So, where were we in this discussion? As I recall, I had made the point that one may choose to trust God, even if one does not understand Him, in the same way that a teenager who wants to drop out of school may trust his parents’ advice not to do so, even though that is not what seems best from his perspective. His choice not to do so, which will ultimately benefit him, will have been brought about by his trust in his parents, whom he believes have his best interest at heart. And I said that this was largely the situation we are in with God.
To this, you replied:
“At least the teenager must make a judgement if he feel that they have his best at heart, if they are good.
Same with god, and you have to do that judgement from your own position. In other words, you have to make a judgement about god if he is good or not, and if you read about his evil in the bible you will say "no thanks" because you judge him like everything else. You can't do it any other way.”
Let us start with the sentence “Same with god, and you have to do that judgement from your own position. In other words, you have to make a judgement about god if he is good or not, and if you read about his evil in the bible you will say ‘no thanks’.”
I do not accept that you need to make such a judgement, that is, measure the morality of God by your own standards of good and evil. I think the only truly necessary judgement is whether or not God is real. But I will come to that later. First, let us consider the consequences of making the judgement that you propose.
In the first instance, using our own judgement, imagine that we determine that God is morally good. This conclusion is quite a relief, since God as we understand Him is the First Cause and the maintainer of all Being, and of all beings, and thus His goodness gives us hope that life may be worth living. Creation, for all it’s apparent flaws, must be, on the whole, a good thing. Thus when we come to some difficulty in our lives, we may be assured that no matter how awful and evil it looks from our point of view, from a higher point of view, the Good God has chosen to allow it. Because He is a Good God, this choice must serve goodness.
But what would it mean for us to believe that God is evil? This would mean that the foundation of all existence is evil. By extension, it would mean that everything which exists, including ourselves, is also evil. It would mean that all of creation was doomed. Whatever good we thought we saw in the world and in our lives would be nothing more than illusion, allowed by this evil deity for his own evil purposes. An evil God would mean the end of all hope. He would be infinitely powerful and immortal as well as evil, and thus we could not even hold out for a chance at regime change at some point in the future. In such a universe, there is no chance of redemption, no future glory for which to strive, only evil for all eternity. The pain and suffering of our own lives serves no greater good, but is simply evil. The evil God who afflicts us with these pains does so simply because that is his nature, and perhaps because he enjoys watching us suffer.
Could we live in such a world? Our choices would be only bad. On the one hand, we could choose to submit completely to this evil God, in the hope that he would spare us more suffering because of our total obedience, making ourselves his slaves in the hope of some relief from affliction. But, being evil, it is very unlikely that he would reward our obedience. After all, why should he? He is evil, and therefore not concerned with our well-being. We have nothing to offer him except whatever pleasure he may derive from torturing us, and he needn’t worry about our loyalty since we are able to pose no threat to him whatsoever.
The other option, instead of total obedience, is rebellion. Hopeless as it would be, since God is God after all and cannot be defeated, one could nevertheless decide to live one’s whole existence in rebellion against a Creator unworthy of loyalty. There would no doubt be horrendous consequences and pain, but perhaps some would make the determination that these are worth suffering for the sake of being true to one’s own moral judgement about the situation.
And this is exactly what the Christian story of Satan is about. This high angel directed his own moral compass toward God, found Him wanting, and now exists in a state of eternal rebellion against Him. Since God is God, the rebellion is ultimately doomed, but perhaps Satan has decided that it is better to eternally suffer the consequences of rebellion than to live in obedience to a God with whom he does not agree.
And so we come to humanity. Can a human being stand to live in such a world? Can a human who really believes that his moral judgement is the truest measure of all things, including God, accept the consequences of such a belief? Is he willing to follow his own judgement so far as to accept that his life is nothing but total hopelessness under the thumb of an evil Creator? Some, perhaps, are capable of such a life. But most are not. Most lack even the vain and spiteful courage of Satan. Rather than live under a God they don’t like, they find it safer and more comfortable to simply claim He does not exist. Thus much atheism comes not from a lack of belief, but from the fear of what it would mean to believe. Has the person who acted in this way actually followed their own principles, or have they simply hidden from the consequences of them?
In any case, there is another, perhaps greater, issue at play. Underlying this speculation so far has been a principle so far unexamined. This is the principle of judging God by one’s own moral and ethical standards. At first glance, this seems quite a reasonable thing to do, since our own standards are, apparently, the only ones to which we have access. Is it possible to judge God, or anyone else, by someone else’s standards? Perhaps it is, if you know someone else’s standards well enough, but then it won’t have been your judgement at all, and you will be left in the same situation as before, without your own conclusion.
Thus it seems to follow, that if we only have our own apparatus for making a judgement, this must be the one we apply to God. But just because we have only one tool, this does not mean that it must necessarily be applied in all cases. If you have only a hammer, it is quite sensible to use it to drive nails, but quite foolish to attempt spinal surgery with it. If spinal surgery is required, the man with only a hammer is much better off accepting that his one tool is of no use, and leaving the whole situation alone.
If God is real, then this is exactly the situation we find ourselves in. God is the Creator of everything, including ourselves and our judgement. Can we judge God with the very judgement that He gave us? Perhaps we could try, but it would be like sawing off the branch we are sitting on. If we use our God-given judgement, and find that He is good, how can we be sure that our conclusion is not the result of God having instilled in us the sort of judgement bound to find Him good no matter what? But if we use our God-given judgement and find God to be evil, then we must admit that our judgement itself, coming from an evil God, is itself evil, and therefore ought not to be followed. In either case, we would be much wiser to simply leave the whole question alone.
This is why I made the initial claim that, for us, the only truly necessary judgement is whether or not God is real. If we determine that God is real, then our moral judgement of Him is both unreliable and irrelevant. If we determine that God is not real, then the question of moral judgement does not even arise, as directing judgement against a fictional God is pointless and a waste of time.