Isaiah 45:7 - I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.
Is this verse simply a translation error? Does it really mean the Christian god created evil?
Or does it really just mean he created the options for evil? Or, does it just mean he created adversity and struggle?
Actually, it is saying that God created everything, period. He
created the light, and the darkness, all that is good, and all that is
bad, adverse, or evil. He is responsible for the creation of all things,
good, bad, and ugly.
Therefore, he created
cancer. He created murder. He created disease. He created the torture
chamber known as hell. He created Satan.
You
can call it adversity, or struggle, or whatever is the opposite of
awesome, but the bottom line is, if you believe your god created
everything, you have to admit he also created all that is disgusting and
evil. There's no getting out of that.
If he created the world perfectly, and allowed man to fail and invite evil into the world - then had to create evil for it be invited in the first place. We could have been lousy screw-ups just fine without cancer, rape, and child slave trafficking.
One could only imagine, that a creator
that is powerful enough to develop an entire universe into existence
from nothing, could have probably come up with a better plan that did
not include these evil things, with suffering, torture, and blood
sacrifice.
That is only "the way" because you
believe he made it so. All of these things happened according to his
plan, and according to his will, in your belief.
This
would make much more sense, if archaic uneducated men from the Bronze
Age were trying to develop an explanation for the world around them that
they did not understand.
Then, it would fit right in with their
understanding at that time, and make historical sense that the Bible is so
inaccurate about science and so brutal to women, slaves, and
lawbreakers.
But, if it was truly divinely inspired, there is a whole lot more to be explained. Why would a god's knowledge be limited to the people and culture of which he was communicating?
Offering
"God" as the answer, when the book clearly seems to be limited by the
time in which it was written, and the knowledge of those who wrote
it, only begs thousands of more questions.
