God - a study in pointlessness.

[Subhan Ahmad]

Can anyone tell me why, if there is a God, he created the world in the first place. It would be a bit self-indulgent of him, surely. Wouldn't he have to be some sort of a power crazed Voyeur to do any of this in the first place? Why would a just and loving God create a world and then watch its creatures suffering for millennium after millennium.

What the hell was God thinking? I have yet to hear a convincing argument advanced about this. Perhaps non atheists could take a shot at answering this question

Bro, I will give you a muslim perspective as far as I know. I would suggest that you take things at face value for now to get the whole picture.

Earth is made for Human beings and Human Beings are made to worship God. You will see perfection and order in this world. The day and night, seasons, water cycle, universe. You will see the order and the beauty of creation at its full glory. From atoms to heavenly bodies, you will see a pattern and order. This order is maintained by God and Billions of His angels.

Humans are one of the greatest creation among the creations of God. Humans are sent to this earth with authority to some extent, free will and the only creature with a sense of purpose. Rest of the animals and angels just do what they are told and taught to do. You know very well that our decisions even change the face of earth. We human beings are the apparent rulers of the Earth.

Brother you know very well that where there is authority, there are two things:
1) Responsibility
2) Accountability

Responsibility

The responsibility of human beings is to bring the word of God and same order, organization and harmony among human beings on earth like the rest of the world and universe. Now what and how to bring the order? For that God sent His knowledge and teachings through several prophets from Adam to final Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon them). The final teachings for the all the generations upto the end of earth is in the form of Quran and the life style of Prophet Muhmmad (Peace be Upon him) known as sunnah. If I try to simplify, Quran and sunnah teaches how to live and how not to live (dos and don'ts) as individuals, families, societies, and nations and how to develop a healthy relationship with God.

Accountability
These dos and donts define the good and evil. The good and evil are not equal. To explain this, I will put some Quranic verses infront first:

"The good deed and the evil deed cannot be equal. Repel (the evil) with one which is better (i.e. Allah ordered the faithful believers to be patient at the time of anger, and to excuse those who treat them badly), then verily! he, between whom and you there was enmity, (will become) as though he was a close friend." (41:34)

"Say (O Muhammad SAW): "Not equal are Al-Khabith (all that is evil and bad as regards things, deeds, beliefs, persons, foods, etc.) and At-Taiyib (all that is good as regards things, deeds, beliefs, persons, foods, etc.), even though the abundance of Al-Khabith (evil) may please you." So fear Allah much [(abstain from all kinds of sins and evil deeds which He has forbidden) and love Allah much (perform all kinds of good deeds which He has ordained)], O men of understanding in order that you may be successful." (5:100)

This world is a trial and each person is given one life so he or she can prove his or her worth. You choose yourself whether you lead your life by adopting good ways/actions or by evil ways/actions.
You have given the authority to become whatever you can. You can either choose to become like Hitler or like Gandhi. God gives you time, do whatever you like God won't pass judgement on you. But once your time is up, then your put to death. No one will be given a second life as a second chance.

First most of the sufferings are brought by man himself. We get into evil ways, forget God and then we suffer, we blame God.

Anyways, all of this is in this life is a trail. God put man in different scenarios to turn him inside out. Whatever evil and good you hide inside yourself, will gets exposed so on the day of judgment no one has an excuse. You will become a witness of yourself. That is why God says in Quran again and again that good and bad can and will NEVER EVER be equal. And He promises again and again that He will seperate good from bad or evil on the day of judgement. Whatever we are doing either publicly or privately is being thoroughly recorded. So every individual will be handed the record of all his or her good an bad deeds they did in their lives so they be witness of themselves that whether they fall in the category of good people (if excess of good deeds) or the evil people (excess of evil deed). For the faithful, righteous and patient will be eternal heaven which is better than this world to unimaginable level and for the unfaithful, and wrongdoers is eternal hell. This is what I believe is justice.

Thats all I can explain right now. Any confusions or questions? let me know.