Gods supposed perfection

[Esquilax]

The initial claim is that 'God is morally wrong because eternal punishment is wrong.' This assertion is different than 'God is morally wrong because how He is described in the bible does not match up with the claims made about him.'

The former is a subset of the latter; eternal punishment for finite crimes is morally wrong, and therefore the bible is in error when it describes god as morally good and perfect.

Your response, this "oh, we all think god should act like this or that, but he's god and we have no right to tell him how to act!" does not address the claim in any kind of rational manner, but instead seeks to redefine each of the concepts we find god doesn't possess so that he does, by claiming that they mean something other than what they do, or that there's some extra special higher meaning of them that god knows about, and although you can't explain what that is, it totally exists, you guys.

But you can justify absolutely anything if you're willing to simply change the meanings of words when they are applied to your god, while still somehow expecting us to think of the real meaning when we talk about him. It's not a germane position to take.

The initial claim made, is that God is immoral because eternal punishment is wrong. The atheist uses this assertion to conclude God's not fair, not moral, not worthy of praise, doesn't exist, etc. The direct implication of the original claim is that if God punished people in a way fitting to the critics liking [acted the way I want Him too], then He would be fair, moral, worthy of praise, existent, etc.

And this is the other prong of this dishonest argument; an attempt to devalue your opponent's claim into one of personal preference, rather than the definitional argument that it actually is. It's not about what the individual speaker wants to be true, and I think you know that: it's about pointing out that god is not acting in line with our common understanding of moral goodness, for several reasons.

To begin with, punishment serves two purposes; atonement and rehabilitation. By definition, infinite punishment for finite crime will become excessive at some point, and rehabilitation is impossible if the punishment is all there will ever be from that point on. That makes it unjust, and hence immoral. Additionally, torture is the epitome of cruel and unusual punishment, and we generally call the infliction of punishment for crimes we cannot avoid committing "entrapment," and when the punishment is handed down by an authority without any accountability or requirement to be a representative of the people, that's called a dictatorship. All immoral.

So eternal punishment is excluded from any normal understanding of regular morality, let alone perfect morality. Therefore, any being performing eternal punishment cannot be morally perfect, and therefore the claims about god in the bible do not accurately reflect the character it portrays. How will you attempt to reconcile this? Well, I've no doubt you'll appeal to some special other morality that god has, some magic quality or reason that makes it okay that god possesses and we don't. Aside from being special pleading, this is the Argument from Vague Possible reasons I alluded to before, and it's, yes, redefining the term morality to mean something other than it means.

Don't think I haven't played this game before.

If you want to claim that God is wrong to punish people, then justify the claim. If you want to argue that God, as He is described in the Bible, does not match up with the claims made about him, then justify that claim. I'm content discussing either claim.

Look up, Skippy.

How do you know that I'm assuming the conclusion [God's nature] to prove the premise [God's actions]? How do you know that I don't recognize that people break the moral law, read in the Bible that God forgives [action] some [through sacrificial atonement] and doesn't forgive others and then conclude that God [His nature] is both merciful and just?

Because "merciful and just" and "advocator and performer of infinite punishment," are mutually exclusive terms. Hell, "merciful," and "just," are mutually exclusive terms, because mercy is a suspension of justice. Perfect justice and any mercy at all are necessarily in contradiction.

Are you honestly suggesting here that I have an argument with myself? I can think of possible alternatives, but no one has offered one.

One would think the obvious alternative is that one suffers punishment commensurate with the crime they have committed, after a fair trial, and that they are released once that is finished. Of course, that would require that god, being the putative victim in this case, recuse himself from passing judgment, but that's just one of the many problems with the system as it stands that makes god's judgment deeply unfair.