Well, God didn’t create cookies. But given the motive, means, and opportunity, our kind did. I think it’s kind of like that, if you believe in that sort of thing.

Although I don’t think people deliberately set out to create evil. It’s a consequence of greed, selfishness, anger, and all those other features that can be seen as the deficiency or absence of something. Virtues are not evenly distributed among us, any more than good looks or common sense.

The concept of “evil” is completely human made.

Well, the traditional answer is that humans brought evil into the world through free will. But if you take the Adam and Eve story literally, the forbidden fruit was from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, meaning that evil preexisted Adam and Eve’s choice to eat the apple (the ancient Greeks have a similar explanation with the myth of Pandora). So one wonders why there needed to be evil in the first place.

OK guys, thanks so far!
For the sake of the question, can we assume that God created all and everything (you can’t tell me that God was surprised at how his humans behave, what they did to/with others.)
So, God has planted all the things that we still do today, in us.
But why (the bad behavior)?
Would be much nicer if we didn’t fight, have conflicts, etc., but only had good intentions, both for ourselves and our loved ones and strangers.

God created free will in order to test mankinds faith.
Mankind created evil from having free will.
Those who are evil are denied heaven.
( Book of Enoch… my short summary given)

Fundies will put it all on free will, the Church (Catholic) will tell you Satan was a fallen angel, kicked out of heaven, who got butt hurt about it all and turned bad guy. I think that at best, the Higher Power, if he/she/ it exists, just sits there and laughs at their Cosmic joke. Knowing that (many, not all) humans are greedy, malicious, self interested scum.

We have free will. That entitles all to choose good over bad. Or to have morales or not to have morales. It’s been argued for years if this is true or not. Are we just a product of our upbringing and environment or as some people believe, God has predestined us before we were born. I’m not smart enough to argue this as I really have no idea.

”The concept of “evil” is completely human made.”
Yes, that could very well be true.
But, who made humans?
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Let’s put it like this; God made hardware and software, and put it all out there.
Why did it even come up in him to program badness in the software?
To have fun, while watching me bludgeoning my little brother to death?
I just don’t get it.
“Haha, fun, let’s put child rape in it too!”

Kudos @chyna Spoken like a true Agnostic! And no, I’m not being facetious. I agree with you.

I think @chyna beliefs in God, if I’m not mistaken.

I really like her above answer, never the less.

Yes.

Last night was His fault – But I was there when it happened ;p

But, it was intended for life and the world to be a veil of woe, so that when we get to Happy Land with Big Guy, and sit around eating cotton candy clouds, we can say – Oh, it’s all so clear to me now! Big Guy needs us to suffer, because he loves us! Not as much as he loves the mega bux TV Pastor with three jets and a yacht, but kinds sorta.

I do believe in God.

“I form the light, and create darkness; I make peace, and create evil; I, the Lord, do all these things.”
Yes, yes. You could retort that this passage is actually talking about disasters, not the moral concept of “evil”, but still. The text is there.

However, many christians that I have encountered, made the argument that things are “moral” and “good”, because god says they are. Not in an arbitrary “i said so” sense, but in the sense that he defines them by his very existence.
Therefore in the reverse, it must be true, that things that run counter to his nature, are defined by his very existence, as immoral and evil.

It’s like this:
God was very bored after spending eternity, up to that point, alone. So God created entertainment! He created Man and heaven and Earth and all that there is so that he could be amused. He created the angels that might serve him and one of these angels was a bad boy! So God cast him out into the darkness and saw that it was good because he enjoyed the suspense and the thrill of the expulsion. It got his dander up, you know??

So that is how it is. Shit happens. God walks by every so often and looks in to see what’s happening. He is amused and entertained.

And it is good.

Well, I tell you, let me give you a little inside information about God.
God likes to watch. He’s a prankster. Think about it.
He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift and then what does He do?
I swear, for his own amusement, his own private cosmic gag reel, he sets the rules in opposition.
It’s the goof of all time.
Look, but don’t touch.
Touch, but don’t taste.
Taste, don’t swallow.
And while you’re jumping from one foot to the next, what is He doing?
He’s laughing his sick, fucking ass off.
He’s a tight-ass. He’s a sadist.
He’s an absentee landlord. Worship that?
Never!

Interesting quote:

“There’s nothing mysterious about it, He’s not working at all. He’s playing. Or else he’s forgotten all about us. That’s the kind of God you people talk about, a country bumpkin, a clumsy, bungling, brainless, conceited, uncouth hayseed. Good God, how much reverence can you have for a supreme being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in his divine system of creation? What in the world was running through that warped, evil, scatological mind of his when he robbed old people of the power to control their bowel movements? Why in the world did he ever create pain?” Joseph Heller, Catch 22

@All Thank you for your insights.

You can’t have good without eveil; you can’t have evil without good. To have one, you must have the other.

Therefore, YES< god created evil. Assuming god exists in the first place.