[throw0101b]

> Doesn't that argument apply equally to "badness" (I guess "evil" might be the more idiomatic term): if God made the universe, and the universe has badness in it, then God either created badness too or he IS badness.

Aquinas covered this in the 1200s, "Whether the supreme good, God, is the cause of evil?":

* https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1049.htm#article2

> Of course the question is why we ought to believe this as opposed to following our own moral convictions.

You say slavery is bad. I say slavery is fine. You can follow your mortal convictions (and not have slaves), and I'll follow mine (and run a cotton plantation). But the two statements are contradictory, so which of us is following the "correct" one?

Of course this assumes that there is an objective moral code—which begs the question on where it would come from.