why were we ever created?

We are created for a purpose. A man could only know the meaning of life if he himself searches for the creator of life. Without knowing the creator, who made you for a purpose then there is no way that you will be able to know the meaning of your life.

from your question itself, i believe that you believed that we were created (not from anything else). so, to say that we were created means that there is someone who created us. this someone is actually God Himself as we can see in Genesis 1:26a which says "And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness..." from this verse we can also see that God created us in His image and according to His likeness. for an example, a glove is created according to the likeness of a hand with the purpose to contain the hand. you can use glove to contain other things too but it's not the main purpose of it being created. likewise, God created us in His image for us to contain Him. if contain other things like education, entertainment, work, etc., we can never be satisfied. here's an interesting link about the mystery of human life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgb2jn7wtLU

The first step towards a realization as to what life means is to realize that man was not created but a product of million of years of evolution.

No one knows for sure, as none of us were there, and none of us are God. Maybe we are the entertainment. Dance Mongo Dance!

you can read the bible if you really want to learn more about life and why we are created. and I suggest the purpose driven life book you can read it too if you are really interested. Honestly I never read a bible or that book but many people and christian read it because many of their question was answer by this books mostly the bible.