"If You Knew..."

The following is part of an interesting exchange between Zach Dills and a Christian in the comments section of  a post by John W. Loftus entitled, "A Christian Mother: ' May You Rot In Hell' ", dated September 30, 2011, from debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com:

Zach Dills:

If you knew beyond a shadow of doubt that before you conceived your son that he would most certainly go to hell and burn for all of eternity would you still have decided to have him? That's the question because that is what the christian god did. He was willing to sacrifice the majority of humanity to eternal torment so that he could have a few people who would worship him for all time. Does that sound like what a loving parent should do? I would say no.

I have no doubt you are busy but the question that you have been asked multiple times that I am still waiting to hear you answer is: if you knew for certain before your son was born that he would end up in hell to suffer for all eternity would you still decide to have him? Yes or no? That is all I want to know. 

Christian:

"If I knew without a doubt that my son would reject Christ and go to Hell, of course I never would have sought his conception."

Zach Dills:

Thank you for your answer. It was good to hear that and I think it proves that you are more moral than the god you worship. It shows you ultimately put your son's needs before your own. Whereas the opposite seems true of your god. The god you worship knows before he "creates" us where we will go (where he will send us) and that does not stop him from making those of us he plans on sending to hell because at the end of the day that god made humans to worship and glorify him. Ultimately creation was always about him. Unlike you and most human parents he is a parent who places his own desires ahead of his "children's". You quote Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.” Now if this [were] true then the fact that so many people are apparently going to hell seems to show that your god does not take his own parenthood very seriously again focusing on himself more than us. The point is I think most people would give the answer you did and I think that is the right answer and that is an answer that shows how ridiculous the idea is of an all loving god creating and sustaining an eternal place of torment for those who do not have the right beliefs about him.

And, finally, a reply from a commenter, "qit" quoting Dills:
"I find it morally reprehensible that you could willingly conceive a
child knowing that he could suffer forever and believing that this was a
loving action upon the part of a loving god."

For me, pulling this exact card out was what finally brought the whole house down many years ago. 

Zach Dills reply to "qit":
Agreed. That was a big issue leading to my exit of the Christian faith as well. 


And for me as also, this issue was what put Christianity in a coffin, slammed the top down on the coffin and drove most of the nails into it--it made the existence of the omni-Christian God impossible.

Kenneth Hawthorne