If God exists, why did he create life? (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Saturday, December 18, 2010, 02:43 (4869 days ago) @ dhw

..... Take one step further, and ask why he created them and us if he doesn't care, and the simplest answer is that he enjoys the entertainment (the good as well as the bad). Any more favourable explanation can only rest on faith. .... Atheists needn't bother with 'the why question', but of course that doesn't mean the rest of us shouldn't ask it. 
> -I apologize in advance if this comes across as a rant, but the statement above struck a nerve DHW.-
In all my years of searching, as theist to near atheist and full circle back around to theist, this has been the most common and altogether aggravating statement/question that I have seen from every group of people that I have talked to. -A while back on AW.com I put up a few posts talking about humility and how I value it as a character trait, and received a lot of flack about it. This question/statement is at the heart of the answer. We as, humans, screw ourselves, each other, and everything around us up beyond all reason, and still have the gall to blame something outside of ourselves for the pain that comes from it. Why? Are we really to ignorant, or arrogant, to take responsibility for the fallout of our own failings? -*IF* there is a God, and it gave us only a limited timespan to live, why blame any misfortune that befalls us on him. He did not 'break the child's neck', to use DHW's earlier example. He didn't make people *NOT* use netting that could prevent malaria, or *NOT* give them the medication that could treat it. He didn't make a person poor or rich, he didn't even give us the concept of wealth or money. He didn't divide up the Earth into geopolitical regions and then set them at each others throats for the rest of time. He doesn't start, end, or sanction our wars, regardless of what the priests might say to gain political favor. He doesn't make someone drive drunk, or put a gun in a killers hand, or put drugs in our women's drinks, or stick a needle in our arms. He doesn't take every invention that could be used for the betterment of mankind and turn it into a weapon to be used to destroy life. So, please, with all this talk about how He doesn't care about us, tell me please, just what the hell we have done with this life and this planet and to each other to actually deserve any further kindness in word or deed from him? Why shouldn't he just throw his hands up and tell us that we are on our own? When human beings develop the capacity for humility and accept the responsibility for their own lives, the good and bad, things will become better, not before. In my belief, God gave us everything we needed to be happy. We simply have chosen not to do it.