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Well, I will admit that there is ONE aspect of all this that does bother me. Consent. God is a God of consent. Mary gave consent before she became the mother of the Christ child (Luke 1:38) and Jesus gave consent before he offered himself as sacrifice for our sin (Luke 22:42). Plus didn't we hear ad nauseum that God would NEVER overstep man's free will? I can excuse someone having desire. Although we have laws in this country regarding under age sex, for good reasons, we know that both males and females are able to cause conception and become pregnant at age 13 or so. I had my first sexual fantasy at age 12. It was about a 12 year old girl in my 7th grade homeroom. Having desire for someone that young is not "perverted". It's criminal if you actively pursue sexual relations, but it's not perverted to simply desire someone who is old enough to either cause conception (male) or get pregnant (female). Younger than that? There was a regular poster here named Adiosmicorazon. She hasn't posted to my knowledge in years, but reading her posts, one would conclude that she has been an above average attractive female for most of her life. She once made the point that it's OK to call a child 'cute' or 'pretty' (handsome if a male), but not 'sexy'. Those 3 words are the 3 generic words used to describe the appearance of males and females. There are other words used, like 'hot' but they all seem to gravitate back to cute, pretty (handsome), and sexy. Cute and pretty can be adjusted cosmetically, but not sexy. If a male or female is sexy and everybody notices it, they're not sexy because of what they do cosmetically (make up, hair, clothes, etc.), they're sexy because of how they think. Because of what they understand about themselves, their social/cultural environment. We see ads all the time about sexy hair, sexy clothes, and such, but hair and clothes aren't literally sexy, people are, and they communicate it with their eyes and their body language. Young children aren't old enough to have that understanding yet. They can be cute or pretty, but not sexy. A pedophile sees a flash of the adult the child will become, pauses it, enlarges it, fantasizes about it, and acts on the fantasy. VP has been accused of a lot of things, but not doing young children. Even the 46 year old middle school math teacher didn't do young children, just under age children. I can excuse simple desire, but not violation of consent; not using authority as a teacher/minister to coerce anyone, young or old, into a sexual relationship. That idea DOES bother me. I find it very disturbing. I have stated that people are angry. People have a right to be angry to an extent. It's OK to be angry at what VP did. It is. But many suns have gone down on the wrath of some of you. All the evil in the universe doesn't negate our hope, which includes no more tears plus all the other good stuff. Don't forget that.

Going back to the original subject posited. was VP good or evil... I am going to base this on my own experience with an abusive step father and say he was not all bad but not all good. I survived abuse but just barely. The emotional toll that abuse of any kind (verbal, sexual , or emotionsl) imposes on a person no matter male or female is very high. Every survivor of abuse suffers from depression to some degree more or less depending upon your personality, you also will have issues with self respect, and self confidence. your ability to have close personal relationships is marginal at best. When i say this I do not mean you can not have friendships... I mean if you get married or have a couples relationship of any kind you will have difficulty in sharing your emotions and feelings with your significant other. Your relationships with your children are strained and you find it difficult to treat them respectively of their age(expect too much or too little of them) I know that part of my coming to terms with the abuse i endured growing up involved learning to understand the whys of my Step fathers abuse. But understanding my step father brought me to the conclusion that he was not a good man... he had some good qualities and he did some nice things once in a while, But when I weigh it against all the hurt and bad that he did he comes up lacking. When i look at VP and all the hurt and pain he caused in light of his claim to be trying to bring people to a fuller knowledge of the word of God... i find him lacking in the good department. If i judge him by that I find that the good he did is so far outweiged by the bad that he is a BAD man... Was there instances of good... yes, but do those negate the bad... no. Not in this case. I understand that there was a cultural norm of dismissing what women thought and said but that is not what VP's abuse was about at all. VP chose to twist the bible teacings in order to justify his decisions to do wrong. He hid behind the notion that he was spiritually superior and because of that he could break rules and do what he wanted to do... but if he was superior as he claimed then he would have realised how much his actions hurt those women and that he was actually acting with evil intent. I also want to add that abuse, any kind of abuse is always about being in control and manipulating someone to do what you want. Abuse is about controling and destroying the other person... In light of all this, no VP was not a good man. And Morals are societies rules to make living together work.