I don't 'believe that god should have made everything roses and gold', because I don't believe in gods full stop. My point is that theists often believe that their god planned and created everything. That necessarily includes the bad as well as the good. That's what everything means. But when the bad is pointed out, our theist friends (including yourself) will immediately resort to blaming man. This is an admission that man has god-like creative powers - creating the dark half of the equation, so this god can't actually be all powerful. If you disagree with this, and believe your god did create everything, then you're compelled to accept that means literally everything. Including creating the conditions in which evil can arise. You can't really have it both ways.
God gave man Free Will, and that is one thing He will never take away from us.
He also made us in His image, so that we have many of the traits and qualities that He has, including the ability to create things (though our ability, like everything else about us, is limited).
Problem is, man oftentimes creates things that is destructive to the environment, and if you are disputing
that, then I don't know what to tell you. Look around you, see all of that pollution? What about the genetically modified organisms that we've made? What about the superbugs that we've caused to exist, because of our over-use of antibacterial agents?
That is why the Bible says that there will come a time when God Himself (in the form of Christ) is going to have to come again, this time to purge the world of the evil that man has wrought in it, otherwise no flesh could possibly be saved (the entire world would become uninhabitable).
Man has that ability right now, to destroy all life on Earth. We are capable of that, in fact, we're careening towards that right now, with several itchy button-fingers hovering over buttons. Anybody who studies the Middle East knows that WW3 is brewing right now.
WW2 ended with a huge KABOOM (two of them in fact), and we all took a collective gasp and said "what are we DOING!?" and since then, we've all held back from flexing this muscle. If a WW3 were to break out, it would surely start with a similar, perhaps more powerful KABOOM -- perhaps several of them. Who knows what would happen after that.
If I was about to die, and had been raised to believe in an afterlife, I'd be hanging on to my faith at the 11th hour too. Who wouldn't? This says nothing about the merits of any given dogma, you know. It's true of all faiths. We're human, after all.
There are many people who come to the faith who were not originally born in it. There are people to this day who were born and raised Muslim but convert to Christianity. There are probably some who have done the reverse. There are people who were born and raised in Christian families that become Atheists. Being born into a certain religion or another does not guarantee or dictate what you will believe in.
100 years of painful life? how about 80 years of amazing life - the only life you know for certain that you actually have? maybe you dislike this life as much as you do because you don't value it enough.
"Amazing"? Maybe if you're a rich elite, and what exactly did you have to do to get such an "amazing" life? Most other people, who are not rich elite are oftentimes living not-so-amazing lives, constantly worrying about what happens should their car break down, or bills pile up, or a medical emergency happens while slaving away at their jobs, 30+ hours per week, so that they can pay a good portion of that money back to the government and everybody else.
As for my own life, and how much I value it... my life belongs to God, even when I didn't realize it at the time. Those who seek to keep their lives will lose it, and those who seek to give their lives up will gain eternal life. You can't deny the first part -- nobody can keep their life. Nobody. Everybody will die eventually.
So what happens should it be true that there
is an afterlife? What will you say on the day that you discover it, when you've spent all of your energy living the "amazing" life that you "know" you have today, and find out you have nothing stored up for the next life?
As for me, I have faith in the next life. Even if I turn out to be wrong (I know I'm not), what, I close my eyes one day and *poof*, I cease to exist? Oh well. It's not like I'll get to ponder all the things I might have done differently.
So, recap...
If I'm wrong, I'll just poof and cease to exist.
If you're wrong... you'll have an eternity to wish you had done things differently.
That's quite the wager...
