Evil: What's Your Problem? Part 2 of ??

So for my second post on evil, I'm still leaving the matter proper alone. I want to point out another flaw in the challenge. Remember that the typical challenge goes something like this: "God cannot be both loving and all powerful since evil exists". This is the philosophically correct challenge. But you may run into this version of the challenge as well: "I cannot believe in God because there is so much evil in the world." I want to point out how this challenge is flawed at the get go.

Many things have a parent child relationship in our world: Tree, fruit/seed; Mother and Father, child; Parent Node, child node (computer science); etc. This holds true for good and evil. The only way we can have evil is to have a standard which one breaks. This standard can be referred to as "good".

For a moment let us assume that in eternity past there was a great fabric of nothingness. One day, this nothingness got perturbed and created a small infinitesimal singularity. This singularity then exploded to create all of the matter and energy that we now observe. From this matter and energy, blind mechanical processes worked to develop life as we know it over billions of years. (Don't ask me what a fabric of nothingness is or how it could get perturbed. This is a real explanation that some atheists give for the origin of all the we observe.) Okay, given this world view, where is the standard by which we should live? How can these blind mechanical process develop ethical notions. Under this paradigm there is no right or wrong, no good or evil, no purpose other than to get ones genes into the next generation. Under this paradigm, rape would be a good thing if it furthered a man's DNA.

So here's the problem, one cannot doubt that the parent (God/good/a standard by which to live) exists by pointing to the existance of the child (evil). It would be like saying "These apples are so horrible, I'm not even sure an apple tree exists". If one chooses not to believe in God, so be it. But that person cannot bolster their position by pointing to the existence of "evil".

So the next time you get this challenge, simply ask the challenger what the problem is. Ask what is evil. Ask how did evil get into the world. Press them on the question of how could evil exist without a standard to be broken. And how could this standard exist without a standard giver.