Well I’m what you would call a religious person, I wouldn’t say I attribute all of human achievement to god but I would say I believe he got the ball rolling.
I have a very interesting, but rather unpopular theory on this and - just hear me out.
God exists in 3 "persons" - Father, Son, Holy Spirit which equate to mind, body and soul (spirit). And we are made in His image. His "world" is a spiritual world consisting of mind and soul. Body or physical as we know it only exists on earth.
As a Spiritual being he created our existence by speaking it into being - Let there be light etc.
Without going into lengthy discussion of the dispensations (different phases of how God Interacts with humans) he interacted with humans through his select (Kings, prophets) and via supernatural (burning bush etc) but not until Jesus did he have a flesh / physical form. After his death, that ended his physical interaction with our world. The whole coming to Earth as flesh fulfilled a lot of things required to set things right with humans allowing them to take part in a rebirth which is a rebirth of the human spirit in communion with HIS spirit.
So when someone says God "did" something, it pisses me off too. Most of the time, it is just a nice person who did it, or luck. BUT - if a believer with a reborn spirit is open and willing, he CAN work through them. I have personally seen things that I'm sure none of you (myself included) would believe. It took multiple instances to really convince me.
Zooming out again. God the Spirit creates a physical world that he cannot directly manipulate or interact with or control. He set things in motion as PMYB2 said, but at that point, not a program, but more a framework was established that included turning away from Him and cutting communion with His Spirit. Why? Because his Spirit cannot commune with an unrighteous one. The only way to get people righteous was to sacrifice himself has the ultimate burnt offering, paying the bill for all sins for all time and all humans have to do is accept the gift, which puts them in a righteous state, allowing communion again.
TL;DR - You should have read it, but -- God put the ball in motion as a framework with free will. Stupid people chose wrong and God tried a lot of different methods to make things right before ultimately offering himself (via Himself the Son) as the final blood sacrifice. Where we are now is God can ONLY interact with the world through people whose spirits are in communion with His. Ie, God works through people.
I'd like to add a small tidbit to this. There isn't a spot in the bible that I have been able to find where it specifically states any specific human spirit will go the lake of fire. There are also a few instances of the bible suggesting reincarnation is a thing. Such as the whole John the Baptist and Elijah thing. So I think a possible working theory on the matter would be we are all just going around and around on this planet until we accomplish whatever our purpose might be. Just a theory but I think its an interesting idea if nothing else.
I've seen / read many interesting theories. First, did you know the origins of hell was actually a big firepit (with brimstone) outside of Jerusalem where IIRC lepers etc were left to die / dead bodies burned? Literally a lake of fire type deal. The word for that and the word for hell are the same so hard to know what exactly is being referenced.
My personal opinion is that "hell" could be a state of separation from God for eternity, whereas Heaven would be a state of forever being in communion. I don't think the eternal torment thing is Biblical outside of things mostly from Revelation and cooked up by early Church to scare people into following.
From the bit I have talked with you and what I have seen you post you are not stupid. You most likely understand that we achieved this on our own through our turmoil. I am talking about the people who praise god for every little thing we do without realizing there is a separation through human achievement and a creator.
Our achievements are our own to the extent that the greatest gift i believe we have is free will, we can choose what we want to do and we are responsible for it good or bad and everything in between. I’d like to think most people who believe understand that but then again most who “believe” what ever faith they have or choose most don’t even read the literature.
Interesting. You are an IT man. Would you create flawed software/hardware and then give it free will? Seems silly to me.
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