Problem of Evil is fruitless. Criticise soul building theoddesy instead.

I'm reading a short piece by Robert G. Ingersoll, and his page and a half exposition of the evils in the world in the presence of an all-loving god seem a bit tired (to his credit, the piece was written in 1899, so perhaps it wasn't nearly so in this day). A sampling includes questions of God such as: "Is he responsible for all the wars that have been waged, for all the innocent blood that has been shed?", "If an infinitely powerful God governs this world, how can we account for cyclones, earthquakes, pestilence and famine?" and "Did infinite wisdom intentionally produce the microscopic beast that feed upon the optic nerve? Think of blinding a man to satisfy the appetite of a microbe!"

Is the problem of evil so devistating? In a complex system of which life is certainly a product of, a rational god could easily be putting people through trials in order to allow them into heaven. If this was not so, what would be the difference between heaven and hell? Life, as is often said, could be nothing more than a game. A supernatural world could exist which relies on the "cruelties" in the world much like a videogame designer makes their game as insidious and cleverly difficult as possible for the entertainment of gamers. Pitfalls, traps, murderous enemies and murderous protagonists make sense in the game world while in the real world it is argued that they do not. Wouldn't the inventor of basketball, if he or she was all good, have made the game using 45 foot nets, one team, and trophies for all? For all we know, life could be the Matrixy videogame equivalent for supernatural entities to take up time in the looming boredom of oblivion. The mental and physical limitations that we, as supernatural entities, take up are voluntary handicaps in order to play a "good" hearty game.

Bertrand Russell contends similarly: "the Creator, so far from being loving and kind, as we are told, must be of a degree of witkedness scarcely conceivable. ...A man who wilingly afflicted another with cancer would be considered a fiend. But the Creator, if He exists, afflicts many thousands every year with this dreadful disease." These arguments are all based on an assumption that misery and death are permanent states. If life is but a diverter of divine boredom, all this is combatted. The god, rather than being omnicient, omnipotent, timeless, and omnibenevolent, limits itself to a human (as well as bacterial), schizophrenic, multi-personic experience in order to combat omniboredom, and then regales itself afterward and chats among itself. God being a lonesome, social creature, creates imaginary creatures to play with, and we could very well be the products.