There is more to
God, and
religion, then you can grasp from
any single point of view. It's like looking at a
ball. No matter where you stand, you'll always see
something, but you'll not see
everything. You can move, but then you'll miss something else.
That is true of many things, but especially this.
Take a look at God, either the reality or the concept (depending on your belief or lack thereof in God, but not necessarily in that order). He's had a lot of effect on the world's history, no matter how you slice it - He's started (and ended) wars, He's caused migrations, and a lot of other things, too.
But this God concept has been tied to many things - good, bad, and stupid. If there is a God, why would He allow, even help cause (since He could easily have caused things to work out differently), all the many atrocities in the world?
He, obviously, does allow such things to happen. Yet he also includes free will as an inherent part of the current state of Creation. How can these two things co-exist?
The only answer I can think of that seems to fit this, is that God is multi-faceted. He is both a manipulative God and a hands off God. He both wants the best for us, and makes bad things happen. He is both all powerful, yet limited (in that he doesn't just "make it so", which may or may not be in contradiction to omnipotence). He deals with us both on an intensely personal level, and on a grossly political level - he smites nations without a second thought, yet saves individuals with no redeeming characteristics.
On the face of it, that view sounds, well, wrong. How can God be two things at once? Isn't that blatantly illogical?
I base this idea, that God is multi-faceted, on a few things. First, on the various verses in the Bible that say that you can't know God, that he is beyond human understanding. (I'll get citations up soon, I swear!) Second, on the ideas I've seen in Zen - that there are unknowable things, things that cannot be fully expressed in language. Finally, that I've seen no explanation that fully explains all of God's actions.
This node isn't trying to be an exaplanation of all of God's actions. It tries to be more of an acknowledgement that God is unknowable - that you can't sit down and understand all of God's actions. It is for this reason that God has remained interesting for so long. He never quite fits into whatever box you put him in, unless that box is so vague as to be meaningless (except in a Zen sense).
God is what He is. To say more is to look only at once facet of him. And even to say that...