I guess I - who is not a particularly religious person, I confess! - have two "problems" with the sentiments in this thread..
For one, the old saw that religion is behind many evils is, I think, a bit too simplistic...since I think any fair assessment would have to also assert that religion is also behind a great many GOOD deeds. I think, sadly, that is is easier to be spectacularly evil than to be spectacularly GOOD, and that colors our evaluations. Take this recent terrorist attack... putting aside the support network, perhaps two to three dozen people were able to inflict pain, both real and psychic, on a huge number of people, in a few short hours... can you think of an equivalent spectaculary GOOD act that could be "committed" in such a period of time? The "good" that religion has done, I would argue, accumulates in much smaller doses, but is nonetheless substantial. For example, I would argue that many of the basic views of what constitute human rights, etc, in the West, have grown out of Judeo-Christian culture.
In fact... and I know when I am out of my depth, and feel I probably am so here! ... most of the evils committed in the name of religion are actually perversions of the central tenets OF those religions. This is one of the central challenges in debating the "net worth" of religions...does one hold religions accountable for the barbaric excesses committed in their name? Even if those excesses are in direct contradiction to the true core values espoused by those religions? It is a tough call.
Lastly..and personally... I don't see any great contradiction with God "permitting" evil..but then again, I don't hold with an interventionist God (as many admittedly do). At a ridiculously simplified level, I see God in much the same role as a good parent at a Little League game... That parent prepares the child, teaches the rules, gives the child the skills to participate...and then allows whatever unfolds on the field to unfold. After all, at least in Christian thought, an eternal afterlife awaits... whatever transpires here occurs in the blink of an eye. How we accquit ourselves is all that matters... We choose good or evil, and so do those around us, and some good people come to bad ends, and some evil people "prosper"...but the game ends very quickly, in the cosmic sense, and then accounts are put to right.
I know this is all personal, and perhaps foolish fodder for a post here, but I felt (no offense) that a bit too much cynicism was creeping in... Evil committed in the name of any religion is terrible, but I am not ready to say that, in the net, religion has been a negative...
Shadow
