The Fallacy of the God/Parent Apology

[Divine Insight]

Christians are often trying to make excuses for their God by proclaiming that their God is just as helpless, inept, and unintelligent as human parents. They try to make an analogy between how some human parents might treat their children and why they think it makes sense to think that an omnipotent creator God should have the same limitations. These apologies fail miserably because human parents are not infinitely intelligent, wise, omnipotent, or omniscient. Neither did they design their children.

If human parents have stupid kids that can hardly be blamed on the parents. On the other hand if an omnipotent creator God creates stupid humans than this is entirely on him. There can be no one else to blame. The stupid humans most certainly can't be blamed for being stupid. It wasn't their fault that this is how God created them.

Human parents cannot know what's going on in the mind of their children.

An omniscient God knows every thought his children have.

Human parents can easily fail as being effective teachers, and often do fail at this in extreme ways.

A God cannot fail at being an effective teacher because there can only be two possible reasons for him to fail. Either he's a lousy teacher, which would mean that he's inept. Or his children are lousy students, in which case this can only be because he failed to design intelligent children.

If a human parent has a child who has psychological or mental problems it can often be quite difficult for the human parent to even know that this is occurring. And even if the human parent suspects this to be the case, it's is next to impossible for a human parent to be able to heal the child. Even professional psychologists and psychiatrists have great difficulty in trying to diagnose and help people who have psychological or mental problems. In fact, we are currently aware that there are many different potential causes for the same types of psychological symptoms.

An omniscient God who knows every thought the child has, and who also has also numbered every hair on their head would not only know that the problem exists, but he would also know precisely what it would take to remedy the situation and heal the child from this aberrant condition.

Trying to excuse a supposedly omnipotent omniscient God by pointing to how inept human parents are is hardly an apology for the failings of a supposed "Creator God" who actually creates every child that exists.

Question for Debate:

At what point should apologists be willing to recognize and concede that some of their apologies for their imaginary God simply don't hold water?

Surely there needs to be some criteria for being able to recognize when an apology is dead and no amount of repeating it will ever bring it back to life.

[Divine Insight]

Biggest failure of the analogy? Real parents don't act non-existent towards their children and then have large groups of people coming up with all sorts of twisted logic to explain to the children that the parents love them and is there for them for the asking, even if the child reports no answer.

Truly. If human parents behaved like God they could find themselves being charged with child abuse due to negligence.

This brings up another obvious problem.

How many parents would be willing to hand their newborn baby over to a corrupt couple who are known for child abuse and molestation as well as abusing drugs and committing crimes?

I can't imagine any decent parent handing over their own newborn babies to known incompetent and abusive parents. But God hands over his newborn human babies to those kinds of incompetent abusive parents all the time.

[1213]

That's the definition of a test. If after being taught a lesson you need to make the correct choice in order to pass, then you have be subjected to a test.

I think it is not accurate to say one has to make right choice. It is more about that person must be righteous. If person is righteous, he will make the right choice.

And it's also possible that non-believers can be righteous.

Maybe, but if they are righteous, it should be seen also in the actions.

He who does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. To this end the Son of God was revealed, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever is born of God doesn't commit sin, because his seed remains in him; and he can't sin, because he is born of God. In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn't do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who doesn't love his brother.
1 John 3:7-10

Don't forget that Christian dogma demands that no one can be righteous. So for the most part Christianity can't be about righteousness. At least not as long as any writings from Paul are permitted to remain as part of the Christian dogma. Even writings from John might need to be rejected if we want to make Christianity about righteousness.

I disagree with you.

If righteousness is the key, then there's no need for Jesus or Yahweh, or a need to acknowledge either.

Jesus is the one who says:

These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.
Mat. 25:46

And Jesus says:

For I spoke not from myself, but the Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. I know that his commandment is eternal life. The things therefore which I speak, even as the Father has said to me, so I speak."
John 12:49-50

If you dont acknowledge Jesus who speaks what God commanded him to say, then you dont also acknowledge the teaching that righteous into eternal life. God is the one who defines what righteous means and judges who are righteous.