There is no good or evil. no duality. the Creator would have no need for duality since He would literally be everything in creation even if we are just extensions of Him. He would have no need to divide himself into good and evil if He were benevolent. Either there is a malevolent God, or there is no God at all. A benevolent god would not put himself into questioning himself through humanity’s limited questioning and reasoning.
Perhaps this mystery has been solved and Im late to either the atheist bash or the satanic worship congregation.
The usual response, in fact one which I just stated in one form on the “Philosophy Lesson” thread is that God created evil in order to realize a greater good than could be realized without it. But Heraclitus’ or Spinoza’s opinions might jibe with ours, i.e., that good and evil are secondary to an anthropcentric perspective only. God’s perspective is beyond duality. When we see things as they really are, we see beyond apparent dualities.
God creating evil would mean he could not be benevolent…He as in God would be all realization and would not need a realization of that sort. I agree with your second perspective, but besides the words of past thinkers what do you think?
Well of course the short answer is that I don’t know. But as you indicated before God didn’t create evil. Evil is only apparent based on our limited POV. God is the All, the being of every being. From God 's POV there is no death merely the change of form from one being to another. Underlying this sea of change is some great purpose. Or maybe the whole thing occurred randomly and the purpose will have to be worked out as we go along. It’s not too late for us, although signs of danger for humanity are growing more ominous these days what with nuclear accidents and climate change and the incipient mass extinction of many animal species.
If I was God i would stop rapists and sadists and things like that.
Assuming God is nicer and smarter than a human being, at the bare minimum we would be able to experience God’s manifestations and know that we had help.
Instead each crime happens and it is up to the police to try to fix it.
Atheism is the truth and there’s no way around it.
I agree with everything you said, Dan, except the part about police trying to fix it.
That’s as much of a fantasy as God is.
God, if He exists, IS Truth. He didn’t create evil, He merely created the universe that spawned us with self-awareness and thus the ability to choose to do evil to each other–to create a moral double standard favoring ourselves…or not. God can’t interfere without destroying that free will. We may suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune during our threescore and ten, but weighed against the possibility of our achieving nobility and fulfillment during that time that would last for all eternity, it’s a no brainer. Those that fail do not suffer. Unable to stand what they were, they merely relegate themselves to oblivion.
Where do I stand on this question? Is it not reasonable to doubt? And yet fulfilling to believe…
I mean, have a God.
I honestly don’t care how this sounds but it really doesn’t matter to angels in the clouds if we gods and goddesses on the ground compare with them right now–
they know who they are and not who we are is essentially the same dream. Spacetime is relative to the observer. If you’re just part devil (are you not?), you know you’re lucky to have been loved enough not to be worse than that. The angels sing praises for joy of that fact.
So, when a psycopath comes and kills your family, it’s not a bad nor good act? …eeehhh???
/interjection: Suppose it was a family of psychopathic pedophiles?
Anything in that category doesn’t alter anything in my anology, so my point still stands. 
It alters the scope from that of the individual to the level of a society.
If the psychopath didn’t do the deed, then maybe the state executioner will for the good of society - and in the end, the killing is just as effective. And was the killing good or evil? It depends on the scope of your judgement.
You injection comment hardly relates to your last conclusion?
It related to:
I said:
…explaining why this extra information would be relevant, coming my last conclusion
which also relates directly to your original question.
The thread title is “About Good/Evil” so I have also kept on-topic. Do I get extra points?
My point would then be …no!
Because just because some are criminals, people just can’t be vigilanties, one can’t just punish people without reason, just because they have a bad past, they have to have committed a crime.
In the book of Job God also created Leviathan. God also created Satan. It is not remiss to ask why this god would would extend into dualistic antagonisms, e.g., Satan as Jesus’ or god’s adversary. That dualism is a human way of seeing some cosmic design for our eventual salvation is, for me, ridiculous. The Satan who tempted Jesus in the desert place, tempted him with the three basic human obstacles to shared love and compassion, which are pride, power and possession. In other words, Satan was temptations within Jesus’ own psyche, temptations as necessary preparation for his later teachings. Atheist vs theist interpretations of human spirituality do not get into the human psyche where all beliefs begin.
But deism does.
How so?
The human psyche centers on the ego/self-awareness. Revealed religions and atheism work from outside that ego inward, pushing the belief in on the individual as you said (or implied). Deism starts with the ego interacting with its surroundings, gathering knowledge and experience from yourself and others forming a model for dealing with your environment and others. Since the issue is starting from a blank screen position instead of the proposition of there being a God or not, your spiritual position is yours, even if you’re wrong, just as the external spirituality can either be wrong or right. On the down side, if you’re wrong it’s your fault alone, your responsibility, making your investment in it that much more important and motivation that much more to get it right.
“If there be (a God), he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded [faith].” Deism (a completely laissez faire God) is the only spiritual path to divine free will. Yes, I suppose we have free will under atheism, but then what’s the point. There it is an empty attribute.