About 20 years ago, I responded as a paramedic to a 911 call. A man had called the emergency number because his wife had called to tell him she was going to kill herself and the kids. We responded and the entry team went into the house. Inside, it was discovered to be too late. The woman and all four kids were dead.
In January of 2023, in Duxbury, Massachusetts, Lindsay Clancy sent her husband out for takeout and medicine, and while he was gone, she strangled her three young children (Cora (5), Dawson (3), and Callan (8 months)) using exercise bands. She then called her husband to tell him he should come home right away, and as he arrived at the house, she jumped from a second-story window in an attempted suicide that left her paralyzed.
In Jacksonville, Florida police arrested a couple who had refused to let the woman’s children leave the cab of the truck for years. Investigators say the four children had been living in the cab of a semitruck driven by the woman’s boyfriend (who is a truck driver for a company operating between Atlanta, Georgia, and Miami, Florida) since December 2019. The children had been locked in the cab of the truck for so long, they could no longer walk. The man had been sexually abusing the children. The children told investigators that the mother was informed of the abuse but did not believe them and continued to leave them alone with him.
I wanted to post on this because it brought back a flood of memories for me. I don’t mention this often, because I don’t want sympathy. In fact, I’ve only mentioned this on my blog one other time. When I was a child, my mother used to burn my fingers with matches when my brother or I touched something that we weren’t supposed to. When we said something objectional, she would put hot peppers in our mouths. She used to tell me things like “I have to love you because I am your mother, but I don’t have to like you.” Later as an adult, I was homeless for a time. That’s when I called my parents for help, because even though we hadn’t been speaking for a couple of years, I had nowhere else to turn. They hung up on me. There were plenty of reasons for me to resent her. All of those reasons are probably why I have had so many failed relationships. It made me into a person that isn’t good at being vulnerable or sharing my feelings. It’s also probably why I am such an overachiever and why I try to be the righter of wrongs, even if it means tilting at windmills.
The relationship between a mother who abuses her children and the children she is abusing is a complex one from the viewpoint of the child. Children are born with an impression of their mother. She is supposed to be the one person they can count on and depend on. They are the one person that’s supposed to be the child’s safety, their protector. When that person becomes the one causing the child’s pain, it destroys their world, while even at the same time the child is drawn to that same person for love and safety.
So to the people who say the mothers above are sick or should have some sort of mercy given to them because of post partum depression, I have to tell you that there is true evil in this world. I was once one of the victims of that sort of abuse. I’ve also had to be there to see where that abuse often ends. It’s always a tragedy. When I see stories like this, I imagine the child standing there crying to its mother for protection as they watch her strangle their siblings to death, knowing and fearing that they are next, and wondering what they did wrong to deserve this. It’s overwhelming.
My son had a best friend growing up, let’s call him Brad. I knew the kid. The group of friends that my son was a part of and who grew up together eventually married and had kids. Brad was always there for them, good old friend Uncle Ben was being a good friend and watching the kids for them. It turns out he was molesting them and filming it. When he was eventually caught, my son agreed to testify against him. Instead of facing a Federal trial for distributing child porn and the 30 years he could have gotten if convicted, Brad pled guilty. His lawyer argued to the judge that he be given leniency, since he had confessed. The judge agreed and knocked six months off of sentence he could have given him. The kid is doing 29.5 years in Federal prison.
In a moment of complete honesty to my readers: Truly evil acts like this are what completely destroyed any positive religion in my very core. I just can’t understand how any god that can allow things like this to be done to children cannot be loving or good. I just can’t understand any being having the power to stop such evil, yet allowing it to happen. Please don’t think of this as an attack on your or your beliefs, this is just a statement of why I feel the way I do. I have seen far too much evil, suffering, and pain to understand how there can possibly be a good and loving deity running things.
For those of you who *ARE* religious, please explain to me how these two things can simultaneously be true-
- An omnipotent, loving God
- Evil existing that harms children too young to have committed no sin worthy of such pain
I struggle with this each and every time I see something like this with my own eyes. It hurts me to my core each and every time I see it or hear about it. Maybe that’s a me problem, I don’t know. All I do know is seeing things like this made me a bitter, withdrawn human for awhile. When people would tell me “I know how you must feel,” my answer used to be, “Have you ever held a dead baby? No? Ever seen a mother stab her child to death? No? Then you can’t possibly know how I feel.” Such things are an assault on a person’s very core. It changes you forever.
The best answer I have ever been able to come up with is this: Some people are just evil or broken. You can’t reason with them, you can’t fix them, you can’t predict which of them will be like this. You have to wait for them to commit one of these heinous acts in order to identify them. Once you know who they are, there is only one true way to make sure they never do it again.
Even though I don’t trust the government with that power, I still think it’s the only way to prevent a person from committing evil again.
40 Comments
Charles · August 16, 2026 at 2:23 pm
I think the only solution to evil is justice. If there is no good God, there is no justice. There is only power, and what power wills. Nietzsche is right about that. He was right about God’s death, too. He only lacked faith in his resurrection, which is what drove him mad in the end. He saw only cruelty without mercy, never any possibility of actual justice..
Evil is the necessary result of freedom, and freedom is necessary for the sake of love. If we cannot freely choose, we cannot freely love. We cannot be compelled to love, to do and be good. Our hearts are the only thing we ultimately really own. We must be free to bestow our hearts as we will. If we are free, and we are free, we are free to do and be good. We are free for the sake of Love who is divine personhood, who created us to love.
In the end every knee shall bow, and every tear wiped away. Evil’s pernicious effect is only passing illusion, the evil doer only actually harms himself in eternity. God’s mercy and justice are ineluctable, inevitable and eternal.
