That's a comforting thought, but I think God got carried away dishing out the suffering.

The term "objective truth" can be viewed as a tautology. If something really is true, it is by definition objective. Also, if something is subjective, it can't be true. You're entitled to your own opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. Say, a dictator of the country of Fargo says, "The people in my country are happy." Then he trots out several smiling families who present a picture of domestic bliss. Hidden away are those who live in grinding poverty and who can't even get clean water to drink. Then the U.S. worsens their misery by declaring an economic embargo on the country. The dictator will shout, "The U.S. is a fascist country that attacks its peaceable neighbors! That is a fact." Well, it's not a fact. In order for a country to be fascist it has to meet certain criteria that the U.S. doesn't meet. Then the U.S. responds by saying, "The dictator of the country of Fargo is the worst tyrant to appear in South America in a hundred years." That isn't objectively true also. There have been several worse dictators in South America during this time. They say the first casualty of war is the truth. The dictator keeps escalating the situation, and the U.S. finally decides to invade Fargo and put someone they like in power. The thing is, when we don't have rigorous standards of discourse and reasoning bad things can happen.

I believe in an imaginary construct because I am enough of a pessimist to believe there is a God that would send us to hell for thought crimes. It's not a rational belief, but it makes perfect sense to believe that the God who gives us bone cancer would send us to hell.

You're expressing exactly what I am thinking, Gnostic Christian Bishop. I find all the praise to God hard to take when there are so many terrible things that happen in the world. I could accept it, if it was moderate suffering, just something to test our mettle, but things like a person getting third degree burns over eighty per cent of his or her body, or the Nazis seeing how many times they could break the leg of a Jewish child and reset it stick in my craw. And this kind of horror is commonplace. A person dies in agony when he or she has cancer. I've heard that somehow this suffering gives us free will, but I am at a loss to see how. If anything, it terrorizes us into prostrating ourselves before God. There is no free will in that. Also, there is the question of hell. What kind of God would sentence someone to burn for all eternity? That sounds like the ultimate sadism to me. But God had to create hell so we could have "free choice". Go figure. Even though I am terrified of God, I cannot bring myself to worship him or her.