The Question of Evil

Why does evil exist in a world with a loving and omnipotent God?  Could it be that God does not love us or does not care (my personal belief)?  Another rational answer for many who want to believe in a more caring God bring up our free will.  We have the power to decide if we help or hurt one another.  So if God take away our freedom to ignore his teachings than he would take away our freedom to love him.  Devotion would be mindless and automatic.  The Devil, I would argue, does not exist; a demon exists inside of each of us and each of us can commit evil transgressions against our brothers and sisters.
On the topic of devotion and in order to tie in my last post on our morality vs God's morality, we can't really assign concepts like Good and Evil to humans and their actions, especially when someone brings in God.  If God has a higher sense of morality, and Islamic extremists claim to act on God's will, than how are we to say that 9/11 was an act of evil against us?  Such claim assumes that America is morally righteous, which it clearly isn't, as evident in these wars.  God could be acting on some higher moral code that he felt that these 19 Muslim men were fit to do in his name.  These wars might just serve to prove our lack of virtue and our country's demise.
Overall, this debate is part of a larger discussion of free will and what God wants us to do, and thus I can not fully get into this deep conversation, as it could take up an entire semester.

Teleological Suspension of the Ethical

In the Old Testament, one of the most morally debated passages is that where God ask Abraham to kill his own son.  Is it okay to commit murder if God permits it or commands it?  It is a good question.  If God is the ultimate source of God, than anything he would say should be the moral law.  But what if his word violates his own law?  In this case, God might have been testing Abraham's love for God over his young son, so since Isaac was never killed it wasn't really an ethical suspension.  However, suppose that Abraham did kill his son for God.  God would not have been upset with him, since he commanded him to kill his son, but the ordeal might send Abraham into his own personal hell.  Might he feel regret for killing his firstborn son?
A common response has been that we can't place our ethics above God's and I could agree with that, but I have the issue that God appears willing his own rules.

On a side note: I can that this passage might be exploited for some to commit murder in the name of their Lord.

Q&A: Is the Holy Bible meant to be taken literally?

The Bible contains many contradictions and many events proved to be false or having no real historical evidence.  In Psalms 145:9, it says: "The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works."  However on multiple occasions, he commits acts of murder and actively incites war between his subjects and favors one army over the other.  In Isaiah 14:21, it says: "Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the sins of their forefathers; they are not to rise to inherit the land and cover the earth with their cities," yet, in Deuteronomy 24:16, it says: "Parents are not to be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their parents; each will die for their own sin."  In the same testament, God is in contradiction about what he says, or his people say different things from him, etc.  Also of note, in Genesis,, on the first day of creation, God creates light, but isn't until the fourth day that he creates the sun and the other stars.  With all the errors, it seems to suggest that God did not write or divinely inspire the Bible.  It seems more logical to say that the Bible was a collection of writing from different authors without any contact with the others.  That said, I consider the only piece of wording that can and should be taken from the Bible is the morals within it.  The secular or earthly commandants of the Ten Commandants are a good set of morals, and Jesus preached a brotherly love ethics that draws parallels with other classical ethical philosophers like Socrates.

Q&A: Is God perfect?

From what I can interpret from my childhood's knowledge of the Bible, God appears to be an imperfect being.  In Genesis, creates the world in six and rests on the seventh.  Well why couldn't he create in all on one day and why would he have to rest if he was all powerful?  In haven, Lucifer and a third of God's angels rebel against the all mighty and all powerful Creator.  In the Garden of Eden, God creates a Tree of Knowledge and forbids Adam and Eve from eating from it as a test perhaps.  Yet despite his omniscience, he could not foretell this rebellion nor his creation's fallibility when they ate the apple (and if he knew that, why would he get mad?).  Another point I want to make, Why would a perfect God commit mass genocide by killing his people for not living up to his expectations? And why would he feel regret about it?  Can't an all powerful and all-loving God find another way to solve his problems?  It's another blatant contradiction how everyone is God's children yet he basically gives the Jews the right away to kill anyone in their way of their conquest of Israel in the Book of Joshua. Another point is why does evil exist if God is omnibenevolent, omnipotent and omnipresent?  Either God is imperfect or he doesn't care that much to intervene.