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Perhaps it is that everything which is real is good, true, and beautiful? And that everything which is not good is not real so much as temporal…or potential?
I don’t wish to be dismissive or callous but does suffering survive? Does it exist beyond the most basic material/animal levels of the universes? How long does such suffering last in this brief moment of material life compared to the eternal potential? We do not “suffer” on the Mansion Worlds from the suffering endured on the material worlds, do we? So, does not the universe sooth, heal, and erase all mortal/planet-of-birth ills and sufferings?
Does that suffering have a potential/eventual effect that actually becomes good? What of agondontors compared to finaliters? Do agondontors come by way of any world’s later epochs by Light and Life? Nope. What is the greatest good for the greatest number?
Isn’t free will “good”? For all suffering results from free will. Can there be the one without the other? Free will is a divine gift as is time and yet time will come when it is no more while free will is what delivers such a time of perfecting and eternal adventure. It is free will which delivers all potential in time. If it is true that eternity and true happiness may only be obtained by free will and that mortal free will has the inherent potential for suffering due to personal and social immaturity, inexperience, and identification with our animal natures while seeking the spiritual nature (by free will) and if God must be so chosen by free will to experience those fruits of spiritual identification and growth, then which is the issue of priority and reality? Temporal suffering or eternal bliss?
Our ultimate success, personally, depends upon our reactions and responses to ALL experience and stimuli. Suffering is a such a stimuli for our response. Do we turn inward and God-ward in our suffering? Or do we lash out with anger and hate? Which is chosen? If suffering leads us to love, forgiveness, kindness, generosity (as it so often does) which leads us to the Spirits within, then was suffering a good thing? Does ease and wealth and no suffering lead one to God? Or does it result in indolence, indifference, self indulgence, and the fear of losing such comforts? Do the rich and comfortable find God more easily and readily than those who suffer in their mortal worlds? Or are such comforts and wealth the true plague that retards their personal journey to Paradise?
Do those who suffer here, suffer over yonder? Does our suffering here, by the consequences of unwise and materialistic choices, offer opportunity to discern the better way? If God designed and created the system of ascendance by free will, then by definition, isn’t it “really all good”? Whether we understand such mysteries or not?
Rick Warren wrote:Does the creator of feelings not have feelings? Aren’t you positing an aloof unfeeling God, yet we are told the Adjusters experience torment.
Good question Rick. Do you mean emotions or feelings, or both? Do you think that God, the Adjuster, creates your feelings or emotions? I think God gives us a feeling of his presence, a feeling too deep for words, and that’s about it. I think that the Adjuster urges us, but that is not a feeling or emotion, it’s spiritualized thinking.
Personally, I think if God had feelings and emotions they would be nothing like human feelings and emotions. Remember that God makes contact not by feelings and emotions, but by the highest level of thought. (101:1.3) God uses mind for thinking more than feeling. We’re told that genuine religious experience is not the offspring of sublime feelings. (101:1.4) We’re also told that human feelings and emotions lead to material outcomes. (102:3.3) In fact, we’re told that the Adjusters would like us to change our feelings into convictions of love. (108:5.8) A conviction of love is a firmly held faith-trust in God. I don’t think faith is an emotion or feeling; it’s something in addition to it. (100:5.5)
I do think that we can be the tormentors in that we often put up barriers and resist the Adjuster’s pre-will. But does God feel torment or does he feel an even greater need to provide love? God has a singleness of purpose, he is not waylaid by feelings and emotions. Divine love is always outgoing, sharing and giving. I don’t think torment affects him negatively at all. That doesn’t make him indifferent, it makes him constant, dependable and never changing. Holy Cow! If I could pull the heartstrings of God, I could get whatever I wanted, just like a spoiled child. I don’t think it works that way. If he is tormented by me, it’s not a human torment, it’s divine parental tolerance and devotion to my growth and progress. He would merely show me more love, hoping I would finally get some insight into his ways. It’s about insight, not feelings or emotions.
156:5.11 You are destined to live a narrow and mean life if you learn to love only those who love you. Human love may indeed be reciprocal, but divine love is outgoing in all its satisfaction-seeking. The less of love in any creature’s nature, the greater the love need, and the more does divine love seek to satisfy such need. Love is never self-seeking, and it cannot be self-bestowed. Divine love cannot be self-contained; it must be unselfishly bestowed.
