an eternal torture house...

Our recent Apacolyptic dust-up did what such things largely do-provide entertainment and mirth for those that believe God does not exist, or if he does, is mean and nasty. Not a new discussion. This from a 1908 issue of "The Unitarian" magazine...

"Speculative and Practical Atheism
By REV. JABEZ T. SUNDERLAND
THERE seems to be little danger, in an age of intelligence like ours, of an increase of speculative atheism. Such danger as exists appears to be from practical atheism. The two are not the same. Speculative atheism is denial of God's existence. Practical atheism is not that, it is much worse. It is any form of theological thought which represents God as having a character so low and imperfect that good men feel called upon to apologize for him,—any form of thought or doctrine which represents him ever, under any circumstances, as angry, vengeful, jealous, immoral, inhuman,—as punishing the innocent for the guilty, much less as doing so unutterably unjust and cruel a thing as to burn his own children forever. Such representations of God, strange to say widely made in the name of piety, of religion, of orthodoxy—are clearly worse than denying his existence. For does not every right-thinking mind agree at once with Plutarch when he said: "I would rather by a good deal that men should deny that there ever was a Plutarch, than say, 'Yes, there was a Plutarch, but he devoured his own children.'" So, if it is a dreadful thing for men to say: "There is no God", let us reflect that it is far more dreadful to say: "There is a God, but off in one corner of his universe he keeps an eternal torture house."

Blessings