Things I've learned as a Catholic: It's not God's fault

In my days of youth and "rebellion" my religion was rock and roll music. Punk, classic, new wave. Anything with a good beat and guitar and some "deep" lyrics would hook me.

This was one of those songs I liked:

Nowadays, I look at it and think how silly I was, (I still love this band though. They have true God given talent! ;-)..)
I've come to find out that the songwriter, Andy Partridge, understands the paradox of writing to a god he doesn't believe in and has stated that in the song, he was working out the last bit of any belief in God that he may have had in the past.  However, it still illustrates something I've found among many atheists. The especially outspoken ones seem to be angry and railing against something they don't believe in. They blame this what they say is a non-existent God for all that's wrong in the world.  Yet, how can they even complain about evil in their relativist worldview? The concept of good and evil are difficult to explain without implying a divine author and an objective source of truth. Yet many passionate atheists try and their arguments fail to reach it's logical conclusion. They're saying that there is somehow truth but at the same time there is no source of truth. This is relativism in play. It contradicts itself.  On one hand there's no objective good and evil but on the other hand they'll tell what's good or evil. So, if you don't believe in objective good and evil then you can't complain when you see someone is committing some sort of objective evil and at the same time say that truth is subjective and morals are subjective. If all these things are subjective then who's to say what is evil or good.

So here, the songwriter laments the many ills of the world and if God exists then why are these bad things happening? This is a favorite argument of many atheists: If God exists then why do all these bad things happen? I will attempt to explain why. I used to feel this way so I understand the frustration.

Here's the answer: It's not His fault.

Evil came out of rebellion. All the things we do to hurt others are things WE DO. God didn't exterminate millions of Jews. God didn't cause all the wars. God didn't rob your house or kill your loved one. We live in a fallen world because WE are fallen. So then the atheist asks: Then why doesn't God stop these things? God doesn't outright stop these things because A. He gave us freewill and B. He allows a greater good to come out of it.
God treats us like adults. He respects our freewill and He wants us to love Him freely. He won't force us to love Him and He won't treat us like puppets. Still, He sees us hurting ourselves and others and did something to break the vicious cycle without interfering in our freewill. This is where Jesus comes in.

God went out of His way to rescue us to the point where He became one of us and was brutally tortured and killed for us.  We tortured God. We spat on Him. We ridiculed Him. We killed Him. All of this after He told us to love our enemies and that we must forgive others indefinitely. He said to love one another as He loves us. He said all this knowing that ultimately He would be put to death on the cross. We can't blame God for the things WE DO. But God is bigger and God rose from the dead like it was promised. God does not break His promises. We are always breaking ours and yet He will never take that freewill away from us even when we hurt others or ourselves.  Out of our freewill, we make choices. Good and bad choices. We live with the consequences of the bad. Hopefully, we learn from these consequences, thus the greater good.
Any competent parent knows this when applying this to their own children. We also know that they will often learn to change their behavior because of the consequences of their negative actions.  And, eventually, our children grow up and become independent. We can't control all that they do. We may try to give them advice. We may even plead and beg them not to do something that could harm them. But ultimately, they can choose to listen to us or ignore us. So we can't be blamed for the bad choices they make when we've been guiding them on what the good choices are all throughout their young lives. If they choose to ignore us and they get hurt, they are living with the consequences of their actions. Again, hopefully they will learn from that and the greater good will come out of it. It's the same with God. He can guide us and show us the way but if we ignore Him then we can run into trouble. We can't then turn around and blame God for our bad choices and our fallen world.

As a Catholic, I've learned more about humanity and our fallen nature. I've learned that I'm just as culpable for this fallen world as the person next to me.
I've learned that it's only in God where we find peace, joy and fulfillment. In God I have found my refuge. No matter what is going on in the world, God promises us internal and eternal peace if we follow Him. Again, He does not break His promise even when we are harming each other. He gives us the choice to believe in Him and follow Him or to reject Him and not follow Him. He doesn't promise life on earth will be without suffering, He didn't escape suffering when He became one of us.  Our world is fallen because of our rebellion. We live with the consequences of that. He only promises us eternal life if we really want it. And then He shows us The Way. But it is always up to us. We can say no at any time. We can back out and walk away. It's our choice and our consequences.

So... stop blaming God. It's not His fault.