"What sort of ONE is this? How can ONE punish all people because of First Man and First Woman's mistake? How can ONE cause or even allow such suffering?"

This is the age-old, perennial question that Young Man asks in the opening of our story, a question that philosophers and theologians have been asking for millennia: If God is Good, why is there evil? This is the question of theodicy. And it's the question that the story of YMOMTetragram for The Young Man and the Old Man [X] answers -- or at least gives one answer, actually two. For, just as in a past blog about our inability to define God, there is no clear answer to the question of theodicy either.

Many answers have been proposed. CS Lewis gives a Christian perspective in his book, "The Problem of Pain". John Hick, Ph.D. Philosophy of Religion, in his book "Evil and the God of Love" gives a myriad of answers from many different religious and philosophical perspectives:

• Maybe God is testing us?
• Maybe we are working off bad karma from a past life?
• Maybe we are slowly evolving towards being one with God (aka ONE)?
• Maybe God is in a cosmic struggle with Satan?
• Maybe evil is just an illusion, like in our story of the Disillusioned Man?
• Maybe Gnostics got it right when they believed that the creator God was not very Good and/or not very competent.
• Maybe atheists are right and there is no God?
• Or maybe it's all Maya, an illusion?

What answer does the Old Man give Young Man?
What answer does YMOM reveal at the end?
More importantly, what answer resonates with You?
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