Suppose you were God and wanted to create a perfect world, one without crime, pain, and suffering, a world in which no one lies or murders or steals? Obviously you can do this—you’re God. You’re omnipotent. You can do anything. But how do you go about it?

Why not just create people to be like that? You’re omnipotent; just make people who never make bad choices, who always love each other and never practice aggression such as theft or murder.

But that means your people have no choice or free will. They’re not really people—they’re puppets. They don’t really love each other. They just go through the motions. They don’t have any choice. If you program a computer to “love” you—is it really love?

No. It’s just a really creepy program. To truly love requires the possibility of not loving. This requires free will. Perfect people have to have free will.

But this creates an even less desirable “perfect” world. Free will means people can make choices and that means some of them will make bad choices. This is how we got in the mess our current world is in. So how do we fix that? How about we just make it so our people won’t make bad choices?

Free will with no bad choices allowed requires instant punishment. When I hear people suggest God should just step in—like superman—every time somebody acts out, I don’t think they quite understand what that means. Doing this to create a perfect world—one entirely lacking pain, crime and sorrow—requires a lot more than what Superman does in the comics. There he only acts against felons—robbers, thieves, murderers, and such, and only after they commit the crime. To prevent all crime, and pain, and sorrow God would have to punish every bad act, everything from shoplifting, to lying, being disrespectful to parents, down to guys who leave the toilet seat up.

Many atheists say they can’t believe in a loving God who allows the terrible things that happen in our world. But to make God a cosmic cop who punishes every infraction instantly—and even preemptively, not just in a “you’ll regret this after you die” sort of way—the punishment must occur before the crime to prevent others from harm. Therefore, you end up with a God who quite literally would be striking people dead for thinking about committing murder. A world where an omnipotent deity zaps you constantly for merely thinking out of line isn’t a perfect world. It’s more like a perfect Hell. But it is required if you require your omnipotent deity to serve as a universal cosmic conscience.

So how can we create that perfect world where everyone chooses to do good? We need a world filled with people with free will, who could choose to do wrong, but don’t.

This is how you get there. It takes several thousand years, but it works:

First, you create your world and fill it with people with free will. This is not the “perfect” world, just the first step on the way there.

Then, you let your people know you exist, that you created them, and they need to choose to submit to you and your rules and to treat others as they would like to be treated. (The Golden Rule.) This could be done through direct revelation, the sending of messengers (prophets), or even, say, going yourself as one of the people—the “Son” of God. The Bible says it is a record of God’s numerous such communications with Mankind in just this way.
Third, you step back and allow your creations to choose. Some of them will choose badly and do terrible things. Others will choose wisely. But you must let them choose for themselves. Because many of those people are going to make the wrong choices, the history of your world is going to be like ours, a litany of war, atrocity, crime and suffering. You can’t have heroes without villains and you can’t have free will without the possibility of bad choices. You can’t step in and “make everything right” with miracles—at least not on a regular and systematic basis. People have to choose freely, and live with the consequences of their choices so you can see which of your creations in your cosmic kindergarten “doesn’t play well with others.”

Step Five: After a few thousand years when you’ve “processed” enough people to stock your future perfect world, you wind up the imperfect version—Armageddon.

Finally, you create another world. Then you resurrect all the dead from the previous world—the cooperative ones people your new, now perfect world. The rest get their own world—one where there is no God, no rules, where they can do exactly what they want and prey upon each other to their black hearts’ content. Everybody wins.

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful. And he said unto me, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely. He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. (Revelation 21:1-8)
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For more information read…

The Bible - Dead Letter or Message from Your Creator? http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

Revolutionary Discipleship http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/...

Jesus is Only Coming Twice. https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...