The essay suggests that the human experience is usually, for the most part, an unhappy one. Hume believes that all humans experience pain, sickness, anguish, nervousness, fear, sadness, embarrassment in some point during their lives. The "good" feelings humans experience in life, such as joy, love, excitement and pleasure are often few and far between and always less enduring than the "evil" feelings. For example, I may have a nice week filled with many "good" experiences but if I am the victim of a violent attack in one hour of that week, the feelings and repercussions of my human experience from that one evil experience will greatly outweigh any good experiences and might cause unhappiness for an endless amount of time. Further, even if we do experience great ecstasy and pleasure, it is often a fleeting moment until out muscles relax or until our hunger is nourished or the like.

             Even the greatest men in history with unbelievable riches and power have small amounts of happiness compared to the pain it took to achieve such riches and power, Hume explains. A modern day example of such a man might be President William J. Clinton. President Clinton is arguably the most powerful man in the modern world with a large home, bank account, an extensive education, a closely knit family and countless friends and colleagues. On the other hand, to gain these things he has been the center of sexual scandal subject to embarrassing public scrutinies into his personal affairs. Further, he himself has inflicted much disappointment, pain and suffering on his loved ones. One would guess he is not a happy man.

             Hume summarizes that if God is omniscient than He knows everything and so He surely knows about the existence of human suffering and pain. Further, if God is omnipotent, then He has the power to end human misery and suffering. Lastly, if God is also benevolent, than how could He know about our pain, be able to stop it, and choose not to do so? How could He let young infants die in fires, allow men to become paralyzed and women to be raped and sodomized? If God is all of these things, would not He create a universe where there was no evil?.