And I say that because it's easily the biggest thing that I have struggled with.

I grew up pretty staunch Lutheran going to church a lot as a child.

Even the first couple of years in the military, I did also.

I found a really great church in San Diego and spent a couple of years going pretty consistently.

And then went on my first deployment.

That's when everything changed for me, you know, a lot of those same types of questions is

why is there so much pain and suffering, you know, all over the planet. If, if you created this,

why would you allow human beings to be doing the god-awful things that they do to one another. It doesn't make any sense to me.

Then I became a father, and I think it made even less sense because I know, you know, having kids,

you know, if we're all made in God's image, we're all his children, well, I know that if, you know, one of my kids is getting ready to hit the other one with a hammer,

I'm going to step in and not allow that to happen.

That's more of a microcosm, I think, environmentally than what we can't even conceive or grasp or wrap our mind around in terms of a universal

heaven and earth kind of macrocosm. But the kind of ideology or perspective that really

completely shifted my mentality was, you know, because the free will question gets asked a lot, like,

why would you allow humans to just do whatever they want when you know they're going to do some

horrible things? The thing that shifted my perspective is, you know, you can make somebody,

or if you have the ability to make somebody love you, respect you,

like you want to be around you, then what does it actually mean when they do?

Nothing, right?

If you can make your kids love you to death and think you can do no wrong and respect you

as much as you can be respected and like you and want to be with you think you're the best

father in the world if you can make them do that then does them thinking that and feeling that

...