To Atheists - a question

The parable of the Policemen

A young girl went through a park at night. There, she was set upon by a man, who quickly overpowered her. She screamed for help, and a group of policemen heard her, but they did nothing to assist in her plight. Instead, they watched as the man ravished and killed her savagely.
Being asked why they didn't prevent the crime, these were their answers:

Policeman 1: "It was a test. We needed to see whether the girl would despair, or else stick to her trust no matter what. She's much better off where she is now."
Policeman 2: "It wasn't for us to intervene with another person's free will. If we had stopped the crime from happening, we would have turned the culprit into a robot - and we don't want to be robots, do we?"
Policeman 3: "We took the culprit into custody as soon as he had completed his misdeed. He will get his deserved punishment in time: we've prepared a special torture chamber for him. That is, unless he repents of his deeds and becomes a supporter of the police."
Policeman 4: "As much as the girl's fate grieves me, how do you know that this gruesome end wasn't in fact a mercy? Maybe she would have given birth to another Hitler, who in turn would have killed millions in an even more gruesome fashion?"
Policeman 5: "We had a perfectly good reason for allowing it to happen, but it is not for you to know it. We work in mysterious ways."
Policeman 6: "Who are you to question our actions, anyway? We are more powerful than you, so everything we do is right by default."
Policeman 7: "What we witnessed here is human nature, the result of the fall. It is solely the culprit's fault, not ours."
Policeman 8: "The laws are clear. It was for the culprit to study, understand, and keep them. Now he will be judged accordingly."
Policeman 9: "Suffering is educational. The girl became a better person because of it. Er, for as long as she lived, that is."
Policeman 10: "The girl will be rewarded in the afterlife. That settles the score."

Now, I can already hear people object to this parable on account of the fact that the policemen are only human.
To that, I reply: EXACTLY! We expect more from mere humans who are infinitely less powerful and benevolent than the hypothetical deity we are talking about here. An all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent God has the means and the opportunity to do infinitely more than any policeman.

Did you come up with that Jane or did you read it somewhere else? It's a great example.

The story gets even worse, of course. The Police Federation created the man and the girl and the park and the night, with all their features and capabilities and details. And the PF knew what it was creating and knew in advance what the outcome would be.

Jane_the_Bane said:

Now, I can already hear people object to this parable on account of the fact that the policemen are only human.
To that, I reply: EXACTLY! We expect more from mere humans who are infinitely less powerful and benevolent than the hypothetical deity we are talking about here. An all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent God has the means and the opportunity to do infinitely more than any policeman.

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Your parable is excellent and a very challenging set of questions for God. It in fact cobbles together a lot of what especially writers of the Old Testament raged against God for, questioning him what he is doing and why. The book of Job and many Psalms voice aloud the emotions you are trying to trigger.

I know that it is extremely, extremely difficult for you to appreciate this, but each and every one of the reasons you say the policemen, I think, is an accurate reflection of what God might say.

You've even anticipated what I was going to say: that the policemen are only human.

Of course, the big qualifier to your parable is that everyone who is reading this story right now, save One, are also only human. We react as humans do, and although it is understandable to expect that God acts the same way, he doesn't, which is why believers call him "God" - because he's not human.

You may want to judge God by that one episode in the park alone, or even numerous episodes in the park that you might know of. But God judges the world as a whole. Not even the murderer in the park is beyond redemption - think of Paul, who put his past as a church-persecutor away to become the most famous Christian missionary in history. And certainly the consequences of that one murder is beyond what mere humans can fathom. A lot of good can come out of evil.

Let's face it: sh*t happens. This world is full of things we'd rather not see, and seemingly so devoid of things we'd rather see. That is a problem that the religious and the non-religious alike face. The question is how we deal with it.

Both the Jewish and Christian faiths were borne out of great hardship, and many individual Jews and Christians have suffered fates worse than the woman in the park. Yet both survived and prospered (even, regrettably, to a point of forgetting how they have come out of hardship and created immense hardship for others, but that's another point).

