If God sent your child to Hell.

[JuliaL]

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So, greater metaphysical understanding is going to tell you why we're going to burn in hell?  So, you have no qualms telling a moral atheist that they deserve to burn in hell, you're just not sure why yet?

It is likely that a person already knows why.  Though such may not be the case as people are as adept at self deception as they are at deceiving others.

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The bigger question would why worship a god if you know your child may go to hell.

By extension, an even bigger argument would be why worship a god that sends anyone to hell.  Since, as the song goes, "Everybody is somebody's baby".

But then if we say god will send no one to hell (as they are all the son or daughter of someone) we would have to say why believe in a god.  (I suspect the original intention of the question).

To make this analogous to something we experience let us say that hell = prison.  Now why be part of society or government that could send your child to prison for life (or may even kill them)?  For that matter why be a part of any society or government that imprisons (or executes) anybody at all (after all everybody is somebody's baby)?

I suspect your answer will be similar to my own.  That while it may not necessarily be what you desire you will understand why they are in prison based on the conduct they engaged in and the harm they committed.  With your understanding will come acceptance or determination that your loved one (while still loved) belongs there.

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It seems a common scenario in the history of religion where the complications of simplistic overstatement lead, on further reflection when internal contradictions are discovered, to ad-hoc explanations which generally do not serve to resolve the conflict.

God is omnipotent. -> Can he make a rock so big He can't lift it? -> Sure, how is a mystery.
God is omniscient. -> Does He know of the extent of his knowledge of the things he doesn't know?-> Sure, how is a mystery.
Paradise is perfect. -> Perfect peace includes knowledge of the suffering of others. -> You will understand. It's a mystery.
God is omnibenevolent -> Wherefore evil? -> You will understand.  It's a mystery.
It's a mystery to me why people choose the complex explanation: God and mystery instead of the simple one: No God and the obvious.

I am a fan of these ones:
1.  He does not make the rock and lift it in the same form.  God may be limited by form and volition (see Aristotle essence, accident, and realization)

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2.  He knows that he knows everything.

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3.  Those in paradise are not suffering, but not everyone is in paradise.  Think of it like morphine.  Those on it are felling fantastic, those not are not feeling as awesome.  Does the one on the morphine suffer because the others are not feeling as fantastic?

It is a mystery why people chose to complex an explanation more than they necessary to the point that their convolution ends up excluding their own logic.

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I assume your inclusion of the grinning emoticon is an ironic admission that you are doing exactly what I was describing.  That is, providing an appealing, simple but inadequate rebuttal to the logical contradiction inherent in the appealing, simple but logically impossible description of the deity.


unknown unknowns and omniscience

Bear in mind the example I gave in the original video. The cartesian-demon like example of God's God.  The idea that one such unknown unknown could be that God himself is a created agent, made by an even higher level entity in such a way that God's God never 'reveals' Himself to God; leaves no clues; fashions God's realm and his psyche such that He earnestly believes Himself to be the ultimate source. However, God is labouring under an illusion - an illusion from which there is no escape and no way of detecting or falsifying. At least, no way unless God's God decides to make things otherwise.

BTW, God's God is named Larry.