Heather – thanks, I’ll have to check out the book.

Celeste – ugh, sorry for sounding vehement at GB. I suppose that’s the danger of being a barroom philosopher. FWIW, I definitely didn’t think that you didn’t think the subject was important. One of the reasons I like discussing religion with you is that we wind up on opposite sides of an argument, but both of us have had to think through our positions at different points in our life. So rather than relying on what was taught to us growing up, we both have well thought out positions.

I personally dislike the kind of allegory that was in the email you receive – it implies that because one avoids the barber (or God), one is a bad person, defective, and the cause of their own suffering. That is utter B.S.

My own interpretation of the reason for evil is more along the lines of the analogy I commented previously. We’re the goldfish and (to me) God is the aquarium keeper. We just don’t have the capacity to understand most of what happens in our lives at the level of someone divine. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t evaluate our own experiences and use our free will to make the best choices we can, but we’re (all of us, no matter how saintly) going to fail at that a lot of the time. The idea that we bring our own misfortunes upon ourselves, while true to some extent, is actually giving us way too much seemingly-divine power to choose our own destinies. Sometimes s*** just happens.

Anyways, I think we will always be on opposite ends of these arguments, but I wanted to clarify my position. And if serious evil hadn’t happened to me at some point, I would not be a Christian today, so I do think it’s a weighty subject.