does evil exist?

[bennyboy]

Ostensibly, because some suffering does not qualify as evil, just as suffering -and- evil do not require miasma going around spreading it out like seeds in a terrible harvest.  That's why.

We saw some effect or some phenomena, and were wrong about it's cause or instantiation.  Getting rid of miasmatic evil does not get rid of the things it was supposed to explain.  "What possessed them?" standing in as an expression of ignorance , a failure of our imaginations to contend with the (hypothetical, lol.....) fact that no exterior force or entity is required to make some horrid thing manifest in reality.

It depends on your level of magnification whether a particular suffering is evil.

Take childbirth.  Most people consider the suffering of a woman giving birth a worthwhile sacrifice, herself included, because of the resultant "good" of a new human life. Her temporary suffering is balanced by positive hormones before and during, and expectations of joys and pleasures to come.

Well-- maybe humanity is a cancer on Earth bent on creating life-ending systems like nukes or AI-gone-wrong.  Maybe the instinct to suffer pain for a greater good is really just another of genetic fuckery, aka evil.