The Good Father

@suzianne said
Perhaps he should have made that clear in the OP.Such a God is not my God.

"God" is not mentioned in the OP. So, perhaps, rather than coming out spitting chips and swinging and missing, you should have acknowledged what the analogy in the OP was actually getting at - sonship's torturer God figure, specifically - and then explained why your God figure is not the same as sonship's.

@fmf said
Ah, so then, are you back with your self-parodying 'non-believers torture themselves for eternity - God has nothing to do with' "moral" argument, are you?

So, you should not be responsible for the choices that you made that were bad... you should be able to opt out of these choices whenever in the future..?

You are not responsible for the future you choose for yourself..?

I don't understand.

It sounds like you're saying, "I want to be able to choose to disavow God and denounce Him, but I shouldn't have to face this music if there is a God because I did not really choose that..."

The good news is that I think there is potential for people who really did not want to choose to be away from God to maybe find themselves to be shown his mercy. I don't know. I am not the one who is involved with such a decision.

@philokalia said
So, you should not be responsible for the choices that you made that were bad... you should be able to opt out of these choices whenever in the future..?

But I AM responsible for them ~ to my wife, to my children, to my family, to my neighbours, to my kampung, to my workplace, to my students, to my clients, to my city and country.

@philokalia said
You are not responsible for the future you choose for yourself..?

Of course I am. But some supernatural figure who happens to appeal to your imagination, and isn't credible to me, in part because of the moral incoherence of all the torture ideology, does not create any moral imperatives for me. Your belief in supernatural causality does not create any responsibility for me or for anyone else.

@philokalia said
It sounds like you're saying, "I want to be able to choose to disavow God and denounce Him, but I shouldn't have to face this music if there is a God because I did not really choose that..."

The good news is that I think there is potential for people who really did not want to choose to be away from God to maybe find themselves to be shown his mercy. I don't know. I am not the one who is involved with such a decision.

I have no reason to believe there is, or will be, any supernatural "music" that I have to face. My moral actions are unaffected by the claims of theists - of whatever colour or stripe - about what their angry and vengeful Gods are supposedly going to do to me INSTEAD of leaving me to die.

@philokalia said
Does a good father respect the free will and decisions of their children..?

Granting of, or respecting, free will - in this case - would be showing me that eternal torture actually exists [you have not a shred of evidence that it does], and will be meted out for failure to live my life in the required way, and then I can use my free will to either live as required or face the consequences.

You can't keep some ludicrous morally depraved system of torture, for all intents and purposes, secret and - to most human beings - not credible, and then start emitting some word salad about "free will".

@philokalia said
So, you should not be responsible for the choices that you made that were bad... you should be able to opt out of these choices whenever in the future..?

You are not responsible for the future you choose for yourself..?

I don't understand.

It sounds like you're saying, "I want to be able to choose to disavow God and denounce Him, but I shouldn't have to face thi ...[text shortened]... emselves to be shown his mercy. I don't know. I am not the one who is involved with such a decision.

You should be able to opt-out of these choices whenever in the future..?

Do you believe that the fact you have opted-in to the Orthodox Catholic Church - relatively recently - means that I now have to opt-in as well?

And how does opting-in to the Orthodox Catholic Church make you responsible for the choices that you make that are bad? Are you now trying to act in a morally sound way because you are afraid of being tortured in burning flames for eternity?

@suzianne said
Such a God is not my God.

Perhaps you should have made that clear in your reply.

@philokalia said
I don't understand.

Perhaps.

Or maybe you are pretending not to.

@fmf said
He works hard to feed and clothe his children well.

He is fiercely protective of them.

He is devoted to them and loyal and attentive.

When they disobey him or anger him he repeatedly burns them on their arms with a lit cigarette.

He burns them on their faces.

He burns their eyes if he gets really angry.

He makes them pull their underwear down and burns the sof ...[text shortened]... h burning cigarettes - his "ultimate" or "perfect" moral action as a father?