If what I am saying here is not true, nihilism, evil and untrammeled power win, there would be no true justice. In fact, if there were no God, personhood would be an illusion. Everything would be illusion, like the Hindus and Buddhists say. If there were no God, there would only be entropic annihilation and eternal death (Nirvana) ..
But he does live, there is hope. I live by hope. My trust is in him, for the sake of whose mercy I hope, thank, adore and love.
Stefan v. · August 16, 2026 at 2:36 pm
Federal headship, punitive substitutionary atonement, original sin, sovereign electing grace. Research those topics while prayers are made on your behalf. Do not forget that you have judged the triune God as less righteous than yourself, and have not mentioned the murder of God the Son; the most heinous crime of all.
Barefoot Peckerwood · August 16, 2026 at 3:45 pm
I can understand your viewpoint. God is there watching over us, but Stan/evil also has a say in things as it has been since creation. That doesn’t mean that Hod doesnt love us, it means that we must protect and defend our own as you’ve mentioned many times in previous posts. Again, thatnis what’s also great about God is that He gave us free will to.make our own decisions.
Plague Monk · August 16, 2026 at 4:46 pm
I talked about this with my wife, who is a much more devout Christian.
She said that God gave us free will, and that some people use that to commit horrible crimes. God is appalled by these actions, and the only consolation is that the victims are immediately received in heaven.
God had a choice: free will, or compulsory obedience to His will. He decided that free will is the better alternative.
My wife and I believe in the death penalty; I know that you don’t, and I respect that viewpoint.
I hope that this helps a little bit.
Divemedic · August 16, 2026 at 6:01 pm
Your answer is the most convincing of those I’ve read so far.
I believe in the death penalty. I just don’t think our government is trustworthy enough to use it justly.
Old Maine Farmer · August 17, 2026 at 3:41 am
You are not alone in your experience, nor in your response. There is a God, and there is justice; hell is eternal. As Monk says, if God takes away our free by intervening then we do not truly have free will. Those murdered children are ushered into the kingdom of heaven for eternity. Life here in the simulation is just transitory; eternity is real. There should be a death penalty here on earth, because there is an eternal death penalty. Mothers can be evil; three of my children were adopted from a meth addict who dumped her kids and let them starve; the four year old was pouring milk and cereal on the floor for the three and two year old. So I adopted them. They would hide food all over their rooms just in case I ended up being like their birth mom. I gave up my career to stay home and care for them, only to find out that my ex was molesting them, so I like you ended up homeless for a while, with three kids, except I had God and He kept me through it. God doesn’t put a bubble around us; free will is expensive. We do right and God takes us through it, even unto death. Humans for the most part have been evil, but to reject God is to be on the side of evil. Overcome evil with good, like Jesus did, and look into God not at dead churches but for real. Get alone and ask Him to reveal Himself; if you want to get to know Him He will reveal Himself.
The key is to do what you have done; don’t become what you hate; overcome evil with good as best you can. God sent His only Son down to earth, knowing full well what we would do to Him, and His Son agreed to do it, because this life is short and temporary, and eternity is forever. We Christians are His body on earth; We are to do justice and fight evil. You are in a war with God on one side calling for His people to do goodness and justice, and the devil and his on the other side doing evil.
Markshere2 · August 17, 2026 at 7:29 pm
You have illustrated amply that some people need to be killed.
Let God judge them.
Sadly, there is a long established political organization that calls itself a religion.
It is evil, objectively.
islam is the biggest threat to civilization.
Liberal women run a close second.
Stay strapped and defend your families folks.
Billybob · August 16, 2026 at 5:46 pm
I know you don’t care for most cops, so up front, I put myself through the academy at 35, while working full time with a wife and 3 kids.
I did 15 years, suicides, car wrecks, murders, rape, molestations, crime, evil and more crime.
I understand where you have been.
The difference is I met Jesus at 21 and it changed me, I already knew there was evil but then I found his forgiveness.
I had that going into the life of a first responder in a large city.
To answer your question, you understand contracts, God gave Adam a limited time contract to rule over the earth, Adam gave his contracted time to satan. The contract is now controlled by evil until the time is fulfilled. God will not break his contract, but He has redeemed us with the Blood of Jesus and given us a new contract if we will accept it.
Evils time is quickly running out.
There is really no way to understand the evil we see without an understanding of God’s word.
Divemedic · August 16, 2026 at 6:04 pm
It isnt cops I have a problem with.
Old Maine Farmer · August 17, 2026 at 3:43 am
Yes! This is the way!
ERJ · August 16, 2026 at 6:46 pm
I cannot add much to what you wrote. Some things are beyond what can be explained within any rational framework. While it pales compared to your example, there was an “event” in my life where I cannot render it into words. Even after-the-fact I have no basis for explaining the possible motives for what various people did.
With respect to “cannot be predicted”, that is only partially true. People who are mean, vindictive, hold grudges and so on are often PROUD of those traits. They proudly brag about them. They will tell you about the time they shit on somebody or dealt out violence or destroyed somebody’s reputation.
The legal system drank-the-koolaid about biological mothers ALWAYS being the best people to raise their progeny, in spite of abundant evidence that sometimes that is not the case. Kids keep being sent back to their abusers…maybe because “mom” needs that welfare check.
It is my impression that cops don’t look very hard for evidence when the person who got whacked deserved it. .22LR over-penetrates. A tiny shell casing is easily missed especially if it has been tarnished by vinegar fumes. Security cams often have fuzzy images.
Georgiaboy61 · August 16, 2026 at 9:41 pm
@ Divemedic
You have asked perhaps the most-profound question that can be asked about religious faith and belief in God. Namely, if God is merciful, why do the evil prosper and the good suffer? The late Harold Kushner, Rabbi and Author, experienced this firsthand when his son Aaron was born with the fatal illness of progeria, or accelerated aging. His son’s death caused a crisis of faith in Kushner and ultimately moved him to try to answer the question of why/how a just and merciful God can permit suffering and evil. The result was the international best-seller “When Bad Things Happen to Good People,” which was published in the early 1980s if memory serves.
