Demi, saying just "things happen" or "god works in mysterious way" seems like a cop out.

Personally I think people saying that because bad things happen, it disproves god are wrong too, you don't take personal occurrences and extrapolate it to mankind and reach a conclusion, that is just bad science.

But we were supposedly created in god's image, and obviously a large part of humanity are evil creatures roaming the earth.

I don't believe in god because I personally believe this is just not a test, my mind could not conceive that god is an omnipotent loving entity when it is this way

When you believe this is it, you try to enjoy the most of the time you have.
Sure it might seem darker and harder, specially not having religion to fallback on when you lose a loved one for example. You won't think "oh hes just going to a better place". But everything is more beautiful because everything will be long gone after we die. Life is more important, a balance of pain and love.

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I do believe absolutely there is a God, that this God is all knowing and all-powerful, but as to understanding everything about God, I think it's beyond our comprehension to be honest. But I find atheism - the idea that us and the world evolved through chance to be very hard to believe. Firstly, all life comes from life, secondly nothing comes from nothing, and thirdly there must have been an intelligent eternal uncaused cause that at some point made the infinite finite - resulting in the intelligent design of the universe: a universe of order, precision, cause and effect, but one that is finite. For something to not exist i.e. the universe and then to suddenly exist, requires factor X. Something that did not exist, but then does exist, is not eternal. To exist when previously did not means it had a cause. In the case of the universe, this was either accidental i.e. random chance or intelligent design. If big bang, which caused the universe (so we are told) was random chance, then so too would the events preceeding big-bang have to be random chance. In that way, all we have are endless finites i.e. events with a life-span. All must eventually have an uncaused eternal cause - for what is eternal cannot be transitory.

Just because we don't know something, we can't attribute it to god. That is how much of the natural phenomena was described in the past. Rain? its the gods. Earthquake? its the gods.
Science is ever-evolving, and Einstein proved the laws of thermodynamics can change in different conditions with special relativity. Now we have quantum physics trying to explain the Paradox of the behavior of matters such as gravitons and light.
Your statement about life has to come from life is wrong and has been proven with abiogenesis and the primordial soup.
I don't know why is so mind boggling to think that the universe or matter could have always existed. It seems easier to attribute the creation paradox to god, and if you ask then what created god, the easy answer (cop out to me)is "he is omnipotent" he can do anything.
If you read some of the hypothesis that come with the super string theory and quantum physics you could hypothesize this "god entity" is just a being from a type 3 civilization. Sure to us he might be a god, but to him and his civilization he is just a being with super technological advance.

Anyways we could debate this forever and never find an answer, the important thing is keeping to your beliefs, just don't come saturday morning at 7:00 am trying to "convert me" to whatever religion you believe in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />