Free Will.

Now, I'd like to start with the fact that I have a 10 year perfect attendance pin from Sunday School.

And I've read the Bible twice.  Or, rather sort of read it, as a whole bunch of it's just down right unintelligible.  Lots of begatting in Genesis, plus some wars and angels fighting angels and Moses doing his thing and such.  But I read it anyway.  And my understanding of the Old Testament for those of you who care goes something like this:

God created everything in less than a week, and boy, was He tired!  He then took Sunday off.  Saturday off, if you're Jewish.  After that, there was that Adam and Eve thing, the interference of the Watchers, nephilim and seriphim, giants eating humans, etc.  Sort of rich with unintended consequences.

So God appoints Noah to build an ark and he gets to work.  God brings on The Flood (with a capital "F"), it rains for 40 days and 40 nights.  And you know the rest.  Everyone but Noah and his crew are erased.  Or, perhaps everyone in Noah's neck of the woods is erased.  

Perhaps it was "only" that little piece of dirt separating Europe from Asia Minor called the Bosporus Strait.  Enabling the Mediteranean Sea to pour into the Black Sea.  At the rate of 100 Niagara Falls a day.  Drowning everything in sight.

Either or.  You decide. 

But then God thought He might have overreacted a tad.  It seems He had brought forth The Flood because he'd sent his Watchers down here to manage the Earth.  And the Watchers got all up and personal with human women, which they found desirable (so do I!).  Which resulted in the birth of a whole bunch of Nephalim.  These were hybrid giants who were good at being blacksmiths, and making weapons, and building big stone structures.  Like all those stone temples in Italy and Greece and Turkey.  Like the Parthenon and the Temple of Balbek.  But when they started eating humans, God said that was enough.  So he flooded the Earth to eliminate them. 

That was the reason.  Didn't know that, didja? 

He thereafter stopped micromanaging and gave us Free Will to go and do as we wished.  Good or bad.  Our choice.  He was going to then observe from a distance and let the chips fall where they may.  After all, it's tough to start populating the Earth (or a small chunk of the Earth) all over again.  But the Bible tells us He did.

He said go out there and make babies.  And they did.

So now, with Free Will, we get to do well and make God pleased, or screw up and make God mad.*  And you DO NOT want that!  At least I don't.  And I'm coming around the Club House turn, so to speak, with the Finish Line in sight, so to speak, so I'm being Extra Careful how I conduct myself.  As I'm about to get my just reward.

Or so the Bible says.

So the next time anyone asks why God permits a bus full of little children to go off a cliff, or folks in a plane to get their lives cut short, you won't have to ask, "Why does God permit that to happen?"  

Because now you'll know.

*    Assuming you believe in God.