How is God 'like a father'?

[Maximilian]

I'm posting these threads in order to raise the issues I'm having, in the hopes that they may be resolved and that I may arrive at truth.

This isn't the way to go about it. You'll never arrive at either Faith or Truth this way.

As I said, I don't have faith.

Right. There's the issue, full stop. Tinkering around with these inane questions isn't going to get you any closer.

It would be wrong for me to believe without proof, and it would be just as wrong to disbelieve without proof to the contrary.

This is all just intellectual gymnastics happening in your own head. It's self-indulgent mental masturbation that has nothing to do with either truth or faith.

You need to get out of your own head and into the real world. If you were being shot at in Afghanistan, for example, that would give you a whole new perspective that might cut through the gordian knot in your brain.

"Chunibyo (??? Ch?niby?) is a Japanese colloquial term that translates to "middle-school second-year syndrome" or "eighth-grader syndrome", typically used to describe early teens who have delusions of grandeur, that desperately want to stand out that they have convinced themselves they have hidden knowledge or secret powers."

[Kreuzritter]

St. Augustine's views on the massa damnata are nothing short of disgusting.  I simply refuse to take him seriously.

But you believe a benevolent being created what he called "good" through pain, suffering and death. You are a bag full of inconsistencies, aren't you.

[Quaremerepulisti]

But you believe a benevolent being created what he called "good" through pain, suffering and death.

So do you.  You believe a benevolent being created "good" called the Redemption through pain, suffering and death.

You are a bag full of inconsistencies, aren't you.

Maybe so; but so are you, by this logic, if you agree with St. Augustine but disagree with theistic evolution.

But at least Christ willingly took upon the suffering of the Cross as a result of original sin.  But my God does not punish unwilling innocent animals for the sins of man.  I do not hold it just to torture the dog of the man who burglarized my house.

And for you, Pon:
That YEC can better argue theodicy compared to TE with respect to the amount of animal suffering, admitted; that YEC can better argue theodicy compared to TE with respect to the reason for animal suffering, denied.  I have not (as yet) seen you make a serious response to this argument.