Both of them are able to point to better things to come, and hold to that promise despite immense pressure to not do so; in essence, not only believing what they cannot see, but believing what the prevailing circumstances tell them not to believe (i.e. when faced with national extinction, or a hungry lion). I again acknowledge that it must be very, very difficult for you and other people to accept that, but I hope at least you can acknowledge the kind of strength that that kind of conviction can bring to people to accomplish feats that another person might not be able to. Faith in a "good" God can be an immensely powerful positive motivator in a world that tries to convince us "good" doesn't exist.

In fact, God has faith in us too. He has given us, mere mortals, the power to either change things for the better or for worse. He has entrusted us with this power (remember, he entrusted the keys of heaven to a mere fisherman!). The concept of choosing is evident in both the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 30:19-20) and the New (Luke 14:28-34). We have the choice in our hands to do good or evil. The only thing he has done for us, which we were not able to do ourselves, was to offer us a clean slate through Christ's sacrifice. Everything else, we are told to choose because we're good enough to do so. So we chose to let our young daughters walk through an unlit park unaccompanied at night. We chose to cast a lustful gaze to a young girl who happens to be walking through an unlit park at night. We chose to attack her. We chose to stand back and watch the attack happen. We chose to not light our parks at night!

We've misused the power that God gave us. Do we now turn back and blame God for giving us the power in the first place? Can a corrupt politician about to be tried blame the electorate for electing him, allowing him access to power and money and so be corrupt?

God created this cruel world and then "empowered" us to sort it out for ourselves? Sounds like the place I used to work.

That's a quite nice reply. Well thought out and reasonable.

But.

We've misused the power that God gave us.

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Ultimately, your response is to blame the victim. You say that "We" are to blame for bad things happening to us. Even things that we can't control. That's not exactly healthy.

BrianOnEarth said:

@razeontherock
God has the capability to stop children suffering

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Orly? So when He GAVE man dominion, you think that meant nothing?

Pffft. I bet you couldn't even wrestle a LITTLE bear. And what about this?

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge" Hosea 4:6

Deal with it, Mr peanut vendor.

Jane_the_Bane said:

Now, I can already hear people object to this parable on account of the fact that the policemen are only human.
An all-knowing, all-powerful, benevolent God has the means and the opportunity to do infinitely more than any policeman.

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No, this is not an example at all because you all ignore the fact that G-d

GAVE MAN DOMINION.

Step it up so I can quit with the broken record, ok? IOW, the police MEN (as in, members of mankind) have DOMINION, (as in, can do something about it in the here and now) while G-d GAVE IT AWAY. (as in, can't take it back w/o violating His own Justice which He won't do)

The police-cowards in your grotesque story there did PLENTY: they heaped upon themselves Judgment, and none of their excuses even fool US.

dewaddict84 said:

Ultimately, your response is to blame the victim. You say that "We" are to blame for bad things happening to us. Even things that we can't control. That's not exactly healthy.

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What's unhealthy is to play the victim, when what matters is entirely within your control. I know I know, it never stopped you before, right?

razeontherock said:

No, this is not an example at all because you all ignore the fact that G-d

GAVE MAN DOMINION.

Step it up so I can quit with the broken record, ok? IOW, the police MEN (as in, members of mankind) have DOMINION, (as in, can do something about it in the here and now) while G-d GAVE IT AWAY. (as in, can't take it back w/o violating His own Justice which He won't do)

The police-cowards in your grotesque story there did PLENTY: they heaped upon themselves Judgment, and none of their excuses even fool US.

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How does what you claim here fit together with the Flood, the Plagues of Egypt, the Pillar of Flame, the collapsing walls of Jericho, Uzzah getting killed for touching the ark, and so on and so forth?

If God "GAVE IT AWAY", as you shout so nicely, how come that he had no trouble intervening then? Reading the "Old Testament", it feels as if God is ready to interfere at every turn, and in cases that are considerably less pressing than the plight of a girl who's being raped and killed.

I mean, seriously: Uzzah? The guy tried to HELP, your divine majesty! Would letting the ark of the covenant shatter on the ground have been LESS of an offense to you than having the wrong guy touch it at the wrong time of year? Honestly, having it crack open in the dirt hardly seems like the better alternative here - or were you just trying to do that guy in, anyway? A sort of Catch-22?

