TRANSCRIPT OF CARTOON
This cartoon has six panels. All of the panels take place in a blue sky with fluffy white clouds.
PANEL 1
A human man, with a beard and a flannel shirt, is standing on a cloud, looking up at God, who is on another, higher cloud. (And is also much larger physically than the human guy). God is drawn in the traditional way: He has a thick white beard and is wearing white robes, and there’s a halo behind His head.
God is grinning and spreading His hands wide in a welcoming manner.
GOD: Hi there, I’m God! Good news! Because I’m so infinitely loving, good and merciful, you get to go to Heaven!
MAN: Okay!
PANEL 2
A close up of God, who as Nadine draws Him has very pretty eyes. He is smiling and pressing his palms together and looking in the direction of the off-panel human.
GOD: But if you don’t love me, I’ll throw you into a lake of burning sulfur where you’ll be tormented day and night forever!
PANEL 3
God smiles down beatifically at the human, who has raised a finger to make a point.
MAN: But… That’s horrible! And it doesn’t make sense! A good god wouldn’t torture people forever!
PANEL 4
A close up of God, with a wailing expression, as He presses the back of His hand to His forehead. He is dissolving into ash, and has already disappeared from the upper chest down.
GOD: Gasp! By pointing out a paradox you’ve defeated me! Now I must turn into ash and die like in that Marvel movie!
PANEL 5
Nothing is left of God but a pyramid-shaped pile of black ash (the ash pile has a halo behind it). In the foreground, the human has mildly surprised body language, and is rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.
MAN: Um…
PANEL 6
God, a merry expression on his face, has reappeared whole on His cloud. He’s crouching down and pointing at the human. Lightning shoots out of God’s finger, engulfing the human and instantly turning the human into a black, charred, and surprised looking skeleton.
GOD: I’m kidding! Have fun suffering in the abyss forever, loser! Hah hah!
CHICKEN FAT WATCH
Chicken fat is an obsolete cartoonists’ expression for unimportant but entertaining details the cartoonist slips into the cartoon.
In this cartoon, in panel one, on the lower left, we can see a little dog sniffing at the cloud it’s standing on. The dog is wearing white robs and has a halo and white feathery wings.
We can’t see the cloud the dog is standing on again until panel five. In this panel, the dog is gone, but there’s a yellow puddle on the cloud where the dog was.
Yes, as mentioned more explicitly in Romans 2:4. "Don't you know his [God's] kindness and patience is intended to lead to your repentance?"
But this is consistent with what I posted above. God "loves the whole world", God "doesn't want anyone to perish", but what this means in practice is he's waiting ("kindly") for people to repent so that he doesn't destroy them.
So God loves maximally - or at least the Bible writers think he does - being "Omni loving" in their view is consistent with him neither condemning nor saving people, rather giving them lots of time to repent
However this is where I said it was inconsistent with God being "all powerful". If God desired all people to come to a certain choice, and had all power at his disposal to achieve it, and all willingness on his part to carry it out, then the best possible case would be made to every individual in the world as to why they should repent.
But this clearly does not happen
Therefore the Bible writers are either inconsistent or flat out wrong.
I could point out many "inconsistencies" if you like. Jesus is fully man, and fully God. Man is fully responsible for his actions, but,
As to waiting patiently, God has clearly set A DAY when things will end. It's not infinite patience.
For inconsistencies, how about this?
With,
I suppose you're in the same position as Job, you want an audience with God.
The Bible is a collection of writings of people wrestling with the idea of a 'good' interventionist deity despite the innocent of the world still at times experiencing grotesque pain. The words they put in God's mouth are, of course, inconsistent or just wrong. Scripture never makes the claim it's all error free despite fervently held views to the contrary. But those writings are still interesting in so much as they shed light on the psyche of those present at the start of a hugely influential movement.
I don't want an audience with "God" same way you haven't given much thought to having an audience with Thor.