  Some people think evil is on of the most compelling arguments against the existence of God. Actually, it is one of the best arguments in favor of the existence of God. What is the definition of "evil? " Merriam-Webster defines "evil" as "morally bad or wrong; wicked.
" Evil means that things are not as they should be. They have departed from good. That would mean there is a standard for goodness. Scholar C.S. Lewis said "I wouldn't have known what crooked was unless I knew what straight was. " In order for somebody to complain about the problem of evil, there must be some transcendent standard of good that it departs from. That can only be true if God exists. Can we have moral laws without God? Atheism, or materialism, teaches that only material things exist. Moral laws are immaterial and they exist. Good and evil are both immaterial. Neither is a physical object one can empircally observe.
Sidenote: In order to be an atheist, one can neither love nor hate. In essence, one can neither believe nor disbelieve anything. "Conciousness" is just random firings of synapses causing action. Everything happens by chance and nothing can be predicted because everything happened by chance. We have no free will. If my synapses fire and I shoot you, it is not my fault. Technically, I don't exist because "I" am just nerve cells and chemicals. The death penalty has no purpose because it is not really a penalty. There is no suffering. There is nothing to fear in death.
The collection of nerve cells stop firing. That is all. PS This blog is not real. It is a figment of your imagination. "I" use the term imagination loosely since you do not really "imagine. " I have no free will and had no choice but to author this blog. So if "you" disagree, I would apologize but I cannot choose to. Random chance has prohibited me from it. 
