Where did evil come from?

Question

The Christian god is credited with the creation of everything, not just in our universe, but in the heavens as well. Satan himself is a former angel named Lucifer. Who created the angels? Obviously, god did. Who created Lucifer? Obviously, god did. The Christian god is said to have the ability to see the future as clearly as the past. So, the instant Lucifer came into being, god already knew that eventually he would turn to evil and attempt a revolution. So why did god create Lucifer in the first place? Are we witnessing a split personality? Does god have an "evil" side which he failed to fully suppress? When god created man, the bible tells us he created us in his image. Why do some people have a natural tendency towards evil? What does that say about god?

Assuming for the moment that Christianity is correct , I submit that evil exists because god wants it to. If you accept the fact that god is all-powerful, there is no other explanation.

I submit that evil exists because god wants it to. If you accept the fact that god is all-powerful, there is no other explanation. I submit that pain, suffering, hardship, disease, and starvation all exist because god wants them to. Again, there is no other explanation. What does this tell us about god?
The answer isn't hard to find: god is satan. Can you disprove this theory?

Answer 1

Lucifer resigned from heaven. God, being the well-documented sadist that he is, no doubt wanted to keep Lucifer around so that he could punish him and try to get him back under his (God's) power. Probably what really happened was that Lucifer came to hate God's kingdom, his sadism, his demand for slavish conformity and obedience, his psychotic rage at any display of independent thinking and behavior. Lucifer realized that he could never fully think for himself and could certainly not act on his independent thinking so long as he was under God's control. Therefore he left Heaven, that terrible spiritual-State ruled by the cosmic sadist Jehovah, and was accompanied by some of the angels who had had enough courage to question God's authority and his value-perspective. Lucifer is the embodiment of reason, of intelligence, of critical thought. He stands against the dogma of God and all other dogmas. He stands for the exploration of new ideas and new perspectives in the pursuit of truth.

Answer 2

Going back to old beliefs of many different cultures and religions, the creator/God/Whatever, is in everything created from a rock, to a straw, to people. Therefore, in a sense you can say that God is a part of the devil.
However, without the knowledge of evil then there would be nothing viewd as good. Just like without death there would not be the knowledge of what life really is.
Yet, also consider that every living being is given the choice of free will; therefore, you cannot say that an all powerful creator created poverty, or starving people. The human race as a whole has the ability to bring about change if the change is choosen. Therefore, it is easier to view everyone who does not attempt to make a change in the world for the better as guilty of allowing such evils as the ones you have listed.
Some people have a natural tendency towards evil, however evil is also seen as an easier path to follow than one of good. Yet, sometimes someone we view as evil is actually viewing themselves as good. Yet, to state that someone is evil is juding which also goes agianst the Bible, "Judge not..."
Therefore, in my opinion it would be much easier to do the best that I can while helping those that I can even though I'm not a follower of any religion that accepts the Bible as being the one truth.

Answer 3

Evil is a childish concept. There is no consummate, eternal evil, there is no evil force at play. When a person does something wrong, it's because there is something missing in that person -- and what's missing is the ability to comprehend (really and genuinely comprehend) that the particular thing he did is wrong. What you call "evil" is *ignorance*.

A person who grew up in the slums, got addicted to drugs and ends up in prison for murder would not be the same person if he had been born into a loving environment, given a good education, support and encouragement. There is no "evil" within the slum kid who kills; there is an inability to understand right from wrong.

"There but for the grace of God" -- as the saying goes.

Satan was nicked from the original Jewish texts and maligned into some kind of evil monster. Judaism should know what Satan is, and this is what it has to say on the subject:

(1) SATAN NEVER FELL ANYWHERE
Lucifer or Phosphorus (the "Lightbearer"), in classical mythology, is the name for the planet Venus as the morning star. Isaiah 14:12 alludes to the King of Babylon as "Lucifer, son of the morning", but in the belief that this verse contained a reference to the fall of Satan from heaven, the fathers of the early CHRISTIAN church -- not Judaism! -- attached the name Lucifer to Satan.

On the above-referenced Isaiah verse in the Jewish bible: "This translation of the Bible does not use 'Lucifer' at all, but rather, uses 'O shining one, son of the dawn!' and further, footnotes it with the explanation "a character in some lost myth".

And

(2) SATAN IS AN ANGEL DOING THE JOB ASSIGNED TO HIM BY GOD
Judaism has no concept of a "devil" or fallen angel. Angels do not have free will, so they cannot choose to disobey God as humans can.

