“rEsP3cT mY b3LiEfS!1!”

The quote he used was taken out of context from Proverbs 13:24. It was the quote “He who withholds his rod hates his son,” but the full quote is actually “He who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently.” Which is basically saying a parent that chooses to discipline their kid but goes about it the wrong way cares more for their child than a negligent parent with no discipline. But a parent that truly loves their kid will discipline them through caring and explanatory means.

So to the piece of shit that tried to use her trauma as some sort of zinger against her religious and cultural beliefs

“Your God: Merciful enough to forgive a repentant murderer but harsh enough to punish a moral person for not believing in him.”

Yeah, it does come up from time to time. It’s really weird because it’s contradictory on the face of it. It’s saying that we indisputably understand that we cannot understand this creature. It’s like saying that “I know it exists” but that it can’t be detected. They’ve made it necessary that they have detected it, that they do understand it, by making these claims at all.

If we can’t properly comprehend the morality of a god, what makes them think we can comprehend anything about it at all? Like it being loving, like it granting free will, answering prayers, having a plan (which contradicts free will)? If we can’t comprehend the morality of this god, then we can’t know it’s even “good,” rather than a cosmological psychopath keeping us in its basement or bomb shelter, feeding us what it wants us to believe. We have (supposedly) only its (supposed) word - through translated whispers of translated legends of translated rumors of translated tales - that it’s the good guy. As we heard recently, even believers wrestle with trying to reconcile the notion of this (supposed) god (supposedly) being good with all the abhorrent, immoral, grotesque things it has (supposedly) done. If we can’t understand, conceive or comprehend this god’s morality, we’ve already thrown out the idea it’s moral at all.

We’ve also thrown out the idea that it’s the source of morality. If it doesn’t abide by the moral standard it established, then it’s operating to a standard independent from it. i.e. god is not required for morality.

I may be able to burn a nest of ants with a magnifying glass, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not a gaping dickhole for doing so. Being capable of something doesn’t justify doing so. I also didn’t create the ants or the nest in the first place. If I made the ants and the nest in their imperfect form and then burned them for not being perfect, then I’m nothing but a monster. They don’t need to understand morality for that the be the case.

As always, there’s the problem of how this knowledge was obtained in the first place - some conman who is trying to prop up the superstitions that power their very mortal income, or a verifiable truth.