There is a peaceful mode, but some resources are only available by defeating monsters. There's also an easy mode, where monster spawns aren't particularly common and they're not hard to kill if you're halfway competent at clicking the left mouse button. I usually play on Easy mode and I find it very easy to focus on building there, with the monsters only serving as a distraction. The only things that would really cause problems are Creepers, and you can find easy-to-install mods that prevent them from damaging blocks or regenerates blocks that Creepers damage. If monsters still bug you, you can switch between Peaceful, Easy, Normal, and Hard at any time while building.
For me, Easy is the way to go. The monsters aren't all that bothersome, but you still need to pay them attention. It just adds a layer of the game that I really like without infringing too much on the building part that I come for. Normal and Hard usually force me to pay too much attention to surviving. I would really suggest trying the game with monsters at some point.
If you don't even want to mine for resources, then you can go into creative mode and spawn anything you want without having to work for the resources. This sounds pretty boring to me (no joy of discovering diamond and making a great pickaxe? Or finally getting all diamond armor?) but if you want the "craft" part without the "mining" then an option exists for you.
Also you can play Minecraft locally and by yourself if you want to, no servers needed.
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