Well, your second point is intriguing and actually more in line with my true way of thinking, up to a point. But to best explain it, I think it may make sense to revisit the original question - why would a God create us?

An all powerful, solitary being would have created other beings capable of thought for a lot of reasons, some of which may even be incomprehensible. But that God did (let's just assume). So, there's two big options in creating beings - limited and unlimited resources. Beings with unlimited resources would have no sense of time (since time would be infinite), no sense of need (since resources would be infinite), possibly even no sense of self-interest (because what self-interest can their truly be in an infinite world where existence is never ending?). But with limited resources? That's quite different.

You have need, because you must subsist. You have self-interest to keep you going. You have a feeling of time, as your days are always numbered and could end in a flash. You can show compassion and empathy, because you understand that others have needs just like your own. You can show ingenuity and cleverness, because you need to capture resources or complete tasks with the limited time you are offered. You can be wise and experienced, because your time is valuable and it pays to learn from past mistakes instead of just grinding through at the same pace.

So there's a lot of benefits of creating intelligent beings with limited resources. It allows them to bring out the most important characteristics of being an intelligent being. But it also, obviously, brings out the worst - jealousy, starvation, corruption, war... all of mankind's worst traits are all traced back to our pathological need for more, more, more. So clearly resource-limited beings have drawbacks.

So why not a hybrid model? Limited resource beings who must learn all the valuable lessons of being creative, kind and diligent, while fighting off the worst elements of sickness, fear, hatred and ignorance. Who, upon death, graduate to immortal beings in an infinite state of existence who can carry over those lessons to do X. Where X is obviously the thing that we can't comprehend (just like we can't comprehend why God would make any beings period).

With this model, it makes sense why things aren't magically paradise for us. It also explains what (general) purpose we might have here on the planet. People may die and it is a loss... but it also tests our resolve, strengthens our bonds with others and can teach us to value the world we have today. People may get sick, by it teaches us empathy, how to be strong when our bodies are weak and how to be smarter with cures and medicine. People may be cruel, but it teaches us about justice, fairness and how to overcome our feelings of rage when we have been wronged.

The list goes on. Bad things happen and there still could be very real benefits to them, even if they are terrible. And God being God would realize that and know when to intervene (and when to not). Yet if we see someone about to be hit by a car, we aren't God, so we can't assume some higher good is at play... we should (in every case I can think of) act, giving exercise to our courage, our empathy and our best qualities as humans. Because to say "bad things happen for a good reason, so I should take no action" corrodes our empathy and stunts the development we should be on this planet for.





In my own opinion, at least.

God needed us to create plastic because he couldn't do it on his own. We've fulfilled our purpose and now he doesn't need us anymore.

But what if God isn't interested in the final product, but the process?

Then two questions would arise: How would we know, given God's utter incomprehensibility, that he is interested in a process rather than an end result, and how could we have any inkling about what sort of process that might be? How could we have reason to believe that this process would require the creation of limited being like us? There are certainly benefits to creating such beings, but we can't really compare it to the alternatives, because we don't know the alternatives.

I was actually trying to take a step even further back and ask, "Would God create beings like us?" Or to put it in Bayesian terms, if all you knew was that God exists and you didn't know that there was a universe with finite creatures in it, with how much confidence could we predict that God would create such a universe? If God is incomprehensible, then we can't answer this question. I'm worried that your question is a non-starter: It looks like: "Given that we have no idea why God does anything, why did God make us?" To ask the question is to take away one's right to assert any particular answer.

Only thing i can gather was Ego stokeing.

sooo creating an entire species for the sole purpose of worshiping you. isn't ego stoking?

For the lulz?