12:7.5 Because God is changeless, therefore can you depend, in all ordinary circumstances, on his doing the same thing in the same identical and ordinary way. God is the assurance of stability for all created things and beings. He is God; therefore he changes not.
94:8.8 (1036.10) Closely linked to the doctrine of suffering and the escape therefrom was the philosophy of the Eightfold Path: right views, aspirations, speech, conduct, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and contemplation. It was not Gautama’s intention to attempt to destroy all effort, desire, and affection in the escape from suffering; rather was his teaching designed to picture to mortal man the futility of pinning all hope and aspirations entirely on temporal goals and material objectives. It was not so much that love of one’s fellows should be shunned as that the true believer should also look beyond the associations of this material world to the realities of the eternal future.
3:5.5 (51.4) The uncertainties of life and the vicissitudes of existence do not in any manner contradict the concept of the universal sovereignty of God. All evolutionary creature life is beset by certain inevitabilities. Consider the following:
3:5.6 (51.5) 1. Is courage — strength of character — desirable? Then must man be reared in an environment which necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments.
3:5.7 (51.6) 2. Is altruism — service of one’s fellows — desirable? Then must life experience provide for encountering situations of social inequality.
3:5.8 (51.7) 3. Is hope — the grandeur of trust — desirable? Then human existence must constantly be confronted with insecurities and recurrent uncertainties.
3:5.9 (51.8) 4. Is faith — the supreme assertion of human thought — desirable? Then must the mind of man find itself in that troublesome predicament where it ever knows less than it can believe.
3:5.10 (51.9) 5. Is the love of truth and the willingness to go wherever it leads, desirable? Then must man grow up in a world where error is present and falsehood always possible.
3:5.11 (51.10) 6. Is idealism — the approaching concept of the divine — desirable? Then must man struggle in an environment of relative goodness and beauty, surroundings stimulative of the irrepressible reach for better things.
3:5.12 (51.11) 7. Is loyalty — devotion to highest duty — desirable? Then must man carry on amid the possibilities of betrayal and desertion. The valor of devotion to duty consists in the implied danger of default.
3:5.13 (51.12) 8. Is unselfishness — the spirit of self-forgetfulness — desirable? Then must mortal man live face to face with the incessant clamoring of an inescapable self for recognition and honor. Man could not dynamically choose the divine life if there were no self-life to forsake. Man could never lay saving hold on righteousness if there were no potential evil to exalt and differentiate the good by contrast.
3:5.14 (51.13) 9. Is pleasure — the satisfaction of happiness — desirable? Then must man live in a world where the alternative of pain and the likelihood of suffering are ever-present experiential possibilities. (my bold)
3:5.15 (52.1) Throughout the universe, every unit is regarded as a part of the whole. Survival of the part is dependent on co-operation with the plan and purpose of the whole, the wholehearted desire and perfect willingness to do the Father’s divine will. The only evolutionary world without error (the possibility of unwise judgment) would be a world without free intelligence. In the Havona universe there are a billion perfect worlds with their perfect inhabitants, but evolving man must be fallible if he is to be free. Free and inexperienced intelligence cannot possibly at first be uniformly wise. The possibility of mistaken judgment (evil) becomes sin only when the human will consciously endorses and knowingly embraces a deliberate immoral judgment.
It really is All Good!Bradly wrote: Suffering is a such a stimuli for our response.I agree Bradly. We’re told that pain and suffering is essential for evolution. (86:2.1) We’re also told more than once that our destiny is “. . . being forged out between the anvil of justice and the hammer of suffering”. (9:1.8) Suffering forces us to look toward religion for help. Religious thinking ultimately leads us to soul thinking and to discover the Adjuster’s divine urges instead of dwelling on our animal urges, and that is all good, in my opinion.
92:3.9 Religion is the efficient scourge of evolution which ruthlessly drives indolent and suffering humanity from its natural state of intellectual inertia forward and upward to the higher levels of reason and wisdom.
