Shack Attack

In the fictional novel 'The Shack' by William Young, God is depicted as a triumverate of characters: God Himself takes the human form of a black woman something like Auntie Mame, the Holy Spirit is a somewhat amorphous spirit called Sarayu and Jesus appears to play himself. The nature of the Jesus DNA does not come up in the story. The Shack tells the story of a tragedy that strikes Mack's daughter Missy who is abducted in the midst of another crisis and murdered in a shack in a remote location in the Oregon wilderness. The book attempts to deal with the problem of evil which is essential for theists to resolve if their God is to be saved from analytical oblivion. How can a loving God who created humans as His pets allow the unspeakable evil to befall us and stand by without doing anything? This seems unconscionable to us so theists must find a way to 'explain (excuse)' God from a rather obvious moral judgement. The book repeats the story of 'The Fall' set out in Genesis. Since Adam chose to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil RATHER than trusting in a loving God the human race henceforward had to experience the evils of the world outside of Eden. God can be 'with us' in our pain and suffering but cannot intervene because He respects our choice to live by our minds. So the triumverate in the book assures Mack that Missy was never alone during her terrible ordeal and that Missy took comfort in that fact. This image is supposed to relieve Mack of some pain and allow him to go forward with his life.
God allows evil because He respects the choice made on our behalf by Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.
If you were God why would you create a universe? What would be the point of it?
Asuming we can find a satisfactory answer to that one would you fill the universe with a 'pet' and then subject that pet to all manner of hazards that can attack its very existence?
The answer seems obvious.
And doesn't this answer call into question the very existence of such a superbeing or set of superbeings?
The pet acts to find solutions to the hazards so that they can be neutralized as the pet seeks a better environment in which to live than the one provided by God. Or He doesn't exist in the first place.
We are here. We don't know why. We have no universal operating manual to consult so we must figure it all out on our own. It just is the way it is and we must deal with that.
There is no God, never was a garden of Eden or an Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of a fictitious tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That is just a mythical story created by humans to offer some comfort to their fellow beings.
The Shack will appeal to and serve as affirmation for devout Christians but can offer scant comfort to those facing a denouement to their lives that consists of the excruciating pain of cancer. Humans provide morphine to dull the pain and provide a more comfortable journey into death. Who is more humane: a God who does nothing because of a choice made by the first human or a doctor with pain killer? Who is your friend? Who is really there with you?
In the story there was no one there with Missy. She died a horrible, painful death committed by a sick human being who had executed other young girls. All the prayers in the world didn't help Missy. And the fact remains, God, if He exists, watched it all.
Is He worthy of praise, adulation or love?
Or is it easier to believe that He doesn't exist?
Anger is the proper response to such despicable crimes.
Forgiveness allows the victim's relatives and friends to move on with their lives without allowing anger and revenge to consume them.
We don't need God for that.