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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Let’s solve the problem of evil > Response to Empiress on Free Will | Forum Quick Jump
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Vexen
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Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 55
| Posted 1/21/2002 11:01 AM (GMT -6) |   | This is something I believe, that free will does not necessitate the existence of evil.
For example... if you believe that there is Free Will is Heaven, then you believe in a realm of existence where Free Will exists without Evil.
If such a Heaven is possible, why did God not make it like that on Earth? Why, on Earth, is Evil required for Free Will but not in Heaven?
In addition, much natural suffering is caused by natural disasters, presumably these don't occur in Heaven either?
It seems that the existence of Evil is not a function of free will, but of Existence. Does this then mean that heaven doesn't exist?
--
Vexen
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Semeia
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| Posted 1/21/2002 11:21 AM (GMT -6) | | PoW said: Possibilities are necessary.
Evil is a choice.
They are different categories.
Semeia: Evil as a possibility is necessary with free will.
"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 1/21/2002 11:22 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
This is something I believe, that free will does not necessitate the existence of evil.
For example... if you believe that there is Free Will is Heaven, then you believe in a realm of existence where Free Will exists without Evil.
If such a Heaven is possible, why did God not make it like that on Earth? Why, on Earth, is Evil required for Free Will but not in Heaven?
In addition, much natural suffering is caused by natural disasters, presumably these don't occur in Heaven either?
It seems that the existence of Evil is not a function of free will, but of Existence. Does this then mean that heaven doesn't exist?
amen, Vexen. Don't settle for less.
The Eastern Church Fathers describe Adam and Eve as having been imature (a figure of speech). They needed to mature. Sin, in their view didn't necessarily have to happen. ("...to be done"--to put a personal face on it.) BUT, the incarnation of the theothropos/God-man/Logos-incarnate was necessary, and would have happened anyways. Interesting? | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 1/21/2002 11:25 AM (GMT -6) | | Semeia: Evil as a possibility.
PoW: NO. Evil is a choice. Tripping when I walk in the dark is a possibility.
They are different categoris.
:) | | Back to Top | | |
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Semeia
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| Posted 1/21/2002 11:35 AM (GMT -6) | | Vexen said: If such a Heaven is possible, why did God not make it like that on Earth? Why, on Earth, is Evil required for Free Will but not in Heaven?
In addition, much natural suffering is caused by natural disasters, presumably these don't occur in Heaven either?
Semeia: Those are the million dollar questions, aren't they? I suspect that there is some suffering in heaven, because it says in the Bible that God grieves. But I believe that our understanding and perception of suffering will be quite different.
When you look at the long list of predatory life that has existed on earth beginning with the dinosaurs, it is hard for me to come to the conclusion that creation was all a terrible mistake. It seems to me that the failure of understanding lies on our end, not with God. Otherwise I would have to conclude that God is pretty bad at this creation business, because the entire history of the earth and in fact the universe is one of decay and death and hot molten lava and creatures with very sharp teeth.
Thanks,
Semeia
P.S. Vexen, I am really enjoying your questions and your point of view. And Mephi, in spite of what we talked about earlier about taking a break, I think you should come back!
"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard | | Back to Top | | |
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Empiress
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| Posted 1/21/2002 11:38 AM (GMT -6) | | Doc said: What is "evil" if not "what should be otherwise?" And how should it be otherwise? It should be BETTER..... Having said that, I completely agree with you Empiress that in its actualized form, "good and evil are separate forces."
Empiress: Evil cannot be "better," evil is evil is evil. It is it's own thing, separate from good. The fact that people, by choice, add a creative element to evil when they choose it necessarily causes it to have it's own substance in practicality. While in theory we could say hate and love are on a continuum, when beings choose hate, it becomes a new substance with no relationship to love because they've infused it with "life" in the creative "owning" and transforming of evil. There is no practical application to the Platonic concept of a link between good and evil.
For example: We could say that a house is related to a tree because it was made of lumber which came from a tree. But the house has become its own entity, it's own thing, totally separate from the tree. In practical terms, the house is completely separate though theoretically linked to trees. So it is with evil.
