If the god of the Bible exists as described in the Bible, then he has commited child abuse.

Con does not feel that Pro has proved that God would be considered either a father (in the sense of one's actual parent) or a caretaker. There are two arguments Pro presents: 1) that God is referred to as "the Father" and 2) God is referred to as a shepherd to his flock (which would be people). First, these are clearly metaphors and not to be taken literally. God is referred to as father and shepherd for a very good reason: he is the "leader". Secondly, this notion of God being "the Father" is suspiciously absent from the Old Testament. Con challenges Pro to find a passage in the Old Testament where God is referred to as a father. All of Pro's source verses are from the New Testament and this makes sense: Jesus considered himself the son of God, so when he or the apostles refer to "the Father" they really mean the father of Jesus. Furthermore, in the Catholic sect (and some others, I believe), priests are referred to as "Father"--surely Pro does not intend to argue that priests are literal fathers to their congregation.Con is confused by Pro's inclusion of the verse from 1st Kings:1Kings 8:15-16 Then he said: “Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, who with his own hand has fulfilled what he promised with his own mouth to my father David. For he said, 16 ‘Since the day I brought my people Israel out of Egypt, I have not chosen a city in any tribe of Israel to have a temple built so that my Name might be there, but I have chosen David to rule my people Israel.’This seems to support Con's claim that God is not a father or caretaker. In fact, this verse is basically saying that God allowed the Israelites to govern over themselves (by allowing kings).As for the shepherd metaphor--it's just that, a metaphor. It does not mean that God is necessarily the caretaker of all men, rather he is the one that herds them such that they will do his will.The passage from 1 Peter is closest to proving Pro's point. However, Con believes this is taken somewhat out of context:1 Peter 5:5-7 http://www.biblegateway.com... 5 In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proudbut shows favor to the humble.”[a] 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. This passage is addressing young people and urging them to not be proud, yet respect their elders. Casting their anxiety aside, Con argues is not saying that they should fall down and wait for God to do everything for them (like a child does towards their parent), rather trying to comfort them. Saying, do not be afraid because God is "on your side" (so to speak). This is sort of like me being confident on the school playground because I friend's with the biggest guy.I want to remind voters that Con does not believe Pro has proved that God can be considered a parent or caretaker, however for the purposes of the rest of this rebuttal, we will assume that part has been met.The first two cases, Noah's flood and killing the first born in Egypt, are clearly murder and not child abuse. For instance, Andrea Yates [1] drowned her five children in a bathtub. There is no doubt that she was the mother of these children and that they were under her immediate care, yet she was not indicted on child abuse charges, rather on murder charges. She did not commit child abuse--she committed murder. Likewise, God did not commit child abuse, he committed murder.Likewise, in the last case of God killing Uriah's child with sickness, God acted with the intent to murder (kill) the child. Again, this elevates from child abuse to murder.At this point, I think we should get some clarity on the definition of child abuse:"Any recent act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker which results in death, serious physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse or exploitation"Pro is clearly using the terms recent act and results in death to make the case that God was a child abuser. But I think we need a little more context on what juries tend to see as child abuse and what they do not. So first, I refer back to the case of Andrea Yates: when there is an intent to kill, it is murder not child abuse. On the other hand, consider the case of Mr. Hu, who left his child in a car and resulted in the child's death [2]. In this case Hu was charged with child endangerment (although less than child abuse, it shows that death does not necessarily mean murder). I would challenge Pro to find a case where a child was killed intentionally and the defendant was charged with anything less than murder.At this point, Pro has not proved God can be considered a parent (legal guardian) or caretaker of any children. Furthermore, while Pro makes a very good case that God is a psychopathic murderer, he fails to show evidences of child abuse.Sources:[1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://www.kxan.com...