As I was reading AlanF's thread on "Intelligent Design" (http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/12/136111/2.ashx) I was stopped at the following comment of his:
Having only got through chapter 3 of Behe's book, I wasn't aware that he actually claims that God created the exquisitely designed malaria bug. For any normal theology, this is completely self-defeating. JWs have traditionally claimed that critters like predators somehow just changed their ways in order to become such, and have vaguely claimed that all disease is the product of man's fall into sin. Fundies are even more vague, simply claming that all such nastiness is the result of "the curse" but never actually connecting the dots, i.e., that God must have deliberately created all manner of nastiness in order to create "the curse". None of these morons ever squares the circle by dealing with the fact that a God who would create such nastiness is not worth anyone's time, let alone worship.
This got me thinking, especially the last sentence. But I didn't want to hijack a scientific thread with a purely theological issue and thought it might be better to start another one.
To the "all-good" God of Christianity the "created evil" is indeed damning. But, in fact, I believe it is damning through an unexpected effect of Christian morals. The "god" of the material world, aka reality, simply doesn't match the "God of Love" -- and the Gnostics logically drew the conclusion that they were not the same. The devil, the Fall, or Sin in orthodox Christianity also try to account for the "gap" between "God" and "reality," perhaps in a less satisfactory manner.
But let's think out of the Christian or Gnostic boxes for a moment. Let's imagine that reality, violent and unpleasant as it often appears, does reflect (or, is aptly personified by) a similarly violent and unpleasant god -- or gods. Would such gods be unworthy of interest? Wouldn't they, to the contrary, require all our attention, including our (very interested) worship if they did ask for it, or if it were a way to deal with them?
By asking those purely theoretical questions, I think we get closer to the mindset of Ancient religion. The gods of the Ancient world were neither purely good nor beneficial. They were potentially harmful and violent (just as reality) and for this very reason it was necessary to know how to deal with them and, if I dare say, make the best out of them. To a large extent the older Yhwh was just like that to Israel. Not good, but someone they must take into account. The Yhwh who speaks at the end of the book of Job bluntly tells him that human life and welfare are the least of his worries. And Job's response to him is very ambiguous -- submission or rejection?
So my question is, would you deem an "evil" god unworthy of interest? If so, how much of your answer ultimately rests on the Gnostic-Christian assumption that this god cannot be "God"?