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I woke up this morning with a new perspective.

I asked myself, as a software developer, what if I developed a crash-up derby game that was completely real. I mean real to the point where you felt everything in the game. Every time someone hit your car, you would feel the bump. If some metal broke and cut you, the wound would hurt. If the car burst into flames you would feel an agonizing death.

Now suppose I visited a hospital in the night and plugged a hundred people into the game while they slept without their knowledge or consent. Who would be most guilty for the pain and suffering in the game? The people who played the game most viscously, or the person who created the game and plugged them in without consent?

In the same way, would not God be guilty of our pain and suffering? Did he not create a world where the rules say we all die, and even if we are all kind to one another, sometimes it will still be a painful, horrible death? If so, then perhaps Jesus did not die for our sins, but for God's.

Then I had another thought. What if I had a very good reason for plugging all those people into the game? What if they were not sleeping, but they were in a comma? What if the only way to wake them was to make them play the game? Might then I be seen not as a bad guy, but as a hero when patients woke from their long commas? In this case, the ends would justify the means.

But can I apply this argument to God? After all, if I had a simple pill that would wake people without the pain and suffering, the ends would not justify the means. If God is all powerful, then the ends can never justify the means because God can always create the magic pill.

One final thought. Even if God could create the magic pill, but instead insists we do it the hard way, is it still better than never reaching the end at all? Should we perhaps thank God for what he has given us than blaming him for what he hasn't? Is it a sin not to help someone in need? If a rich man gives a starving man a half-eaten bagel from his garbage, should he be cursed for not giving more or blessed for giving something?

This is just food for thought.