It is a very good book, well worth reading for anyone, but especially someone who has experienced a crisis of faith – as it appears you have. It has been out for many years but is still in print – a measure of its impact on people around the world.
Fishlaw · August 17, 2026 at 3:14 pm
The conclusion of “When Bad Things Happen to Good People” is depressing, however. As noted it is written by a Jew. His conclusion is that God IS all-loving, but NOT all-powerful. I cannot accept a God of limited power, and the Bible does not support such a conclusion.
As a Christian, I believe that God is all-loving and all-powerful. The occurrence of these evil events is a result of man’s failure to follow God’s law. We have to have faith that however things happen, God is working for our good. We lack God’s over-arching view of the universe.
I have sometimes thought that our limited view is akin to taking your dog to the vet. The dog needs his shots, but does not like the pain caused by the needle. The owner and the vet have a better view of what the dog needs than the dog does. So pain is inflicted on the animal for its greater good, even though the dog does not understand this.
Perhaps the best discussion of this topic in the Bible is the Book of Job. God allows Satan to torture Job and Job endures immense suffering, but his faith in God holds him together. At the end, God emphasizes his greater knowledge and power and Job’s faith is rewarded by the return of all that he lost.
Lots of people struggle with this very question.
Brutus · August 16, 2026 at 11:43 pm
I don’t know what to say other than that, contrary to what the feminized churches teach, Christianity teaches us to hate the truly evil with a perfect hatred (Psalm 139).
On a related note, I recall you describing a patient last year afflicted with demonic possession that shook your lack of faith. Now that you’ve had time to reflect on that, how do you reconcile what you saw with unbelief?
lynn · August 17, 2026 at 1:34 am
God lets Satan and his demons walk the planet. We know this because Jesus threw many demons out of a single man.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%205%3A1-20&version=NIV
These demons are still here. They still inhabit people. They are evil and do evil things. This will continue until Jesus comes again.
JimmyPx · August 17, 2026 at 9:06 am
DM, I appreciate your candor on this and you ask difficult questions.
I’ll give my 2 cents worth after spending almost 60 years on this planet.
First, God created us (and the angels as well) and the greatest gift he gave us was free will.
He then rather than control us let us choose our own path and some choose the good path and others the evil path. Even the angel closest to him Lucifer chose to betray him and chose evil.
WHY ?
That’s the great question I think that since your soul is eternal that this World is at its heart a school where you are tested all of the time and like forging steel, the weak and brittle fall away and the strongest are forged. If you can make it through a life in this messed up World still a good person trying to live your life as Jesus taught us then you deserve Heaven.
I’m sorry for what you have seen and experienced, I have heard similar things from my veteran friends who have been in war for example my cousin was in Iraq at a check point on a road and despite their warnings a guy in a car went to ram his way through their check point and they were ordered to open fire. They did and the car crashed. They checked out the car and the guy had a woman and two young kids in the car all dead from gun shot wounds. The little boy was the same age as my cousin’s son and he pulled him out of the car.
That event has haunted him for years and he had ptsd from it and had to get counseling.
What most people do NOT want to admit in this country is EVIL. These people don’t do these horrible things because they are crazy or had a bad childhood, that BS.
They chose evil and when you look evil in its eye it wounds your soul and that’s what happened to you (and my cousin).
oldvet50 · August 17, 2026 at 10:02 am
First off, I am not religious since I do not follow a strict set of rules nor attend any organized gatherings to profess my faith. I wholeheartedly believe in God and accept that my mind is inadequate to understand His ways. I believe in heaven, although I do not know, nor am I able to comprehend how wonderful it will be. I also believe there is a place called hell, but I don’t subscribe to the storybook version. The unbelievers will be cast into that lake of fire, but the punishING will not be eternal, the punishMENT will be. Evil does exist and will harm the innocent, but life itself does that without any intention – disease, birth defects, born into the ‘wrong’ part of the world with no food, etc. I have to believe life here is very transient and fleeting but what awaits is sublime. To think otherwise would be hell on earth.
Dorothy Bogdan · August 17, 2026 at 10:09 am
Hi Divemedic, your question really touched a nerve in me. Since your blog isn’t the place for my 5000-word essay, I’ll try to keep it short. Here are my thoughts.
You come across a man having a heart attack. You call 911 and start CPR, in the process you break 3 of his ribs. He survives and proceeds to bring charges of assault against you. The judge is a caring and empathetic men and rules for the prosecution. You go to jail. You have been judged guilty. This is how people treat God, they judge Him guilty without understanding the whole picture. You know the benefit of living far outweighs the cost of 3 broken ribs. Not only for this man but for his family and everyone his life touches. He doesn’t understand he only knows he’s hurting.
I’m sure that in the course of your nursing career you have had to withhold pain killers from certain patients for good medical reasons. Concussion, altered mental state, etc.… In that circumstance you have the power to relive suffering but choose not to use it. Again, for good reasons that you understand but your patient might not. Again, people don’t understand of the entire situation. Only God has that knowledge. In your example of the suffering of children, no one said that the children deserved it. They in no way shape or form deserve it. Could it be that their suffering motivates people to compassion and gets them to act? I don’t know, I’m not here to defend God. I’m here to give a different perspective.
I believe in a loving God. He does not cause evil. Evil exists because God allows free will. Without free will there is no real love. Someone who is coerced to love you, or rewarded to love you is not the same as someone who freely loves you. Which would you choose?
Thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts.
