@littlek,
The two big problems most people have with religion are the theory of evolution, and the so-called problem of evil in the world. Evolution is unraveling and will go away of its own accord in another five or ten yearsother than for a gaggle of die-hard ideologues. The problem of evil is the bigger problem and manifests itself in several forms,e.g.
- Why would an all-pwerful and well-motivated God allow evil in the world in the first place or at all?
- If the son of God actually appeared on this Earth 2000 years ago, how did the American Indians go 1500 years before hearing about it?
- Why would an all-powerful and well-motivated God create ticks, chiggers, lice, fleas, mosquitos, disease organisms, and the myriad creatures of Pandora's box (my term for them)?
All such questions devolve into the question of what you mean by the term "all-powerful". Interpreting the term to mean roughly 'having all the power which anybody could imagine' leads to logical conundrums; interpreting it to mean 'having all the power which actually exists' eliminates at least most of the conundrums.
A well-motivated God simply would not create mosquitoes, ticks, and chiggers. Whoever created those things was some sort of an asshole. Moreover the experiments with fruit flies in the early to mid 1900s are sufficient indication that there is no possibility that any sort of benign insects ever "evolved" into ticks, fleas, or chiggers.
