A rather passive sort of function, I suppose. It would also require a designer with a rather perverse sense of humor in order to suppose that worm food was our main intended function ;)
Yes. The concepts of "normal funtioning" and dysfunction in your example only make sense in terms of a personal, theistic scheme.
Not really. As I said before, dysfunction is as much a matter of definition as anything else. Once the concepts of adaptive versus maladaptive behaviors is fleshed out, functional versus dysfunctional behaviors will follow in short order.
In the atheistic scheme it is not even coherent to describe a person as wicked, much less view the problem of evil as a problem, or to see it as a problem that the moral person gets hit by a bus.
In the sense that "wicked" has a formal definition and a colloquial meaning, it's not particularly incoherent for the non-believer to employ those terms in conversation. You don't have a monopoly on vocabulary, I think ;)
As far as it being a problem when good people die in senseless accidents, it happens. I don't demand an "explanation", as I'm perfectly willing to accept that there may be none.
The problem of evil is only a problem to theists.
As much as it amuses me to think otherwise, people will still do bad things even if theism died out tomorrow, although I know that's not what you meant.
I can bootstrap a pretty good working definition of evil also, I think. As much as you want to propose that a system not based on claims of universal morality would have no response to an Eichmann, I must point out that the real Eichmann rose to power with the tacit complicity of an entire population, in a world where it is generally accepted that morality exists external to ourselves. What good are claims to universal truth if nobody pays attention? What good are claims to universal truth if nobody believes them or cares about them?
In the end, the real Eichmann did what he did in a world based on universal morality. Six million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis, and where was universal truth to save them?
Why should we feel at times that the world is wicked or unjust? What are we comparing this world to? You have to have a standard in order to have a departure from the standard. Evolution, on the other hand, just is. It is responsible for everything that is. How can there be a departure from it?
One of the curious aspects of morality is it's incumbency. We both know intuitively that there things they we ought to do and things we ought not to do. I'll bet if you and I made lists of moral imperatives we would agree on 95% of them. Where does our sense of incumbancy come from? Morality involves the concept of personal, propositional commands. We do not feel obliged to obey impersonal, random propositions. If you are going to work one day and you happen to see that a tornado has torn a billboard apart and various pieces have fallen together to spell "do not go.", you do not feel any obligation to obey the randomly produced "message." You would not regard this as any sort of binding command. Moral commands are propositions that are communications between Minds. They are not randomly generated. They emanate from personal sources, and not only personal sources, but authoritative sources. (I could tell you not to go to work, but you would not feel any obligation to obey my command because I have no authority over you.) The question is, why would we feel any obligation to obey moral precepts if morals really do not exist? And if morals actually exist, but are just part of the furniture of an impersonal, evolved universe, why would anyone feel obligated to obey randomly generated, non-rational, impersonal principle? In other words, here we both observe palpably observe and experience this effect (moral incumbency) and I'm asking what the necessary and sufficient cause of this effect is. You will tell me that evolution did it, but as you can see, from what I have written above, I don't see how evolution accounts for such phenomenon as 'wickedness', or our sense moral incumbency.
As much as you want to propose that a system not based on claims of universal morality would have no response to an Eichmann, I must point out that the real Eichmann rose to power with the tacit complicity of an entire population, in a world where it is generally accepted that morality exists external to ourselves. What good are claims to universal truth if nobody pays attention? What good are claims to universal truth if nobody believes them or cares about them?
The question is a great, poignant question, but I can only reply that the question itself is intelligable only if there is universal truth to begin with.
In the end, the real Eichmann did what he did in a world based on universal morality. Six million Jews died at the hands of the Nazis, and where was universal truth to save them?
Surely you cannot be suggesting a post hoc propter hoc, cause-effect relationship between universal morality and what the Nazis did?
Cordially,