One of the most commonly asked religious questions is, "why is there evil in the world?" Some halfway decent answer needs to be arrived at for a religious faith to be taken seriously, otherwise it's just mucking around and wont get any real respect from people.
Of course this question begs an assumption, namely that the world is inherently a good place and that it is in some way contaminated with evil. Which in and of itself is quite an assumption, theologically speaking. So to be fair, one should also posit the question, "why is there good in the world?" This question, of course, makes the opposite assumption, namely that the world is an evil, or at the very least indifferent, place, potentially contaminated with good.
So what do people around the world think? It's almost a gauge for hope or hopelessness in the world. In the effort to find out, I Googled both phrases to see where the population of the world stands, or at least the population with internet access. I used quotes in the search string to count up only results that use the entire phrase.
"Why is there evil in the world" - 967 times
"Why is there good in the world" - 681 times
So people assuming that the world is inherently a good place seem to be leading, 967 to 681. To be honest this is a lot closer than I though it would be, since "why is there evil in the world" is much more of a catch phrase. I'll try to make this study an occasional feature to see how things are heading.
