> You insist that you be free to tread your own path, yet you
> castigate a God, who, by letting everyone else do so as well, allows
> evil into the universe.
To me, you are making a critically mistaken assumption here.
You are assuming that most of the evil is caused by people "treading
their own path". To me this is completely false. If some homicidal
maniac is killing people right and left it is clear that something is
wrong. I have faith that such a person isn't merely "treading his own
path." To me, these perpetrators of sin and madness are the ones that
suffer the most, at least as much as any would be victims. These are
the ones towards which God is really, as Cori so eloquently put it,
"one cruel bastard".
And most of the suffering death and dieing isn't at the hand
of other humans. Have you visited a hospital lately and seen all the
miraculous curing from the hideous "acts of God" (i.e. disasters,
disease, aging...) that goes on? But then, maybe you think stuff like
AIDS isn't an "act of god" but something people just plain deserve
because of their particular chosen "path to tread"?
My point is, if there is a God, someone must take the blame
for all the evil. You seem to want to place the blaim on us and
insist that it is all required if we are to be allowed to "tread our
own path". I'm sorry, but dying a slow miserable and painful death is
not my chosen path to tread, and I don't know anyone for whom it
really is! So please show me, God, how I may tread a different, less
sinful path, because this is what I (and I believe everyone) really
want.
Brent Allsop