On a mountain, Jesus is tempted by Satan (Luke 4.5) who offers all the riches of the world to Jesus and he need only fall down and worship Satan.
The narrative proceeds to describe Jesus’ rejection of the offer. We are told that Jesus is not concerned with worldly goods and so there is not much temptation to resist. As for the payment asked, essentially respect, affection and allegiance, Jesus cannot extend these to Satan. These attitudes are conveyed upon those who earn them through deeds, not by payment of a fee. Jesus understands this and Satan does not.
High principle and integrity are universally admired and Jesus is a role model for all of us who aspire to nobility, in the moral character sense.
Now let us consider another offer. God has taken a woman to the mountain and has spoken, “Daughter, your default destiny is to suffer in a lake of fire forever. However, I am in a position to offer you an alternative, eternal bliss. All you have to do is fall down and worship me. You are free to choose as you will.”
There is some similarity to the previous offer. That which is requested, worship, is of course identical. The incentives, however are drastically different. Satan’s offer is a genuine invitation. God’s offer is phrased to appear to be invitational, but some reflection puts that notion in doubt. It may be opportune to review two definitions at this point.
Extortion: a criminal offense of obtaining money, property, or services from a person, entity, individual or institution, through coercion.
Coercion: the practice of forcing another party to act in an involuntary manner by use of intimidation or threats or some other form of pressure or force.
The “choice” between infinite punishment and infinite reward is not only coercive, it is the ultimate coercion since nothing could be greater. God appears to covet mankind’s devotion to such a degree that any means is acceptable to obtain it.
Of course God is not guilty of wrong doing. By the power of His authority, He is the final arbiter of good and evil and is incapable of being guilty of anything. All of God’s deeds are good. Mankind’s deeds are something else and must be judged by God alone.
The gifts of heaven, hell and free will were all invented and provided by the one and only Creator. Being prescient, He was perfectly aware that the vast majority of His creations were destined for damnation and this was necessarily an essential part of His divine plan.
You protest, “He gave us the gift of life itself. We should be eternally grateful.” Well, you have neglected to recognize that this package includes death and the certain knowledge that we must experience it. You are also ignoring the implicit contract you had no part in drawing up, that you “must” be eternally grateful, not “should” be.
It is time to draw some conclusions from this discussion.
To return to the dilemma of the woman on the mountain, assuming she is not a masochist, the choice of infinite punishment does not appear to be desirable. Should she then resolve to love and praise a deity whose principle purpose has been to create a hundred billion souls destined for eternal suffering? Should she consider this God to be the perfect example of love, compassion and mercy?
Only if she is quite mad. The good news is that there are actually more than two options available. She need only consider which is more probable, that God created mankind, or mankind created God? When she reflects that humans began to invent gods before tools, that descriptions of spiritual elements are flagrantly disparate and incoherent, then she may recognize that pursuing a delusion is not useful or even desirable.
Seeing she is alone on the mountain, she may descend, a free woman.