I am a christian and HOPE there is a God that is all loving, all knowing and all forgiving. I read, (think it was DPD who wrote this on the DNC blog the other day) that if there really was a God, then Bush and Cheney wouldn't be in office doing what they are doing.
Sure hit a nerve with me, because that thought comes into my prayers all the time...."why would you allow this God?" (Why did you allow the Spanish Inquisition? Hitler? Ghingas Khan? Vietnam?The New England Witch Trials?The Trail of Tears? ETC!) He's suppose to be all seeing...knows the number of every hair on my head, so i have asked any Christian that will listen these questions.
All i get in answer is...FREE WILL. I can only guess that Free Will on our part is reason enough on God's part to constantly "toy" with us...
He knows everything - beginning and end - alpha and omega - so he knew before he told Adam and Eve what the outcome would be when he told them not to touch the "fruit of knowledge",right? Why did he put it there to begin with if he didn't want them to touch it, but knew that they would.
Why would he tell Cain that his offering wasn't as good as Abel's when he already knew that it would make Cain distraught and end up murdering Abel?
Why does he need to "test" us throughout our lives if he already knows what we will do and be? Nope....doesn't make sense...
Now looking back, how many wars have been started in His name? How many innocents have suffered, been tortured and killed...all in His name?
This criminal administration has personally started the largest religious war in history, because God told the Moron-in-chief to do so? (My God doesn't even know George W. Bush!)
Despite everything, i still HOPE there is a God....a loving, forgiving God. A God that judges us each at the end of our lives and still forgives us for our sins. Yet a God that punishes the crimes of those who have stopped the forward advancement of humanity....to become more ....humane.