On Evil

This was to be my first book club meeting as I have just joined, unfortunately I was unable to attend because of my poor internet-tech skills. Hopefully I will get that sorted before the next meeting. Now about this book. I really would have liked to hear the discussion as I truly wondered how other felt about this book, especially because I did not like it at all. I found it annoying and frustrating almost from the beginning even though I made myself read it thoroughly to the end. While I would have perhaps spoken in more detail in a meeting, in general I would say I found his arguments often illogical and somewhat chaotic. Also, the absence of reference to any empirical biological or psychological evidence to support any of his claims about the nature of evil or human nature more generally was notable. While novels and plays are of course wonderful in helping us understand ourselves and others, to me they are unconvincing as evidence for such broad and specific claims as the author made. Finally, I am unconvinced that the theological framework is the most helpful in addressing the question of evil, as it is too circumscribed and in the case of this author so clearly biased toward a very narrow Roman Catholic reading. Nevertheless, in a curious way it was good to be so annoyed by a book as I was by this one - helped me clear some of the cobwebs from my own thinking.