I apologize, Andy; my presentation tends to be cold and unwelcoming, but this has more to do with my mechanical nature. I try to be as formal as possible to compensate for my poor ability to convey myself in other contexts.
God punishes skeptics who do not believe in him for not permitting them to be rewarded in heaven. In many interpretations, this results in eternal damnation. How is that not punishment for being skeptical?
I don't really care whether or not you have had a revelation about God; I need to have my own revelation so to speak in order to drop my skepticism. Many things in my life have suggested that god does not exist, at least as you have described. My main question is this - why would a god as you have described create me? Why would a god who punishes those for homosexual relations, those who want to change their gender, and other unusual problems if he hates them? Why would he create me, someone who has suffered tremendously because of my flawed mind? If I am perfect in god's eyes then he has a bizarre interpretation of "perfect".
I am not convinced that these have anything to do with free will, just as your blindness has nothing to do with your free will. We did not decide to be born in the bodies or minds that we were born in.
What you describe when you say "god has revealed himself many times to man" is something called anecdote. Anecdote, which means "I experienced it myself!" does not appeal to me, since I have no way to differentiate anecdote from pure horse shit pulled out of their ass.
Are you suggesting that God does not want to show himself to me because of my temperment? So childish for a benevolent god. If he wants me to believe in him he should provide objective evidence of his existence, or even appear before me. Until then I have no reason to believe in a god, especially if science and philosophy are both more useful and provide more happiness for humanity as a whole.
Your analogy with a judge is poor. First off, judges can be extremely biased, as can be seen with sentences of white men in comparison to black men, so courts are hardly an accurate judgement of morals. Second, laws are tangible and man made, but the word of God is not. We only have scriptures to rely on, which again fall into anecdotal, man-made evidence. Finally, a god that sends his son to be punished instead of the criminal is not a benevolent god but a horrible father who deserves to be shunned by society. You are letting a horrible person go free and punishing a completely innocent person. What if that horrible person commits another crime?
Are you comparing God to something manmade? Hmm, what does that suggest?
Of course, none of this addresses the fact that morality is extremely subjective and changes from person to person. But opening a bible takes those hard questions out of your hands and takes away your ability to think for yourself. Perhaps the Bible, in its ancient nature, does not have the answers for the problems that face the modern world, as they are far more complex than the bible lets on. If you are unable to approach these problems as the problems that they are, then you have next to no utility towards actually solving them. Even if you continue to pray, it will be useless in actually solving these problems. Prayer did not cure people of polio, science did. Prayer did not revolutionize our society, philosophy did.
Embrace the power that you have as an individual.
p.s. good job dodging the intersex argument completely. lol!
you like those kinds of gays because they're gays made for straights