As is oft the case for someone who frequents spiritual and religious message boards, I found myself discussing and pondering "The Problem of Evil" more than once this week.

The question was:  "How then would your religion explain brutal abuse and/or murder of tiny children! Surely they have not deserved or earned "threefold over" evil?" 

It matters not that the religion of the person who posed this question also flounders a bit with regard to this question.

I think that's the sticking point in all religions. The "problem of evil". "What kind of deity would permit a world where "X" happens?

For me, two main types of evil fall so far off the scale that I can't understand or reconcile that they are permitted by a benevolent Divine. Natural disasters that indiscriminately kill the young and old of any and all religions. And the ruthless, sadistic acts of a psychopath. Different religions try to explain these events in different ways and I've never been satisfied with the explanations.

I always wind up pondering the word permitted and wonder if it applies. The threefold law is no more explanation for the brutal murder of innocent children than is original sin or any of the other theological explanations for why horrible things happen to good people. It's an abhorrent concept, that we might deserve such terrible fates whether because of our own bad choices in prior lives or because we made the choice to experience such a thing in this life so we might learn something from it or because we inherit original sin from our parents.

Now now dear Raven, you know if you aren't a Christian (or ChrisBot- which you're getting pretty close to being), you certainly can't have a reason for why evil exists. Silly bird.

Oh, this is BigToe by the way.

True...but evil isn't a christian-only concept, ya know? Even those who don't believe in evil personified still ponder the question of evil *grins*