A discussion here with someone of radically different viewpoint-- has put much of my own grasp of things in better order.

Jesus (as any good Universalist ought to recognize) is once again found to be central! Given that his 'message' is too large and rich to fit into anybody's one interpretation, the basic message (from early in Mark) comes down to roughly: "Drop everything, take another look, start over! God is ruling here and now!" (A 'gospel' is, in original meaning, the announcement of a new ruler-- or in the case of 'The Gospel' that Jesus would have preached, a reminder of Who it is who's always been ruling.)

Hmmm. Doesn't look like it? "Sin" everywhere, Wrath & Retribution incoming all around us?

We read "sin" in human ethical and moral flaws; that's where it really feels wrong to us! A billion people hungry, while many billions more "don't care"/ "can't do anything about it" etc etc. A multitude of cowards feel they "have to" be allowed to torture whichever people they're afraid of, that they "have to" do it. Most of us can see the world collapsing, out of the corners of our eyes, and then we look away because watching the catastrophe just gets in the way of doing anything else, of living life itself...

What if Sin really "is" "The Knowledge of Good and Evil" [or what we've taken to be that!]

Most people see all the 'acts of God' around us as merely 1) the impact of random stuff impacting human bodies-and-minds --or else some variant of 2) Judgment, karma, flying chunks of Wrath ricochetting at sinners, accomplices and bystanders alike.

That built-in human notion of what people "deserve" keeps getting in the way! (Despite The Book of Job, which we just dismiss as "profound", meaning "Doesn't make sense, forget it!")

The foundation of the world is Spirit! That Spirit is 'good'; it wishes us no harm because (ultimately) it is us, suffers our pain as its own (because that pain is its own!)

It "sends sun and rain to the just and the unjust" -- except that the impact of Love on the Unjust looks a whole lot like Wrath! Is that because the 'Unjust' "deserve" Wrath, because they're "different" from us?

Well, no, they don't see things the same way, don't react the same way; they have "the touch of gold" backwards! They react with fear and anger, puff themselves up bigger so they can feel safer. What they need isn't what they think it is! And while that applies to everybody, the difference is that 'All things work toward good, for those who love God.' Where the love of God is less evident, so is that good!

Confronted with some harm or danger... people start trying to "figure out what's 'causing' it," so as to "do something about it." For the biggest, or for the most firmly-entrenched evils, this simply doesn't work.

What's left? Give up trying to help? Not likely, not even right! But if the ultimate cause is human lack of faith and devotion, the lack of true acquaintance with God...