Final point: any creator being worthy of worship would have to be one that, having created you and your faculties of thought and consideration, would not punish you for using those faculties and arriving at the "wrong" conclusion, based on the facts of the universe as understood at the time you were alive.
I don't agree with that. That's like saying that your parents, knowing the world they were bringing you into, cannot morally punish you for doing whatever the you think makes you relevant in the time you were born into. I'm responsible for my own actions whether I live in 2017 or 217, and if we do exist on a larger scale than earthly, material existence, that responsibility is great indeed.
If a God created us initially then it absolutely has the same intrinsic rights over us that our parents do when we are children, that being of experience and natural authority. If, as many religions claim, we ascend to a higher place upon death, then this is comparable to entering adulthood. The euphemism of humans as "children of [X]" is accurate indeed, as the things we do here decide our aptitude for entering true society in the "afterlife".
Removing our ability to make that wrong choice would at worst be akin to extreme totalitarianism shown in abusive parents. At best, it would turn us as a species into one that is completely removed from the consequences of our own actions. What equitable alternate "punishment" from entering a positive afterlife can there possibly be aside from not entering that positive afterlife? That's not cruelty or even punishment in truth, that's consequences.
You went in the wrong direction than I was going, I was never talking about ethics (I mean, besides the basic immorality of any infinite punishment (or "consequence") for a finite crime) I was talking about the basic facts of what reality *is.* If a god exists and does not provide any inkling of their existence, and in fact provides evidence *against* their existence (from the vast number of equally-plausible religions to the in-your-face levels of This Is A Natural Process that the universe screams) AND provides us with the, individual or species, tendencies toward logic, reason, and basic A -> B -> C, 2 + 2 = 4, how is it in any way just or moral to punish us for putting two and two together and getting four? The rules of reality that that being created *force* it to be four.
At any rate, comparing a deity to a parent ignores the next point which is *the most important one* (thanks for removing that, btw), which was that any creator deity *knows* you. Intimately. More than you know yourself, more than you *can* know yourself. They created you the way an artist creates a sketch, or an engineer creates an engine, but ever more so. They know exactly what your proclivities are. With rudimentary AI, humanity is able to predict individual people to a disconcerting degree; such as Target sending baby-item coupons to people who don't even know that they are pregnant, because they use AI processes to examine shopping habits and picked up on the unconscious shopping habits of people who are going to have a baby.
That level of prediction is with human failings, limited data, and a rudimentary AI. Any divinity who could create reality would necessarily be able to do at least that much, and more. And even if that deity did not choose to exercise that predictive ability, they would still be responsible for our actions, because *they could have*. They could have seen what we would do as they created us, seen that we would behave in ways they don't like, and change how they were going to create us. Which would no more go against free will than the mere act of creation in the first place goes against free will, since the only difference is what proclivities they are giving us; the ACT of CREATION is still the same, and it is still them setting the dominoes up.
To go back to the ball example: I drop the ball. I get angry that it hit the ground. I *could* have reached out and grabbed it; that is within my ability. But I did not do so, because I wanted to give the ball "free will." It's still going to hit the ground regardless of any will it might have, because of forces set in motion that it has no control over. (to ground the metaphor, I'm talking about the human species tendencies and our own particular tendencies; I'm not getting into determinism explicitly here, but it is a factor too.)
I can no more blame the ball for hitting the ground after abstaining from interfering than otherwise; I am still in control. And a god is ever more so in control; I might be able to grab that ball? A god would be able to just stop gravity in that area. More control, just because of what that deity is, whether it exercises that control or not. My point is that a deity, by it's very nature, already "turn us as a species into one that is completely removed from the consequences of our own actions." That's intrinsic to the mere concept of a creator deity capable of creating our universe and us in particular.
As for afterlife = adulthood. For one, kids can see adults. They see that Being An Adult is a thing that actually occurs, they can more or less understand how it works ("I get bigger and smarter and eventually Adulting Occurs") If you told a group of children (by way of indirect books you left around) who had never seen an adult, have no idea what an adult looks like, who once they become adults they never return. If you told them that an adult is "You, but bigger and smarter and better," they'd be well within their right to think that is entirely incorrect.
Like I'm kind of repeating myself here but I don't think you understand a god *is not* comparable to a parent. A God is a God, it Knows, whereas a parent is just a human, it thinks. It guesses. It believes. It may have a very good reason to believe something! But there is *always* the chance of being wrong. A god Knows; it does not have that chance of being wrong.
