Suffering in the world is difficult to understand if there is an all-powerful Creator capable of preventing it.
 
It's equally troubling that religions claiming to represent the Creator have been responsible for immense human suffering throughout history. For example--

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WHAT RELIGIONS ARE
Religions are formed around the idea of gods fashioned like humans. They write books, speak in our languages, have our emotions, read minds, listen to and answer our prayers, guide our lives, make laws about behavior, and impose penalties for disobedience. Some such gods are said to have appeared in human form on Earth and lived among us.
 
These stories of human-like gods only exist in the minds of those who believe in them. Such fabricated gods have no power to prevent human suffering.
 
 
CREATOR VS. RELIGION
Our existence, the bottomless intricacy of life, consciousness, free will, and all of our physical reality demonstrate that there is an intelligent origin behind it all. This Creator is not the god of religion. The Creator of our incomprehensible reality must also be beyond human comprehension and thus cannot be known through doctrine, myth, or tradition.
 
What we can know is that we were created with free will, reason, and conscience, tools that can help us navigate the world and make reasonable and moral choices.
 
Nevertheless, the question remains as to why there is suffering and death. If everything we see and experience is the product of an incomprehensible mind, why doesn't it intervene?
 

NATURAL DISASTERS
For example, the Creator made a world with destructive forces because that's the way it has to be.
 
Earth is an interconnected dynamic of rock, water, air, magma, mud, fire, ice, and myriad other physical elements and forces constantly in motion. This movement is not optional, Earth and life need it to survive.
 
For example, without plate tectonics, volcanoes, and earthquakes, the Earth's crust would flatten, resulting in the entire Earth being covered with water almost two miles deep.
 
Wildfires, floods, droughts, avalanches, lightning, hurricanes, tornadoes, climate variation, etc., are all part of a natural dynamic that brings both benefit and disaster. Floods fertilize the land, ice ages carve out lakes and make soil, volcanoes create land and seed the Earth with minerals, and forest fires create the opportunity for new growth.
 
These destructive forces are also life-giving. They are part of the same system that sustains us.
 
 
NATURAL LAWS MUST BE OBEYED
We rely on natural laws being predictable. Imagine a rigged world where miracles interrupted every danger, or where laws of physics bent according to the personal needs and desires of billions of different people. Such a world would be unstable and chaotic. Science, technology, and agriculture—all foundations of modern life—depend on unchanging laws.
 
So, it's one thing to wish nature would behave differently. It's quite another to define what that would be without creating eventual consequences more dire than what we can face.
 
 
OUR ROLE AND RESPONSIBILITY
We aren't victims if we don't use Creator-given free will and reason to not live on a fault line, at the foot of a volcano, or in a flood plane. If lava flows into our bedroom, the house sinks into a fissure, or is washed away in a flood, the Creator cannot be held responsible for our misery or death.
 
 
BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR
Disaster can still befall us even if we make the best of choices. Danger is a constant in a world governed by laws, motion, change, and consequence. But danger also brings challenges, and with it the chance to grow, create, and rise above.
 
Danger is always present in a dynamic world with its own agenda. But this also creates challenges and opportunities for growth, accomplishment, and rising above.
 
Imagine the opposite: a world and life with no danger, no uncertainty, no hardship, perfect weather, endless comfort, no need to strive, food and water aplenty, and no decisions that create consequences.
 
It sounds ideal until what would be lost is considered. Such a world would have no challenges, no need for creativity, learning, innovation, no need for courage, resilience, intellectual or moral development, and no need for philanthropy, compassion, or even empathy.
 
A world with no consequences or challenges would be a life of constant boredom and with no meaning or purpose. What we have is something to be thankful for, not a reason to reject its Creator.
 
 
SUFFERING AND DEATH IN NATURE
The biological world seems cruel. Each second, billions of creatures suffer and die. Predation, parasitism, competition, disease, and food harvesting (killing) pervade the world.
 
It's not a matter of good, evil, divine obliviousness, or a god's vengeance. It's the necessary functioning of the interconnected creature called life. Creatures must behave as they do for the whole to survive.
 
Nature is no crueler in its acts than we are when we squash insects underfoot or shred the life out of lettuce when we chew a salad. Lions kill zebras, humans kill food animals, and plants can trap insects and poison us.
 
If even one organism and its offspring didn't die, everything would become smothered under the mass of its unchecked population growth.
 

THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF HUMAN SUFFERING
Most human suffering doesn't arise from the natural order. It comes from what we, individually and as a collective, believe, what we choose, and what we do. We defend our right to think and act freely, but with that freedom comes the responsibility to face the consequences.
 
Ignoring the Creator-endowed capacity for reason and conscience results in greed, laziness, apathy, impatience, shortsightedness, dependence, pride, delusion, and psychopathology. These fuel religious violence, political tyranny, terrorism, wars, and the collapse of civilizations.

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​For example, modern medicine is built on materialist and evolutionary assumptions—viewing bodies as malfunctioning machines instead of purposeful, intelligent designs. With misplaced confidence, practitioners prescribe drugs and surgeries without understanding the full consequences. As a result, medicine has become the leading cause of death and harm. This isn’t divine punishment; it’s human error and willful ignorance on both sides of the doctor-patient relationship.

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​We foul our air, water, land, and food, hide from the sun, sit for hours, overeat, and live immersed in artificial electromagnetic fields. This departure from our natural roots results in a tidal wave of cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, dementia, Alzheimer's, and other chronic degenerative and deadly conditions. Blame lies with us.

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​In some religious groups, inbreeding is encouraged based on the belief that they are divinely chosen. This has led to devastating genetic conditions passed down through generations. Religions also claim that human suffering stems from a mythical disobedience in Eden and that salvation lies only through adherence to a particular faith. Yet submission to these belief systems has brought endless wars, persecution, and death. The Creator is not to blame for this—we are.
 
​Moreover, nothing is learned from the religious practice of playing the victim, supplicating, begging, importuning, and blaming the Creator. Nor is it befitting a dignified Creator of the universe to need such "worship," or to respond to pleadings from those who will not take responsibility for themselves. Praying is fine, but people need to keep their brains alert and hands and feet moving.

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The evolution/materialist mindset that we are mere animals unleashes the selfish, egoistic, might-makes-right, and reproductive animal forces rising from the hindbrain. Theft, violence, domination, sexual conquest, undeserved gain, and other selfish desires undiminished by free will and conscience result in us becoming instruments of our own destruction.
 
Our suffering is not a sign of divine malevolence or apathy. It is the predictable result of rejecting truth, abandoning reason, and silencing conscience. If we choose to embrace false beliefs and harmful faiths, it’s not injustice when the consequences fall on us. It’s justice.
 
Sow with ignorance, reap with tears.