When I was in Thailand, some of the missionaries who had seen mosquitos carrying disease from person to person and killing off entire tribes began to believe that Satan had created mosquitos, not God. Mosquitos serve no beneficial purpose to any living creature except themselves. Regardless of whether that's true (that's NOT my point), this concept illustrates the way an "evil" could exist separately from any good. It shows that we can concieve of evil existing apart from good.
oic
Doc said: I’d really like to encourage you to give Satan and the Problem of Evil a read. I love your theological instincts. You ask all the right questions!
Empiress:Well I'd like to finish reading it but they kicked me out of the bookstore before I could finish it! 
Doc said: IN other words, love is inherently relational, hence so is evil. This is what makes us morally responsible for one another.
Empiress:This is a description of the way things are, but not the way they could be! I'm critiquing the way the universe currently operates. Assuming God created this universe, then, on some level, God is morally liable for creating a universe in which immature people are overly susceptible to permanently damaging others. In legal terms this is called, "criminal negligence."
For example: We live in a universe where a parent could accidentally leave a bottle with pills in it that a child sees, mistakes for candy, eats them and dies. We also live in a universe in which people can be prosectuted for being negligent....like a babysitter who leaves a small child unattended near a pool. Is not God responsible, in a similar way?
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Mag and Semia,
In both of your examples (rock climbing or swimming in a forbidden lake), there are MANY differences. First, the individual has the choice to put themselves in a dangerous position in the first place. On earth, we NEVER had that choice, we've been forced to rock climb and swim alone. Second, we've never even practiced or learned how first the way rock climbers first learn how to rock climb/swim in safe environments. Thirdly, your examples would only really equate if when YOU chose to rock climb or swim and YOU fell, I died! We have no say over the degree of risk, the impact of risk, or whether we even want to take that risk, let alone "rehearse" for it. That is the rub for me, not the fact that risk exists.
Peace,
Empiress
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Semeia
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| Posted 1/21/2002 11:39 AM (GMT -6) | | PoW said: NO. Evil is a choice. Tripping when I walk in the dark is a possibility.
They are different categoris.
Semeia: Whose choice is it when the baby is born blind? Who sinned, the man who was born blind, or his parents?
"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard | | Back to Top | | |
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n/a
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| Posted 1/21/2002 11:42 AM (GMT -6) | | neither, but, let the works of God be manifested, heh.
Our natural greatness is seen as part of God's image, and that natural greatness has been conferred on us to enable us to achieve our supernatural destiny:to be related to God and to obey him freely.---Diogenes Allen | | Back to Top | | |
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Starkman
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| Posted 1/21/2002 11:49 AM (GMT -6) | | In response to Empiress's post a ways back on her issue with why there isn't limitation to suffering, there is. The book of Job shows very clearly that there is limitations. What's not so clear are the rules God plays by that make this possible.
There are also signs nature showing limitation: our existance. For if there were no limitations, we'd all be dead or wishing we were. (this is one of the reasons why, too, I cringe when someone says "God spared Bob in the Twin Towers disaster", but that person doesn't get it that God then didn't spare the others)
With regard to Vexen's issue about freewill in heaven requiring the same possibility of evil as freewill on earth requires, I'd say that it is therefore clear that something of a protective measure is instituted in heaven to prohibit evil from ever happening again. I'd submit first that it is the removal of "good" from a moral and ontological perspective thus eliminating evil's possibility; because evil isn't a substance that you can pick up and hold. It relies on the existence of good. (I just don't see us up there saying, "You know, God sure is good, isn't He" if by that we mean He's good because just down the corner, boy, it's really bad over there. Good becomes meaningless from a moral definition, but takes on completed meaning in view of all that God is is eminated undisturbed and unobscured)
Second I'd also suggest that there is, in fact, something re-arranged, if you will, or just plain done away with, in heaven regarding freewill BECAUSE DOWN HERE WE GIVE GOD THE OKAY TO DO THAT! That's the eternal blessing of being a Christian: COMPLETE surrender by exercise of freewill to have it be said once and for all "God didn't make me a robot down here". Afterward, however, I believe something more takes place, and that is that God does away with in some unknown manner our ability to go evil. It's never going to happen again. Not because we won't choose to do so, but because the possibility is eliminated once and for all, BUT ONLY, as I said, because we first give Him the freedom to do so by exercising our own freewill first.
