- The 'problem of evil'. I simply do not believe that a God with the properties ascribed to Him would create the world as it is. I've seen all the responses, and find none even remotely convincing.
I think I might have given you the following answers before. Nevertheless to be certain I thought I'd answer this one again.
The most basic form of evil is the one that comes from free will. Free will means that evil is possible. So basically God doesn’t fail us in fighting off evil, but instead we are failing him in following his guidance. Interceding in this would defeat creation with free will
But you can’t blame people for all the bad things that happen on earth, can you? What about natural disasters or sicknesses? As for those things people aren’t responsible for. I can see how you would describe them as bad. And I understand if one of them hits you personal that you experience it as a bad and unfortunate event. But people judge them as such because they fail to consider two basic pieces into this puzzle. First of all, this puzzle of this paradigm is all about people being created by a creator. We’re given an existence and a limited stay on this earth. Holding a grudge against your creator because your stay here is limited doesn’t make sense. Since this limited stay is a test, the end of a person’s stay is covered under the veil of death. Would it not be covered, then it would ruin the “test” for the rest of us that stay behind; thus making religion obvious rather then a question of believe. The second thing people generally miss out is that this puzzle claims that death is a transition, and that everybody will be rewarded according to what they earn after it. That puts the “evil-rate" of death into perspective.
Well that still doesn’t cover “all” bad things. What about the people who aren’t killed by a natural disaster, but left wounded or sick without their family homeless and starving. Why is there so many suffering who does death occur so slow? Again, the bad nature of those things are relative. For some people a slow death might give them the opportunity to repent for their sins. And when facing death, even an atheist will start to pray. So consider how long this death relatively is compared to an infinite afterlife in either hell or heaven. Then consider that the length of dieing might have an influence in that destination. Another factor to consider is that our sufferings might have a weight in the scales of judgment. A person with nothing then hardships has had a different test then a person with a picture-perfect life. And just like a written exam in school, exams are meant to test a person, not to test the persons luck with the questions he is dealt. So if different students get different questions their grade is not a simple sum of the number of questions they got right, the weight of the questions matters to. As demonstrated in the following hadith about sickness for example:
“Whenever a hardship affects the Muslim, he will be forgiven for it even when he is picked by a spike.” (Reported by Muslim).
Ummu as-Sa'ib cursed fever, to which the Prophet (p.b.u.h.) told her: 'Do not curse fever, for it takes away the sins like the blaze (fire) takes away the impurities of iron.' (Reported by Muslim)
I doubt this will have changed your mind, but at least I hope I've given you a plausible alternative
and Greetings,
