Religion as a source and remedy for evil

Abstract

The first part of the paper (Sections 1-3) recalls the structural relationship between the religious attitudes and practices and the problem of evil, starting from an anthropological-sociological point of view and ending with more philosophical considerations. The second part (Sections 4-7) deals with the forms of evil engendered or potentiated by religion itself mainly in the public-collective dimension, especially with constraint and violence connected with monotheistic traditions, and finally indicates the antidotes available in them.