Bradly wrote: Isn’t free will “good”? For all suffering results from free will. Can there be the one without the other?Sure suffering is a consequence of free will, but not necessarily my free will. In other words, I can suffer as an innocent bystander from someone else’s free-will choice to sin. But I don’t suffer the spiritual consequences of the other person’s choice. Only the personality who made the sinful choice suffers spiritually. I have to suffer the aftermath on the material, and mindal levels, but not the spiritual. And that is extremely positive, since that is the level I like the most, and the one that matters the most.
Since my Adjuster is spiritual, I don’t think he suffers the results of someone else’s sin. But since my Adjuster shares life with me, he also shares in my experience of suffering. It doesn’t mean that he actually suffers though. It means that he stands with me throughout it as a constant source of strength and courage, love and compassion, a genuine source for goodness. If I can share that goodness, it minimizes my suffering and the suffering of others. What good would it do if God suffered? I don’t need his suffering. I need his strength. I don’t want a commiserator; I want an encourager, a motivator, an invigorator. I want someone to urge me on to greatness. A crybaby God would turn my stomach. Who needs that?
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Ah, such fine discussions, thank you. And I would be convinced that all is indeed good, except…for the fact that the Master himself declared: Only God is good. My fallback position. Does only God exist? If there was only God, then all would be good.
Have a good, nay great, weekend all.
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Richard E Warren
Rick Warren wrote: Does only God exist? If there was only God, then all would be good.Your question stimulated me to find this reference pertaining the the universe of universes as a vast, complex and real organism in response to God’s mandates.105:1:7 The universe of universes, with its innumerable host of inhabiting personalities, is a vast and complex organism, but the First Source and Center is infinitely more complex than the universes and personalities which have become real in response to his willful mandates. When you stand in awe of the magnitude of the master universe, pause to consider that even this inconceivable creation can be no more than a partial revelation of the Infinite.In my thinking up to this point in my comprehension, I say yes, only God exists. In Him we live, move and have our being.1:5:16 It is literally true: “In all your afflictions he is afflicted.” “In all your triumphs he triumphs in and with you.” His prepersonal divine spirit is a real part of you. The Isle of Paradise responds to all the physical metamorphoses of the universe of universes; the Eternal Son includes all the spirit impulses of all creation; the Conjoint Actor encompasses all the mind expression of the expanding cosmos. The Universal Father realizes in the fullness of the divine consciousness all the individual experience of the progressive struggles of the expanding minds and the ascending spirits of every entity,being, and personality of the whole evolutionary creation of time and space. And all this is literally true, for “in Him we all live and move and have our being.”.See also “The Living Organism of the Grand Universe” (116:7:0).Rick Warren wrote: Does only God exist?What makes you think that anything other than God exists?
1:5.16 And all this is literally true, for “in Him we all live and move and have our being.”
2:1.11 Infinity of personality must, perforce, embrace all finitude of personality; hence the truth — literal truth — of the teaching which declares that “In Him we live and move and have our being.”
12:7.12 Do not allow the magnitude of the infinity, the immensity of the eternity, and the grandeur and glory of the matchless character of God to overawe, stagger, or discourage you; for the Father is not very far from any one of you; he dwells within you, and in him do we all literally move, actually live, and veritably have our being.
105:2.11 In so far as this relationship is conceivable as an absolute, it is revealed in the primacy of the First Source and Center; in him we all live and move and have our being, from the creatures of space to the citizens of Paradise; and this is just as true of the master universe as of the infinitesimal ultimaton, just as true of what is to be as of that which is and of what has been.
Rick Warren wrote: Does only God exist? If there was only God, then all would be good.I think the question “Does only God exist?” pertains to actuals and potentials in his Infinite creation.105:5:4 Finite possibility is inherent in the Infinite, but the transmutation of possibility to probability and inevitability must be attributed to the self-existent free will of the First Source and Center, activating all triunity associations. Only the infinity of the Father’s will could ever have so qualified the absolute level of existence as to eventuate an ultimate or to create a finite..115:3:16 The final dynamics of the cosmos have to do with the continual transfer of reality from potentiality to actuality. In theory, there may be an end to this metamorphosis, but in fact, such is impossible since the Potential and the Actual are both encircuited in the Original (the I AM), and this identification makes it forever impossible to place a limit on the developmental progression of the universe. Whatsoever is identified with the I AM can never find an end to progression since the actuality of the potentials of the I AM is absolute, and the potentiality of the actuals of the I AM is also absolute. Always will actuals be opening up new avenues of the realization of hitherto impossible potentials — every human decision not only actualizes a new reality in human experience but also opens up a new capacity for human growth. The man lives in every child, and the morontia progressor is resident in the mature God-knowing man..