Is he a good father?

Add one little fact to your scenario and we have a better comparison. Here the earthly father faces an enemy with whom he is at war. This enemy infiltrates the minds of his children and they become evil. These children kill and destroy other children and infect everything that the father created.

This is an important part of the teachings of the bible although some religions ignore it. There s no option at some point to end it by destroying the enemy and all who are so infected. The father tells his children, come home to me, stay with me, live a certain lifestyle, do / do not do certain things and you will inherit all that I have. Evil children who ignore the father are not tormented, they are just ignored.

@philokalia said
So, you should not be responsible for the choices that you made that were bad... you should be able to opt out of these choices whenever in the future..?

In 2 Samuel, David counted his army. God's response to this? He inflicted a terrible disease on the entire nation that killed 70,000 people. Their death had nothing to do with their own choices.

Was God justified in doing this? Or was this something a horrible abusive father would do?

One more question: a husband comes home, his wife doesn't have dinner ready. He kills their children out of anger. How is this any different from what God did in 2 Samuel?

@fmf said
divegeester doesn't subscribe to the torturer God ideology and I believe that death is the end. Why are you so scornful towards people DON'T subscribe to the ideology being dissected and yet you never, ever have enough discursive courage to push back at the people who actually believe in and promote the eternal torture theology?

^^ this ^^

@suzianne.

@vivify

In 2 Samuel, David counted his army. God's response to this? He inflicted a terrible disease on the entire nation that killed 70,000 people. Their death had nothing to do with their own choices.

Details of the story you are leaving out which I think are important.

David sinned and God gave David three choices to choose from as God's discipline.

David's wise choice was - "Let me fall into the hands of God because He is merciful. But don't let me fall into the hands of man."

God then did not let David be punished by his enemies, but instead fall under divine discipline. And, David turned out to be right. God cut the punishment short because He essentially said "That's enough". This vindicated David's wisdom.

Now, the multitudes of people who died is a hard matter. However we are not all knowing, omniscience, and infallible in perception of what should happen to who.

We don't know of the cases before God of each one who died. But I do know that in the first book of the Bible Genesis Abraham challenged God to assure himself that the Judge of all the world would know not to judge Sodom and Gomorra so that the unworthy to be punished would be punished along with the culpable.

See Genesis 18:23-33.

I also notice that in the case of God wanting to judge the city of Nineveh in the book of Jonah God knew the exact count of people who He should spare.

"And I, [God] should not have pity on Nineveh, the great city, in which are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot discern between their right hand and their left, . . ." (Jonah 4:11)

I choose to believe that in judgment God knows exactly what should be done.

@sonship said
Details of the story you are leaving out which I think are important.

David sinned and God gave David three choices to choose from as God's discipline.

How does this matter, exactly? David's choices were:

a) Three years of famine inflicted on an entire nation
b) Three months of fleeing for their lives
c) Three days of disease

Some "choice". David naturally chose the least severe option.

What you failed to acknowledge in your post is the reason David was forced to make one of these "choices": because he counted his army. That's it.

Merely counting an army was enough to provoke God to either inflict three years of famine, three months of fleeing for their lives from enemies, or three days of disease.

How is this any different from an abusive father?

@vivify said
How does this matter, exactly? David's choices were:

a) Three years of hunger inflicted on an entire nation
b) Three months of fleeing for their lives
c) Three days of disease

Some "choice". David naturally chose the least severe option.

What you failed to acknowledge in your post is the reason David was forced to make one of these "choices": because he counted ...[text shortened]... lives from enemies, or three days of famine.

How is this any different from an abusive father?

Imbecile atheists keep trying to understand the bible without reading it. David's sin was disobedience. God had told David that the Jews would multiply so greatly in number that the enemies trying to destroy the Jews would had a hard time. The numbering meant a lack of trust in God. That was his sin.