Steve · August 17, 2026 at 10:15 am
Not fair! Charles stole my answer. Or at least part of it.
On a related note, what does “evil” mean in a secular context? Just “something I really, really don’t like” or is there more to it?
Divemedic · August 17, 2026 at 10:48 am
Ive always said I dont need to rely on the existence of a deity to know how harming others is evil.
Steve · August 17, 2026 at 11:06 am
Is that it then? Harming others is evil? You must have more to your definition or you would not carry.
Divemedic · August 17, 2026 at 2:01 pm
Of course there is more. Boil it down to the golden rule if you must.
What point are you trying to make?
Steve · August 17, 2026 at 3:14 pm
Just that if there is no objective standard for evil, then any arbitrary standard will do. You’ve selected NAP or Golden Rule or something similar, socialists choose something different, like “having too much while others have too little.” Neocons go with “not being at war with someone at all times.”
Why is any one of them necessarily “right” in any sense other than it’s the one you prefer?
Divemedic · August 18, 2026 at 5:44 am
Ah yes, the Christian perspective that one needs an invisible ghost dad to explain right from wrong. OK, so how do you select the specific branch of Christianity to follow? The one saying those kids can’t enter heaven because they had not accepted Jesus as their savior? The one claiming you can enter heaven if you pay money to the church? One church allows female clergy, one does not. One allows gay marriage, another does not. The head of one sect lives in a mansion filled with priceless works of art, sits on a solid gold toilet while taking a dump, then lectures people on the evils of money.
I don’t say this to attack your faith, but to illustrate how even those who believe have different perspectives on what the book that is the basis for their entire system of belief says. Even Christians can’t agree on what is right or wrong. The old joke says: “I wanted to pray to ask God for a bicycle, but I know He doesn’t work like that, so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness.”
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops get 81.8 percent of their operating revenue from government contracts and grants tied to illegal immigration. Where is that part in the Bible?
I would point out that many of the things I have done are more in keeping with the Christian ethos than many who claim to be a part of their belief system. Still other things I have done, especially in my earlier years, are things no one would be proud of. Even so, there are clergy out there molesting children while the leaders of their church cover it up. My wife has a friend who has been a member of her local church for years. One of the senior leaders of that church was recently arrested for placing a camera in the women’s bathroom of the church. Instead of condemning the act, the church is busy covering it up and has told people who have criticized the behavior they are no longer welcome there.
So back to your question:
The Christian religion does its own selecting of what constitutes good and evil. There is no objective standard. I am guessing, should you poll them, that each person who has commented on this thread and claims to be religious has a different idea of what good and evil are. So, let me ask you this:
How does the Christian religion define good and evil, and how is that enforced? How does God ensure that his followers are being good?
Steve · August 18, 2026 at 9:25 am
Didn’t mean to offend.
OK, so how do you select the specific branch of Christianity to follow?
Always select “None of the above.” They are all run by fallible men. The examples of human failure are legion. You barely scratched the surface.
I would point out that many of the things I have done are more in keeping with the Christian ethos than many who claim to be a part of their belief system.
Knowing many of these people, I’d readily agree. But it’s not a particularly high bar, you have to admit. 😉
The Enlightenment was an attempt to sell the Christian ethos to those who rejected Christianity itself. To make a moral, secular society. It did well, right up until the French said, “Hold my beer” and showed what kind of atrocities the Enlightenment allows.
How does the Christian religion define good and evil
Good by the two Great Commandments,
Love the Lord your God etc. and,
Love your neighbor as yourself.
And evil by the willful rejection of same. (As opposed to just missing the mark, which is sin.)
For secularists, it’s just the Golden Rule.
…and how is that enforced? How does God ensure that his followers are being good?
It is not enforced. Nor can it be within the bounds of free will.
Divemedic · August 18, 2026 at 9:44 am
Not offended, but too often I get ambushed by people with trite phrases about how there is no good or evil without religion to explain it to you. If those people are going to be trite, so will I.
The golden rule is a great definition. However, if you want to see what my belief system is, I think I’ve done a decent job of painting that picture with this blog over a course of 19 years, writing 7700 posts and 4000 comments. Take a look. Real life is nuanced. There aren’t many black and white areas, with real life being found in the shades of gray between them.
Your commandment of “Love your neighbor as yourself” is merely a restatement of the Golden Rule.
How is it enforced by the god of the Christian world? The threat of eternal damnation. To those who don’t believe, this merely appears like a substitute dad threatening punishment if you don’t follow his rules.
Steve · August 18, 2026 at 11:01 am
Oh, I think I have a pretty good handle on your morals and ethics, though I think I only discovered this blog about a decade ago. And I do approve. And I only pursued the secular evil question here because I knew of no other blog which would approach it in earnest.
How is it enforced by the god of the Christian world? The threat of eternal damnation.
Maybe. That’s why I think one should avoid organized religion. I’m pretty sure that was blown all out of proportion by greedy men wanting “their” tithe, and when that was not enough, by selling indulgences. What better incentive to cough up dough than eternal punishment?
Jesus’ story of Lazarus and the rich man makes the point. The rich man, being “punished” for his life’s mistakes, asks for a glass of water. Evidently eternal damnation is less like the skin being burned off your body forever and closer to just being a mite parched. And likely closer still to God simply honoring your choice. Your soul is eternal. You get to choose whether to spend it with Him or in solitary. Which might be fine to incels for the first millennia or so, but eternity?
Gerry · August 17, 2026 at 10:17 am
I agree with Plague Monk. Humans possess free will to be what they are, to make their own decisions.
Your mother chose one path, you chose another.
James · August 17, 2026 at 1:29 pm
Yep,these are tough questions.