Bradly wrote: Isn’t free will “good”? For all suffering results from free will. Can there be the one without the other? Sure suffering is a consequence of free will, but not necessarily my free will. In other words, I can suffer as an innocent bystander from someone else’s free-will choice to sin.
Bonita: But I don’t suffer the spiritual consequences of the other person’s choice. Only the personality who made the sinful choice suffers spiritually. I have to suffer the aftermath on the material, and mindal levels, but not the spiritual. And that is extremely positive, since that is the level I like the most, and the one that matters the most.
Me here: One thing to remember here is that regardless of the source of suffering, there is only one source for its treatment and cure – even in the midst of suffering itself….God within and the fruits of His Spirit. One may suffer from illness, injury, grief, tragedy, loss of all material things, hunger, personal violence, etc. Such may result from personal choice, the acts of others, or the accidents of time – but neither the source nor form of suffering matters regarding its solution….the solution is always the same.
I have noticed from the Mortal Epochs, that every progression and succession of epochal revelations is usually accompanied by less and less suffering, both socially and personally. In Light and Life, I am unsure as to the actuality or reality of suffering as we consider it here. But if suffering becomes less frequent or severe on a material planet through the epochs, then I surmise that it is non-existent or nearly so everywhere else in the universe….except as delivered by confusion or doubt, say on the mansion worlds for those who arrive with but a flicker and a nearly empty poke or soul. But that form of suffering will not be so extreme I do not think for we will reside in reality among guides and teachers in addition to the Spirit to calm and support our confusions and anxieties there.
Goodness here overcomes suffering here but there is far less goodness here (on any material world prior to L&L) than that goodness to come once we graduate from the material to the morontial. We progress beyond any point where suffering exists on the Paradise journey, however we may always be witness to the suffering of others. We are taught that no other being is as empathetic as the one time mortals who fuse and ascend to Paradise and finality. I have a feeling such empathy and sympathy (of the wise and not the false variety) is eminently valuable to Father in his plans. I also think that suffering near at hand or distant from us on this planet of birth is an opportunity to minister and grow.
Rick Warren wrote: Does only God exist? If there was only God, then all would be good.Your question stimulated me to find this reference pertaining the the universe of universes as a vast, complex and real organism in response to God’s mandates.105:1:7 The universe of universes, with its innumerable host of inhabiting personalities, is a vast and complex organism, but the First Source and Center is infinitely more complex than the universes and personalities which have become real in response to his willful mandates. When you stand in awe of the magnitude of the master universe, pause to consider that even this inconceivable creation can be no more than a partial revelation of the Infinite.In my thinking up to this point in my comprehension, I say yes, only God exists. In Him we live, move and have our being.1:5:16 It is literally true: “In all your afflictions he is afflicted.” “In all your triumphs he triumphs in and with you.” His prepersonal divine spirit is a real part of you. The Isle of Paradise responds to all the physical metamorphoses of the universe of universes; the Eternal Son includes all the spirit impulses of all creation; the Conjoint Actor encompasses all the mind expression of the expanding cosmos. The Universal Father realizes in the fullness of the divine consciousness all the individual experience of the progressive struggles of the expanding minds and the ascending spirits of every entity,being, and personality of the whole evolutionary creation of time and space. And all this is literally true, for “in Him we all live and move and have our being.”.See also “The Living Organism of the Grand Universe” (116:7:0)..Hmm….you might be flirting with pantheism here, Mara. Are you saying evil is part of God, perhaps what cancer is to the human body?
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Richard E Warren
Rick Warren wrote: Does only God exist?What makes you think that anything other than God exists?
