Worldviews Reflective Integration
Transcendentalism and Postmodernism: Reflective Integration Contemporary coverage of the news bombards us daily with the presence of evil. Whether it is national headlines or the world news, it is evident that evil exist in our world today. The presence of evil can present conflict despite of your personal worldview. For many centuries, the presence of evil in the world has been the basis of intellectual debate and many scholars as well as theologians have tried to develop theories as to why evil exist. Regardless of whether you may be an atheist, agnostic, a pantheist or a Christian, the presence of evil in the world presents challenges in several ways. The presence of evil and how we comprehend it sets the foundation for our commitment to a specific worldview.
Antheist, Agnostic and Evil
Many atheists consider the problem of evil as proof that God does not exist. From this viewpoint one may argue that just as God is null to exist, there is no such thing as evil. For an atheist evil is simplified to occurrences that naturally exist. This is better described as stated in Making Sense of Your World, “Some people are going to get hurt, others are going to get lucky and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it” (Phillips, Brown and Stonestreet, 2008, p.151). The dilemma here is that we live in a world often void of positive outcome and one might find that they are hopelessly and helplessly waiting for luck to come their way. Consequently this mindset leads to the lack of moral boundaries for good and evil and one can find themselves living life out of control and hoping to be luckier than the next guy in beating the odds of natural causes and processes.
Contrary to an atheist, an Agnostic suspends judgment of evil, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. They settle to simply state that it is unknown whether evil exist or does not exist. The consequence with this mindset is that the agnostic faces a pessimistic,
Antheist, Agnostic and Evil
Many atheists consider the problem of evil as proof that God does not exist. From this viewpoint one may argue that just as God is null to exist, there is no such thing as evil. For an atheist evil is simplified to occurrences that naturally exist. This is better described as stated in Making Sense of Your World, “Some people are going to get hurt, others are going to get lucky and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it” (Phillips, Brown and Stonestreet, 2008, p.151). The dilemma here is that we live in a world often void of positive outcome and one might find that they are hopelessly and helplessly waiting for luck to come their way. Consequently this mindset leads to the lack of moral boundaries for good and evil and one can find themselves living life out of control and hoping to be luckier than the next guy in beating the odds of natural causes and processes.
Contrary to an atheist, an Agnostic suspends judgment of evil, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. They settle to simply state that it is unknown whether evil exist or does not exist. The consequence with this mindset is that the agnostic faces a pessimistic,
References: Phillips, W. G., Brown, W. E. & Stonestreet, J. (2008). Making sense of your world: A biblical worldview. (2nd ed.) Salem, WI: Sheffield Publishing Company. Rood, Rick (1996) The Problem of Evil: How Can a Good God Allow Evil. Retrieved; February 12, 2012, from http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/evil.html