Human Rights and the Problem of Evil

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Human Rights and the Problem of Evil

Arguably, the greatest challenge to faith in the omnipotent, omniscient, and fully good being ("God") is the problem of evil: There is so much evil in the world, so why does not God eliminate the evil? A number of solutions were proposed, with the main argument that life can only be meaningful if people have to fight against problems and have freedom to try different solutions, and that interference of God would cause people to rely on God instead of fighting the problems (evil) themselves. Assuming that this argument is plausible, as I do for this paper, another problem must be solved.

Justice and human rights appear to be the basic principles of civilized society. It is considered wrong to murder regardless of the expected utility of the murder. It is also generally accepted that the society has a moral duty to prosecute the murderer. Torture and murder of a child are clearly unjust and violate the child's rights, and so are generally considered to be wrong regardless of the good they will cause. Thus, it appears that God should not allow torture of children to happen even if the torture is necessary to enrich the life and bring enlightened happiness to all people. Since such torture happens daily, it may appear that God does not exist. A naïve solution is to argue that God merely lets children to be beaten as they scream in agony, instead of causing the beatings. However, what causes a choice in the mind to turn into action, and the physical state to turn into suffering? Physical laws appear to cause it, but physical laws are merely mathematical equations which themselves cannot cause anything, causation through laws requires a being to enforce the laws, and that being is God. Thus, ...

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...true happiness should not be confused with the superficial one. For example, a person who wants to go on a suicide mission appears to decline happiness, but in reality may have great inner happiness from the service he gives to the society, and might suffer guilt for the rest of his life (be unhappy) had he declined the mission.

The apparent conflict between human rights and actions of God is based on misunderstanding about the justification of human rights. Human rights and justice are not important when taken in abstract and by themselves. However, fundamental rights must always be protected to prevent grave dangers to the society. Justice must be administered to give incentives and thus to cause people to do good and avoid evil. God is justified in causing the world to evolve according to physical laws if such action is necessary to make human life meaningful.

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