A common opinion of atheists seems to be that the Christian God must be evil because of the pain and suffering in the world. Surely an omnipotent God has the power to stop this, so if he does not stop it, he must be evil. I have two responses to this.
Actually, for me as an atheist, I can careless about the suffering. Atheist believe god does not exist. Why would an atheist question god's motive when he doesn't exist; unless they are just entertaining the idea that if he does, they wouldn't worship him because what is bluntly and directly written in the bible.
1. God has revealed in scripture why there is evil and suffering. This has been discussed so much, I'm not sure I need or should take the time to go through it here. I'll just make a couple of points. Free will is essential in God's plan. That leads to evil choices and the suffering of the innocent. People also suffer as the result of a dangerous world with disease and risk, not related to evil. Life is meant to be hard. Anything bad that happens in this life will be only a blink of the eye against the backdrop of forever. Even a horrible undeserved death caused by evil or natural disaster, is as a blessed birth into the next life into the arms of loving Parents and friends. God's perspective is eternal. He tries to share his perspective in the scriptures but at times we can't see past the hear and now.
Something I never liked about the free will argument with christians. Free will or freedom of choice should give you the choice and support from the person who gave you that choice for you to choose one side or another. If an atheist did choose not to find god, there should not be anything hold against him for the choice he was given to make. It makes more sense that there is no freedom of choice. If no freedom of choice exists, then god existence and our belief in him would be necessary to get out of a sticky dilemma. Unless god supports our choice not to follow him, especially those who do not believe he exists, free will means nothing.
Also, I'd think if god exist, it wouldn't just be the christian god. He is just more popular. People choose the god(s) they want to believe in for their benefit. Once a christian puts words in god's mouth, worshiping the christian god does not sound attractive anymore. It's more about self-exploration if freedom of choice is really a good thing.
2. The poinit I was making in my last post is that no matter how convinced someone is that the Christian God, if he exists, is evil, that perception will melt away in an instant when one is actually in God's presence. The person will realize how obviously wrong he was, and the need to ask "why" might go away all together. That's how I picture such a reunion of the Eternal Father with one of his children.
This can work the other way around. Once you realize (in analogy) god is not eternal, loving, and kind but a god of cruelty and evil, then you're faith would change to fear. The point isn't after-death it's now. If god is evil and you don't know it, and you benefit from how yo interpret god and what you read in scripture, nothing wrong with that. If god is all loving and an atheist benefits from unconditional love rather than conditional and they take what's actually written in scripture as a reason not to believe, nothing wrong with that.
My question is what would you do if you find out god was not a loving god.
My question to atheist would be what would you do if god was a loving god.
For some reason, I'd see more response from the theist tan th atheist. Atheist have love all their lives. They aren't missing anything unless you can describe love that is better than they have now. On the other hand, the theist would probably go into shock. But an evil god wouldn't care. A caring god would ideally understand why an atheist did not believe.
If this god has unconditional love, that is.