LISTEN, CHRISTIANS!

[Esquilax]

You've gotten one thing right...it IS simple. A being who created the universe out of nothing and to who you owe your whole existence, IS reason alone to accept him as your "lord and superior" (the two are synonymous).

Yeah, shockingly, I'm not convinced by "nuh uh, though!"

Add to that, the fact that he was willing to take on human form and suffer horribly, so that he could adopt you as a son and sit with him in his throne, is even more reason to accept him as your (lord and superior).

I don't particularly think so; the incredibly circuitous and unnecessary nature of that sacrifice- why does forgiveness require a blood sacrifice at all?- is pretty obvious to anybody looking at the story objectively.

Are you saying that you never considered your parents as your superior? How are they somehow more worthy of being your superior than God?

Yes, when I was a child. But when I grew up I realized my parents were simply human, with flaws just like me, not some superior form of life. My relationship with them is one derived from our interactions, not some fiat demand for respect. I feel like this is pretty analogous with how I would treat a god.

But I also have a perfect counterexample to the weird assumptions you're making here: my biological father isn't around anymore. I don't speak to him, I don't think about him, I pretty much despise him. He earned all of that- the nerves in my right hand will never recover from what he did to me- but that's pretty much the point; he earned the way I look at him via his actions. He wasn't granted some assumed lordship over me, his actions dictated his fitness to be around me, and frankly, if you had been around when I was a kid and knew what he was like, I have little doubt that you would absolutely have reached out to help me. You're not a monster, I don't think, I hope that knowing that an adult is being violent with a child would prompt you to consider that maybe that adult isn't fit to raise one. I don't think your response would be "well, he's his father, he gets to do that," would it?

That got a little heavy, but the point I'm making is that we determine our relationship with our parents ourselves, we don't come at them over this predetermined road map. It's the same with god; I consider the sort of person he is before deciding what I want to do with that information. In the case of the christian god, I simply can't get past all the omnicide and turning people to salt; you have all these excuses for why it had to be that way, but sorry, I don't buy them. Probably you think that makes me wrong, which is expected, but it's not illogical for me to hold a position I think is true, even if you don't; the only way it'd be illogical for me to hold that position is if I secretly thought you were right but held my position anyway, which simply is not the case.

Authority is not in your power to grant God. Either he has authority / power or he doesn't, regardless of his "actions, goals and beliefs".

Authority isn't some objective force you can take possession of, it's something granted by others, either grudgingly or willingly. God may have power over me, in that his supernatural abilities can make me do stuff (although you guys often appeal to free will, indicating that he won't) but that doesn't mean I have to endorse him. Maybe Yahweh's stomping around all "might makes right," like the caveman you seem to think he is, but me, as I am now, with my own mind and morals, cannot bring myself to approve of that being. It is inconsistent with my moral character to do so; I will not follow a killer.

If a guy walks up to you points a gun in your face and asks for your wallet.... he's the one with the authority because he has power over life and death. The smart move would be to give him the wallet, because if you don't he'll just shoot you in the face and take it anyway.

So whether or not you believe God is "good" or "evil" is irrelevant. As the scripture says

so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. - Philippians 2:10

Your only choice is where you bend the knee, heaven or hell... either way, you WILL acknowledge God as superior.

And you find this god, whom you literally compared to a criminal, to be moral?

You know, "my god can force you to do what he says," is not an argument against my position here. It's not my position that I'm somehow strong enough to resist god, just as there are plenty of earthly violent bullies I doubt I could resist; yes, I can be forced to do things by entities with sufficient power to do that. Still doesn't change the fact that I cannot legitimately believe that god is moral, or superior to me in any respect other than his power. Maybe he can make me do stuff, force me to cooperate, but he can't change my mind that way. And if he does change my mind, either supernaturally or through torture, then he's just brainwashing me; that's not me in there anymore.

All things being equal, the me that exists now could not accept your god, especially after what you've just said about him. I can believe that he exists, given sufficient evidence to do so, but to actually believe that he's my superior? No, can't do it. And nothing he forces me to do, without literally altering the contents of my mind, will make that belief any more likely. In fact, it'll make it less so, because I happen to lump dictators in with killers in terms of things I can't believe are moral.

The above shows why your reasoning is flawed.

No, it just shows that you don't understand the difference between belief and deed, which isn't surprising.