Jane_the_Bane said:

How does what you claim here fit together with the Flood, the Plagues of Egypt, the Pillar of Flame, the collapsing walls of Jericho, Uzzah getting killed for touching the ark, and so on and so forth?

If God "GAVE IT AWAY", how come that he had no trouble intervening then?

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Intervention was always "by the hand of man;" i.e., in conjunction w/ our dominion. And one person has always been enough. This is the common thread through all these stories, which don't make sense until you see (at least) this point. W/o Naoh's obedience, G-d couldn't have sent the flood. G-d Himself says "Moses parted the Red Sea," merely by lifting his staff. W/o that action, G-d could not / would not have parted it. Ditto the plagues; note Moses had at least one specific action he had to do for each.

Now the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day? Bad example - but still related w/ very significant application to the use of our dominion. We have dominion over the earth and everything in it, but not the air. You-know-who is the prince of the powers of the air. And G-d has repeatedly used that as a pathway of Judgment, so said "pillar" lands at the demise of someone. Yet the pillar was to be followed, and we have both positive and negative examples of this, where they lost sight of it and wandered w/o guidance. (IIRC)

Jane_the_Bane said:

Reading the "Old Testament", it feels as if God is ready to interfere at every turn, and in cases that are considerably less pressing than the plight of a girl who's being raped and killed.

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So then it becomes a study in the difference between your /our POV and His, doesn't it?

Jane_the_Bane said:

I mean, seriously: Uzzah? The guy tried to HELP, your divine majesty! Would letting the ark of the covenant shatter on the ground have been LESS of an offense to you than having the wrong guy touch it at the wrong time of year?

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Ok, on this one I've only thought it through, and have no great revelation. But why do you conclude it would've shattered? Look at it's construction and you'll see it's amazingly durable, and this is a significant picture! Maybe you just unlocked something to my understanding, that it was indeed supposed to have been dropped to show it's road-worthiness? It would fit the picture.

"The wrong guy at the wrong time of year" thing again refers to their particular Covenant, which was NOT an enviable position to be in IMHO. YMMV. Remember the overall purpose of it; to include all under sin, show the need for a Savior, and point to Christ. You're pretty well convinced none of this ever actually happened anyway, which makes it easier to see the real point. But your accusation is false; the time of year and person are not mentioned one way or the other, you just made that part up. Or are you going off Jewish commentary?

BrianOnEarth said:

God created this cruel world and then "empowered" us to sort it out for ourselves? Sounds like the place I used to work.

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In the Christian interpretation, in the beginning when God created this world it was deemed to be "very good" (Genesis 1:31), and empowered us with the freedom and responsibility to use the skills he gave us to maintain its goodness (Genesis 1:28). Someone up the line (we call them "Adam" and "Eve") screwed it up. Then their son (Cain) screwed it up even further. Then on and on.

dewaddict84 said:

That's a quite nice reply. Well thought out and reasonable.

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Thank you. That's very kind.

dewaddict84 said:

Ultimately, your response is to blame the victim. You say that "We" are to blame for bad things happening to us. Even things that we can't control. That's not exactly healthy.

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By "we" I mean humanity as a whole, not just individuals who happen to be victims in one episode of misery or injustice. Humanity was entrusted with power and responsibility ("with great power comes great responsibility"!), but humanity has misused it to make humanity suffer. The victim is also the perpetrator.

Individuals may be victims of the individual perpetrators; but sometimes the same individuals may perpetrate the misery of others - either inadvertently, maliciously, or even despite meaning well.

You are right in saying that there are things beyond our control - especially true if we're talking about individually. But as a collective body, humanity actually has immense power to do things - or at least extend a hand of kindness to others in need. Yet because we often look at things at only an individual level, and see how much evil there is in the world, we feel powerless to act, and then decide not to act.

