God is omnibenevolent, then why is there evil in the world?

All you say in your counterpoints is def. true and quite articulate. However, to respond to your second/last counterpoint:

"but God also created our minds and our intelligence. He could also have made us in such a way as to have an understanding of His plan, and thereby removed the obvious cruely in giving us free will which neccessarily implies evil"

This last point of yours- that God could have created our minds with intelligence which to understand his plan to remove cruelty/evil in the world is where at least Judaism breaks against. I'm pretty sure Christianity would agree as well....

The reason God can't/or doesn't make us in a way to understand his plan is that if he were to do so, we'd be more like God..of course, that isn't a bad thing-our goal in life may be an eternal almost earthly search for what transcends us and our desires--it is a search for God and the good in our lives.

Yet, making us intelligible to understand the way God operates requires and entails a bridging of the gap between humanity and the divine, and if he were to endow us with such intelligence, we'd be breaching the limits of holiness and divinity. Creating us in the way u stated would imply the creation of creatures more divine than human....thus God cannot make mini-gods, and therefore humans are not meant to understand the limits of divine transcendence---it is transcendence for a reason--it is beyond us/incapable of our understanding.........

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Of course, this can bring up the issue of whether God is all powerful, etc.....because if he is: take this example---if god is all powerful/all knowing, etc, can god make a rock so heavy that he cannot lift himself?....if can can make such a rock, he has all the power to do such things, but then there posits a hypocrisy/problem....being all powerful, he should be able to lift said rock, but he can't because the challenge was to create a rock so heavy that god can't lift--------see?...god can do anything and is all powerful, so he must be able to create this heavy rock that noone can lift, but then he all powerful again, must be able to lift all rocks no matter what......hence, religion itself is highly intuitive, personal, and spiritual that it has its own merits for each individual being........i hope this helps!

knowledge---political science and philosophy double major and a minor in judaic studies.

God can still be viewed as omnibenevolent (perfectly good) in spite of the evils in the world. He left it to us to choose good vs evil. That was part of his design. In all of the religious teachings, we have to prove ourselves worthy, not the other way around.

However, there was a inherit design flaw with regard to types of mental illness that can in some cases override a person's "free will". This does not make God any less omnibenevolent. It just makes his design of us imperfect.

This may sound simplisitic but this is the way I see it... He wanted it to be a choice. Yes, this goes back to free will... I think it's like being a parent. Before I had a child I had my future child's life completely planned out. I spent alot of time thinking about what I would do to form the child to create the best possible outcomes. I purchased what I thought were the perfect teaching toys, clothes etc. After I had a baby I found out two things. First I found that the baby had his own plan. He very much has his own personality and although I can guide he just won't be forced. Second I found that because I love him and he's part of me I want him to explore who he is. This was kind of a big suprise to me. Now I want him to be totally himself with guidance from me. He will make mistake that I can't controll. He will make many more positive choices as a result of my guidance. Forcing someone to become what they aren't doesn't make someone change it just makes them angry and resentful.

I like challenging religion with philosophy, it is a forum anyone can join and breaks down the 'us' 'them' groups that frequent the science/religion forums.

I'll give this some thought, but I'm the first to admit my theology is not strong enough to satisfy the religious readers.

The idea of an Omni-benevolent God is very hard to justify from casual observation, and I think comes from a parental role of sometimes being "cruel to be kind", "knowing best" and such. What would our lives be like if we were all 'godlike?’ Omnipotent, omnipresent, Omni-benevolent. I Can’t imagine, but I guess I couldn't with my finite capacity.

So, God could have created us differently, better, or a universe of good. But what would such a place look like? - Christian descriptions of heaven sound somewhat similar, although the need to wheedle out the dregs and damn them for their God given inadequacy doesn’t feel benevolent to me at all.

The easiest answer is probably that if God exists, he doesn't interact with the natural world at all. He may have created us, may have kick-started things, but there doesn't seem to be any evidence that he's still at it.

If you assume that God does exist, then his plan obviously includes evil since he created it. One of the responses is that "Satan created evil", which is really asinine since the story is that God created Satan.

As to the phrase "a God worth worshiping"... that is also odd. He doesn't have to be all warm and fuzzy to be worth worshiping. If he's jealous and vengeful - and he's really as powerful as the stories in the Bible say - then you'd better drop down on your knees before he turns you into salt.

Evil is the result of bad choies.

There is NO possibility of Free Will without the possibility of making bad choices. That is the very definition of Free Will -- I can make ANY choice I want -- including choosing to go against God's Will.

Somehow removing the "evil" choices violates the concept of Free Will. By removing the evil choices, there are choices that I am NOT free to make. Thus Free Will is violated.

God's love is shown to us in two ways: 1) We are made with a deep seated need for freedom. 2) God will never violate our quest for freedom.

He gives us absolute freedom to choose anyway we see fit. He does not control the choices we make. He CAN control the selections we have to choose from, but He will not control which of the choices, good or bad, that we make. And it is not a matter of CAN not, but it is that He WILL not.

All of your possibilities insist that God violate personal freedom, and that is something HE WILL NOT do.

But with such a great amount of personal freedom comes a huge amount of personal responsibility. YOU must take responsibilty for the choices you make, because God is not making them for you. "The devil made me do it!" or "God is tempting me" are cop-out excuses. Temptation or not, YOU make the decision as to how you act.

And ultimately, there is only one decision to make -- Do I believe that Jesus is who He said He was, or not? This decision can lead to Godly forgiveness and salvation, or eternal punishment.

But God will not force you to make that decision. It IS yours to make, and it is your responsibility to research, learn, and understand the ways and plans of God.

If you are thouroughly convinced that the evidence is wrong, then that's fine with me. I disagree, and I've given you my evidence. That is the limit of my responsibiliyt to you.

But the decision is yours, and I nor no one else, not even God, can force a decision upon you.

That is illogical. God if infinite, which means he is infinitely beyond our understanding; it is not even worth trying to get into this stupid arguement about freewill and such. But there is of course an logical answer that may or may not please you:

When God created the Universe, He/She/It created it with all of its internal mechanims and schtuff layed forward, right? You must agree with that: the Universe has general laws which all things follow; this is observable through science (unless you disregard that as well, and in that case this arguement is no use). Now, when God creates something, he must also therefore create the option of the opposite existing, because this is the way the Universe which He created functions, because He saw it was the most fit for humanity, etc (i.e. there is plus and minus, left and right, etc.) Because the Universe he created functions in this fashion, it is natural for things to have opposites.

Oh what the hell, it is useless to explain.

Originally God did make us so we only knew good, but now we understand good and evil because of Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of Life. He gave us free will and now we can choose to do good or evil, if he altered us and made us not able to do evil, then that would not be free will. Some people do understand his plan and still decide to ignore it, others are oblivious to it because their parents ignored it and didnt tell them. Some people just dont care and want to live the most pleasurable life they can.

Free will is simply the right to choose what we do, what we believe and who we will be. If God had created a "free will" wherein evil was not allowed, that would not be free will at all, would it?

And if we understood God's plan, we would all know what to do, what to believe and who we were supposed to be and, once again, that would not be free will.

So, in my mind, evil is necessary in order to have truly free will.

It's quite simple realy when you think about it.

Either;

1. God is not omnipotent (and therefore not God)

2. God does not care (and not all suffering is down to man)

3. God does not exist

Take your pick