God in the equation

    I am a person who has problems believing, and yet, in spite of them, perhaps because of them, I do believe. I think the right to doubt is one of the most important rights given to human beings. But I believe in God. In fact I never stopped believing in God—that's why I had the problem, the crisis of faith. If I had stopped believing, then I would have been much more at peace. It would've been okay to be disappointed in human beings. what else could you expect from a human being who is the object of seduction and all kinds of ambition, right? It is easier if God doesn't enter the equation. The moment you start to believe in God, then how can you accept the world? Do you then accept God's absence? Do you accept God's silence? God—why doesn't he tried to make people better, make them lead better lives and be kinder to each other? Why doesn't he do it? A few times he gave up. But the floods were not a punishment for sins against God but for crimes against each other. what are they doing to themselves? God thought. So he brought the floods. And it didn't help. I cannot understand two aspects of human nature: indifference and nastiness. I cannot understand. At my age, I should be able to understand. But I cannot. I do not understand. Indifference and nastiness on every level, on petty levels and on high levels.

—Elie Wiesel, Author, Holocaust Survivor, Nobel Peace Prize Winner, quoted in The God Factor, by Cathleen Falsani.