I am a survivor of sexual child abuse at a very young age,while has to a degree fucked up me life forever I am very lucky have had good friends/family/girlfriends etc.,still,always wonder what might have been.
I have always been/probably always be a agnostic,no solid views of god but always searching for reasons and whys,god does exist will meet even if only temporary and have some real tough questions,best bring a 12 pack!
Modern Day Jeremiah · August 18, 2026 at 11:42 am
DM, Thank you for your thoughtful post. I can understand your sentiments, I do not agree with your conclusion that the existence of evil means that there is no God. I would recommend to you the following well written analysis of the problem of evil. It’s currently on sale in Kindle format for $1.99, a trivial monetary cost. The cost to you will be in the expenditure of your time in reading it and the examination of its arguments.
If God Is Good: Why Do We Hurt?
https://www.amazon.com/If-God-Good-Why-Hurt-ebook/dp/B0036S4C0W/
Divemedic · August 18, 2026 at 11:54 am
Appreciate the thanks. I just find that, were there an omnipotent deity, nothing would happen or exist without his assent. That being the case, evil is happening only because this deity wants it to happen. That is also incompatible with an infallible entity.
An omnipotent, omniscient, benevolent, and omnipresent deity while at the same time both good and evil exist is a completely illogical position. The logical problem of evil makes an omnipotent and omniscient god incompatible with benevolence. I just don’t see how those things can all exist at the same time.
The thing is, the entire Christian theology is built upon scripture. Any other materials are purely men trying to reconcile their belief system with the apparent logical inconsistencies of scripture.
hh475 · August 18, 2026 at 9:46 pm
I’m coming into this conversation late, but I’d like to add a couple of things from my Christian perspective. The “why do bad things happen to good people” problem is not solvable, but people can come to terms with it. The reason that it’s not solvable is the problem of cognitive closure. It’s the whole point of the book of Job. In that book, God kills Job’s family and tortures Job for the sake of a bar bet with Satan. Job’s friends attempt to provide rational explanations for what happened, but they all end up sounding like idiots. God finally answers Job directly and says “Because I’m God and you’re not.”
But he says a little more than that. He basically invokes cognitive closure. Cognitive closure in the large (not technically limited) sense simply says that there are some things we are wired not to understand. Not only would we not understand the answer, but we can’t even form the right question. Consider an ant. Not only will it never understand the concept of an imaginary number, it can never form a question to which it is the answer. A dog will never understand celestial mechanics. Moreover, it will never be able to form a question to which it is an answer. Humans have the conceit that among all creatures, we do not have this problem. We do. I suspect, then, that not only would we not understand the reason why these things happen, but I also suspect we are asking the wrong question. Or, as it’s written in the book of Job 28:
But where can wisdom be found,
and where is understanding located?
No one can know its value,
since it cannot be found in the land of the living.
Or, as God points out in Job 38:
Who is this who obscures my counsel
with ignorant words?
Get ready to answer me like a man;
when I question you, you will inform me.
Where were you when I established the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.
Who fixed its dimensions? Certainly you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
What supports its foundations?
Or who laid its cornerstone
while the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
That’s cognitive closure. So, Job, like Solomon in Ecclesiastes, comes to the conclusion that he’s just not competent to ask the question and the only real solution is to accept his position and trust God knowing that eventually, we *will* know. Or, as Paul wrote in his first letter to the Church at Corinth:
“For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
We see dimly through that mirror, and we are not competent to understand what we perceive.
That being said, I personally think that there are two things going on. The first is that moral laws are like physical laws — they are action based and don’t really “care” about motivation. Gravity doesn’t care why one exits a window from the top floor of a high building. It doesn’t matter if one jumped, was pushed, fell, whatever. One is still going to go splat when he or she hits the pavement. The same thing is true about moral laws. It doesn’t matter why one breaks a rule,, there will be a consequence. Because laws are laws.
The classic example of this is Uzzah and the Ark of the Covenant in 2 Samuel 6:1-7. King David was moving his army along with the Ark of the Covenant. God said that anybody who touched the Ark would be killed. As the Ark was being transported, the wagon it was on hit a bump and the Ark started to fall. Uzzah rushed up to try to stabilize it. God struck him down. David was angry about it It didn’t seem fair. But the law is the law.
Add this to the fundamental Christian truth that nature itself is fallen and in sin. The fundamental result of this is that every person, every day, is placed in a position that he or she is placed in a position of having to make Sophie’s Choices — of having to choose the lesser of two evils. The problem with that is that the lesser evil is still evil, and necessarily will still have consequences.
Moreover, those consequences don’t affect just us, but they affect the world itself. A person’s failure doesn’t just affect them, but also affects their spouse, children, friends, and even nature itself — because the “sin” is not just with the person, but is integrated into all aspects of existence.
It’s also necessary to recognize that everything happens according to a plan, and unfortunately — again because of the fallen physical world — it will always result in suffering. That suffering will happen no matter what, sometimes even against the best intentions of the people involved. We are assets. As Solomon says in Ecclesiastes:
“Again I saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift, or the battle to the strong, or bread to the wise, or riches to the discerning, or favor to the skillful; rather, time and chance happen to all of them. For certainly no one knows his time: like fish caught in a cruel net or like birds caught in a trap, so people are trapped in an evil time as it suddenly falls on them.”
In the end, then, we as Christians are told to recognize that this life is not a place of comfort. It is a place of testing and pain. It is, for all practical purposes, our Hell Week in BUDS. and is part of our training for what is coming next. Hell Week isn’t fair. It isn’t “right.” It’s there to test people. Just as it sucks for SEAL candidate to be standing in freezing water without having slept in 40 hours, it sucks for us to be us sometimes. As Jesus tells us in the Gospel of John:
“I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”
Again, as Paul wrote in his second letter to the Corinthians after describing his mystical experience:
“I will say this: because these experiences I had were so tremendous, God was afraid I might be puffed up by them; so I was given a physical condition which has been a thorn in my flesh, a messenger from Satan to hurt and bother me and prick my pride. Three different times I begged God to make me well again.
