This topic currently has two articles from unique perspectives:
Why Evil Exists (or, "Barbers Don't Exist") and Who Created Evil?
A man went to a barbershop for a haircut and to have his beard trimmed. As the barber worked, they talked about various subjects. They eventually touched on the subject of God.
The barber said, “I don't believe that God exists.”
“Why do you say that?” asked the customer.
“You just have to go out in the street to realize that God doesn't exist. Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people? Would there be abandoned children? If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain. I can't imagine a loving God who would allow all these things.”
The customer thought for a moment, but didn't want to start an argument.
When the customer left the barbershop, he saw a man in the streets with long, stringy dirty hair and an untrimmed beard. He looked dirty and unkempt. The customer turned back and reentered the barbershop.
He said to the barber, “You know what I've discovered? Barbers do not exist.”
“How can you say that?” asked the surprised barber. “I am here, and I am a barber. I just worked on you!”
“No”, the customer exclaimed. “Barbers don't exist because if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and untrimmed beards like the man outside.”
“Ah, but barbers do exist! What happens is that people do not come to me.”
“Exactly!” affirmed the customer. “That's the point! God, too, does exist! What happens is that people don't go to Him and do not look for Him.”
Evil exists because people fail to seek God to allow Him to work on their hearts.
Are you looking for God? Have you allowed Him to change you?
God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. 25 Nor is He worshiped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. 26 And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, 27 so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; 28 for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.' 29 Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising. 30 Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, 31 because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.” – Acts 17:24 -31
"Does God Exist?", January/February 2007 (Volume 34, Number 1), page 14.
A university professor challenged his students with this question: "Did God create everything that exists?"
Someone bravely replied, "Yes, he did!"
"God created everything?" the professor pressed.
"Yes, sir," someone answered.
The professor added, "Evil exists. So if God created everything, then God created evil, and according to the principle that our works define who we are, then God is evil." The professor was pleased with himself, and boasted to the class that he had proven once again that the Christian faith is a myth.
A student raised his hand and said, "May I ask you a question, professor?"
"Of course," replied the professor.
The student stood up and asked, "Professor, does cold exist?"
The professor replied, "Of course it exists. Have you never been cold?" The class snickered.
The young man replied, "In fact sir, cold does not exist. According to the laws of physics, what we consider "cold" is in reality the absence of heat. Every object is able to be studied when it has, or transmits, energy, and heat is what makes a body, or matter, have or transmit energy. Absolute zero (-460 degrees F) is the total absence of heat. Cold does not exist. We have created this word to describe how we feel if we have no heat.”
The student continued, "Professor, does darkness exist?"
The professor responded, "Of course it does."
The student replied, "Once again, you are wrong sir. Darkness does not exist either. Darkness is in reality the absence of light. Light we can study, but not darkness. In fact, we can use Newton's prism to break white light into many colors and study the various wavelengths of each color. You cannot measure darkness. A simple ray of light can break into a world of darkness and illuminate it. How can you know how dark a certain space is? You measure the amount of light present. Isn't this correct? “Darkness” is a term used by man to describe what happens when there is no light present."
Finally the young man brought the point home. "Sir, does evil exist?"
Now uncertain, the professor responded, "Of course, as I have already said. We see it every day. It is in the daily example of man's inhumanity to man. It is in the incessant parade of crime and violence everywhere in the world. These manifestations are nothing else but evil."
To this the student replied, "Evil does not exist, sir, or at least it does not exist unto itself. Evil is simply the absence of God. It is just like darkness and cold – a word that man has created to describe the absence of God.
God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart. It's like the cold that comes when there is no heat, or the darkness that comes when there is no light."
The professor sat down.
The young man's name: Albert Einstein.
*Always remember, though, that it doesn't take a genius to know that we need God.
If you know the author, email InkMan so proper credit will be given.
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