The word satan means challenger. This describes Satan as the angel who is the embodiment of man's challenges. Satan works FOR God. His job is to strength man's spirit. Christianity sees Satan as God's opponent. In Judaism, the idea that anything in the universe would be capable of setting itself up as God's opponent would be the same thing as declaring Satan a god or demigod.

The notion of an angel having free will is alien to Judaism. Free will requires the tension created by being a soul dwelling in a body. People can have free will, but angels can't. Satan acts as a servant of God, not as an opponent or even disobedient child. Angels cannot sin, they cannot fall.

Answer 4

I think that the interesting point is that Satan is also translated as the accuser. Think about the system that WE CURRENTLY live in and it makes perfect sense that there would need to be an accuser.

So perhaps you are looking at things incorrectly, God created everything (Satan, Adam, Eve, Jesus, US), knowing that there would be evil so that he could show is divine power and mercy.

Satan, however was given a choice to do good or to do evil and he chose evil. Why does God in creating him become complicit? He shouldn't, as Satan had his own choice and just because it was foreknown by God and God didn't destroy him proves that God is just. Why give people freedom but deny them the ability to use it. That doesn't mean that it can be used without consequence.

Answer 5

God did create all things including Satan. God created him perfectly but with freewill just like we have been given freewill. Freedom to choose our own path is a good gift from God but it is one that we can corrupt by choosing a negative path.
God knew Satan would rebel even before he created him - but that would be pretty harsh if God skipped creating people and angels based on future deeds they haven't yet done. Would the world be a better place if we didn't have freedom to make wicked and rebellious choices? Yes. Would there be any purpose to life? No. God created us so He could have a loving relationship with us. If He skipped creating anyone who would reject Him or forced us to love Him mindlessly like a robot the love would be meaningless. God doesn't want evil, He wants our love. Only freely given love is genuine. Because of this, we have the ability to love God and obey or sin and do evil.

Bula'ia Aratyme - has presented verses that are not accurate. Every translation I've come across has the word "disaster" and not "evil" - they are very different things.

Answer 6

God did indeed create Lucifer, if you read the bible you would know this, and Lucifer wanted to be more powerful then God and tried to become this. Lucifer was an angel of God, and God banished him to Hell, which was created also by God for Lucifer. God did also create us in his image. But if you remember there was the garden of Eden and he told Adam and Eve that they could eat of any of the trees and fruits that they wanted, but not to eat of the apple, and Lucifer tempted her, and she gave into temptation and that is why there is evil. Becuase God gave us the right of free will to choose what we want, and so when tempted and we go with temptation it makes Lucifer stronger and evil more powerful as a result.

Answer 7

Your understanding of Christianity is correct, your understanding of evil is not.

Good and evil are like hot and cold: just like cold is not a thing of its own (except in the absence of heat) evil is not a thing of its own (except in the absence of good.) The same can be said of stupidity and intelligence. A very simple proof can be used to demonstrate that evil is the absence of good instead of a thing of its own: a lie of omission is still a lie. (A lie is not defined by the abundance of falsehood, but by the absence of truth.) On the other hand, a fable such as the tortoise and the hare (which has no actual historical fact, and is therefore strictly speaking not true) is not a lie because it contains truth. Lies are a form of evil, truth is a form of good. Murder works for this also: killing for self defense or in defense of ones own country or family is often considered good, so it is not the killing that defines murder as something evil, but rather it is the lack of honorable intentions which define it as murder.

When language was created, it wasn't then that stupidity was caused in the animals. Rather, intelligence was caused in people that allowed them to develop language. Stupidity was never created, just some animals (and arguably people) ended up being called "stupid" because they were not given or did not exercise their intelligence.

I'll go a step further, though, and make three classifications: good, innocent, and evil. Good is that which contributes goodness and/or justice to a situation, for example, telling the truth. Innocent is something which has no moral affect of its own, for example, simply stating an unrelated fact. Evil is that which removes goodness and/or justice from a situation, for example, telling a lie.

Satan/Lucifer was given a purpose, and if we are to take the name that is translated "Lucifer" from the Old Testament passage as his job, it was to declare the light. Somewhere along the way, he was given a choice: he could choose to do good, to contribute positively to creation, or to do evil, and to remove good from the system. He found out what the good and proper use of things were, and then defined other uses for them: the good and proper use of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is not known to us, because the only usage presented was the one Satan exposed, which was not the proper use.

