The Problem of Evil

quote:

---

What is evil? The absence of God.
  —Jasonb

---

I was always under the impression that the absence of god was the definition of sorrow, or some such thing.If evil is the absence of god, how do you explain the horrible atrocities committed by Christianity in honor of god(who was obviously in their hearts and minds)?Free Will, the right to make our own choices. Why would god give us the ability knowing that many of us would choose the so called "wrong" choice, it's like giving a child a loaded handgun and not expecting him to shoot himself or someone else.Life is not a test from god, it's a survey to see what we will do. We can't be punished for our choices in life no matter how disagreeable they are to others because we did exactly what we were meant to, we were simply ourselves.I was me, and you were you. That's all god really needs from us, to be who we are. Even believing this I don't go out and murder, rape or pillage at will because it's not who I am.

In my post I used the term Christians to denote the leadership of the church more than anything, though somebody had to support them and those people were the majority or else the events never would've happened don't you think?I'm sure there were some people who were against all the violence in gods name, but they were few. I didn't think anything about using a generalization to argue the point of evil not being the absence of god.

Are you seriously trying to argue that many of the wars and religious persecution over the years were not in gods name?The people responsible certainly went out of their way to make it appear so, and even if they didn't have the official backing of god everyone still thinks they did because that was their reason to justify it.Yet for it not to be evil as you suggest wouldn't they have had to get the official backing of god?If you honestly think that the horrible incidents the church is reponsible for were not evil, then how in your head do you not also think the Holocaust was "good" or at least neutral?They are pretty closely related, except whereas Hitler was out to exterminate the Jews the church was out to exterminate everyone who didn't follow their way of thinking.This message has been edited by AlgolagniaVolcae, 03-10-2006 04:39 PM