Imagine a single parent. A father with a couple of kids. These kids are young, around 5-6 years old, let’s say. They are completely dependent on their parent. But the father mistreats them. He makes them follow his own arbitrary set of rules, some of which he keeps changing at his whim.
The kids are young and don’t understand all that their father wants them to do. When they do break a rule, he beats them mercilessly. They are hardly given a chance to explain and are punished regardless. Any infraction, small or large, is dealt with in the same fashion. There are occasions when even their child brains can understand that they haven’t made a mistake, but to question their father’s decision is to invite more punishment. They live in constant fear of committing some error and inviting his wrath. They fail to even develop their own system of judgment of right and wrong and blindly adopt their father’s, at least that part of it that they can decipher. He can beat them, deny them food, tie them up in the basement, essentially do anything to them for any length of time and they have no choice but to take it in their stride.
On top of this, the one condition they must always abide with is to love their father unconditionally. At all times, even when he’s whipping the hide of their back, they must say they love him. Even if he forgets to feed them or otherwise fails to provide for them, they must believe it’s their fault and still profess their love for him. For to say that they don’t, that they hate him and question his mental stability and refuse to accept his whimsical and irrational rules is to invite the worst punishment they can ever dream of. And that punishment can last for an indefinite period of time. In fact, to question his judgment and his rules means that he will punish them, no matter what they do right.
Wouldn’t you call this father the worst example of parenthood ever? Wouldn’t you report him to child care and try to ensure he never gets anywhere near his poor, tortured kids again? I surely would. Now, if you cannot countenance such a father, how can you believe in such a god?
hbhatnagar 
This is one of those things that struck me hardest when I looked from without at Christianity. Having grown up within the belief system practically from birth, this is something we are desensitized to early on. We’re taught to admire it, to admire the story of Abraham and Isaac! It’s one of the most barbaric tenets of the Christian faith – that God created beings with free will, then blamed them for making their own choices; and then sent his son to be tortured and killed by those imperfect beings for how imperfect they are and are inevitably going to be (to paraphrase Julia Sweeney). This is the God that Christians sing praises to every week, let alone the basis for a system of morality and atonement? It’s staggeringly breathtaking in its inhumanity.
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Posted by David | 26/09/2011, 11:10 PMAnd let’s not forget the fact that this “imperfect creation” supposed to be born of sin and wallowing in sin has been created by god himself! It’s like smashing the computer because you coded a program wrongly, then going on to smash every computer you can get your hands on,
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Posted by hbhatnagar | 27/09/2011, 10:13 AMNo, it’s okay to be abused! Because after you get killed by his punishments, you’ll escape from that basement to the living room, where everything is eternally happy! Woohoo!
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Posted by Titanium Pen | 22/09/2011, 3:19 PM