Even Jesus recognised this when he said: "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold" (Matthew 24:12). But at the same time he challenges us to stand firm, because "he who stands firm to the end will be saved" (Matthew 24:13). That, to me, embodies what faith is about: the conviction to do good, or to stand firm, in the onslaught of wickedness. Beyond faith, I don't know what tool or state of mind we can use to continue a struggle when the going gets hard, and beyond faith in God, I don't know which other subject of our faith will not disappoint us in the end - at least so far that has been my experience.

Jane_the_Bane said:

How does what you claim here fit together with the Flood, the Plagues of Egypt, the Pillar of Flame, the collapsing walls of Jericho, Uzzah getting killed for touching the ark, and so on and so forth?

If God "GAVE IT AWAY", as you shout so nicely, how come that he had no trouble intervening then? Reading the "Old Testament", it feels as if God is ready to interfere at every turn, and in cases that are considerably less pressing than the plight of a girl who's being raped and killed.

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If I may barge into your discussion with Ray, I think, again, that you ask a very reasonable question.

We must remember that the Old Testament records only a very, very small snippet of Israel's history, and Israel is just a very, very small and insignificant nation (in human terms). While it may seem that God is intervening at "every turn" - because every account in the Bible that is written has God intervening at every turn - it doesn't mean that God is directly intervening at every single episode of injustice there is. In fact, we know he didn't because he dictated a set of laws to the Israelites and asked them to deal with injustices themselves. The reason why God is seen to be intervening at "every turn" is because the authors of the various books of the Old Testament have selected their material; they were not blogging, but writing for a specific purpose, and when writing for a specific purpose selection of material is needed.

This quote is from the NewTestament, but I think the same principle could apply to why the accounts in the Old Testament are so selective: "Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." (John 21:25).

I believe (this is a belief, not an inspired opinion) that God intervened at junctures where it was necessary to bring forth the Messiah. That is arguably the most pressing issue of all, because the Messiah is here to save all humanity, including the little girl who was raped and killed and the rapist-murderer. But that doesn't mean God doesn't care about the plight of the poor girl. We know that God takes murder very seriously, as he told Cain as much: "What have you done? Listen! Your brother's blood cries out to me from the ground." Genesis 4:10. We - humanity - were given the power and authority to intervene in such cases. Why neglect our duty to do so is why the Messiah is necessary.

Jane_the_Bane said:

I mean, seriously: Uzzah? The guy tried to HELP, your divine majesty! Would letting the ark of the covenant shatter on the ground have been LESS of an offense to you than having the wrong guy touch it at the wrong time of year? Honestly, having it crack open in the dirt hardly seems like the better alternative here - or were you just trying to do that guy in, anyway? A sort of Catch-22?

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Again, I understand how difficult it must be to you to understand why God did what he did. I believe that the reason why it is so difficult to understand is because you don't know God. It's kind of like randomly surfing people you don't know on Facebook and judging the character of someone solely by what photographs they were tagged in. When one makes the connections in the Old Testament one can see that the whole moving the Ark thing was going to end in disaster right from the very beginning.

The offending passage is reproduced as follows, and I've highlighted the bits that God would have found extremely problematic.

"David again brought together out of Israel chosen men, thirty thousand in all. He and all his men set out from Baalah of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim that are on the ark. They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD, with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The Lord's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God." 2 Samuel 6:1-7

The problem actually already started at the beginning of the process, the first part in bold. Reason? God had long ago already determined how he wanted his Ark carried. See Exodus 25:13-16:

"Then make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the chest to carry it. The poles are to remain in the rings of this ark; they are not to be removed. Then put in the ark, the Testimony, which I will give you."

The second problem (second and third bits in bold) was that Uzzah was standing way too close to the Ark, so close that he could touch it. What does "way too close" mean? Read Numbers 4:15:

"After Aaron and his sons have finished covering the holy furnishings and all the holy articles, and when the camp is ready to move, the Kohathites are to come to do the carrying. But they must not touch the holy things or they will die. The Kohathites are to carry those things that are in the Tent of Meeting."

God was extremely clear in how he wanted his things to be moved, and by whom. The warnings for disobedience were also extremely plain. But the problems were already there in the first instance, by not employing the proper techniques. Uzzah, unfortunately, did the one thing that God had explicitly instructed him not to do, and suffered the consequences.

