If God exists, why does He allow bad things to happen?

Over 6,000 years ago God told Adam and Eve (the mother and father of all mankind) in Genesis 2:17 "…to not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil for when you eat of it you will surely die". Adam and Eve's choice to sin against God brought death and evil into the world, "……as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned…." (Romans 5:12)

God did not choose for sin and evil to enter into His perfect Creation, but He did give man his own free will to choose, and as a result of man choosing to disobey God, we are today living in a "fallen" environment because of those choices made by the father and mother of all mankind (Adam and Eve).

Genesis 2:17 demonstrates God did not create us to serve Him, He created us with our own individual choice to serve Him. Adam chose, and unfortunately, we are living with the results of his choice. God wanted each of us to choose to serve Him, not to be forced to; He is a perfect God.

Adam and Eve's choices have very clearly effected the environment in which we today live. The evil events that take place in this "post-sin" world are each and of themselves, choices man makes on his own. It's about time man stops blaming God and religion for man's own decisions. Wars, terrorism, murder, and rape, are not events ordained by God but rather individual choices made by man.

A good analogy to express the effects of Adam and Eve's choice would be to examine the choice parents make today with regards to their children in contrast to the choices Adam and Eve made. The decisions parents make regarding the raising of their children will greatly influence who those children become and what they believe. Kid's raised in parentless environments where there is no discipline or direction may not ever learn to appreciate Gods love and the precious value of life. Because of this, that child may grow up to murder an innocent human being. This is not an act chosen by God, nor can it be categorized as "God's perfect-will", but rather a demonstration of mans choosing, thus, "God's permissive-will". In this case, man chose to murder, God didn't choose for that family member to be murdered.

It is important to recognize that God does not desire these things to happen, but He allows them to happen because of the curse from Adam and Eve's rebellion against God. If God restricted mankind to His perfect-will, mankind would be restricted from sinning, and God would have therefore effectually robbed man of his free will. If mankind could not choose to Sin, then he would have no choice but to be Holy. At that point, mankind would not be Holy, he would be a robot.

For a deeper explanation on this topic, please also see The Ultimate Tragedy; Why God allows Natural Disasters.