I keep thinking that a section of the web site is finished, that I won't be adding any more to it.  I thought that about this section, that difficult questions weren't really coming that frequently, and those that were did not need to be published.  Then this letter came.  It was the most difficult question I'd ever been asked--not because it required some depth of theological insight (although I think there is some of that), but because it hit home, striking at something with which I had struggled, and asking for an answer I was not certain I had.

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However, answering the questions of others is often the best way to discover the truth we did not know we knew.

As always, the letter is presented as a starting point, personal references removed and informative links added, with HTML coding incorporated.

I know you don't know me, and I don't know you, but I'm a member of the Christian Gamer's Guild, and I would appreciate your help.

Recently, I've found that I would only be able to attend my dream college for only one year, if I was lucky, because my financial aid would be inevitably revoked, leaving my family in serious financial distress.

It was after I learned about this, I started to grow angry towards God.  It was like he was dangling a beautiful jewel in front of me, and yanking it away when I got close.  I then started to think back on what I learned of man's creation, and I suddenly thought that our God is a trickster god, forever laughing from his throne on high.

Why did He give us free will, when He created us solely for us to worship Him?  Why didn't He just make us subservient animals?  I started to believe that He did it as a grand cosmic joke, guffawing wildly as He watches human kind blindly pay tribute to Him whilst they are stricken with poverty, disease, war, and death.  Why did He bother?  If He truly wanted us to be devoted to worshipping Him, why didn't He create us blind, deaf, and dumb, capable of hearing ONLY His words?  Also, if he didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, why have it there in the first place?  I started to believe that it was all a grand setup, the sole domino that would cause the chain reaction that was God's greatest joke, the human being.

And perhaps the worst part of it is the fact that God is a coward.  I could stand on the sidewalk and say sentence after sentence of blasphemous insults, and what would I recieve for it?  If He truly was the ruling diety the Bible says He is, He would've descended from Heaven and made an example of me.  But does He smite me whilst I write these horrible rumors?  No.  He sits far away on His throne on high, still laughing at His greatest joke yet.  Does it scare Him that if mankind stopped worshipping Him, He would be forgotten, which is worse than death in any form?  Or that if He did descend and smite those worthy of His anger, He would ruin His own favorite joke?

I don't want to think these things, but I see no reasoning that would prove these rumors false.  I honestly want to believe in Him, but I find no reassurance of His benevolence.  I don't know what to believe anymore.

I thank you for your time.

As I say, the answer was challenging; I invite you to read it.

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