Evil is the Absence of Good After reading this passage, I do see that evil may not be an actual thing but maybe an absence of good. I have always heard that good cannot exist without evil, the whole idea of the yin yang. But I have never considered that evil is only there because the lack of good. That for me is a small epiphany. The more I think about it the more I come up with questions like if there is not an actual evil only the absence of good, then is there a devil? The idea of varying levels of good did not seem like a hot topic of debate to me, but in the book they make it a series of lines of logic. I always just assumed that it was obvious that some things were better than others. For example, some people for the most part make better moral decisions than others do so therefore they are a morally better person.
From http://hypernews.ngdc.noaa.gov
evil bug
English: Yin & YangIn the book there is a line of logic that says there must be more being to a person or thing in order for them to be better. What they actually mean is that one thing has to contain more reality than another thing.
Another thing that caught my attention was that according to Christian teachings all things are created by God. And since all things owe their existence to God's existence, and God's being is the same as God's goodness, then everything must have goodness in it. I love that idea because we are taught that we should try to see the goodness inside of everyone and what is the point of trying to see the goodness in people if there is no guarantee that there is any good inside them. Also, I like that idea because it means that we all have the ability to act as good people. Especially in the light of what happened last Tuesday at the World Trade Center. Acts of violence like that make people question whether people are inherently good just because they are human.
Yin Yang Gua
Evil Ever After
Deutsch: Yin Yang