Kasper wrote:Although I agree that the jealousy of a husband may not be accurate, I didni't want to go into it because I preferred to stick to the discussion of good and evil.
I don't really understand why you don't see a need for definitions. You say God is all good and evil does exist according to religion. Isn't this a matter of religion placing a moral judgement on a certain happening, judging it to be good or evil? Are you saying that right and wrong are the same as good and evil respectively?
Of course our definition of good and evil would be human definitions. But it is by human definition that we hold God to be pure good. So what does it mean when we say that God's actions are pure good? For example, let's take the flood (Noah's story) where God drowned the whole of mankind and all animals as well (with the exception of the ark of course). This would seem to be rather excessive force. Similarly, you will find in the OT various accounts of entire peoples, women and children, being murdered on the order of God. Are these instances of good or evil? Are they perhaps a necessary evil in order to promote hte good? If so, then this action of good clearly contains an element of evil, and is therefore not pure good. For clarity of discussion I therefore think that we should agree on a definition of these terms.
Please correct me if you see this differently!!
Well, I thought of it like this:
a) As I said before, agreeing in any definition can help us into drawing some conclusions but one can always say that our definition is wrong and therefore our conclusions are wrong etc
b) It is not necessary to define evil.
If we agree that evil exists, then the discussion about how does an all good God allows it to exist can proceed without the need of that.
The "is God is all good?" is a totally different issue in which the definitions of 'good' and 'evil' are indeed necessary.
Now as to
Isn't this a matter of religion placing a moral judgement on a certain happening, judging it to be good or evil?
My position on that matter is that a religion can only judge what is a sin and/or what is according to the divine "rules". If we call these evil and good respectively then yes

If not no.
But it is by human definition that we hold God to be pure good
Are you sure about it? I am not asking if you think it's by human definition but if that is what the religion teaches us.