideas of Buddhism
itself, seen in one of the four noble truths, is suffering (dukkha). This shows to Buddhists that
suffering is a part of everyone's lives and must be overcome.
Though the Buddha did not deny suffering to have any external causes, the true cause of
suffering is our res/ponse - our minds. This is because we ourselves desire things to be
different and by doing so we suffer. Buddhism also teaches that suffering can be brought
upon by desire or craving, these feelings are prominent in the three root poisons - greed,
hatred and ignorance.
Evil can have kammic consequences that pass on throughout a buddhist's life. This evil is
rooted from the suffering arising in one's mind through craving. A buddhist may overcome
their craving by following the 8 fold path in order to prevent evil acts and to gain good
kamma. This is evident through Dhammapada 343 which states ‘Those who are subject to
craving crawl around like a trapped hare, bound by feathers and bonds for a long time, they
undergo suffering again and again.’ This suggests that craving will only lead to an
inescapable loop of suffering.
In my opinion, the Buddhist view is strong because it is realistic as it tells us suffering is born
in self and only we can stop our own suffering. It is also a strong point that evil is created by
suffering as both go hand in hand.
A non religious view on evil and suffering is stoicism. The stoics were a group of
philosophers in Ancient Greece around 300BCE and they believed that suffering was our
own doing as we fail to analyse and reflect upon our experiences.
Stoicism can be similar to Buddhism as stoics believed that suffering comes from the lack of
restraint we have on desire. This is evident in the quote from Marcus Aurelius which states
‘The more we value things outside our control, the less control we have.’ So, in order to
overcome suffering, the idea was to think logically about your situations and to not overthink
them nor cause any form of desire.
As for evil, the stoic idea was to do what you could to prevent it, whether this was having
more self control or detaching from desire as evil is ultimately inevitable and just a part of life
born through simple cause and effect. There was no evil entity, just a natural process in
which evil occurs. Also said by Marcus Aurelius - ‘Life is neither good or evil, but only a
place for good and evil.’
Some may argue that stoicism encourages the acceptance of evil - just letting it happen and
letting it pass you by. However you should attempt to control a situation in which evil occurs
where you can.
Personally, I believe the stoic view on evil and suffering to be strong as it is similar to the
Buddhist view that suggests that most evil and suffering come from ourselves and our own
perceptions on situations, making the answer to evil and suffering self control.
Another non-religious view on evil and suffering is the scientific view. In the scientific view,
suffering has physical cause and effects based on the laws of physics and biological and
physiological processes.
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