Four questions for Christians

[Ryantology]

To present god as being capable of wicked acts is to make him capable of evil. And that makes it difficult (if not impossible) to love him for who he is. And then the offer of heaven and hell becomes a matter of coercion and not love. You wouldn't serve god because he deserves your love, you'd serve him because an eternity in heaven sounds a lot less painful than an eternity in hell. So god has to be good. And that leads to rationalizations and beliefs that I find difficult to reconcile.

This is why the whole idea of Christian salvation sounds absurd to me. On one hand, it can only honestly be earned by ignoring one's selfish desires in favor of having a relationship with God. On the other hand, God offers rewards for accepting and punishments for refusing, which is a clear appeal to selfish desires. Either the risk/reward gambit is a red herring, or God is not being honest about what he really wants. You would think that if what God really wanted was a relationship with people who come of their own free will, wanting nothing but fellowship with their creator, the rewards of everlasting life and the punishments of hell would not be necessary enticements. Indeed, they can be nothing but counterproductive.

It just shows the inconsistency of the belief system. We have Christians on this forum who are blissfully sanctimonious in telling us that we refuse God because we care only about ourselves, yet virtually all of them mention the rewards (such as life everlasting) they can't wait to receive in exchange for their dedication. It's obvious what they really care about. Note how upset they get when you confront them with a literal interpretation of the Bible. The reason why is obvious: if you interpret it literally, pretty much nobody is going to heaven when they die.

To say that the bible is evidence of the opposite is to say that the authors wrote the opposite of what they understood.

No doubt the authors of the Bible thought it was a good thing for all of their enemies to die. God is the tool by which they justified themselves.