God, as portrayed in the Bible, is unworthy of worship.

Thank you, phantom, for your very formidable response. The Three Axioms of the Debate Let’s first take a look at the three axioms my opponent presented that he feels we must assume for the sake of this debate: “1. Christianity is true.2. God is real.3. Everything in the Bible is the absolute truth.” For the purposes of this debate, indeed, the second contention will not be challenged. The God of the Bible, YHWH, Jesus, Jehovah, Yeshua, Emmanuel, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, Tetragrammaton, Optimus Prime, or whatever else you want to call Him, is assumed to exist. And depending on your definition of “Christianity”, there will also be no objections to the first contention. (Personally, I find one of the most salient tenets of Christianity to be the supreme benevolence of God, but if that is unimportant for my opponent’s particular definition, then I concede on this matter.) Now all that is left is the third and final contention. Should we, for the purposes of this debate, assume that everything in the Bible is the absolute truth? The answer, of course, is yes, but only if by “everything” my opponent means “only and all of the objective truths”, not “all of the objective and subjective truths”. What I mean by “objective truths” and “subjective truths” is quite simple. Take this fictional testimony that was presented in a fictional court of law for example: “Then the man took the axe and chopped all four of the children’s heads clean off. It was a noble and heroic act. He doesn’t deserve any prison time for it.” Now imagine the original proposition for this debate had been “The man, as portrayed in this testimony, deserves to go to prison.” The first sentence of the testimony is an objective truth as it merely gives the witness’s account of the quadruple homicide. No matter how many witnesses had been present and watching the crime, this part of their testimonies would be nearly identical (so long as they weren’t abnormally mentally unhealthy at the time). The next two sentences, however, are subjective truths, as they hold no meaning beyond the witness’s bias interpretation of the event. Had others given their own testimonies of the same event, we would undoubtedly hear different opinions on the matter: “It was gruesome,” “The blood looked cool,” “He doesn’t deserve the death penalty,” “He deserves to rot in jail,” etc. Therefore, for the purposes of this debate, we should assume that all of the objective truths in the Bible are true (otherwise, we’d have nothing to go on to judge God’s character and worthiness of worship), but we should not assume all, or any, of the subjective truths are true (otherwise there would be no debate at all). “According to the Bible” My opponent objects to almost everything I’ve presented on the basis that I was using my own reasoning to reach my own conclusions. Of this I am certainly guilty, as I hope everyone would be. I am a fallible and subjective human being, but then so were the authors of the Bible. As I’ve previously said, a subjective description of a person (or deity) is worthless in comparison to an objective one when we are trying to determine if this being is moral or immoral. However, my opponent seems to think not. He says that if we find two seemingly contradictory verses, one which says “God tortures all hypocrites” and “God is kind and merciful”, we should assume the second one is true. Apparently, my opponent thinks the reverse of the old saying “actions speak louder than words” is true. With this, though, I must disagree. When judging someone’s moral character, it is far more important to take his/her actions into consideration than someone else’s already-formed opinion on the person. Refuting my Opponent’s Refutations Adam and Eve and The Plagues of Egypt My opponent says that my logic is outweighed by the opinions of whoever wrote Genesis and Exodus. To say that logic can be outweighed by anything other than more logic is quite strange indeed. Be that as it may, as extensions of my previous arguments, I argue that the subjective verses are utterly worthless and certainly do not serve to outweigh my logic. Tower of Babel My opponent says I ignored the fact that building the Tower of Babel was a morally wrong thing to do, but provided no reason or explanation as to why it was wrong. For this, I urge my opponent to elucidate. Natural Disasters My opponent seems to be suggesting that natural disasters, such as tornadoes and hurricanes, were not created by God, but by the laws of physics. However, because God was the one who created the laws of physics, this shifting of the goal post is moot. Bedbugs and Praying Mantises My opponent says that I failed to provide evidence God created these creatures. Firstly, I’d like to ask my opponent: If God created the universe and everything in it, but not bedbugs and praying mantises, then who or what did? Secondly, Genesis [1:24-25] clearly says that God created all living things: "Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good." Hell/Oblivion My opponent says he doesn’t believe in the literal brimstone-and-fire interpretation of Hell. As the nature of Hell is not the topic of debate, I will not waste time disputing this point. However, I will point out that even if my opponent is correct and unbelievers simply fade away into nothingness instead of being tormented, it doesn’t help to make God seem any more just. Either way, He needlessly created an unpleasant fate for souls, be it Hell or oblivion. Jesus the Scapegoat and Salvation by belief, not action My opponent, unfortunately, didn’t have time to directly respond to these, so I will wait patiently until he does. In conclusion, I have shown that we should believe the God of Christianity is unworthy of worship, despite the personal opinions of some of the authors of the Bible. I look forward to my opponent’s next response.