Dear Kilian:

“It would be interesting to know your perspective on how Spirituality can exist alongside the presence of arbitrary evil in this world”, you wrote.

You defined Spirituality as (1) “the trust that something greater than oneself makes the world”, (2) that “what happens in (the world) has some sense rhyme and reason.. that it ticks according to a greater mind”, (3) that the world “moves toward the good”.

You defined arbitrary evil as “children having cancer, the life cycles of parasites that are unnecessarily harmful to its victims, and people’s propensities for evil deeds, sadistic deeds and so on”.

What I believe to be true regarding your definition of spirituality:

#1: I agree- there is “something greater than oneself that makes the world”, and that is why after I die, the world will go on without me in it. Nothing is a more convincing piece of evidence that the world is greater than any one person than the observation that the world does not die a million times a day, even though…  millions of people die every day.

#2: I agree- what happens in the world has some sense, rhyme and reason, it does tick to a greater mind: the rhyme is evident in the seasons, winter, spring, summer and fall, for example. It operates according to some sense and reason, for example, the mountain lion attacks a smaller, weaker deer because it is easier and safer than attacking a big, strong deer.

As to the greater mind, I don’t believe it is a god in the way the bible describes god, a human-like god. As a human being, I can’t observe the appearance of that greater mind, I can only observe the work of this greater mind: I can observe nature. I can investigate the work of this greater mind by applying the scientific method of investigation.

#3: I disagree- the world is not moving toward “the good”- for example,  climate change is evidence that the world is moving toward bad: toward what harms and kills plants, animal and people (air pollution, mega fires, greater hurricanes, etc.).

The idea of good was born in the context of animals living in social groups, where an individual does good for the group and in return, the group does good for the individual. (from coyotes to elk to people). Unfortunately, in human social life, individuals too often do what is bad for the group, disregarding that “sense, rhyme and reason” you mentioned. For example, it makes sense to not pollute the air for the good of the social group, but many individuals choose to unnecessarily pollute the air because polluting the air gives them their individual, temporary pleasure(ex., smoking in the home, around one’s family members), or immediate/ easy financial gain (ex., the oil industry powerful individuals fighting against the development of clean energy sources).

As to arbitrary evil: you mentioned cancer- a lot of cancer is caused by individual disregarding the good of the social group, such as the air pollution I mentioned above. As to the “life cycle of parasites that are unnecessarily harmful to its victims”- I am all for ridding our bodies from parasites, but from the point of view of that greater mind we are discussing, people are not more important than parasites. In that greater mind, parasites have the same right to exist as humans.

As far as “people’s propensities for evil deeds, sadistic deeds”- those behaviors come to be when a child is born into a home (the child’s first social-group) where the individuals within that home (parents, siblings, others) harm the child severely (which goes against that “sense, rhyme and reason” of the greater mind), and some of those severely harmed children then proceed to harm others, some do so sadistically. It is a terrible distortion of that sense-rhyme-and-reason of the greater mind.

anita