I think it very likely that I, and most other westerners born after the 2nd world war, are the luckiest people ever to have lived, even allowing for the odd knock and tragedy. Our lives are hard enough, but for many people in the world life is desperately terrible - hunger and poverty, disease and pain, lack of human rights, all sorts of horrific abuse and exploitation. Multiply this by any number you like, and you have a description of the appalling lives led by almost everybody up until the mid-20th century.
So yes, a few of us are very lucky indeed today with our cosy little comfortable lives, but I can't just smugly say life is great, God is good, like the Jehovah's Witness lady who came to my door, pointed to my flower tubs and said how could I not believe in God when he made those beautiful flowers?!
I would need rather more evidence than this, and can find none. If there were a god, he would have to be either extremely evil to create a world so full of suffering, or powerless, which wouldn't make sense. I don't buy that "free will" bit. Surely only a monster would create a pathetic, imperfect, and I'm afraid rather evil creature like man, and then sit back and watch him make a huge mess of it, and wallow in his own misery, like a cat playing with a half-dead mouse. Why didn't God make man WANT to choose to do good every time, of his own free will? [oh yeah, I forgot - Eve....]. No doubt the Archbishop of Canterbury would make mincemeat of me in a pub discussion. I fully acknowledge and applaud man's achievements, a constant struggle in the absence of any deity.
Just one more example of God's bungling: The human body. What a ridiculous piece of design - a million parts that can go wrong, the cause of terrible suffering. [He certainly didn't make a very good job of designing mine, I can tell you!] And he made the sexual urge far too strong [in general, I mean, not mine!] causing people to suffer extreme unfulfilment at one end of the scale, or hideous abuse at the other.
The thing I find most frightening about all religions - very very frightening and impossible to understand - is the huge number of people throughout the world who believe in them, highly intelligent, nice,sensible people, friends and colleagues. I don't get it.
Still to come: MY beliefs about the meaning of life!!
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God made man to be good - man was led astray before he could even even get started. Because of that, death and sickness came into the world. God didn't put it there, man opened up the door to the entity who did. There is a way out for those who want it - the catch - we have to choose it. Don't go down the road of blaming God - it's just an extension of the blame game and will do you no good whatsoever. All the best...
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