Edited by - Starkman on 01/21/2002 4:53:02 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 1/21/2002 11:51 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
With regard to Vexen's issue about freewill in heaven requiring the same possibility of evil as freewill on earth requires, I'd say that it is therefore clear that something of a protective measure is instituted in heaven to prohibit evil from ever happening again. I'd submit first that it is the removal of "good" from a moral and ontological perspective thus eliminating evil's possibility; because evil isn't a substance that you can pick up and hold. It relies on the existence of good.
Second I'd also suggest that there is, in fact, something re-arranged, if you will, or just plain done away with, in heaven regarding freewill BECAUSE DOWN HERE WE GIVE GOD THE OKAY TO DO THAT! That's the eternal blessing of being a Christian: COMPLETE surrender by exercise of freewill to have it be said once and for all "God didn't make me a robot down here". Afterward, however, I believe something more takes place, and that is that God does away with in some unknown manner our ability to go evil. It's never going to happen again. Not because we won't choose to do so, but because the possibility is eliminated once and for all, BUT ONLY, as I said, because we first give Him the freedom to do so by exercising our own freewill first.
Hebrews 8:10 I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
Brother, I don't like that kind of speculation.
We will share in the Trinitarian Love of the Father, through the head of the Body, our head, Christ.
Here's your proof. "Love never fails!"
Don't make speculative guesses. Go read lots from those who's ideas have been critiqued by all. And that kind of writing is not speculation. It comes with very close relationship to God.
Edited by - potonwheel on 01/21/2002 4:59:59 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Vexen
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| Posted 1/21/2002 11:57 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
it is therefore clear that something of a protective measure is instituted in heaven to prohibit evil from ever happening again. I'd submit first that it is the removal of "good" from a moral and ontological perspective thus eliminating evil's possibility;
...
Second I'd also suggest that there is, in fact, something re-arranged, if you will, or just plain done away with, in heaven regarding freewill BECAUSE DOWN HERE WE GIVE GOD THE OKAY TO DO THAT! That's the eternal blessing of being a Christian: COMPLETE surrender by exercise of freewill to have it be said once and for all "God didn't make me a robot down here". Afterward, however, I believe something more takes place, and that is that God does away with in some unknown manner our ability to go evil. It's never going to happen again. Not because we won't choose to do so, but because the possibility is eliminated once and for all, BUT ONLY, as I said, because we first give Him the freedom to do so by exercising our own freewill first.
If Evil is required for Free Will, then taking away our option to choose Evil (as in Heaven) takes away our Free Will.
Even if it is that we choose to have our Free Will taken away, and becomes robots in heaven, then our free will is still gone in Heaven.
--
Vexen
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 1/21/2002 12:01 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Semeia
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| Posted 1/21/2002 12:02 PM (GMT -6) | | Empiress said:
Mag and Semia,
In both of your examples (rock climbing or swimming in a forbidden lake), there are MANY differences. First, the individual has the choice to put themselves in a dangerous position in the first place. On earth, we NEVER had that choice, we've been forced to rock climb and swim alone. Second, we've never even practiced or learned how first the way rock climbers first learn how to rock climb/swim in safe environments. Thirdly, your examples would only really equate if when YOU chose to rock climb or swim and YOU fell, I died! We have no say over the degree of risk, the impact of risk, or whether we even want to take that risk, let alone "rehearse" for it. That is the rub for me, not the fact that risk exists.
Semeia: I think you may have missed much of the point. I'm saying that what is beautiful and full of life and love entails risk. None of us chooses it to begin with, because none of us was born by our own choice. But there is an element of freedom in creation without which there could not be freely chosen love. If you could never choose to hate someone, then love would not be a real choice. It would be a set-up. I believe that God wants creatures who can freely love. In order to freely choose love, you must also be able to freely choose hate, otherwise there would not be any choice. God gives us life. I believe that sentient life requires freedom--otherwise we would be robots. If God made it impossible for people to hurt each other, he would simultaneously make it impossible for people to freely love each other.
Thanks,
Semeia
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 1/21/2002 12:11 PM (GMT -6) | | Semeia: you must also be able to freely choose hate, otherwise there would not be any choice (to love).
