I think God is cruel.
To be honest, I have always been Christian, but mostly because I was born into it. I grew up in a Christian family, so I followed this religion without ever really choosing it for myself or taking the time to deeply understand what it means to be Christian.
That is why I now believe that religion is something we should genuinely seek, study, and question. If we are supposed to follow a belief system for our entire lives, I think it is completely normal to ask questions and challenge things that don’t make sense.
Yet, most of what I have seen around me is a kind of faith based on habit: “I’m Christian because I was born Christian.” People often don’t question the contradictions or philosophical problems within their religion. And that is exactly why I have so many questions today.
For example, if God is omniscient, all-powerful, and perfectly good, why would He allow Hitler to be born knowing exactly what he would become? Why would He allow an innocent child to be born into a family where He already knows they will be abused, beaten, starved, or tortured?
The usual answer is free will: God gives humans the freedom to make their own choices, even when those choices hurt others. But then I wonder: if God respects our free will so much that He does not intervene, why are we constantly told to pray and ask Him to change our situation? If He can intervene, why doesn’t He? And if He cannot or chooses not to because of free will then what is prayer actually supposed to accomplish?
These questions are especially painful for me because I do believe God exists. My question isn’t “What if God doesn’t exist?” It is: “If He does exist, why did He allow all of this to happen?”
For a large part of my childhood, I was abused and beaten. I repeatedly asked God for help. There were nights when I begged Him to kill me because I was too afraid to take my own life. I was terrified of suicide because it would send me to hell. I begged Him to take me away from that situation, to put me in another family, or simply to do something anything to change my life.
So when I think about the idea that God knew all of this before I was even born, I struggle deeply with it.
If He knew exactly what I would experience, why would He allow me to be born into that situation in the first place? That is what I cannot reconcile. How can a God who knows everything, can do anything, and is supposed to be perfectly good knowingly allow someone to suffer like that?
Because sometimes, honestly, it makes God feel less like a loving father and more like someone cruel watching from above while we suffer. Like our pain is nothing but a game to Him, while for us, this is our actual life.
And I cannot understand why we would have to live through hell twice: once here on Earth, and then be told to fear another hell after death