1:5.16 And all this is literally true, for “in Him we all live and move and have our being.” 2:1.11 Infinity of personality must, perforce, embrace all finitude of personality; hence the truth — literal truth — of the teaching which declares that “In Him we live and move and have our being.” 12:7.12 Do not allow the magnitude of the infinity, the immensity of the eternity, and the grandeur and glory of the matchless character of God to overawe, stagger, or discourage you; for the Father is not very far from any one of you; he dwells within you, and in him do we all literally move, actually live, and veritably have our being. 105:2.11 In so far as this relationship is conceivable as an absolute, it is revealed in the primacy of the First Source and Center; in him we all live and move and have our being, from the creatures of space to the citizens of Paradise; and this is just as true of the master universe as of the infinitesimal ultimaton, just as true of what is to be as of that which is and of what has been.
Bonita, please see my reply to Mara’s post.
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Richard E Warren
Bradly wrote: Isn’t free will “good”? For all suffering results from free will. Can there be the one without the other? Sure suffering is a consequence of free will, but not necessarily my free will. In other words, I can suffer as an innocent bystander from someone else’s free-will choice to sin. Bonita: But I don’t suffer the spiritual consequences of the other person’s choice. Only the personality who made the sinful choice suffers spiritually. I have to suffer the aftermath on the material, and mindal levels, but not the spiritual. And that is extremely positive, since that is the level I like the most, and the one that matters the most.
Me here: One thing to remember here is that regardless of the source of suffering, there is only one source for its treatment and cure – even in the midst of suffering itself….God within and the fruits of His Spirit. One may suffer from illness, injury, grief, tragedy, loss of all material things, hunger, personal violence, etc. Such may result from personal choice, the acts of others, or the accidents of time – but neither the source nor form of suffering matters regarding its solution….the solution is always the same. I have noticed from the Mortal Epochs, that every progression and succession of epochal revelations is usually accompanied by less and less suffering, both socially and personally. In Light and Life, I am unsure as to the actuality or reality of suffering as we consider it here. But if suffering becomes less frequent or severe on a material planet through the epochs, then I surmise that it is non-existent or nearly so everywhere else in the universe….except as delivered by confusion or doubt, say on the mansion worlds for those who arrive with but a flicker and a nearly empty poke or soul. But that form of suffering will not be so extreme I do not think for we will reside in reality among guides and teachers in addition to the Spirit to calm and support our confusions and anxieties there. Goodness here overcomes suffering here but there is far less goodness here (on any material world prior to L&L) than that goodness to come once we graduate from the material to the morontial. We progress beyond any point where suffering exists on the Paradise journey, however we may always be witness to the suffering of others. We are taught that no other being is as empathetic as the one time mortals who fuse and ascend to Paradise and finality. I have a feeling such empathy and sympathy (of the wise and not the false variety) is eminently valuable to Father in his plans. I also think that suffering near at hand or distant from us on this planet of birth is an opportunity to minister and grow.
Thanks Bradly. Excellent essay on Goodness’ evolution from here to Paradise and back. It’s amazing how much of this the Romans knew, (probably learned largely from the Greeks, who learned from the Andites, who learned from Adam). Ever heard of Irenaeus?
Irenaeus (died c. 202), born in the early second century, expressed ideas which explained the existence of evil as necessary for human development. Irenaeus argued that human creation comprised two parts: humans were made first in the image, then in the likeness, of God. The image of God consists of having the potential to achieve moral perfection, whereas the likeness of God is the achievement of that perfection. To achieve moral perfection, Irenaeus suggested that humans must have free will. To achieve such free will, humans must experience suffering and God must be at an epistemic distance (a distance of knowledge) from humanity. Therefore, evil exists to allow humans to develop as moral agents.
In the twentieth century, John Hick collated the ideas of Irenaeus into a distinct theodicy. He argued that the world exists as a “vale of soul-making” (a phrase that he drew from John Keats), and that suffering and evil must therefore occur. He argued that human goodness develops through the experience of evil and suffering.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodicy#Irenaean_theodicy
Richard E Warren
Rick Warren wrote: Hmm….you might be flirting with pantheism here . . .Pantheism denies the existence of the personality of God. The phrase, In Him we live and move and have our being, is not denying the personality of God. The phrase refers to God as HIM. A HIM is a personality. TUB says it is literally true, so you are disagreeing with TUB, not with me. Pantheism also claims the omnificence of God. TUB denies the omnificence of God since he delegates his creative powers. However, God is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient, while the Personalized Adjusters are omnipersonal.
