Makes sense. God gives free will to his creation. Such free will includes both the ability of good and evil. Such ability of free will comes from God himself. Would that also then mean that God has the ability to create evil, even be evil himself?

You make a good point. I do understand that parents will always have been your parents, it's something you can't change. However, I do wish that the moral part of the parent-to-child relationship is that children grow up, become completely independent of their parents, and are not under any sort of authority that the parent may/may-want to hold upon them. I agree with you, that caring for your child even after your child is a grown independent adult is more moral than not caring for children after they reach adulthood. Love and care in a healthy parent-to-child relationship should in my opinion be a lifelong yet balanced thing that should occur. My thing is more at the authoritative and power factor in the relationship. What do you think?

The idea that God was created by people — Sherbert

I never said this

choice to do good or not — Sherbert

And the government gives you a choice to shoot people or not. You'll just go to jail if you do. With this definition everything is a choice, no matter how high the consequences. So people in the USSR had just as much choice as wealthy Americans

No, you cannot leave any of them at will. That is just not realistic. — Sherbert

Oh so you CAN commit evil and be rewarded with eternal damnation and that's considered a viable unobstructed choice but God forbid you quit your job and are rewarded with 40 years of homelessness at worst.

If quitting your job is unrealistic then how unrealistic is commiting evil? Is it really a choice at that point

“....I think the idea of freedom should constitute to the idea of morality....”-chromecris

Why do you think that is true?

I would say that this is true to some degree. We construct many idols and false gods. There is no reason why that god could not be ourselves. However, we don’t become our own God, because God is more than just being responsible for his own spirituality (omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent). So, we do become our own gods in the sense that we can place our own importance above God, and become responsible for our spiritual lives. Being responsible for our spiritual lives would mean taking the punishment for our failures and going to Hell. That is why when we turn to God we call him Lord or my god, because we elect to serve him over ourselves.

Innocent animals have to feel pain this shows an imperfection in god's nature which the universe reflects

Hmm, I think the idea of freedom should constitute to the idea of morality — chromechris

Most people don't want freedom, they want security.
For most people, too much freedom is immoral. They don't have the intellectual capacity to deal with it. They would get into a state of panic.

↪god must be atheist Makes sense. God gives free will to his creation. Such free will includes both the ability of good and evil. Such ability of free will comes from God himself. Would that also then mean that God has the ability to create evil, even be evil himself? — chromechris

Well, this stands on a purely logical platform. You need to examine specific religious dogma to see if it stands in a given religion.

You see, the god concept is irrefutably possible to exist. But we don't KNOW anything about the possibly existing god. And religions often depict god, or imbue it with qualities that make it self-contradictory or impossible to be.

So to argue about this quality of god or the other, you need to rely on some sort of concepualization of god, which religions readily provide, but without any reliable bases. We have no data, no information on god, other than it has a possibility of existing.

So yes, I accept your question's proposition. I hope you see these are purely hypothetical presuppositions as we have no real data on god, not even evidence that it exists.

Would that also then mean that God has the ability to create evil, even be evil himself? — chromechris

Wouldn't be much of God if he is not capable of creating evil.

Since God gives himself the credit of creating me (without my consent), he decides to also give himself the ultimate authority over my being. I do not see this as moral. — chromechris

Perhaps the word "authority" has negative connotations that skew your judgment. In line with your God-as-parent analogy, children don't actually mind the limits imposed by their parents because they know that, everything considered, parents have the best intentions for their children. The other word for god, "father" highlights the relationship between us and God in this particular sense and agrees with your analogy too.

In one sense the description of god as an authority is appropriate and that's god's expertise on morals. Knowing that he's a loving father and a virtuoso of ethics, it behooves us that we heed his advice.

I consider the greatest gift a creator can bestow on her creation is freedom but a good creator would also show us the ropes on how to live the good life and that may involve some restrictions on freedom.