I’m not even going to get into this with you, mfm. You don’t really want to know my opinion. You want me to paint myself into a corner since you think my position is uninformed even by the sources of information I value most, and makes no sense from a rational standpoint.
I do want to know your opinion, but I’m obviously never going to hear it so I’ll move on.
I said: God is not torturing people.
So, you’re actually interested in my explaining how people are tormented without my also blaming God? You’re interested in my explaining holiness, sin, justice, and sacrifice? You want me to explain free will, and the relationship a loving father has with his children?
Well that’s basically my point. […] He’s a loving father that casts away the children that aren’t serving him. Christians actually hold God to a lower standard than they hold people. If a father in this world kicked his kids out of the house for not serving him or believing he’s all-knowing, that father would classified as heartless and awful.
Again, as I said, you color my answer with assumptions you’ve already made by saying he “casts away the children that aren’t serving him”. I didn’t say that, and the Bible doesn’t say that. You’re simplifying a concept, by overlooking certain aspects about it, into something that isn’t a true representation of itself. Basically you’ve constructed a strawman.
I have not constructed a strawman. It is absolutely true that the Bible says that those who don’t acknowledge God as their savior apart from anything else then he casts them away. Perhaps serve isn’t the exact correct word, but I’m not erecting a strawman. I’m just going to leave this thread assuming that you can’t answer my questions because that’s all I can assume at this point.