Have you heard of the baby and the 5,000?  It is an old ethical dilemma.  You're in a concentration camp.  One morning the commandant of the camp comes to you and says, "Here in my hands I'm holding a new born baby.  To your right is a crowd of 5,000 adults. If you tell me to let the baby live, I'll slaughter every one of those 5,000 adults.  But if you tell me to kill the baby, I'll spare the lives of every one of those 5,000 adults."
     This dilemma is asking us to consider the basis of our ethics.  Do we make ethical choices, not on the basis of an unchanging moral foundation, but simply on the basis of their effects? Or do we make our ethical choices on the basis of an unchanging moral foundation, regardless of effect?
     I'll leave you to decide what you would do.  I mention this as I look at the hostage situation with which the nation of Jordan is currently having to deal.  If the country frees a known suicide bomber, ISIS will let its hostage, a solider in Jordan's army, go free.  If not, this soldier will be executed, likely by decapitation.  If the suicide bomber is set free, however, Jordan could be opening the door for additional violence to its citizens. Yet if it does not set this person free, a wife will lose her beloved husband forever--and ISIS may continue to terrorize Jordan anyway.
     What do do?  I pray for the leadership of Jordan, that it will have wisdom in making its choice.  Whose life/lives are more important?  Yes, every life matters to God, and yes, every wife deserves to have her husband, and yes, no nation should be subject to more violence.  But is the greater good the only consideration?  Or are there other facets of the issue?  It's very complicated.
     As is life.  God exists, yes.  Nonetheless, given this fact, how are we to discern how we are to exist?
     In truth, if God did not exist, we would not need to.  The human being would be no challenge at all:  dust to dust, and nothing more.