Each time he said, “No. But I am with you; that is all you need. My power shows up best in weak people.” Now I am glad to boast about how weak I am; I am glad to be a living demonstration of Christ’s power, instead of showing off my own power and abilities. Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite happy about “the thorn,” and about insults and hardships, persecutions and difficulties; for when I am weak, then I am strong—the less I have, the more I depend on him.”
Or in his letter from prison to the Church in Phillippi:
“Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard, and to everyone else, that my imprisonment is because I am in Christ. Most of the brothers have gained confidence in the Lord from my imprisonment and dare even more to speak the word fearlessly…
…For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Now if I live on in the flesh, this means fruitful work for me; and I don’t know which one I should choose. I am torn between the two. I long to depart and be with Christ—which is far better— but to remain in the flesh is more necessary for your sake.”
It is no accident that Solomon begins the book of Ecclesiastes witth:
‘Absolute futility,” says the Teacher.
“Absolute futility. Everything is futile.”
What does a person gain for all his efforts
that he labors at under the sun?’
And ends with:
“When all has been heard, the conclusion of the matter is this: fear God and keep his commands, because this is for all humanity. For God will bring every act to judgment, including every hidden thing, whether good or evil.”
Divemedic · August 19, 2026 at 6:15 am
That’s my point. You said everything happens according to God’s plan. I am not trying to insult you or your faith, but I just can’t support any deity that would deliberately plan to do the things I have seen, that would make it a part of His plan to torture his creations. If he is omnipotent, there is no reason things have to be the way that they are, unless it is being done for pure amusement purposes. Using your analogy, it would be like me beating my dog and killing her puppies just because I feel like it. A God which does something like this is no different than a parent doing so- “I am beating you, torturing you, and sexually abusing you because it’s part of my plan. You wouldn’t understand.” That is exactly my issue and why I can’t be religious.
If a being is all powerful, there are no rules which that being must follow. If a rule is inconsistent, the omnipotent being can merely wave a hand and change or eliminate that rule. With that being the case, it follows that the being either can’t make the rule (making them NOT omnipotent) or that being leaves the rule in place because they want it to be so. In either case, I just can’t worship such a being.
Again, not attacking you or your beliefs, I am telling you why I myself can’t support an existence like that. I also willingly admit, should I be wrong, you will go to heaven and live with that being, and I will not. If I am right and you are wrong, then you spent your one and only existence supporting evil. I have chosen not to do so. In the meantime, we can certainly live this life in harmony and I wish you the best.
hh475 · August 19, 2026 at 3:55 pm
No, I understand. This is an age-old conversation — you are, in essence, following Richard Dawkins’ arguments of the 1980s, and there’s a well-repeated pattern of how it tends to proceed. To those of us who are Christians, the thing that leaves us bemused is that the argument boils down to “I don’t like God because He’s such a bad Christian.”
The rules to which you subject God are fundamentally internalized Christian values. It’s important to acknowledge that the values you hold are *not* universal, at least when extended to people outside the clan/tribe. Devout Islamists certainly don’t share your values, as seen by Oct 7. Socialists (and virtually all utilitarians) do not share your values as shown by Gulags, Killing Fields, and Holocausts. Ancient Romans, Hittites, Accadians, etc. did not share your values. Our new immigrant communities do not reflect those values. That’s because you have internalized Christian viewpoints, and specifically Protestant viewpoints. People don’t fully appreciate how radical the idea that there’s no intermediary between God and the individual really is, or how radically different Christianity was/is and we’ve build our society and cultural values around it. When we abandon them, hell comes.
The world is f’d up not because of God, but because of man. In the Christian tradition, the world that you propose God should have created is, in fact, the world that he *did* create. It was called Eden. It was Man who broke it, and now blames God for letting him break it and for the consequences of breaking it.
We are in the position of being the equivalent of a dope addict living in a cardboard box under a bridge giving $20 blowjobs for the next fix and blaming Trump for being there. At every step along the way humanity had a choice, and we made the wrong ones. And it’s not just our choices. It’s our parent’s choices. And our parent’s parent’s choices. Like that meth addict, we may be *almost* completely helpless *now,* but that’s way down a path. Now we see ourselves as victims and look to someone *else* to blame. If Trump won’t work, then we can blame God.
Like the meth addict at his lowest point, the question becomes “Do you remove his autonomy and institutionalize him, or do you offer him options but leave the work up to him?” If you do the former, you make him a little less human (and thus, in my faith, a little less like God). If you do the latter, then there will *always* be people who continue to choose self-destruction, and destruction for everyone around them.
In the Christian faith, God chose the latter. And we are living with the consequences of having a world not only full of, but run by, people who embrace wrong choices (for reasons outside this discussion). But, as part of that choice, God also offers us tools. We can judge tools by outcomes. As Jesus said in His teaching:
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”
So, let’s look at those fruits in terms of your complaints against God. Church attendance is associated with roughly a 7 year increase in lifespan(1). As one author notes, high intrinsic religiosity has the health equivalent of smoking cessation (2). This association has been robust over time. One metanalysis of 42 studies notes the consistency of such studies(3).
