Thanks u/Plemethrock
We can have a discussion on whether or not free will exists. Discuss if every action we do is already predetermined by how our brain is wired, with the environment around us being the inputs.
We can also have a discussion on whether or not humans have souls and analyze the evidence for and against us just being our bodies
(I made an error and had to repost, apologies)
I don't mind that we are out of step, I've said my peace as to the OP. The issue is whether you'd like to find out the truth and the resolution of the disagreement between us, or not. If you don't care and are comfortable remaining in your presuppositions (even though the forum exists to challenge people), sobeit. But if you have committed to pursue truth at all costs, it's not enough to bat away opposition with weak arguments (veganism) or to dismiss arguments as illogical without working through the definitions of the words you use.
Your initial salvo was that evil exists "due to the nature of things", which implies you presume that the corrupted state we observe is the only state this world could ever have had. However, science shows that the formation of the universe was dramatically different from its ongoing phases, and in particular that via the second law the universe was more orderly in the past than it is now (less entropic). How can we weigh the evidence of science and history together to find out the true "nature of things" together? Are you prepared to investigate your presumptions and weigh whether they are capable of nuance? From recent observations we don't have hard proof that the universe began with perfection or that it began with imperfection, either way; so we need to draw inferences from analysis of science and history, not just recent observation. Without getting to that root we wouldn't likely arrive at the same conclusion.
It is not a weak deflection, and I made the distinction because you said vegetarian which is much different than vegan. Competition appears to be in all ways the nature of this universe, from the atomic level to the observable human level. Competition that is part of survival (for food, resources, natural security, reproductive security, etc) will lend itself to actions we consider to be evil. It takes higher order thinking to avoid those and even that thinking is primarily used to some type of end that is beneficial in that way. This is why complex organisms have reward systems in their brains, more complex biological directives.
We can grant that entropy is a law, but have we seen any type of greater manifestation of it in living organisms? It seems to me there are a lot of ideas you can connect if you're trying to prove a certain conclusion, but they don't really fit together naturally with the evidence available now
What I said, you go by surface appearance, but there is more data to resolve than that.
The fact that higher thinking exists out of a world currently obsessed with competition and entropy is of the unresolved data.
The idea of evolution that things just get better, by nature and without direction, contradicts the laws of thermodynamics. That's another data point. Since order is observed, evolutionists attribute that order to Blind Chance. Theists, to First Cause. Either way, the assumption is that the world isn't only destructive and competitive. Everyone believes there is good out there somewhere despite appearances; everyone believes that evil is something that will (naturally) be judged. People see it as a natural law, the law of sowing and reaping, what goes around coming around. (A couple deny it, but the honest among them follow atheist Will Provine in admitting that the only alternative is nihilism.)
So wherever you stand, as soon as you use moral language such as evil existing, you logically entail responsibility (which entails freewill). If there were no responsibility nothing would be "evil"; if things are evil then responsibility is defined as actions that avoid evil.
There is more data, but competition is inherent in the struggle for existence, at every level. We have been able to abstract some of that away from human life because we have do thoroughly dominated all other life on this planet. If you have data to contradict this, I'm happy to look at it. It's very easy to say "higher order thinking" is unresolved data but one could say the emergence of higher order thinking is an advantage that gives the ability to so thoroughly dominate the world.
People do see it as natural law. Because most people understand that if you do good things, good things tend to happen in return, and bad things likewise. If you're a dick to everyone, you probably die because no one will help you when you get in trouble, if you're helpful to everyone it's the opposite. You can choose to believe that in a spiritual sense or not. I actually tend towards believing that in a spiritual sense and very strongly tend towards there being a Creator God, and Christ being a representative of Him. (Though I admit my faith is far from rock solid as I continually try to sort out the nature of all things, but all that aside). In the sense of debate I tend away from relying on that which cannot be observed.
Evil exists, perhaps. We have actions that we perceive as evil, but is it because we see the negative consequences that arise as a result of destructive behaviors or is it because of something higher? Even an animal knows not to touch something that burns it, and would probably consider that thing to be evil. Is the reason we see common morality throughout cultures because humans observe the same behaviors as being destructive, or is there a higher reason? I like to believe that the latter is true, but the concept of "evil" as behaviors we've recognized are destructive does not automatically imply there is free will, only that it is advantageous to avoid them. For what it's worth I do believe in free will, but that is a belief, it is not founded in logic and evidence that I can present