Sunday's thought: Why is there evil in the world? Of all the questions that Christians get asked, probably the one that most Christians dread more than the others, is,” If your God is so powerful, why is there evil in the world?” How would you answer that? I think you have to know the person a little bit, to see where they are coming from, but a good guess would be that if they are trying to trap you in a question like this, they are probably coming from an atheistic or materialistic worldview.  What is a materialistic worldview?  One that sees no outside god forces at work now or ever.  Everything that was done or will be done is a result of purely natural processes.   When looking at this from a moral standpoint, how did we get the idea of what is right and wrong?  Well, God told us.  First with the ten commandments, and later with books in the old testament, and Jesus simplified it to love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. But what if you don’t believe God did that?  Where is your moral framework? If you believe in the worldview of evolution and natural selection, then in this dog eat dog world, the strong shouldn’t care about the weak.  Morals are then based on the ideas of a charismatic leader, or 51% of the vote, or the guy with the most weapons: might makes right. Last century let us find out what happens with that worldview, with the failed social experiments of Communist Soviet Union, Communist Mao China, Nazi Germany, Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, genocide in Rwanda among many others; these countries killed hundreds of millions of lives; most of them their own citizens!!!  Why?  The leaders and members of the revolution saw it as a necessary thing to rid their world of those they saw as counter productive.  Of getting rid of the undesirables.     So...Killing millions of people:  BAD. Killing millions of anything?   ??? When cleaning a counter with a disinfectant, how many of us hold a moment of silence for the dead bacteria?  No?  Of course not. Mice in the kitchen or squirrels in the attic?  Undesirables.  God gives us dominion over the world and the animals in it, so we shouldn’t torture, but if it is an unhealthy pest, we are OK with getting rid of them.  One or two pests?  OK. Killing 6 squirrels?  About about 60?  6,000 squirrels?  6 million squirrels?  How about 6 million Jews? If our culture’s view of what is good and what is evil is determined by things like, “Don’t be like Nazi Germany” Then will that cover us for the most part?  But where do you draw the line on what is evil?  We all love babies; tickling a bay for 2 seconds is probably OK, right?  How about 2 minutes?  How about 2 days?  What guidance do we have to help us know where to draw the line? Today’s culture has something that they go by called moral relativism, which means if it is good for you, it is your truth.  Your morals.  You decide on what is good or bad, depending on how it makes you feel.   Is sex trafficing evil?  Is partial birth abortion?  Is sacrificing virgins to the sun god evil?  Or offering your neighbors to the flying spaghetti monster? We Christians, and most in our areas of influence and neighborhoods would say yes that is evil.  Some cultures, not so much, so without a moral framework based on God’s revelation, determining a culture's morals on how you define evil is not easy. But let’s say you agree on what is evil.  Why does God allow evil in the world?  If you were God, what would you say? Should God kill everyone who is about to do evil?  If we are all made in God’s image, how does that work? Is evil sin?  Probably.  Are all sins evil?   Is lying a sin?  Is lying evil?  A few years ago there was this story going around that the guy who played Captain Kangaroo was a marine sniper and Mister Rogers was an Army hero in Vietnam and the reason he wore sweaters was to cover up all his tattoos.   That was a doozie!  They never even went to war.  Where people come up with these things I don’t know.  If lying is evil, then getting rid of all lying by capital punishment would certainly solve the fake news problem.   If lying is sin and sin is evil, and you know the consequences of a little lie, would you be living in grace?  Or fear?  You would live in fear, and that is life in an atheistic country. Don’t lie to me!  Did you take that last cookie?  No.  Liar!  Dead!  Sounds scary. I am personally very glad that God does not kill all evil doers before they commit their crimes, because I would have been dead long before I would have been saved.  In fact, I wonder if anyone would be left. God gave us a free will.  Why did he do that?  Remember the greatest commandment?  To love your God with all your heart, soul and mind?  How would you do that if you are not free to choose?  I love my wife, and I am certain that she loves me.  Not because she has to, but because she wants to.  Love is something that grows over time.  If you read your bible and pray, you will get to know God better and better, and will get to love him.  It is your choice.  Your free will.  God doesn’t want a bunch of airheads who don’t do anything without being told.    But with free will comes bad decisions, too.  Good decisions result in good outcomes.  Bad decisions result in victims.  We are sinners by nature.  And some of us do evil things by our choice.   So first ask: how would you define evil, and why?  Where is the line between good and bad? Then ask if you were God, how would you get rid of evil?  Should God kill all people before they do bad things?  And how bad does bad have to be? People with free will can do bad things.  Then ask if all decision making should be done by the state, and not by individuals.