To be honest (and I can hear the Blasphemy Police coming up the path already!) I find the whole story of the Crucifixion absolutely ghastly too. This was God's Son, and apparently He had to die (not sure why, but there you are). Could he not have died in his sleep aged 100? Or fallen in the Sea of Galilee and quickly drowned? Apparently every whiplash and every nail hammered in was 'for us'. I don't get this at all. It was the most agonising death, presumably watched over by God (his Father) and imagine the dreadful suffering of Mary, His mother.

As you say Steve, humans did not create deadly diseases or natural disasters. We had no 'choice' in any of those.
Even the suffering of various types of wildlife I find enormously distressing. Drought and starvation, exploitation and cruelty.
God must be quite a strange entity, to be able to view all this yet do nothing to alleviate any of it.