From the Christians' viewpoint, their God is justified whenever he smites people, for he is annihilating sin a.k.a evil. Through the Bible we know that God is without sin, and therefore without evil. Christians believe this despite any questionable actions committed by their God. Why is this the case? It is because they believe that their judgement is corrupted by sin and that they are unable to understand a great being such as God-----this is why they scoff at an atheist's accusation that their God is evil.
All good and well, but I want to attack their defense through a different angle. It is required as they can excuse God's mass killings by saying he is acting against sin and is ultimately justified no matter the case.
However, I wish to bring something to light. The Catholic Church proclaims that the unborn go to heaven, and I believe many Christians conclude that young infants do too (if they die). Seeing as a fetus or a young infant can't profess faith or believe, yet are still admitted to heaven, one must conclude that they are sinless. This proclamation would be further supported as a young infant or fetus are barely sentient and cannot reason, thus lacking the ability to know they are defying God. So, what I would have to say is this: God flooded the Earth killing everyone but one family. This means he killed pregnant women which contained unborn fetuses, and also killed infants. He destroyed beings which were without sin. So would this not be reprehensible? Furthermore, in the bible, God causes multiple women to miscarry, once again murdering fetuses----beings without sin. A Christian would argue God is not evil for he only acts against sin, yet records in the Bible indicate he also acts against purity as well. Would this not throw into question, his own purity?
Now, one could counter the point I made above by saying God was sending these children to heaven anyways, so it doesn't matter that he slew them. But in my eyes, this would be an erroneous thing to say. For example, if I were to cut off a person's leg, but then maintain them for the rest of their life, would my initial action suddenly be considered good because of the actions that followed? I think not; I still committed a vile act by cutting off a person's leg. The same would apply to the Christian God. He slew pure beings, thus staining his own hands with the most vile blood possible---making them dirtier than the majority of humans as hardly any ever slay infants. This makes God no better than a brigand, a murderer, a rapist, or a serial killer. Through his own actions---if God were real----he would deserve the same punishment that he inflicts on others, for he is not pure anymore for what he has done, but rather as black and disgusting as the sinners he loathes.
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Surely attempting to prove that the Christian God is .... anything ...... is merely reinforcing their already held belief in its existence.
Wouldn't it be more effective simply to try to disprove its existence .
Perhaps it would be more effective, but I wanted to construct an argument where one could attack the character of their God in a way which would pick apart the reinforcing the bible does to the their God's character. Different people respond to different arguments. Pointing out the inconsistency here is just one way, among many, to demonstrate the flawed concept of Christianity. Ultimately I wanted to use this as a way to insert doubts.
I get that proving that a fictional character possesses certain personality traits within the framework of its mythos is useful in an allegorical sense. But surely you will have to define "evil" first. Christians believe their god is without evil, so whatever it does is not evil regardless how it appears to our human sensibilities. It's a paradoxical and unprovable trap that it might be best to steer clear of.
It is a trap, so that is why I tried to maneuver as best as possible. However, the question as to why I wanted to prove their God's character is questionable in the framework of their mythos is because this mythos IS their reality. This whole argument was meant to insert doubts into their religious thinking.
Compartmentalization is a powerful and slippery tool of the human psyche. It is also a necessary tool which has the nasty habit of allowing one to hold beliefs and take actions which would seem in direct conflict with reason and logic. Good luck with it, though.
The strongest argument I found to show that the christian god is evil, is:
The fact that according to the christian theology, the christian god decided to send all innocent children, babies and unborn miscarriages to hell until he changed his mind and sent his own "innocent" son to pay the price instead.
Any sane normal person would just remove the punishment, but god needs to see "innocent" suffering.
The second best is:
What crime does it fit the punishment of eternal torture?
Even if someone tortures babies for a 100 yeas(all his life), eternal torture is still too much of a punishment, since a 100 years of sins are a blink of an eye compered to eternity.
So god is not only unjust, but cruel and vindictive too.
The god of Abraham is a bully.
Well, your premise is flawed...
"The Catholic Church proclaims that the unborn go to heaven, and I believe many Christians conclude that young infants do too (if they die)."
First, as a protestant, I don't follow the dictates of the Catholic Church too closely. There is precious little Scripture regarding what happens to infants who die, so we just don't have adequate revelation on the matter to be dogmatic. However, there at least implications that infants do go to heaven, and it seems to be consistent with God's grace.
"Seeing as a fetus or a young infant can't profess faith or believe, yet are still admitted to heaven, one must conclude that they are sinless."
This is simply a false conclusion, Biblically. Psalm 51:5 says that we are "formed in iniquity, and conceived in sin." From the moment of conception, humans are under the wrath of God. Every person (except Christ) has grown up to be in rebellion against God, and this is because sin is inherent in our being.
The reasons for believing that babies go to heaven is not due to sinlessness. I'm certainly not sinless, but I am going to heaven. This is because God's righteousness has been imputed to me, thanks to His goodness and grace. If a baby goes to heaven, it would be because God mercifully covered their sinfulness with Christ's atoning blood, just as He did to me. From the book of Jonah we learn that God favors patience and mercy to those who lack the ability to make responsible choices, and so it is possible He simply admits them into heaven through Christ's cross work, as an act of free grace.
It could also be that not all of them enter heaven. According to the Bible, God knows the potential future, and so it may be that He admits those who would have been saved had they lived, and those who never would have been saved under any circumstance are not admitted. I'm not really an advocate of that position, but again, the Bible really doesn't give us much about this.
"The Catholic Church proclaims that the unborn go to heaven, and I believe many Christians conclude that young infants do too (if they die)."
It does not matter what they claim, what matters is that according to the bible god made the flood killing babies and children in the process, even unborn.
Thus before Jesus came along god punished babies children and unborn the same way.
There is really no reason to think otherwise since they are all sinners until Jesus came to open the gates.
So your argument is flawed.
The church supported Hitler in the second world war, you want to say that the church is related to the faith now?
This double standard of using the church when it can help an argument and then distancing from it when it does not help the argument is becoming very childish and irritating especially when you are a protestant(a declared opponent of the chatolic church teaching and their bs)
Bring something to the table which actually makes sens rather than the church declared this and that.
I think an excellent step in the direction of proving non-existence is to provide evidence that a fictional deity is not the 'fictionally benevolent' thing it's claimed to be.
It may not solve all problems, but I think derailing the 'gawd is good' argument is a good first step!
It's always been funny (not ha-ha funny) to me that people believe the "same god" who "defended thousands of Jews from Egypt" would forget -millions- of the same people almost two thousand years later during the holocaust.
That's always my first hammer in the taking down of the wall of christianity and zoroastrianism for others.... It's silly to believe in a fictional character who will "hopefully defend us" from real events.
The problem is circular arguments though... Anyone who really believes in that garbage would come up with some excuse for 'the inactivity of the deity', but that's all they are.... Excuses. For a fictional character with a beard in the sky.
Mr deity. look him up on youtube, imagedei. I would be happy to discuss the finer points of the arguments there