[ATLian]

>I understand your frustrations. Here is my honest opinion
>because the question of evil troubles me so.

The question of evil is actually quite simple - God created evil. According to Isaiah 45: 6 - 7, god is quoted verbatim as saying "I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, AND CREATE EVIL: I the LORD do all these things."



>Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Satan not God is
>responsible for those.

I assume that you'd reason that the reverse holds true - that when GOOD things happen to BAD people, it's god who is responsible. My question is, why is god doing good things for these bad people instead of helping out his good people?



>In the bible there is the story of Job who was a good man. But
>to test his faith God allowed satan to harass him. In the end
>he was strong.

The Job storo is very interesting. Kwanza, to be slightly petty, in Job 1:6 it says "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them." I've always wondered WHO these other sons were (as in, was Jesus among them), and how Satan can be gods son. Anyway, from there god and satan make a bet and god lets Satan destroy everything Job owns, so I'm just wondering how you can then say that "Satan not God is responsible for those" bad things that happened?

To give an analogy, let's assume there's a mother with a beautiful 7 year-old girl, who is bright in school, ambitious, nice to everyone and who loves her mom to death. Then the mother calls all her pals for the kiddos birthday, and among the guests is a severally convicted child molester. The mum brags to the molester about how good her kiddo is, then the child molester argues back that the kid is only good because the mother has protected her, loved her, cared for her, etc, and if the mother wasn't there providing all those things, then the child wouldn't love the mother as much. Before proceeding any further, please note how totally absurd and asinine it is for the mother/god to have invited the child molester/satan over. But again, not much in the bible makes sense, and this is but one instance in a very long list.

Anyway, the mother then tells the child molester to do whatever he wants to her kiddo, as long as he doesn't kill her, just to prove that the kiddo will still love the mom. The child molester then rapes the kiddo in ways un-imaginable giving her some serious STDs, totally violates her, kills her teacher, kills her best friends, kills her pet dog, kills her gold fish, then lacerates her skin. Of course all this leaves the kiddo totally screwed up and wailing crazily to Mummy to help her. All this time the mother is watching, glad to high heavens that the kid is still wailing out "Mummy" as every despicable act is carried out. Finally, when the molester has his share, he goes away. The mother is ecstatic, smiling gleefully because she has proven that the kiddo loves her to death. To make up for the attrocities, she takes her kiddo to Disneyland via the hospital, then she buys the kid a new gold fish, a new pet, she moves her to a new school where the kiddo can get new friends and new teachers (coz her old ones are all dead), etc. When they get back, all the mothers pals have a bash for her and emulate her as a perfect mother, plus they view the kiddo as a hero for taking all that torture and still managing to cry out "Mummy." WTF?

Unless you're totally insane, you'd have to agree that that mother is absolutely f*cked up beyond all imaginable belief. She should definitely not have any kiddos and she should be locked up if not executed. The poor kiddo suffered just so she can win an idiotic bet with a psychopath. Question is, why is she viewed as insane, while god, who did the exact same thing to Job, is worshipped as faultless? God is all knowing, so he knew from Day One that Job wouldn't foresake him. Despite knowing this, he still let Satan torture Job and kill 10 of Jobs kids, tens of servants, thousands of cattle, etc. Yeah, he gave him 14 more kiddos, but so f*cking what? If you killed my 2 sisters, it doesn't matter how many more kiddos my mum gets, the new ones will never replace the 2 sisters.

What sort of god is this? WTF is wrong with Job? If god could do it to him this time, what guarantee does he won't do it again? Maybe the next time god is meeting his sons, Satan will come up with a few new torture moves that he wants to try out on Job, and god will bet again? Christians read the book of Job so as to see the story of someone who they consider to be the measure of faith, and to see how god will reward you for your faith (new kiddos, new cattle, new health, etc). I read it to remind me why the heck I would never worship the Christian god.