Essay about Good and Evil in Quinn's Ishmael

In the course of this essay I will argue that evil is not compatible with the existence of god. This means that evil and God cannot coexist because if god were present, the existence of evil would contradict all that god is believed to be. Abrahamic religions insist that God both created the world and that he preserves and maintains it. Christianity claims that God is all knowing and is boundless in his abilities. Religions claim that God is benevolent, and only wants the best for humanity and the universe, as his creations. If all of the above statements be true, then it is hard to understand why god would allow evil to thrive right from the beginning of time.

In the early ages, mankind was savage. William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, proves that humans are savage still today. Golding does a good job of showing the readers that without civilization, people go mad. Jack shows savage ways early in the book, and it is obvious that things will only get worse. Lord of the Flies shows that when left alone, even the most unlikely people will resort to savage ways.

Like Ahab, however, realizing the power in his hands, man has taken it and used it to his own purposes. He has chosen a path of vengeance, hatred, and disobedience, "[a]nd even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind" (240).

Humans simply cannot know all there is to know in order to conclude God and evil are incompatible. This popular argument attempts a total refutation of LPE; however, it does not directly address LPE, choosing rather to sidestep the immediate issue and attack human cognitive limitations. The argument, while successful in sense, lacks satisfactory closure to LPE and opens an epistemological Pandora’s Box, where everything we know becomes suspect. Consequently, this approach is not a strong one.

A defining characteristic of humanity is our unparalleled ability to reason, to see the world in new ways and to reinvent it within our minds. Yet, a human mind without knowledge, one ignorant to the workings of its surroundings, is limited in what it can achieve, and changed in how it will act. In humankind’s creation stories portrayed in the Hebrew Bible and the Popol Vuh, the gods utilize human ignorance in difference ways. I will argue that while ignorance is used as a tool by the gods to guarantee human worship and thus their own existence in the Popol Vuh, the god of the Hebrew Bible concedes that total ignorance is detrimental to the advancement of the human race and uses it rather as a tool to advance humanity’s own success.

Human nature is complex. It may take over an individual’s mind in many desperate and threatening situations. In Golding’s compelling novel, Lord of the Flies, it is implied that the evil, or bad side of humanity will overshadow the good. However, there are certain situations present in the novel that portray the opposite. The depiction of human nature in this novel creates a nice balance between the positive and negative aspects of humanity. Although Golding’s novel is portrayed as pessimistic, Ralph’s words and actions when dealing with various situations, Sam and Eric’s loyalty to Ralph, and the boys’ rescue at the end of the novel contradict this idea, creating a commendable balance of pessimistic and optimistic situations.

There is a quote by Edmund Burke, “man is the cruelest animal”, that perfectly describes the truth about human nature; that humanity, at its core, is an evil species. William Golding acknowledges this fact in his 1954 novel, Lord of the Flies. Throughout the novel, Golding highlights the cruelty of children, the carelessness of their actions, and the evilness present in the very fabric of society.

The plain concept is that without letting some evil, God could not have completed a creation which had any good, because it is unmanageable for good will to exist without evil.

Mankind is taught evil by society. Throughout society, you see acts of evil that a child could not even fathom. In this essay, I will compare mankind and Lord of the flies in terms of violence,lack of trust and authority.

The pages are lined with opinions and assumptions about human nature and the way the world works. Quinn, speaking through the character of Ishmael voices his opinions on how the way we are living is affecting the world in itself. Readers should pick and choose what to believe from this document.

Mankind has struggled throughout eternity, battling the demons that come from the very depths of the soul. Elie Wiesel’s novel, Night, and William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies show how quickly humans can descend into chaos and savagery. When dehumanization presents itself in unruly civilizations, humans turn into more primitive beings. The process of dehumanization begins through a loss of morals, knowledge, and innocence. The main characters in both novels find themselves in the eternal battle of good versus evil.

When the debate of whether humanity is fundamentally good-hearted or wicked is brought to attention, people tend to focus on the evil around them since there is an abundance of it, and throughout William Golding’s novel, Lord of the Flies, and the literary elements of foreshadowing and internal conflict, he proves that humans are essentially evil.

Daniel Quinn has written a book about how things have come to be the way they are. He looks at the meaning of the world and the fate of humans. Ishmael the main character is a teacher of vast wisdom, as well as being a Gorilla. Being no ordinary Gorilla, Ishmael recognises the failing of human kind in relation to their moral responsibilities. He ultimately directs use towards a solution to the problems we have created for the planet. Ishmael is trying to convey that man kind is living in such a way that we can not last. Our vast numbers alone is hindering our survival.

And the answer came: Where was man? For it was men alone who did this evil. Not God or religion or men acting in the name of God or religion. But simply men.”

According to the Creators, about 22,000 years ago aliens became very advanced and sophisticated in their technology and understandings. They created a beast that was extremely dangerous. When it escaped from them, it attacked and killed several of their people. The aliens then decided they needed a new planet with which to experiment in DNA manipulations. They decided that Earth would be good to try out new things at. While experimenting, they created human beings “in their own image.” They didn’t tell the humans about their technical knowledge, including how to make their life spans longer. In this Bible, this was called the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Creators believed that if the humans knew too much, the humans would become too smart and dangerous. Known as the Serpent in the Bible, there were a group of alien creators who thought that the humans should know as much as they could.