This is not true. Its "warped."
Are you saying that the Father could HATE the Son, could HATE the Spirit.
That is a warped, sin-stained (it describes what you get if you consider things now to be "natural") definition of love.
We are sin-stained. Humanity has lost the "likeness" of God, and retained a 'mared' "image". Out of that position we NEED god's revelation. God reveals himself to us in Trinity. THAT is the long-view, the true view. That is Truth, Life, and the Way. THAT is our definition of what Love realy is. And it is from there that all theology must begin; or else be false. (And misleading.) | | Back to Top | | |
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Semeia
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| Posted 1/21/2002 12:23 PM (GMT -6) | | PoW, are you saying that you think we can be perfect like the Father? Have you ever spent any time around babies and toddlers? (I know you have, that's a rhetorical question.)
Are you saying there is no difference between human beings and God? That all we have to do is make a different choice and we will be full of love and just like God?
Although I agree that we are made in the image of God, I don't even know what you're talking about here. In what way does being a believer eliminate hate as a choice? Hopefully it leads us away from choosing hate, but it in no way prevents us. Otherwise loving God would be by coercion, not out of a free choice.
Thanks,
Semeia
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Magneton
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| Posted 1/21/2002 12:23 PM (GMT -6) | | Vexen, quote:
This is something I believe, that free will does not necessitate the existence of evil.
For example... if you believe that there is Free Will is Heaven, then you believe in a realm of existence where Free Will exists without Evil.
If such a Heaven is possible, why did God not make it like that on Earth? Why, on Earth, is Evil required for Free Will but not in Heaven?
I agree that free will does not necessitate the existence of evil, and heaven is a good example to bring up.
The way I see it, heaven is different in that God's presence is so obvious, that we won't be able to miss it. The awareness and awe of his glory will be so great, and our loving relationship with God at such a forefront of our consciousness, that to do the slightest thing that is not pleasing to him would be unthinkable: utterly abhorrent to all who are there. We will still have the POWER to do evil, i.e. free will, but no MOTIVATION to do so.
If this is correct, then your question, "Why did God not make it like that on Earth?" reduces to "Why didn't God make himself obvious to us here on earth?" I recall that Doc addresses this in Letters from a Skeptic.
Magneton
Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Edited by - magneton on 01/21/2002 5:25:46 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Semeia
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| Posted 1/21/2002 12:27 PM (GMT -6) | | Magneton said: Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Semeia: Hey, what a perfect quote for this board!!!
"The opposite of sin is not virtue, but faith."--Soren Kierkegaard | | Back to Top | | |
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Empiress
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| Posted 1/21/2002 12:48 PM (GMT -6) | | Starkman,
I think we disagree with whether or not the "limits" are really just then. it doesn't seem like a "just limit" that babies can accidentally die...or any other atrocities I could recount here.
Semeia said: quote:
God gives us life. I believe that sentient life requires freedom--otherwise we would be robots. If God made it impossible for people to hurt each other, he would simultaneously make it impossible for people to freely love each other.
I agree it requires freedom and I agree with what you're saying, however, I'm not sure you understand my point(s). I'm concerned with the effects of evil. I don't find your's a satisfactory response. I do not believe that the ability to freely love is necessarily altered in any way by limiting the effects of sin on innocents. That's where I'm looking for answers.
Thanks for the discussion,
Empiress
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Semeia
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| Posted 1/21/2002 1:20 PM (GMT -6) | | Empiress said: I do not believe that the ability to freely love is necessarily altered in any way by limiting the effects of sin on innocents.
Semeia: I think I am understanding your issue... I think.
Can you give a real-life example of what that would look like?
When I was in grade school my best friend was hit by a car in front of her house and killed. When I think of that event I think of what could have been eliminated to prevent such a possibility, and I just can't come up with a good answer. Do we take away cars or roads or people's ability to invent such things? Do we take away kids playing in a front yard, chasing a ball? Do we make children and parents inseparable, so kids are in less danger? Do we take away a person's ability to get distracted for a moment? What could we possibly take away that would for all time prevent someone from losing a child in this way?
