You're little explanation of using free will is completely insufficient to explain the presence of evil, IF your god is omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient. Inherent contradictions necessarily exist if he knows the future, is all powerful, yet can not stop the world from evil or can not get rid of his own creation, the devil, if you believe in that. He would have known adam was going to fall from grace, and all of the evil that was to fall, yet let it happen anyway, then created a loophole for his inability to do anything about, by bringing down his own son, and demanding only belief in him, without any respect to conduct towards others. The whole idea of christianity sets up a morally bankrupt ideology that tricks people into believing they are evil (original sin) and offering the antidote (Jesus). Only someone raised in this situation or so desperate to be saved from themselves (addicts) could possibly use this belief structure and not see it for what it is: manipulative.
So it obvious you reject the claim that man is born sinful. That leaves you with a humanistic viewpoint that man is good. So how do you account for evil in the world? How do fathers on meth pour gas on their 4-year-old daughters and burn them alive in the desert? How does a man abuct other men, rape and kill them, and then keep their body parts in his fridge? Because they are essentially good, right?
Sadly, you appear to be the product of the last 50 years of lib education in this country. Next thing I know you will be quoting Maslow. It doesn't surprise me, as would not your next post modernistic arguments seeded with moral relativism. Without absolute truth, anything goes. First gay marriage, and then child molestation in some instances.
Here's Wil Provine, materialist fundamentalist evolutionist priest, discussing free will, with some Hollie hate for Christians thrown in for good measure. His comments are so transparent it is obvious he was raised Christian and is now gay.
On Postmodernism and Relativism - The Truth Project
your logic is one big argument from ignorance, once again, this time applied to morality instead of evolution or creation. You can't account for morality without god, so you assert God to make it true. I don't pretend to know what morality is for certain, nor did I say humans are 'good' so I don't appreciate your sarcastic ramblings. I suspect that morality is an emergent property of being conscious beings with the ability to recollect the past and anticipate the future, while being aware of other beings who have that same capacity and with whom we must share space on this earth for the duration of our consciousness. Therefore, it is in our own best interest to behave in a way that doesn't return to us harm, but instead brings up good things. Moral behavior, therefore, can be reduced to individual pyschologies and incentives that are seen with respect to behavior. In other words, programming from childhood and upbringing, and continually fine-tuned throughout our adult life. For example, if a person already hates themselves, there is no incentive to engage in 'good' behavior, because any good behavior that is brought about in return will not be perceived as indicative of his/her character, but as foreign to their self-image. Therefore, their patterns of behavior will follow a line of self-destruction as a result of their thought patterns, which come from the past. Hence, the reason for the existence of psychotherapy. The golden rule is a good template. Consequentialism is another way to look at it. But, simply asserting God solves nothing, considering that god an immoral asshole who advocates slavery and murder as evidenced in the old testament. (If you attempt to claim the superiority of the new testament, you violate the definition of god as being all-knowing, all-powerful, and never-changing)