So it's not as if God whimsically decided to end Uzzah's life. The law was plain for David and his convoy to read; they chose to either disregard it or disobey it.

The lesson this teaches us is that God takes obedience very, very seriously - he is not someone to be trifled with, and he expects his orders to be obeyed. Well, that's not an entirely unreasonable demand, is it? Even us humans expect people of a lower "capacity" (e.g. subordinates, or young children or siblings) to obey us, even when disobedience is well-meaning.

I hope that helps!

Not only that, but the OT is types and anti-types of Christ. Most significant is that this, obviously an anti-type, has David in charge. As King no less.

By "we" I mean humanity as a whole.

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Well I guess it's good to take a wide view. But when a girl gets raped, blaming humanity on the whole doesn't really solve anything. Hating everyone isn't healthy. And the girl IS part of humanity, so in part, you're blaming her. In your examples you specifically call out "letting her go out at night" as part of the choice that is to blame. That's awfully close to blaming her for just being there. What's better is to blame the perpetrator, you know, the rapist, and punish him accordingly. And then to quesiton why the perpetuators do what they do in the first place, and then try to fix that.

Also, just being nitpicky here, remember that most rape is done by family friends. The stereotypical alone in the park scenario is a lot less common. So the choice that doomed her was more like "trusting my life-long friend".

You are right in saying that there are things beyond our control - especially true if we're talking about individually. But as a collective body, humanity actually has immense power to do things

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Eh. Not really. The debate here (uh, I think) is that god lets bad things happen to good people. This includes volcanoes, floods, lightning strikes, and cars crashing into you. You can't blame the weather on mankind's wicked nature, or whatever. These things really are beyond our control. Although your idea does work for things like war, theft, and general conflict.

("with great power comes great responsibility"!)

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Personally, I really didn't like Spiderman. Maybe it was the lead actor. But all the superhero movies were just a bit... simplistic. Feel good movies, but shallow. I really liked X-men, but I hate it for ushering in an age of super-hero movies. I mean, Electra? UltraViolet? Ugh, mankind really is wicked.

dewaddict84 said:

The debate here (uh, I think) is that god lets bad things happen to good people. This includes volcanoes, floods, lightning strikes, You can't blame the weather on mankind's wicked nature, or whatever.

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This is not the Biblical world view, which posits no weather, not even rain, before Adam's fall. If you seriously look at that as myth w/ moral you will perhaps gain a new perspective on this admittedly very difficult issue of a Holy and Just G-d letting bad things happen to people.

razeontherock said:

This is not the Biblical world view, which posits no weather, not even rain, before Adam's fall.

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No rain IS weather.

.

dewaddict84 said:

Well I guess it's good to take a wide view. But when a girl gets raped, blaming humanity on the whole doesn't really solve anything. Hating everyone isn't healthy. And the girl IS part of humanity, so in part, you're blaming her. In your examples you specifically call out "letting her go out at night" as part of the choice that is to blame. That's awfully close to blaming her for just being there. What's better is to blame the perpetrator, you know, the rapist, and punish him accordingly. And then to quesiton why the perpetuators do what they do in the first place, and then try to fix that.

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There is the macro (humanity-wide) view and the micro (individual) view. There is something wrong with humanity as a whole of just one of us (the rapist) in this case falls off the rails. Something (probably a lot of things) had to go wrong previously, with many individuals sharing the blame in the ultimate occurrence of the tragic episode. But obviously the largest blame lies with the perpetrator, as he made the final choice.

Even so, not even the perpetrator is beyond redemption. I think that statement is the point I really want to focus on, rather than dividing the blame.

And to sidetrack a little bit, I do believe that sometimes victims of crime should bear some of the burden of falling victim to crime. And it's not just me who thinks that. I'm quite sure my insurance company would not pay out if someone had stolen my bicycle that was not properly locked, or if someone broke into my house through a window I had left open. Of course this is a very general statement, and the burden of blame always, always falls on the side of the perpetrator: one might make oneself more susceptible to falling victim to crime, but the crime is ultimately perpetrated by the criminal.

dewaddict84 said:

Also, just being nitpicky here, remember that most rape is done by family friends. The stereotypical alone in the park scenario is a lot less common. So the choice that doomed her was more like "trusting my life-long friend".