The salutary effect of faith is particularly obvious when it comes to direct behavioral issues such as suicide and so-called “deaths of despair” (combined suicide, drug deaths, negative lifestyle choices, etc). For instance, intrinsic religiosity is associated with a 40-70% decrease in the rate of suicidal ideation and attempts (see, for instance, 4), and a whopping 84% decrease in suicides among Christian nurses with high intrinsic religiosity (5) — 95% decease for Catholics and 66% decrease for Protestants. There are similar results for drug abuse, binge drinking, gambling, etc. High intrinsic religiosity is also associated with greater emotional resilience, particularly with respect to financial issues. In younger people, it is associated with higher self esteem, less drug use, less sexual activity, lower unwed pregnancies, less acting out, less violence, etc. Among African-American youth, high intrinsic religiosity is associated with better academic achievement, better study skills, and fewer risky behaviors (6). Adolescents with high intrinsic religiosity have better grades, less truancy, and go to school for more years (7).
And on and on. The literature is pretty stupendous. For an exhaustive review, see (8).
God allows us to live in the world we have chosen, but provides help. God is good for what ails you both at the individual and collective levels. I won’t go into it at length but I’ll state without proof that all cultures are not equal and that Christian culture has pretty stupendous benefits. It’s no coincidence that it was Protestant Christianity that abolished slavery.
So, by their fruits you shall know them. No, not all Christians are perfect. There’s a lot of heterogeneity in Christian thought, and there always has been. Some Christians, even famous ones, are not Christian in terms of CS Lewis “Mere Christianity” or Wiberforce’s “Real Chrisianity.” Jesus Himself noted
“Not everybody who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will get into the kingdom of heaven. Only those who do the will of my Father who is in heaven will enter. On the Judgment Day, many people will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name and expel demons in your name and do lots of miracles in your name?’ Then I’ll tell them, ‘I’ve never known you. Get away from me, you people who do wrong.’
Christian institutions can be perverted. Christian leader can be false. Fallen people are fallen, and any institution made up of people will have problems. But the fact that Christian society can consistently overcome these failings over time and engage in meaningful self-criticism says a lot.
And that’s why even evangelical atheists such as Richard Dawkins, and Elon Musk (and to a much lesser degree Bill Maher) have adopted the position of espousing “Cultural Christianity” while rejecting faith, because they want the cultural benefits of belief in God even though they consider themselves above it.
So, from my perspective, God has created mankind as gods, and we f’ked it up. Rather than take away our choice, and thus our humanity, he allowed us to keep our autonomy and deal with the effects. But, to help us, he offered us certain tools, such as faith and knowledge in Him. As Jesus said:
‘Jesus answered, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If those people to whom the word of God came were called ‘gods’ (and the scripture cannot be broken), do you say about the one whom the Father set apart and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?’
We can embrace that birthright and acknowledge that the problem is not Him, but is us, and in doing so make use of the tools He has given us to help deal with the fallen world. We can do this knowing that the world we *wish* we lived in is the next one, not the one we live in today.
1) Hummer RA, Rogers RG, Nam CB, Ellison CG. Religious involvement and U.S. adult mortality. Demography. 1999 May;36(2):273-85. PMID: 10332617.
2) Koenig HG. The healing power of faith. Annals of Long-Term Care. 1999;7:381–384.
3) McCullough, M.E., Hoyt, W.T., Larson, D.B., Koenig, H.G. and Thoresen, C., 2000. Religious involvement and mortality: a meta-analytic review. Health psychology, 19(3), p.211.
4) Caribé AC, Nunez R, Montal D, Ribeiro L, Sarmento S, Quarantini LC, Miranda-Scippa A. Religiosity as a protective factor in suicidal behavior: a case-control study. J Nerv Ment Dis. 2012 Oct;200(10):863-7. doi: 10.1097/NMD.0b013e31826b6d05. PMID: 23037509.
5) VanderWeele TJ, Li S, Tsai AC, Kawachi I. Association between religious service attendance and lower suicide rates among US women. JAMA Psychiatry. 2016;73:845–851. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.1243.
6) Abar B, Carter KL, Winsler A. The effects of maternal parenting style and religious commitment on self-regulation, academic achievement, and risk behavior among African-American parochial college students. Journal of Adolescence. 2009;32:259–273. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2008.03.008.
7) Horwitz IM. Religion and Academic Achievement: A Research Review Spanning Secondary School and Higher Education. Review of Religious Research. 2021;63:107–154. doi:10.1007/s13644-020-00433-y.
8) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Handbook_of_Religion_and_Health
hh475 · August 18, 2026 at 10:08 pm
As an aside, one of the best books on evil ever written in “People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil” by M Scott Jenkins. Jenkins was a psychiatrist who headed the Army analysis of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. He came to the conclusion that evil was a “thing” and that some people were simply evil. He proposed that “evil” be listed as a disease in DSM. It’s a stunning book.
lynn · August 19, 2026 at 3:09 pm
BTW, I came to the understanding of evil and free will through a book of Christian fiction. “The Shack: Where Tragedy Confronts Eternity” by William P. Young. The price of our free will is that evil will exist. I highly recommend the book.
https://www.amazon.com/Shack-Where-Tragedy-Confronts-Eternity/dp/0964729237
Or the movie with Octavia Spencer and Tim McGraw:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shack_(2017_film)
Warning, the story is incredibly heart breaking. But you already have experienced that as have many of us.
In 1982, three months after I married my wonderful wife, two men from Detroit robbed and murdered my wife’s younger brother here in Houston for $65. Her brother was my best friend and he introduced us. He worked at Pizza Hut and they watched him cash his $65 paycheck in the till and walk out. They followed him out and shot him in the back with a sawed off shotgun. This was evil.
Hariman · August 19, 2026 at 11:03 pm
Evil is the absence of God.
Free will exists because God does not want puppets to stand alongside him for Eternity, He created humanity to be willing and understanding/knowing servants.
Adam’s fall, Original Sin, put our sin cursed and fallen world under the dominion of The Adversary (AKA: Satan/Lucifer,) and left humanity also sin cursed and fallen.
