Theism, which holds that there is one incorporeal and benevolent God, often defines evil as merely the absence or lack of good. However, this perspective can seem disconnected from how people actually experience evil. In lived reality, evil frequently feels like an active, powerful force—one that influences thoughts, shapes actions, and at times appears to possess agency of its own. Even if evil is not a metaphysical substance, its tangible effects in the world give it a kind of functional reality that cannot be dismissed.
By reducing evil to a mere deficiency, traditional theology risks downplaying the urgency and gravity with which it must be addressed. This line of thinking also leads to unsettling conclusions—such as the claim that even if we were eternal beings enduring endless suffering, this would do nothing to diminish the goodness of God. Most would see such a stance as extreme, if not fanatical. It doesn’t reflect how believers typically relate to God. Few would go so far. If they should, it suggests that their conception of God is, to some degree, a projection—an idea shaped more by personal preference than by a concern for God's true nature. In other words, he is a fantasy God.
Even believers in God say that one's faith in the divine can be simply an internalisation of one's deepest aspirations and longings. We go a step further and say there is no reason to agree with anybody who says they are not worshipping an extension of themselves that they tell themselves is somebody other, a supreme supernatural father.
Religion asks us to take an "innocent until proven guilty approach". How can we? They say you find God for he is in your heart so they are saying God is somehow revealing himself to you. We cannot give the benefit of the doubt here. It would be like saying, "John was found with the bleeding knife in his hand when Dean was stabbed to death but this proves nothing for what if some alien ray from another world controlled him just for those two seconds when Dean died?" God is in fact even more important than anything for he is supposedly the reason why anybody at all thinks murder is wrong. No God would ask you to risk letting the religious take advantage of you.
Outsourcing is pretending that things that are in you are in fact in a god or somebody or even something else. Worse, we often deliberately pretend. We often don't realise we are pretending. Anyway, we are creatures that outsource the goodness and badness in us to others. We even see in animals what we see in ourselves. We can even do it to a movie character. It is impossible to believe we are not doing this to our idea of God or the higher power. Why are you outsourcing? Why are you lying to yourself, and by extension others, that what is in you is in fact not? Or that it is in something else as well as you? It is flattering to think that the dark side of you, that stands by while people suffer, is not in you but is in God or whoever. It is flattering to think God, others, etc reflect you.
If you claim to be humble that is false humility. You need to hide your pride even from yourself otherwise others will see it so you turn others including God into visions of yourself.
If you outsource the bad in you, that means the good has to go with it as well. It is the other side of the coin. You may outsource it indirectly but it is still happening.
You know the goodness and kindness in you is far from perfect. Even if it could be, you would likely have painful fears and doubts. Outsourcing it to an all-good God relieves all that. You use God, to pin your perceived imperfect good traits unto. That makes you feel they are better than what they are.
Outsourcing is a placebo in that way, and in many others.
We must stress that if what you worship is about your prejudices, ideas and feelings you are treating what is human as divine. And it is worse if you prevent yourself and others from seeing how much your God is you. If you are making a God to use as a prop to validate yourself, a psychological transference, you cannot do it without, at the back of your mind, transferring the bad in you onto him as well. To see your human goodness in God, means you are indirectly seeing the badness there too. The coin has two sides. You know the bad side is there but you look at the good. The fact that you invest God with your evil, and that you conceal that, will only lead to corruption. In time, your God will become more capricious and wrathful. And so will you. And it is a two-way thing. You make this mirror to reflect your dark side and it reflects it back to you. It comes back to you even worse. It is aided by your dissonance and psychological trickery.
To clarify, just because you don't directly see your evil in God, does not mean it is any less important than what you directly see. It could be as important and even more important. What is at the back of your mind will always matter more than what is forefront. It is easier to feel good about the bad in you that you try to shift to God if you keep your eyes on the good. One trick for coping with all that is by imagining and feeling that God has forgiven you. Real forgiveness is a long-term process, not that cheap lazy version that faith in God gives. It is the instant coffee of theology.
Now what do you do with faith when calamity strikes you and those whom you love? If you see no answer to the problems, the temptation will arise to generate a placebo. You will do this by trying to feel that something has to happen that makes things tolerable or better. That is dangerous if it is not true. You cannot banish reality with good thoughts and good feelings. Trust in prayer and God are common conduits for your magical attitude.
Also you are telling yourself that the problem is you and you are being too negative. That is harmful too. This, in religion, is often dressed up as, "Evil is a mystery and God's ways are beyond our comprehension. Just because your situation seems dire, does not mean that it is. God's blessings can be hard to notice and at times impossible." The doctrine is a projection of your desire and need for a placebo. Also we adopt the doctrine not because we are able to prove it is a mystery but because others say it is and that influences us. There is a group placebo happening. Mystery looks humble but it is not. It is a very big claim. To say nobody knows who killed Jane needs as much proof as saying Jack did it. A claim is a claim. As with mystery, you need proof for such a significant stance.
And you may hate others so that you wish to see only God in them so you can bypass your true evaluation of them. If your good does not belong to you but to God it is the same for their good. You don’t want to see how good they are so you outsource it to God.
CONCLUSION
Outsourcing is a form of self-abuse where instead of dealing correctly with your self-doubt and unhappiness you use a diversion. Abuse ripples out and it is common for a person to be devout and socially beneficial but in time that person grows into a manipulator and bitter. People suffer because the outsourcing they did leads to more outsourcing. They become victims just like God has been turned into one.