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I wasn't the one who came up with the analogy; I just went with it. All analogies break down in the end.

dewaddict84 said:

Eh. Not really. The debate here (uh, I think) is that god lets bad things happen to good people. This includes volcanoes, floods, lightning strikes, and cars crashing into you. You can't blame the weather on mankind's wicked nature, or whatever. These things really are beyond our control. Although your idea does work for things like war, theft, and general conflict.

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I agree that God lets bad things happen to good people; no doubt about that. Think about it: Christians believe that Christianity was born because one very bad thing happened to one very good person, and God allowed it to happen. If even Christ, the best person in the world, had to suffer so many bad things, surely people who are less good will suffer too. Christ said so himself: "If the head of the house has been called Beelzebub, how much more the members of his household!" (Matthew 10:25).

So if my boss says he accepts that God lets bad things happen to good people, I will accept that too. Yet the example my boss sets to me is not about asking God why bad things happen, but gritting his teeth, facing evil in the face and yet still believe that good will come out in the end. You might not agree, but I hope you understand that's partly why Christ is so attractive to me.

Regarding your point on natural disasters, there are a lot human catalysts to the scale of destruction caused by those disasters.

In fact, at the basis of it, without humans, there will be no disasters. Natural "disasters" only happen to people; otherwise they are just natural "events". Earthquakes merely point to the shaking of the earth. That alone seldom kills people. It's when buildings collapse in earthquakes that people are killed.

The scale of the disaster is often magnified by substandard human activity. For example, strong buildings withstand earthquakes; shoddy ones don't, and buildings are built by people. So it's up to people to build strong buildings in earthquake zones. The people factor can help to explain why earthquakes in Haiti are more devastating than ones in Japan.

dewaddict84 said:

Personally, I really didn't like Spiderman. Maybe it was the lead actor. But all the superhero movies were just a bit... simplistic. Feel good movies, but shallow. I really liked X-men, but I hate it for ushering in an age of super-hero movies. I mean, Electra? UltraViolet? Ugh, mankind really is wicked.

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Spidey is one of my favourite superheroes. Hehe.

Hi Dragons87! Thank you for your elaborate response! I will try my best to dignify it with a worthy reply in turn.

Dragons87 said:

I know that it is extremely, extremely difficult for you to appreciate this, but each and every one of the reasons you say the policemen, I think, is an accurate reflection of what God might say.

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Naturally, I hold that it's not a deity saying this, but just what his apologets have thought up over the millennia in order to justify discrepancies between their vision of deity and the reality surrounding them.

You've even anticipated what I was going to say: that the policemen are only human.

Of course, the big qualifier to your parable is that everyone who is reading this story right now, save One, are also only human. We react as humans do, and although it is understandable to expect that God acts the same way, he doesn't, which is why believers call him "God" - because he's not human.

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The thing is, though: believers judge God all the time - you merely conclude beforehand that every judgment must be positive by default, and thus attribute all sorts of positive traits to your deity.
I can relate to the notion that such a vast, transcendent entity is completely beyond our grasp - but believers rarely stick to that notion themselves: "We cannot understand God, and his understanding and ethics is unlike anything we can come up with, given our limited mental faculties. He's also perfectly just, good, and paternal."
See, if you cannot judge God's deeds - then you cannot judge God's deeds, full stop. If you cannot call them unjust because God's justice is completely unlike our own, then you cannot call them just, either - because, as you just said, God's justice is completely unlike our own. To call them "just" would imply our frame of reference, something we can relate to and understand.

You may want to judge God by that one episode in the park alone, or even numerous episodes in the park that you might know of. But God judges the world as a whole. Not even the murderer in the park is beyond redemption - think of Paul, who put his past as a church-persecutor away to become the most famous Christian missionary in history. And certainly the consequences of that one murder is beyond what mere humans can fathom. A lot of good can come out of evil.

