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My question has always been that if this life is a test, and being omniscient, God already knows how we would perform on this test, why make us take the test in the first place when we could skip all the suffering and just go to the afterlife? The common apologist answer that we gain "spiritual knowledge"(whatever that is) through living to prepare us for the afterlife is inadequate, because surely God could create us with that knowledge without forcing us to suffer. Either God is sadistic and enjoys watching us suffer, is not all-powerful due to his inability to create us with whatever we gain from suffering, or he flat-out doesn't exist. Given there is no evidence, guess which one is the most plausible?
My question has always been that if this life is a test, and being omniscient, God already knows how we would perform on this test, why make us take the test in the first place when we could skip all the suffering and just go to the afterlife? The common apologist answer that we gain "spiritual knowledge"(whatever that is) through living to prepare us for the afterlife is inadequate, because surely God could create us with that knowledge without forcing us to suffer. Either God is sadistic and enjoys watching us suffer, is not all-powerful due to his inability to create us with whatever we gain from suffering, or he flat-out doesn't exist. Given there is no evidence, guess which one is the most plausible?
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own - Bertrand Russell
