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Article: Evil and Suffering
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Science and Religion
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Evil and Suffering
Evil is whatever frustrates or opposes goodness, and goodness is what is, or ought to be, desired by conscious rational agents. Suffering is thus one sort of evil, since no conscious rational agent would desire to suffer, just for its own sake. Other sorts of evil lie in the frustration of the aims and goals of rational agents (one might also include the aims of God, and some would include the aims and goals of any beings whatsoever, insofar as they could reasonably be said to have aims or goals), or in factors that restrict the normal activities and dispositions of rational or sentient agents.
Buddhism
The faith that most obviously takes the fact of evil as one ...