What you’re flirting with Rick is anthropomorphism, ascribing your personal feelings to God as though he were human. God did not create your human feelings. God is not omnificent.
26:11.5 Unthinking mortals have referred to the manifestation of divine mercy and tenderness, especially towards the weak and in behalf of the needy, as indicative of an anthropomorphic God. What a mistake!
Rick Warren wrote: In the twentieth century, John Hick collated the ideas of Irenaeus into a distinct theodicy. He argued that the world exists as a “vale of soul-making” (a phrase that he drew from John Keats), and that suffering and evil must therefore occur. He argued that human goodness develops through the experience of evil and suffering.But we’re not really interested in human goodness, are we? It’s God’s goodness we’re interested in. Human goodness is humanism, the kingdom of good rather than the kingdom of God, the source of social fruit rather than spiritual fruit. Humanism is a godless philosophy of living which condones a conscious form of goodness rather than true unconscious goodness.
102:7.4 True, many apparently religious traits can grow out of nonreligious roots. Man can, intellectually, deny God and yet be morally good, loyal, filial, honest, and even idealistic. Man may graft many purely humanistic branches onto his basic spiritual nature and thus apparently prove his contentions in behalf of a godless religion, but such an experience is devoid of survival values, God-knowingness and God-ascension. In such a mortal experience only social fruits are forthcoming, not spiritual. The graft determines the nature of the fruit, notwithstanding that the living sustenance is drawn from the roots of original divine endowment of both mind and spirit.
Rick Warren wrote: Are you saying evil is part of God, perhaps what cancer is to the human body?
Evil is part of experiential existence, God the Sevenfold; it is not part of the personality of the existential God on Paradise. Evil merely means imperfection, incompletion, misadaptation to reality, erroneous thinking and immaturity. Out here in the superuniverses of time and space there is a large contrast between imperfection and perfection. This is also where the cosmic mind has its greatest function in highlighting the difference between imperfection and perfection, nonreality and reality. All of us out here in experiential reality are in the process of becoming perfected, learning the difference between nonreality and reality, error and truth. One cannot become perfected without the potential for imperfection (choice). So, evil is part of a perfecting universe; it’s part of God’s plan. God himself is existential and perfect. Creation, however, is not perfect. That is why God is not a Creator; he is not omnificient. Creation must become perfected, which is why we have Master Michaels and the evolution of the Supreme, which is simply the process of perfecting creation.
4:3.6 The infinite goodness of the Father is beyond the comprehension of the finite mind of time; hence must there always be afforded a contrast with comparative evil (not sin) for the effective exhibition of all phases of relative goodness. Perfection of divine goodness can be discerned by mortal imperfection of insight only because it stands in contrastive association with relative imperfection in the relationships of time and matter in the motions of space.
130:4.11 Error (evil) is the penalty of imperfection. The qualities of imperfection or facts of misadaptation are disclosed on the material level by critical observation and by scientific analysis; on the moral level, by human experience. The presence of evil constitutes proof of the inaccuracies of mind and the immaturity of the evolving self. Evil is, therefore, also a measure of imperfection in universe interpretation. The possibility of making mistakes is inherent in the acquisition of wisdom, the scheme of progressing from the partial and temporal to the complete and eternal, from the relative and imperfect to the final and perfected. Error is the shadow of relative incompleteness which must of necessity fall across man’s ascending universe path to Paradise perfection. Error (evil) is not an actual universe quality; it is simply the observation of a relativity in the relatedness of the imperfection of the incomplete finite to the ascending levels of the Supreme and Ultimate.
130:1.5 Jesus said: “My brother, God is love; therefore he must be good, and his goodness is so great and real that it cannot contain the small and unreal things of evil. God is so positively good that there is absolutely no place in him for negative evil. Evil is the immature choosing and the unthinking misstep of those who are resistant to goodness, rejectful of beauty, and disloyal to truth. Evil is only the misadaptation of immaturity or the disruptive and distorting influence of ignorance. Evil is the inevitable darkness which follows upon the heels of the unwise rejection of light. Evil is that which is dark and untrue, and which, when consciously embraced and willfully endorsed, becomes sin.
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