And if you think there is something that God could do, or that God could have done differently, to prevent such things and still have creatures who are free to love, how do you feel about the God who created this world? Do you think he's not a very good God?
It isn't that I don't completely relate to your feelings about the suffering of innocents. Much of what happens to small children in the world is almost beyond the mind's ability to grasp. But if I thought that God COULD create such a world (without any suffering) and simply chose not to out of arbitrariness (as opposed to the limitations imposed by the nature of free-willed creatures and the nature of love) then I would have a lot of difficulty having faith.
Do you see what I'm saying?
Thanks,
Semeia
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 1/21/2002 1:28 PM (GMT -6) | | Magneton, I like what you said; except to "We will still have the POWER to do evil" I would replace something like C.S. Lewis might have put in the Great Divorce, and did have in Narnia, that we will probably not remember sin. Just guessing.
Actually, I'd like to challenge whether the phrase "We will still have the POWER to do evil" is just a stubborn hold-over, in the absense of something more appropriate that still does the job that you know is needed.
Thank seriously about that. | | Back to Top | | |
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Empiress
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| Posted 1/21/2002 1:40 PM (GMT -6) | | Semeia asked:
quote:
Can you give a real-life example of what that would look like?
I don't think I can give an example that fits in our current reality. I'm asking: why not a different reality in which the effects of evil are not of the same degree? A world where innocent life cannot be taken or a child's psyche be destroyed. It seems there could be a "law of nature" or biological/psychological limits which prevented such things. A world where humanity is not so fragile and victim to every kind of evil, but where free will is still exercised to the fullest extent.
quote:
But if I thought that God COULD create such a world (without any suffering) and simply chose not to out of arbitrariness (as opposed to the limitations imposed by the nature of free-willed creatures and the nature of love) then I would have a lot of difficulty having faith.
I do have a lot of trouble with my faith. I have a hard time believing in a good God.
Peace,
Empiress
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 1/21/2002 4:14 PM (GMT -6) | | Semeia: I'm a hypocrite. I just had an arguement with my dear little son. And I'm going to stire about being perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect.
quote:
PoW, are you saying that you think we can be perfect like the Father? Have you ever spent any time around babies and toddlers? (I know you have, that's a rhetorical question.)
Are you saying there is no difference between human beings and God? That all we have to do is make a different choice and we will be full of love and just like God?
Although I agree that we are made in the image of God, I don't even know what you're talking about here. In what way does being a believer eliminate hate as a choice? Hopefully it leads us away from choosing hate, but it in no way prevents us. Otherwise loving God would be by coercion, not out of a free choice.
Thanks, Semeia
[SemeiaPoW, are you saying that you think we can be perfect like the Father?
Jesus: Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matthew 5:48).
hypocrite: *sheepishly* Yes mam.
There is a chocolate SantaClaus on the table in the front hall, with its head off, all wrapped up snug in its colored metalic wrapper. And I can't have any. And there is no other chocolate in the house. This is good for me. it does NOT teach me that I have more strength. I don't. But it CAN teach me that God will provide the strength when I of my own free will ask him for it. He is faithfully there with that strength, without fail, whenever I ask him for it. Lest anyone brand me a Pelagian, I will testify that god also shepherd's me, and prompts, by His Spirit, the idea of asking for strength. But that is all. I CAN fail. I can even decide to fail.
But perfection is what God is after. He died for it. "He became a human that humans might become god." (Athanasias and others.) God became one of us, in the flesh, that we might become (by grace) what He is (by nature). Deified. We are to share in Christ's life. We who have been buried with Him in baptism, who have died, and are raised with Him to newness of life.
Semeia: Are you saying there is no difference between human beings and God?
PoW: Are we to say that there can be no similarities? He is like us. We shall be like him.
quote:
But there is an element of freedom in creation without which there could not be freely chosen love. If you could never choose to hate someone, then love would not be a real choice. It would be a set-up. I believe that God wants creatures who can freely love. In order to freely choose love, you must also be able to freely choose hate, otherwise there would not be any choice. God gives us life. I believe that sentient life requires freedom--otherwise we would be robots. If God made it impossible for people to hurt each other, he would simultaneously make it impossible for people to freely love each other.
