"Addition is a thing, subtraction isn't" - the odd logic of evil being a mere lower level (lack) of good

Is evil a power? Religion says it is not a thing at all - it is just an absence of what should be there and is not there. Good is independent and evil is dependent on good like a parasite. For example, the person who has hate in their heart is lacking love. Hate in a sense is emptiness not a thing.

The doctrine tells you to think of evil as subtraction. It is good with something missing. For that reason evil is not the opposite of good. It is nothing and according to most is less than nothing. Nothing-evil is a subtraction. It is not the opposite of goodness, and, if goodness were a sweater, evil would be like a moth eating holes in it. Evil is nothing and worse than nothing.

So what if we ask where evil came from? The doctrine says our question is not that but should be, “How does something that is a lack, a nothing, originate?” The religious answer is that it does not. So that gets around the suggestion that God made evil. There is nothing to make.

But then we get a new problem. "Somebody set up things for this lack to possibly appear. Was it God?" Others say that the best answer is that this lack has always been. It says that evil, like the truth, exists on its own. 1 and 1 are 2 no matter if there is a God or not or if there is nothing at all. In this view, evil is just going to be potentially there and has no need for a creator or any intervention.

If evil is a lack then who caused the first lack? A person can only cause a lack if a lack is there for lacks lead to lacks and facilitate lacks. God is the only answer.

Clearly though the God idea needs the lack notion the lack notion does not need the God idea.

The Christian doctrine is that as God made all things and is good the problems in the created order must be down to people misusing their free will. They lack to do good and that is how you have evil.

They say that good is the standard and anything that falls short of it is evil. Evil is just the absence of a good that should be there but is not. So as it is an absence there is nothing to create or make so the question of God creating evil does not arise.Thus Christians hold that evil is not a force but a malfunction. Good is the function. Evil cannot happen without good. Evil is a malfunction that attacks good. It cannot affect good for good remains good but it obscures it. It is good that remains good but is in the wrong place and the wrong time. The gold is good. It is just your crave for it, your greed, that is bad and this does not affect how good the gold is. Evil is a subtraction of a good that can be there and should be there but is not.
 
This idea affirms the idea of intelligent design. So accepting how you are made is smart and rejecting it is stupid. Accepting keeps things in balance while rejecting is opening a Pandora's box of disorder and chaos. Intelligent design is clearly a threat to many trans who feel they have to design themselves to be who they are.

Religion says that, "People can use their free will in a way that diminishes them and blocks their potential to be what they should be." So how could person x be equal to person y if person x is in some way managing to diminish herself as a person? She is more "nothing" than y is. The failure of love the sinner and hate the sin is apparent here.

Why can free will only allowing you to do reasonable good or perfect good not be considered real free will? Why can't it be a paradox? It is a paradox only if evil is totally non-good.  Given that evil is seen as deceiving you it follows that when you choose it the choice is not valid for not informed or clear.  So you have a paradox anyway.

Good and evil and suffering and happiness need each other if this is the best possible universe (a best possible universe can still be a pretty terrible one) and if there is a God. God will not let evil just happen for nothing even if it is just tolerated for the sake of us having free will. Tolerance implies that God is hurt by your evil for he is forced to put up with it so that is one reason why evil is seen as an attack on God.

If good is addition and evil is subtraction then how do you know the good really is good? How do you know that there isn’t something missing so it is just another evil but a better one?

A killer virus is good if it does what viruses do. Vesuvius was good for it destroyed all around it like good volcanoes do. This presupposes that the purpose for these things is do these things. If a virus is not made by any God but just appears naturally then you can decide that no purpose counts but what purpose it makes for itself and you don't care. You will wipe it out with its purpose.

You are not saying, "It existed for a purpose and then God decided this purpose was no more which is why he gave me the purpose of destroying it." No. Instead you are engaging in total defiance and a refusal to say, "It was okay to have the virus as long as God gave it its purpose." Such a view is fanatical - people suffer. Nobody has the right to condone anything like that.

Evil is expert at disguising itself and causing unexpected trouble.  You see that as plainly as you see the boulder in front of you.  Thus to you it is clearly more than just a vacuum where good should exist but does not!  That makes it sound like air inside a balloon when it is something more powerful than that.  Its power more than what it is is the issue.  Do not call it a mere subtraction to water it down to make it fit your pet God theory.