Why does evil matter?

[Preety_India]

Evil matters only because it hurts our survival. 

Would it matter if our survival didn't matter? 

 

[yetineti]

If our survival didn’t matter you wouldn’t see evil. It wouldn’t even exist.

[Yarco]

Evil is subjective. There is no universal right and wrong.

Your ideas of evil matter to you because it helps you create a cohesive worldview.

People do lots of things you might consider evil, even though it doesn't affect their survival. You can choose to squish a bug (or drown a bag full of kittens since the first example probably doesn't create a visceral enough reaction) even though it doesn't impact your survival one way or the other.

Does it matter? Only if someone wants to punish you for your evil and you get caught I guess... whether that be the police or God. And having to live with your own guilt and shame from doing evil.

[Breakingthewall]

there are two definitions of evil. from the ego, evil is what is harmful for you or you society . from spirituality, evil is what strengthens the ego. In many cases, they coincide. the ideal is that they coincide completely. an ethical system is advanced to the extent that it comes closer to the latter.

[Preety_India]

@mw711 yea 

[Oeaohoo]

Does it bother you that evil might not matter? Would you prefer that evil mattered absolutely? Wouldn't that be a disaster? In that case, evil could tarnish all existence forever.

Most religions would go even further than to say that 'evil matters only because it hurts our survival'. Our very existence (to exist meaning literally "to stand out" or to "take a stand", much like Lucifer, Iblis and Prometheus took a stand against God) is only facilitated through evil: the evil of deluding ourselves into being separate from God. This, for example, is why the Gnostics reinterpreted the Old Testament so that the original creator God Jehovah was actually an evil Demiurge, and the Snake in the Garden (possibly related to Kundalini) was helping Adam and Eve to escape Him, like Odysseus escaping from the clutches of Calypso at the beginning of the Odyssey after seven years of captivity (relating to the theme of Kundalini, seven could refer to the seven planets or "chakras" that our subtle body passed through in order to be corporeally manifested).

Of course, this evil itself is only relative and is included in the ultimate Good.