Is God good or evil?

I’m sorry God, but I just don’t believe that you are good.  I’m further sorry God, but I also consider the likelihood that you may in fact be evil.

Lately I have been considering the existence of good and evil.  By that, I mean I am coming to the conclusion that neither of them is actually real.  They appear real to an individual because they are completely subjective terms.  It would seem that humans have created a concept of good and evil in our own minds for some particular reason that I’ll explore in a moment.  

I can’t be sure if the good versus evil concept exists beyond Western Christianity because, sadly, I just don’t have an adequate knowledge of other religions or cultures.  The Christian sacred book, The Bible, talks about Adam and Eve eating from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  What was the effect of that in Christian lore?  Funny, I don’t recall learning much about that in Sunday School.  I seem to remember it was all some snake’s fault anyway and humans shirked any responsibility or accountability because apparently we were tricked.  That snake was obviously just far too clever for us simple humans.  It seemed that humans now were expected to know which things were good (or of God) and which were evil (of the Devil) as a result of this Garden of Eden fiasco.  I do know that I grew up being taught through society/religion/parental discipline which actions were good and which actions were bad.  I have continued to carry these concepts into adult life and I believe the results of that “knowledge” (I term it classification) are not overly successful for growth and maturity.

Humans seem to rely on compartmentalising events within their lives, or the lives of those around them, as either good or bad (evil).  It appears to be a bid to cope with or justify the emotional responses to each event at any given time.  At least that’s the way I have observed it in me; I guess I can’t speak for the emotions of others.  What I classify as a “bad” event may have a flip side that my social neighbour utilises to classify the event as “good”.  Neither is correct or incorrect; it is just a simple matter of perspective.  A simple example is the death of the family dog.  My family is coping with the loss of a dear pet and we deem that event as “bad”.  The next-door-neighbour has had to endure a barking canine in a relentless capacity and their child is anxious due to a recent incident with the dog.  They view the death as “good”, in fact possibly as a “god-send”. 

A more complex example is Susan.  Susan is 23 and has learned she will not be able to have children due to some physical problems.  She focuses on her career and is doing well although her married life is somewhat troublesome.  At 28 years old, Susan finds out she is pregnant.  Everyone congratulates her for the good news, exclaiming the miraculous nature of it all and thanking God for the miracle.  The situation has been labelled as being “good” by everyone.  Susan, on the other hand, having had years to adapt to the fact she wasn’t having children, had thrown herself into her work and her career was skyrocketing. She was actually pondering divorce and certainly was not thrilled to find out she was pregnant, although there is a sense of intrigue at the ability to experience motherhood.  Susan now feels guilty divulging all these emotions to anyone given that the situation is heralded as “good” and her own friends have told her she should be over the moon.  Susan’s emotional processing has now been stunted as result of labelling something as good, rather than leaving it unlabelled. 

Is the ability to recover quickly on an emotional level linked to whether we classify an event as good or bad? If our emotional response is huge and the recovery process drawn out, we seem to decide that was a bad situation.  A good situation seems to be one where the emotional response is high but it doesn’t appear to last as long as the emotional response to a bad situation.  Are we, therefore, learning on a negative scale our entire lives due to a particular religious connotation of good versus evil?  Any psychologist or teacher will tell you that learning through a negative method is certainly not conducive to success.  That may go some way to explaining why we do the same things over and over again.  So, why do we continue to classify?  The “bad” event actually provides an enormous scope for learning, growth, passion, compassion, love and forgiveness, among other things, due to the magnitude of the emotional depths an individual is forced to endure.  A “good” event provides a euphoric response although limited learning or growth because we don’t seem to ponder the emotions.  Maybe that’s why we term a situation as “good”; it’s a simple emotion that we can accept without introspection or evaluation.  I certainly hope the Western world has not become so shallow...  

Life would be markedly different if we chose to live without the assignment of good or evil.  I could imagine the levels of guilt and resentment would be considerably lighter on.  We could ask people how they feel about events and allow them to express themselves fully.  We would no longer operate outside our own moral convictions under the guise of “the greater good”.  There is the potential to process a range of emotions quicker than ever before because we just accept them and become more introspective and contemplative in order to move forward.  We should then be able to share with others our feelings of anger and despair as readily as we do our extreme joy and happiness.  The real person would emerge for all to see.

We seem to define good and evil as polar opposites on a linear scale.  I believe this limits our thinking and emotional processing.  I like to imagine emotions as spheres rather than as being linear.  When I dissect my emotions relating to any given situation, I have a multitude of feelings on a variety of scales.  When I experience anger it doesn’t sit on a linear scale between 0 and 10; it moves constantly between volatility, misdirection and dissipation whilst being intermingled with emotions such as remorse, sadness, regret, disappointment, relief, futility, etc. in relation to any point in life.  My emotions function fully and are not limited to being classified as either good or bad. I recognise that I need to experience the fully expansive nature of emotional responses in order that I learn, grow and understand myself and life to a greater extent.  I no longer feel the need to limit my emotional capabilities, thereby rendering myself more superficial than I would otherwise be.  

I view it as being a similar concept as that of a flat Earth.  The concept of the Earth being flat was widely accepted at one point in time yet it limited the actions of the human species. People were afraid to voyage to the horizon or the unknown drop-off.  It was people like Ferdinand Magellan and Christopher Columbus that were the pioneers; the brave that decided to push their character to the limit for either knowledge or physical death.  These explorers changed the world and allowed the rest of the human race to view the physical world from a different perspective, a New World.  Why then do we not change our “flat emotions” into “spherical emotions” and really allow ourselves to set sail and explore the full capabilities of ourselves?  There is either full enlightenment or spiritual death at stake here.

Let’s continue using Earth as an example of this labelling of good and evil that is not physical but seemingly only religious in nature.  The Earth isn’t good or evil.  Earthquakes, floods, etc are classified as natural disasters by humans but that is because of the devastation to our species’ life.  These “natural disasters” are just the Earth being the Earth.  Was Earth intent on causing catastrophe when Mount Vesuvius erupted?  Are the floods that are so common in Bangladesh aimed at Earth’s destruction of human life?  Is Earth particularly vindictive because of the famine in Somalia?  When it rains day after day after day, it’s “bad” because of the risk of flood.  When it rains in a particularly dry season, it’s “good”. When it doesn’t rain at all for long periods, it’s “bad”.  Very strange...how can a natural phenomenon such as rain be categorised as good or bad?  Which person is it that may make the decision as to how to correctly classify precipitation in the good or evil category?  

Why do humans feel it necessary to classify everything?  Stop classifying and start really experiencing life in all its fullness.  Experience and explore all your emotions and share them with others.  Open up the depths of yourself for your own contemplation and allow others the freedom to do the same.  Be proud and amazed and disappointed at your coping abilities and actually support other people in a more meaningful way by expressing emotions and avoiding labels. 

Stop being stuck in some area of Mesopotamia in the Garden of Eden and experience real life. Encounter real human freedom where the snake isn’t taking the blame: you are.