Semeia: "I believe that God wants creatures who can freely love. . .to freely choose..."
PoW: I agree.
Semeia: "In order to freely choose love, you must also be able to freely choose hate..."
PoW: False. St. John of Damascus wrote in the Exact Exposition of the Christian Faith that there are two kinds of will: a natural will and a deliberative will. I quoted on the "Under Calvinist Attack thread:
"St. John of Damascus said something to the effect that Free Will is not deliberative. PotOnWheel says Free Will is creative. (I steal.) Deliberative will, according to John of Dam. is when you have to go back and forth and say something like: "Should I lie to my boss or to my wife?" That may be "choice", but it is not Fredom at all!"
I really, really don't thing that any heart that could hate CAN have a free, "natural will." Rather, it will be "deliberative."
The problem is in what the nature of a creature is. God by his word gives everyting a nature. Even after the fall, the nature of it all remains. The rules don't change. But things or people either act based on their god-given natures, or they don't. (Here is where Calvin actually is quite good, and especially Abraham Kuyper!) Our created nature is to love. We are, after all, created in the image of God. But when we can't love, or when we "can to not" love, that is an indication that our nous (as in noetic) is darkened. (our heart is dark). That is a sign that we are in sin. Such "love," even if mimicking real love, has been said by some to be sin.
So, here is one more post I did a while back that drives the point home with force.
quote:
Man's destiny is not happiness, but natural freedom. In Christ there was no "deliberative will" (èÝëçìá ãíùìéêüí), but a "natural will" (èÝëçìá öõóéêüí) and "natural freedom." In His human nature Christ was not free by an act of will. He was free by His very nature. Therefore, He really had or has two natural wills and energies, divine and human, without any connotation of sinfulness. For Platonized forms of Christianity, which understand the fall of man in terms of lack of happiness and immutability, this is not possible. Purity and sinlessness in the Bible are not immobility of a satisfied mind and will conjoined to immutable realities, but rather the freedom of the heart or, in modern terms, of the sub-conscious. A person can will good things all he wants, but unless his heart or subconscious is purified by the grace or glory of God, his works are of no avail and he is still a captive to demonic influences. Willful good works which are not products of a heart being purified by divine grace are not only not meritorious, but, much worse, they are satanic. Good works produced by a filthy sub-conscious and a rationalistic self-justifying self-assertiveness can be nothing else.
There is enough to consider.
Your friend, and hypocrite.
PoW
Edited by - potonwheel on 01/21/2002 11:50:22 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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Empiress
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| Posted 1/21/2002 4:49 PM (GMT -6) | | P.S. I'm a finite being...I don't believe it is possible to really understand God. But using my own imperfect "logic," I can't find a way to resolve the problem of evil fully. Hence...one reason why I posted a thread on approaching God supra-naturally. :)
~Empiress
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Iconoclast
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| Posted 1/21/2002 5:03 PM (GMT -6) | | Empiress:
I don't think I can give an example that fits in our current reality. I'm asking: why not a different reality in which the effects of evil are not of the same degree? A world where innocent life cannot be taken or a child's psyche be destroyed. It seems there could be a "law of nature" or biological/psychological limits which prevented such things. A world where humanity is not so fragile and victim to every kind of evil, but where free will is still exercised to the fullest extent.
Iconoclast:
Is it possible that this current reality we are experiencing is already "toned down" a whole bunch? It seems really hard for us to imagine how to tone it down further but it doesn't seem very hard to imagine it being worse. Jesus said that if we have enough faith we can say to this mountain go jump into the sea and it will be done for us. A literal reading of this suggests that we really have enormous power that we just don't know how to tap into. Just imagine if Hitler had access to this kind of power. It would be a LOT worse.
thanks,
Iconoclast
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Empiress
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 363
| Posted 1/21/2002 5:07 PM (GMT -6) | | Iconoclast,
But I think saying "well, it could be worse" is a cop out!
When someone comes to me on the verge of suicide having had a lifetime of pain and abuse, I can't very well say, "well, it could be worse, get over it."
Likewise, as we struggle with the depth of evil and look straight into the heart of darkness, I don't see how "it could be worse" is a tenable or helpful response.
Peace,
Empiress
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