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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1300