posted the following on an atheist vs. Christian debate website. I have not become an atheist, just a disillusioned, disenchanted, disheartened former Christian who is convinced that God falls into one of three categories: one, he's an apathetic, ambivalent, indifferent absentee landlord, two, a sadist, or three, suffers with multiple-personality disorder. I CHALLENGE YOU TO PROVE TO ME THAT MY ANALOGY IS FLAWED.
The post was titled "Is God a Sadistic Monster?" A judge brings a frightened 18 year old girl before his court. The girl has committed no "crimes" per se, but has committed many of the same "sins" that an average young woman of her age might have committed in the course of her short life, i.e. white lies, masturbation, "mouthing off" to parents and authority figures, cheating in school, and a host of other petty misdeeds. The judge tells the girl that she will be allowed no legal representation. No one will be permitted to speak on her behalf but she herself. The judge tells this girl that although her "crimes" are minor, she will be taken out, doused in gasoline, set ablaze, and then thrown into a vat of sulfuric acid while she is still burning.. Then he, the judge, will stand over this vat and listen to her beg and scream for mercy until she finally expires in excruciating inconceivable agony.NOW, this is going to require an inordinate amount of objectivity on the part of any fundamentalist or evangelical reading this, which, having been one, I know is probably beyond your capacity. However, in all honesty, what would society call this judge? Righteous? Pure? Merciful? PLEASE!! Don't delude yourself! It is a safe bet that society would probably call him a sadistic beast not worthy to live on the same planet with decent human beings!Now, this same girl appears before "The Sinner's Judgment" withthe Honorable Judge Jesus Christ presiding! He also tells her that she will not be allowed legal representation. For no other reason than because she failed to "mouth out" the "sinners prayer", this merciless brute of a God (I use God and Jesus interchangeably because Christians consider them the same) will throw this terrified young, barely beyond adolescence (but beyond the scripturally ambiguous "age of accountability"), girl into the "Lake of Fire", a fate approximately one million times more agonizing than what the Earthly judge subjected her to.Now, what makes God, Jesus, whomever, any different than this Earthly judge? How is God different morally? Ultimately, there is no difference, and I have, in fact, "called the Emperor naked". For Godto throw ANY person into eternal fire where they will never die and never know respite, and scream and wail while God and Jesus treat it as "music to their ears" is such a morally unconscionable act it beggars description!! The fact is, God is a two-faced hypocrite who employs a "double standard". He claims not to tolerate cruelty and inhumanity, and he will become the most inhumane, vicious, merciless, animalistic brutal sadistic monster ever in history when, on Judgment Day, he throws the billions of "lost souls" into this eternal barbecue pit. Now, I would like to confront the most common(and inherently inane and ludicrous) arguments that Christians use to get God "off the hook" to keep him from appearing as I have described.
ARGUMENT 1)"God doesn't send anyone to Hell, they put themseles there!": Okay, so you're saying that if a person who dies "in their sins" stands before God and takes a good hard look at Hell, that he has the option to "decline"? Please! Get real! The Bible clearly states that the lost will be "cast"(the operative word here is "cast", not briskly walked, not gingerly ran, not eagerly waltzed) into the Lake of Fire! Now, lest you accuse me of being obtuse, I do understand what you're endeavoring to say, that being, that if a person "rejects Christ as their Lord and savior, doesn't repent of their sins, yadda, yadda, yadda," they have, by default, chosen of their own free will to go to Hell. The flaw in this "defense" is that it is a twist on the warnings that Draconian tyrants, emperors, and dictators have given their subjects since time immemorial. That as long as you play the game by their rules, they won't subject you to unspeakable torture! However, it doesn't make Hell one degree cooler whether or not God decides or the "sinners" decide where they spend eternity. It is still a morally unconscionable Draconian punishment. It's analogous to saying that if a father decides to allow his child to voluntarily dive into a shark-infested pool as a self-inflicted punishment for "wrong-doing", that gets dear old Dad "off the hook".
ARGUMENT 2) "The Lake of Fire was designed and prepared for the Devil and his angels, not people." Okay, but regardless, God intends to throw the lost into it. It may not "originally" have been meant for people, but God, in his infinite wisdom and mercy, has decided to take "the more, the merrier" approach, and use it as the primary method of eternal punishment for sinners. He has therefore, by default, designed it for both Devils and people.