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And yet, if you were told that you had to torture one child until it died of sheer agony and terror in order to save a city, and even if you knew that this was true, chances are that you still wouldn't do it - hopefully. There are lines that must not be crossed, acts that cannot be justified.
As I said before, if we're not able to judge God, then that includes positive assertions as well. If his justice is inhuman, his goodness unlike anything we would call good, then that would render him amoral to us - or at least completely alien.

It's as if you were kidnapped by outerdimensional beings, and tormented grievously without any reason you could discern. Upon the cusp of death, one of your torturers approaches you and tells you telepathically that what they're doing is good, but you wouldn't be able to grasp it if they tried to explain it to you. Then they inflict more grievous harm upon you, and release you - a broken wreck for life, mentally and physically destroyed beyond healing. Do you think their concept of "goodness" conforms sufficiently with yours to allow you to call them "good"?

Let's face it: sh*t happens. This world is full of things we'd rather not see, and seemingly so devoid of things we'd rather see. That is a problem that the religious and the non-religious alike face. The question is how we deal with it.

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Actually, I do not perceive the world that negatively. I must, for the sake of this discussion, face some of its extremely unpleasant aspects, but all in all, I do not find reality as cruel as some people do. There are people who see only wickedness and depravity when looking at mankind as a whole - not me. I see our potential, I see a capacity for incredible kindness, I see our ability to achieve so much more than we already have. I do not blot out the negative aspects of our species, of course, but to look ONLY at the bad things is just as foolish as ignoring them altogether.
I find that what you see in people is what you bring to the table yourself: miserable people see only misery, bitter people see only bitterness. I choose to look for the spark of beauty that dwells in every single one of us, no matter how faulty or twisted.

Both of them are able to point to better things to come, and hold to that promise despite immense pressure to not do so; in essence, not only believing what they cannot see, but believing what the prevailing circumstances tell them not to believe (i.e. when faced with national extinction, or a hungry lion). I again acknowledge that it must be very, very difficult for you and other people to accept that, but I hope at least you can acknowledge the kind of strength that that kind of conviction can bring to people to accomplish feats that another person might not be able to. Faith in a "good" God can be an immensely powerful positive motivator in a world that tries to convince us "good" doesn't exist.

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Well, can you relate to my perspective, seeing how I can see "good" without needing a Judaeo-Christian god-concept for that?

In fact, God has faith in us too. He has given us, mere mortals, the power to either change things for the better or for worse. He has entrusted us with this power (remember, he entrusted the keys of heaven to a mere fisherman!). The concept of choosing is evident in both the Old Testament (Deuteronomy 30:19-20) and the New (Luke 14:28-34). We have the choice in our hands to do good or evil. The only thing he has done for us, which we were not able to do ourselves, was to offer us a clean slate through Christ's sacrifice. Everything else, we are told to choose because we're good enough to do so. So we chose to let our young daughters walk through an unlit park unaccompanied at night. We chose to cast a lustful gaze to a young girl who happens to be walking through an unlit park at night. We chose to attack her. We chose to stand back and watch the attack happen. We chose to not light our parks at night!

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We've strayed far from the immediate dilemma portrayed in the parable of the policemen - it IS all about choice, but in this case, it's not simply ours, but God's as well.

We've misused the power that God gave us. Do we now turn back and blame God for giving us the power in the first place? Can a corrupt politician about to be tried blame the electorate for electing him, allowing him access to power and money and so be corrupt?

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Well, imagine that the electorate not only knew of his corruption beforehand, and also sat idly by and watched him abuse his power in spite of being able to stop him at any point. Is it still free of blame? Or has their inaction made them at least partially complicit in his crime?
It all boils down to a simple question: does power entail responsibility?

Dragons87 said:

In the Christian interpretation, in the beginning when God created this world it was deemed to be "very good" (Genesis 1:31), and empowered us with the freedom and responsibility to use the skills he gave us to maintain its goodness (Genesis 1:28). Someone up the line (we call them "Adam" and "Eve") screwed it up. Then their son (Cain) screwed it up even further. Then on and on.