In regards to God's being good, I appeal back to my analogy of heat and cold. There are things on the Earth that are hot and cold, just as there are people on the earth that are good and bad, but this is all in a relative sense. Then there is the surface sun, which is so much hotter than anything on Earth. In fact, the surface is so hot that some of the solid things we consider "hot" (like a red heated iron) would instantly evaporate if placed on the surface of the sun. Deeper into the sun, there is an even higher temperature. At these temperatures, the molecular bonds that form much of what we interact with are not stable, and break down. Further in still is an even higher temperature, and at these temperatures even atoms start to break apart. Hotter still (but not in our sun, I don't think) there are temperatures where even electrons and protons and neutrons transform into energy... into heat. So there is a heat so hot that whatever was to become that hot would become heat itself. God is that good: God is so good that he has completely become goodness itself. (Some would say it's the other way around, that God came first and defined goodness, but I say since they're the same and eternal, it doesn't matter.) All other things are less good, and therefore "evil" relative to God, though to each other they are relatively good or evil.

Answer 8

I`m christian and baptized when i was at young age but i don`t believe in god and never did.I believe in science though i accept that there must be a powerful force that helped creating everything.But i don`t think this power is like a gr8er being...a god .....someone who looks after us.What i mean is that good and evil are created around circumstances that influence someone and of course it depends if someone is mentally strong enough to keep thinking straight and not to be corrupted by bad influences.

Answer 9

1. God did not create evil. It just exist.

Evil is there because God is good. Nothing can be define as 'good' if there is no evil. Using the analogy of Yang-And-Yang, if there is no good, would there be evil? Imagine this, if everyone is good, would you be aware or know that evil exist? God did not make evil so that He may look 'good'. God is good by nature.

2. Satan's rebellion

You need to read the Books of Revelations, such as Revelations, Daniel, Amos, Joel, Isaiah, etc to understand this. The Morning Star, Lucifer, decided that he is parallel to God due to his pride hence he and a third of his angels were thrown down from Heaven. Note that it was Satan that decided that he should be 'God'. Not that God made him evil in the first place.

3. God's love.

Are we computers that is programmed to Love? Can we choose to love? The answer is: We can love freely whom we want to. Imagine this, a guy wooing a girl he loves. He would buy all kinds of things; flowers, chocolates, etc for the girl he loves. Can he force the girl to love him? Love is a two-way relationship. The girl has to love the guy so that a relationship may exist. If the girl chooses not to love him, the relationship is only one way. No matter how hard the guy tries to win her heart, she will not budge. In the same way, God allows evil because true love exist in freedom. Even if God knowest it all, He will not stop us from doing evil because it was our choice to do evil. We are all given the freedom to choose.

4. Adam's sins.

You will be asking, 'why are some people have a natural tendency towards evil? Why? Why? Why?' The answer is simple, it is due to the cause-and-effect from the first sin. If you do know about the 'Butterfly Effect', you will probably understand this. When Adam first sin by disobeying God and consume the fruit of Good and Evil, sin had entered humanity. People kill one another, those who survived seeks revenge. Sin has a cause-and-effect. When someone did something bad against you, will you seek revenge? Definitely you do because we are all human. But when you sin, you would most probably blame the person for causing you to sin. Think of this, a rapist rapes a attractive woman. The rapist would probably blame the woman for wearing attractively to arouse him but who do you think is in the wrong? Definitely the judge would sentence the rapist because it was he who sins. Pushing blames to others will not work ever since the first man exist. Genesis 3:12 ...the women You GAVE me gave me the fruit. All of us have the responsibility of our own doings. If the Judge let go of the rapist, then who will prevail justice for the victim? In order to stop this continuation of cause-and-effect of sins, Jesus said this, 'forgive your enemies seventy-seven sets of seven.' Only when you forgive will you be released from the bitterness of sins. Those people who have a natural tendency towards evil is caused by their own unforgiveness which leads to their habit of sinning. Those who sins also need to know that they are sinning and repent.

5. God's Plan and God's Eventual Plan

God is came to this world to die for all of our sins so that we can have the power to overcome death caused by sins. His eventual plans is revealed in Revelations, He decided to destory everything when Thy Kingdom comes and recreate the New Jerusalem so that all things would have created to His purpose. There are too much sins in this world and sins are affecting one another hence in order to end the continuation of sins, the world will be recreated.

Answer 10

I don't think you have this growth thing down? My kids when they were toddlers thought I was evil and kicked and screamed when I told them no or whatever. I just want them to grow up. Duh, on the Fallen Angel...Lucifer serves quite well his Purpose. Hmmmm, a farmer plants his field in seven days, then through out time he fertilizes it with Crap, Yeppers that's right - he uses Manure to help it grow healthy and strong -- it takes a lot of sh*t to make something beautiful. Yah Know? One day, long ago, I thought one thing only now to realize, I have grown and now I understand.