"god" as a "loving heavenly father"

here's my response to a christian friend on facebook telling me i have a heavenly father who loves me =)

the bible is a collection of (and excluding a lot of) writings from different people, many we dont even know who the author was, and contains contradicting statements about the nature of god. you have a "loving heavenly father" who says and does things like:
* stone your disobedient children (Deuteronomy 21:18-21)
* I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. (Exodus 20:5)
* God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; (Nahum 1:2)
* The LORD slew all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man, and the firstborn of beast. Exodus (13:15)
* Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them. (Ezekiel 8:18)
* Thou shalt fear thy God: for I am the LORD your God. (Leviticus 25:17)

the list goes on an on. christians cherry pick the nice scriptures about god, but the bible is full of contradictions or evidence against a loving god. even though i'm not the best father in the world, i'm confident in saying i'm way nicer than the god of the bible. if my child was crying out to me for help, i would help him immediately. i also dont want my children to fear me or mindlessly do everything i say or do.

i think if you feel like you have a connection to a heavenly father, it's not the one in the bible =)

this is a great article:
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2008/12/richard-dawkins-god-of-old-testament.html

god a heavenly father

it is difficult to imagine god as a heavenly father according to how he is portrayed in the bible. god seems more like a powerful entity one should fear, but also who one can ask for help.

i am beginning to lean more towards a view of god as a powerful creator instead of a "father". i am thankful for what i feel have been hundreds if not thousands of "answered prayers", meaning i have gotten what ive asked for. but i, in no way, know god to the degree that my own children know me, their father. the whole idea that god is our father and has sent us here to earth and wiped out our memory of premortal life so that we can prove our obedience and show faith, as taught by lds doctrine, seems rather unnecessary to me. if the point is that we show our worthiness by obedience, this test is still valid even if we know who god is. we are presented with commandments and we still would have to exercise our free agency and choose to be obedient in the face of "temptation". i mean, such an existence has already happened according to lds doctrine in the great council of heaven. there everyone was presented with a choice, to choose jesus' plan or lucifers plan. we knew god and were given a choice to be obedient to god. so we had to choose to be obedient to god by choosing jesus' plan that would test our obedience to god again. only this time, we're going to be born not knowing who he is, he will never show himself to us (except maybe for a few people), you have to be perfectly obedient by the time you die, to be able to come back to live with him. but some might say "but we chose this, we chose to follow jesus' plan". but if we didnt choose this, then we would not get physical bodies and would be banished as devils, together with lucifer. what choice did we really have?