"Why not" is only sidestepping the question, Rider. And how do you know that the goal is after the fact? I tend to think you're right, but I don't think that's something we'll ever be able to know.

The reason I say that's the question is that if there's a goal, it implies that there's something with a goal in mind. That's why I see the gods as part of the process, and they're stuck in the same thermodynamic "dimension" of time that everything else is.

Actually, the idea that we have free will agrees with that too. God has to abide by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.