Do not blame God for the actions of those who reject His guidance.
Also understand that sometimes God allows suffering so people will not forget Him in complacency. There ARE times where a seemingly good person will suffer from catastrophy so they will return to God’s guidance, due to drifting away over the years.
There ARE evil people in the world, placed here by The Adversary (Tares among the wheat) to cause suffering and to lure people away from God.
The presence of evil in the forms you describe only magnifies the Grace of God to me, because God knows ALL of humanity’s sins and yet He STILL sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross for us, so that we may have the chance to be redeemed, instead of humanity being damned for all eternity.
A friend of mine almost died a couple years ago. Their conclusion (having seen angels while they were in a coma) was that bad things happen for the glorification of God, like the man who was born blind in the Bible. (The question was asked who had sinned in his family before him, and the answer given was that his blindness happened for the Glorification of God.)
Also, “Thou shalt not test the Lord thy God.”
Even JESUS couldn’t demand God perform on command. God could not change the order of the Universe He’d created to allow Jesus to pass the cup of the Sacrifice on the Cross to another (or to avoid that sacrifice all together.) God’s limitation is that we have free will AND Adam’s Original Sin ceded command of the physical world to Satan.
The lowercase “g” god of the physical world is the one who hates humanity the most.
The God of Heaven would love nothing more than for EVERYONE to be perfectly Godly and for ALL to be saved… but that depends on US to do the right thing.
I don’t know what else I can say. I’m trying to distill the relevant parts of Christianity/Catholicism (the traditional catholic catholicism that doesn’t have a hyphen and still preaches/teaches God’s Word) that I’ve learned over several years.
…
No, there’s two last things I can say:
God has been THE one rock in my life that has never let me down or betrayed me. God has always been there, and His guidance has protected me from some of my worst impulses even as I failed Him in other regards.
When I had nothing else, God was there for me.
Much more recently, God has provided me with friends who guided me back to His fold.
We also are sometimes flooded with the evils of the world… but SF Debris in his review pointed out how things have been and ARE getting better.
The example he gave (during his Superman Vs The Elite review) was refugee camps in Rwanda (or possibly Haiti, it’s been a while since I watched it) was how those camps faced a crisis of infection and illness.
Many of the proposals stood to cost millions to fix the problem, but it was actually something much simpler which massively reduced the infection and illness rates:
They gave the refugees soap and taught the principles of basic hygiene and what water was actually safe to drink.
Something so simple made thousands of lives better, but it’s likely never reported or seen by the bulk of the world.
There’s good in this world too.
Please don’t forget that due to the evils you’ve witnessed.
lynn · August 20, 2026 at 2:19 pm
> Do not blame God for the actions of those who reject His guidance.
Amen.
Peggy · August 25, 2026 at 11:56 am
Jesus is both man and God. Does the depiction of Jesus in Matthew chapter 18 show a God who torments people for his own amusement?
I cannot match the high information density of the Bible, and it is best to let it speak for itself. I challenge you to go through Matthew chapter 18, Psalms chapter 119, and Revelation chapter 21, and carefully note what each says about God and about people.
It is disordered to love victims more than you love their Creator, Savior, and Avenger, who became a human himself and endured extreme physical and emotional pain so that hopeless and lost people can be rescued and made spiritually alive. God is transcendently bringing good out of the worst situations, and he wants his people to do some of the work.
Steve L · August 26, 2026 at 2:28 pm
Although I’m late to this post, as someone who was an atheist for 25 years and then chose to believe in God, I thought I’d provide some thoughts that help me with this topic, in the hope that someone may benefit from it:
1) God wants us to be with Him in heaven, but He will not force us to do so. He will bring to heaven those who choose to be with Him, and live their lives in preparation for it.
2) Our life here on earth is given to us to make this choice. Our life here on earth is not our main life. Our main life is the eternal life (heaven or hell) that we choose and practice to obtain.
3) On earth, evil is allowed to exist alongside good, to the point that satan has dominion over the earth. In the eternal life, evil(hell) and good(heaven) are separated, and populated according to the choices people have made here on earth. When some people complain about the state of the earth, they are often longing for what heaven is. But earth is not meant to be heaven (that’s not its purpose), although it could be a reasonable facsimile of it, if enough people wanted it to be, prayed for it, and acted accordingly.
4) Both evil things and good things are factors that can affect our choice for which eternal life we want. Both good and evil things can cause individuals to choose one way or the other. The choice can be very difficult. It is an extremely serious choice (we are talking about eternity here), but in today’s world rarely acknowledged even by Christian leaders. Which just makes it that much harder for those of us just trying to figure things out and do the best we can.
5) For those who choose evil, or are careless and just allow evil to take over their lives, they can cause immense suffering to those around them, including young, innocent children.
6) Suffering is not necessarily an indication that the sufferer has sinned or done anything wrong. Innocent people suffer, and so do guilty people.
7) God can use suffering for some good. We can see this in the life of Jesus, and His Mother Mary. We can see this in the lives of so many of the saints. We can see this when some people see or experience suffering and change their lives for the better (e.g. becoming firefighters, paramedics, or nurses, etc). We can see this when people are stronger as a result of rejecting some evil and are better able to prepare themselves for the eternal life in heaven. We can see this when some people create organizations to help others when they have gone through some type of suffering themselves. These are just a few examples that I can see. God would be able to see all possibilities for using suffering for good, while still allowing people to make their choice for evil.
8) While God can use suffering for some sort of good, that doesn’t necessarily mean the sufferer experiences less suffering in any way, although they may. What it does mean is that the suffering they do experience is used for good in some way.
9) Lastly, I think that at some point the sufferer is shown how their suffering was used by God for some benefit to themself and/or others.
Peace be with you.
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