Originally posted by josephw
Don't be offended, but your thinking is askew on this.
Why do you reach the conclusion that just because you can refuse the gift that you should be free of the consequences of sin?
And blaming God for anything is an act of denial. It is the same as refusing to except responsibility for your own conduct. We punish criminals for breaking the law; that's wh ...[text shortened]... a child my father punishing me for disobedience, and how I thought he was wrong. I was wrong!
Don't be offended, but you've lost the thread of the argument.
The claim, again, is that
according to your own theism God is responsible for setting up the universe such that "sin" leads to eternal damnation. So it is not as though the refusal of the supposed gift of salvation merely has consequences that are independent of God. To claim otherwise is, at best, indicative of your ignorance as to the implications of your view. At worst, you are intentionally obfuscating the issue. If salvation were really a gift, then we could refuse it without being directly punished for the refusal. And please, don't make the absurd claim that it is not the refusal of the gift but the sin that leads to damnation. On your view, it is sufficient to sin that one refuse the gift. On your view, failing to worship God is itself a sin. So, your monster God has set up a a forced choice scenario: Love and worship him (what an egomaniac!) or go to Hell (what a tyrant!).
I don't blame God for anything, because I'm an atheist. But even if I wasn't an atheist, I wouldn't believe that God, by mere fiat, could determine what is right and wrong. You just assume that whatever punishment God visits upon us will be in accord with justice. But it is analytic that justice requires some sort of commensurability between the punishment and the crime. Your monster god thinks that eternal damnation is a just punishment for merely failing to love him. But this punishment is incommensurate with the supposed crime of failing to love him. Hence, your monster god is unjust. Of course, you could just redefine "justice" such that whatever God does is just. But then you will be engaged in some other form of normative discourse; one I simply have no interest in and which is completely irrelevant to my life.
Your father punished you to teach you. It was your development that was your father's aim. How does being damned for all eternity make one better?