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You make it sound as if God didn't know that beforehand, hadn't planned for it to happen, and was basically overwhelmed by further events, setting contingency plans into motion - with varying success. (After all, billions will still roast in hell regardless of Christ's sacrifice. And the flood didn't exactly rid the world of sin, either, now did it?)
The notion of a benevolent-but-non-omniscient/omnipotent deity could explain the dilemma - yet I take it that this is not the stance Christians usually take.
Yet given that we are talking about a being whose power, foresight and knowledge knows no limitations - there couldn't even be a CONFLICT unless God wished for it. Omnipotence renders God at least partially responsible for EVERYTHING that happens: He knows that it happens, he's always known it, and he's got the power to make things work out whichever way he wants.
Satan rebels? God knew that. Twip - Satan's rebellion is no more, the upstart is contained, and all further misdeeds are prevented. Eve disobeyed regardless? Zap - her children do not have to pay the price for her transgression, and return to the blissful state the First Humans lived in before. Mankind creates too much trouble? Why bother with an ineffective flood that kills billions of non-human organisms as well? BAM - the offending parties are smitten out of existence in a flash of light, along with all traces of their evil practices. He killed them anyway, right? Their freedom of choice made no difference whatsoever in God's decision to interfere.

I shortened your post a bit, as I found that I had already addressed the issue of humanity's capacity for good beforehand.

Again, I understand how difficult it must be to you to understand why God did what he did. I believe that the reason why it is so difficult to understand is because you don't know God. It's kind of like randomly surfing people you don't know on Facebook and judging the character of someone solely by what photographs they were tagged in. When one makes the connections in the Old Testament one can see that the whole moving the Ark thing was going to end in disaster right from the very beginning.

The offending passage is reproduced as follows, and I've highlighted the bits that God would have found extremely problematic.

"David again brought together out of Israel chosen men, thirty thousand in all. He and all his men set out from Baalah of Judah to bring up from there the ark of God, which is called by the Name, the name of the Lord Almighty, who is enthroned between the cherubim that are on the ark. They set the ark of God on a new cart and brought it from the house of Abinadab, which was on the hill. Uzzah and Ahio, sons of Abinadab, were guiding the new cart with the ark of God on it, and Ahio was walking in front of it. David and the whole house of Israel were celebrating with all their might before the LORD, with songs and with harps, lyres, tambourines, sistrums and cymbals.

When they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah reached out and took hold of the ark of God, because the oxen stumbled. The Lord's anger burned against Uzzah because of his irreverent act; therefore God struck him down and he died there beside the ark of God." 2 Samuel 6:1-7

The problem actually already started at the beginning of the process, the first part in bold. Reason? God had long ago already determined how he wanted his Ark carried. See Exodus 25:13-16:

God was extremely clear in how he wanted his things to be moved, and by whom. The warnings for disobedience were also extremely plain. But the problems were already there in the first instance, by not employing the proper techniques. Uzzah, unfortunately, did the one thing that God had explicitly instructed him not to do, and suffered the consequences.

So it's not as if God whimsically decided to end Uzzah's life. The law was plain for David and his convoy to read; they chose to either disregard it or disobey it.

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Even given that these rules were known - do they not strike you as whimsical, or even petty? Honestly? If somebody declared that anybody who touched his roses would be buried alive and eaten by ants - and then went through with that punishment when somebody became foolish enough to actually do it - would you think that the lawmaker was justified in it to begin with?

The lesson this teaches us is that God takes obedience very, very seriously - he is not someone to be trifled with, and he expects his orders to be obeyed. Well, that's not an entirely unreasonable demand, is it? Even us humans expect people of a lower "capacity" (e.g. subordinates, or young children or siblings) to obey us, even when disobedience is well-meaning.

I hope that helps!

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I do not set much stock in authority/hierarchy as an end in itself. It makes sense to protect people from a danger they are not aware of ("do not touch that red-hot cooking plate, kid! It will burn you!"), or offering them counsel based on one's superior knowledge of a specific problem ("preparing for a test might not be much fun, but believe me, it'll be good for you in the long run, even if it means missing an afternoon of skateboarding"), or even to command them at work to make them work together more efficiently.
But that's not what we see in the case of Uzzah: he was killed because of an absurd rule.