Okay so I don't have any Christian friends to ask this question to or anything. So I figured I'd ask here.
Why did God even create the Earth? Some people tell me so we can praise Him, but personally, I see that as being very selfish to me.. I want to be part of God's family, I do. I know the only way to Heaven is Him, I just really don't understand. He didn't need us to occupy Him for anything. He already can have anything He wants so why are we here?
"Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever." This is from the first question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC). And the WSC cites these verses to support it:
1 Cor. 10:31;
Rom. 11:36;
Ps. 73:25–28. (Each reference is a link you can click to take you to the passage.)
As far as selfishness goes: We usually think that a person is being selfish if they are not seeking what is in the best interest of another. But in this case it is in man's best interest to glorify God and enjoy him. God is the greatest good and the greatest end to which we can direct our lives. So there is nothing "selfish" (in the sense defined above) about God wanting glory (or praise), since his receiving glory is the greatest good.
Certain human faults like jealousy or selfishness or pride or arrogance don't apply in a straightforward sense to God. For instance, if a human says "I know everything!" we would say this is arrogance, not because it is inherently arrogant to assert that you know everything, but because it is arrogant to assert that you know everything *when you don't*. If you did happen to know everything, the way God does, then it wouldn't be arrogant to make the statement, it would simply be a fact.
I think there is a similar thing going on with selfishness. If a human simply did "whatever he wants" we would consider this person to be selfish. And we would say that a person shouldn't be selfish (shouldn't do whatever he wants). It is true that humans shouldn't simply do whatever they want, because they have to live by an external standard of what they should do and what they should not do. But is this true to God? Does God have an external standard that he is responsible to? No. So selfishness cannot apply to God in this sense either.
