HOT TOPIC In May of this year, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an end to the global health emergency surrounding COVID-19. The organization reports that so far the virus has killed nearly 7 million people, while affecting the health of 729 million more. In announcing the emergency’s conclusion, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the WHO’s director general stated that in the previous week alone, “COVID-19 claimed a life every 3 minutes — and that’s just the deaths we know about.” Admitting that the end of the global emergency did not end the virus’ threat, Ghebreyesus added that, “The worst thing any country could do…is to let down its guard, to dismantle the systems it has built, or to send the message to its people that COVID-19 is nothing to worry about.” However, with the federal government already ceasing safeguards for vaccination and masking across the board, and city and state officials moving even faster, his warning seems to be falling on deaf ears. In March, Silicon Valley Bank became the second largest bank failure in US history, followed swiftly by Signature Bank with First Republic Bank closing in May. Concurrently, a series of crypto-crashes have erased billions in wealth with several high-profile proponents facing charges. All of which have accelerated fears of an encroaching recession that has been predicted for years. In the wake of this fiscal uncertainty — and even before it — companies in tech and other industries have begun massive layoffs, leaving hundreds of thousands without jobs this year alone and putting an untold number of families, homes, and futures at risk. Unchecked illnesses, civil unrest, financial upheaval, and violence all amount to the same thing: suffering. When so many bad things happen at once, it’s natural for us to wonder why. And when we can find no single answer to address every ill, there are a number of different ways we choose to cope. Often we compartmentalize, and insist on looking at them all as isolated events — as if no one on the train with Jordan Neely could possibly have been affected by COVID deaths, layoffs, financial fears, or the rising tide of hate that has been at the root of so much violence over the past few years. Other times, we shrug and and say that it’s just the way the world is, the way it’s always been, and that there’s nothing that can be done about it. And sometimes, we lay the blame on some unseen or abstract force like market forces, grand conspiracies or, if we’re really desperate — God. And while this last answer may not be everyone’s first choice, when examined it may yield some useful answers about the validity of these tactics and reveal some new options. The God Problem The question of why bad things happen is called “The Problem of Evil” in Christian theology and western philosophy. Trying to reconcile the Problem of Evil with a belief in God as envisioned by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is called “theodicy,” or “Justifying God.” It has a long and winding history full of positions, treatises, and schools of thought, but the basic argument goes like this: God is all-powerful (omnipotent); God is all-knowing (omniscient); God is all-good (omnibenevolent). Yet evil exists in the world. Therefore, God is either all-good and unable to stop evil and therefore not all-powerful, or all-powerful and unwilling to stop evil and therefore not all-good. Or God is simply unaware of all evil and therefore not all-knowing. Since evil verifiably exists, God either cannot exist, or cannot exist in the way these religions suggest. Going further, theodicy divides “evil” into Natural Evil and Moral Evil. Natural evils cause suffering or harm within nature. These include natural disasters, diseases, or instances of natural violence, like a lion killing a gazelle. Natural evils are further characterized by a lack of intent. Hurricanes don’t target cities, they simply occur, and cities happen to be in their path. Similarly, a lion isn’t angry when attacking a gazelle, it’s just hungry. Moral evil, conversely, requires agency and intention and is therefore unique to human beings. Unlike tornadoes, people have agency to decide where we go, what we do, and most importantly why we do it. And unlike diseases, people often intentionally inflict harm. For many, theodicy’s basic argument is enough to invalidate all belief in God. Scholars on both sides have debated the point for centuries with no end in sight. Yet even within the basic argument there are a number of problems that cause us to question the concept as a whole. The Problem of Presumption The underlying presumption to all theodicean arguments is that if God is perfect then God would necessarily want to create a “perfect” world. But what’s imperfect about it? Nature exists in a precise balance (when we aren’t interfering with it). And in that balance, volcanic eruptions, hurricanes, even black holes and supernovas all have their place; as do food chains. That most living things on this planet survive by eating other living things isn’t evil, it simply is. A gazelle hunted by lions certainly suffers, but then so do starving lions. The relationship between them is not imperfect but balanced. The argument comes from presuming that God shares or, worse, is bound to our perspective, which brings up another problem. The Problem of Androcentrism The concept of natural evil is androcentric because the natural world is only imperfect by our standards. The cycle of creation, destruction and rebirth is fundamental to just about everything that exists, from people to planets to stars. That we don’t care for every aspect of that cycle is irrelevant. Natural disasters are only disasters to us. To the planet they're just things that happen. Suggesting that the normal processes of the planet are evil simply because they are indifferent to our 118 aphrochic
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