The absolute absurdity of God

[LadyForCamus]

You do not go to Hell because you have doubts. You go to Hell for rejecting whatever revelation he provides you.

Look, it’s not lost on me that if we’re having a discussion about the internal consistency of Christian doctrine, I, as a non-Christian, am obligated to play by those rules. I understand that if it’s true that the reason people go to hell is because they have rejected something god has plainly offered them, then god’s actions can be morally justified.

But, I’m asking you to think outside the box of your religion, and consider this scenario objectively for one second. Is it sincerely your position that the most probable reason someone like me is an atheist, is because I have rejected some profound revelation of truth that was waved under my nose? That that explaination is more likely than the notion that I simply don’t find the evidence compelling? Are you willing to consider these options as the critically thinking individual you have demonstrated yourself to be, rather than just regurgitate what the Bible tells you to think?  Because, as I said previously, as an open-minded outsider looking in, ‘the ones who don’t believe just didn’t want to believe’, reeks of an ad hoc explaination; one Christians use to excuse the actions of their god, and dismiss the billions of human souls they believe will suffer eternally, without a nagging conscience keeping them up at night.

Further, such explanation is a blanket straw-man that you and your book commit every single time you talk to a fellow human on the subject, to the degree that it can’t be a genuine discussion. If I tell you that I, Michelle, have wanted to believe in god for a long time; that when my belief was crumbling years ago, I prayed for any sign; any dangling rope to hold on to; and your response to me is, ‘according to my book you just didn’t want it bad enough’, then you’re not actually talking to me. You’re shutting down dialogue with a fallacy. Imagine how quickly you’d take me down, Steve, if I said, “you don’t really believe in god. You’re just holding on to a comforting fantasy, and deep down you know it isn’t true.”  I get that you are starting at, “my book is true”, but then why bother engaging with people at all if you aren’t going to accept the reasons they give you?  In that case, what you’re doing boils down to preaching.

A narcissistic monster that came and died to so that you can choose to make things right-

Who knew, before doing any of that, how many billions of his creatures would not get the message, and what he would have to do to them after the fact. And he did it anyway. For himself. To serve his personal desires. But, since all those souls like mine don’t really want god’s gift in the first place, I guess that makes it okay.  

I will expand my sentence from above: Glorifying God involves having the fullest possible existence--which includes a relationship with him. The 'fullest possible existence' also includes life's experiences as designed by God -- other relationships, love, art, natural beauty, knowledge, fulfillment, altruism, mercy, etc. The fruits of the Spirit come to mind: joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control--things that keep your mind healthy and balanced. Stop characterizing "glorifying god" as some result of a narcissistic demand for worship.  The word would have been 'worship' if that were the case. I can glorify God in my marriage, in my job, in my hobbies by living according to God precepts for those things and correctly recognizing them as God's design for a rich life. You can boil it down to things: precepts and a proper perspective.

 
Dictionary definiton time:

Glorify:

1. To praise and worship.

2. To describe or represent as admirable, especially unjustifiably.

I don’t see ‘fullest possible existence’, ‘relationships’, ‘fruits of the spirit’, ‘loving art’, or ‘mercy’ anywhere.

For any such argument to succeed, you have to show that God created a system with a net-negative OR he could have done it differently with a better balance of negative/positive outcomes. You are getting hung up on that part of that includes us recognizing our place in relation to his and offering him the worship he deserves.

He could have done nothing at all.  Also, why does god deserve worship?  I thought it wasn’t about worship?  You said: 

The word would have been ‘worship’ if that were the case.

Does god want be worshipped?  Does he ask to be?