Evaluate the response of writers from at least three different religions to the fact that, sometimes, bad things happen to good people.

Think about the title:

I didn't ask you to think "How would people answer the question 'Why do bad things happen to good people?'" but "How would they respond to the fact that bad things happen to good people."

Suppose a bomb is about to explode. That is a fact. There are lots of ways of responding to the fact - getting people to safety, or covering the bomb with my body to protect people, or panicking and making a fool of myself are all responses. I might ask "Why is this bomb about to explode?", but that might not be the most helpful response. Of course if my answer is "The bomb is about to explode because of a build up of positronic emissions, which I can over-ride by using my sonic screwdriver to reverse the polarity of the neutron flow", that might be a helpful response - if I know what I'm talking about.

Of course, how we respond to facts depends on where we are in relation to them. The best response to the bombing of Hiroshima before the event would have been to evacuate the city. Today, we can respond to the bombing of Hiroshima by learning lessons, by commemorating the victims, or by trying to understand why it happened. How people can be expected to respond to suffering depends partly, of course, on how close they were to suffering.

Now the sad fact is that I do not own a TARDIS. I cannot go back and ask great thinkers from history "How should we respond to the fact that good things happen to bad people." The best I can do is find things that important thinkers wrote or said about evil, and then let you try to figure out how they would have responded to the fact of evil.


Primary and Secondary Sources:

Some of you, in writing this assignment, showed a misunderstanding of the role of scholars in presenting other people's ideas.

Francis Clooney is not a Hindu. He is a Catholic. However, he is an expert on Hinduism, and his article about Karma should help you to understand some Hindu ideas about evil. But the ideas he is explaining are not his ideas, and he should not be blamed for any shortcomings:

In my opinion, Clooney's main argument clearly doesn't answer the question: Why do bad things happen to good people? Basically, the question regarding bad things happening to good people would not apply in this case, as the point Clooney is trying to make just addresses God's intrusion in karmic consequences, and human freedom to act. Clooney's theory indicates that if bad or good things were to occur, bad or good deeds must have been committed before ...

Suppose I asked you what is John Stuart Mill's theory about right and wrong. You reply that according to Mill, an action is good if and only if it leads to the greatest happiness of the greatest number. That's the right answer, because that is what Mill believed. But suppose I say "How can you be so stupid? Often, doing the right thing leads to all kinds of bad consequences. For example, it is right to tell the truth, even if it has a bad result." You may or may not agree, but clearly, I have no right at all to call you stupid, because you haven't told me anything about what you think is right or wrong. You've just told me what Mill said, correctly. If you had said "According to Mill, we must always treat others as ends in themselves, never as means, and so we should never tell lies", then you would be wrong, because you are telling me what Kant said, not what Mill said.

If you think Clooney misrepresents Hindu ideas, then you can criticize him for that. But if you have no reason to criticize him for misrepresenting Hindu ideas, then you have no reason to criticize him. You can, of course, criticize the ideas that he draws from Hinduism (specifically, from Shankara). You might say:

According to Clooney, Shankara indicates that if bad or good things were to occur, bad or good deeds must have been committed before. If this is Shankara's theory, I find it untenable because ...

Some students were also confused about Bhikkhu Bodhi:

However Bodhi simply organized ideas, everything in his paper were basically primary sources from Buddhism. I do not believe the latter to be a great contribution to religion.

I do not want you to evaluate Bhikkhu Bodhi's thinking. I want you to evaluate the Buddha's thinking. But, being a kind professor, I do not demand that you read the Buddha's words in the original language - I have found a translation of the Buddha's words, and I found them in a book with the helpful title, In The Buddha's Words. Bhikkhu Bodhi's job was to select passages from primary sources and translate them, so that other people, like us, could understand the Buddhist religion. Unless you think he did a bad job of translating those words, there is nothing to criticize. In fact, you do not need to mention him by name in the paper, just in the bibliography. If you are quoting a Buddhist text in English, then when you cite, you need to enable the reader to find the particular translation that you were using. In a library, Bhikkhu Bodhi's name would appear as the author of In The Buddha's Words because he was the translator and editor.

Weak Conclusions:


... the reality is that we will never really know why these things happen, the only true thing is that they occur and there are just different ways to deal with it.


...there are still many uncertainties involved in understanding why do bad things happen to good people. But, your own opinion on the matter is what counts in the end.

I am trying to grade you. So, my opinion about evil counts for nothing. If a teacher asks a question, and you respond "I don't know, what do you think?" you surely don't expect to receive much credit. That doesn't mean that I expect you to tell me why such things happen: a good response to a fact is not always an explanation as to why some event took place, as I've explained. But you do have to evaluate responses. There are lots of ways of responding to an exploding bomb, many of them good. Panicking and crying is clearly not a helpful response, and you could say so.

Here are some better examples:

After examining these three schools of thought, I admit I agree with their shared main notions. Evil is in fact a product of humanity, and disregarding the deeper metaphysical explanation the three offered, I believe it is possible to prove in a scientific, undeniable and objective way that acts categorized as evil by the majority of the population are caused by human wants that possess a psychological and biological base. Only humans are capable of distinguishing good and evil, so we can't blame the currents for drowning people nor blame the earthquakes for destroying cities. Even though these three religions have a different way of telling their story, in the end, they all share the same moral.


That is a strong conclusion: the student expresses a point of view with clarity. Don't try to finish with something you think everyone will agree with. A strong conclusion gives the reader something to disagree with, otherwise, you've not really expressed a point of view at all.


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