Defending the Depravity of God

From http://atheism.about.com/b/a/206179.htm

GIZIMOTH: let’s agree about that, then. God, if he exists, is omnipotent. But here on Eth, those who believe in God also attribute another property to him, don’t they?

BOOBLEFRlP: Yes. As you know, we also believe that God ‘s all-evil.

GIZIMOTH: Can you explain what you mean by that?

BOOBLEFRlP: Not only does God’s power know no bounds, neither does his depravity. His cruelty is infinite; his malice without end.

[...]

GIZIMOTH: But why define God that way? Why not suppose, instead, that God is neither good nor evil? Or why not suppose he is all-good?

(Booblefrip thinks Gizimoth has gone too far.)

BOOBLEFRIP: What a bizarre suggestion. It’s obvious our creator is very clearly evil! Take a look around you! Witness the horrendous suffering he inflicts upon us. The floods. The ethquakes. Cancer. The vile, rotting stench of God’s creation is overwhelming!

Gizimoth naturally points out that life isn’t perfectly evil — after all, there are lots of good things about life, too, right? Booblefrip has an answer to this objection, though:

BOOBLEFRIP: Very well. God’s malevolence is without end. True, he lets us do good. He allows us to act selflessly for the betterment of others, for example. But there’s a reason for that.

GIZIMOTH: What reason?

BOOBLEFRIP: God gave us free will.

GIZIMOTH: Free will?

BOOBLEFRIP: Yes. God could have made us mere automata that always did the wrong thing. But he didn’t do that. He gave us the freedom to choose how we act.

GIZIMOTH: Why?

BOOBLEFRIP: By giving us free will, God actually increased the amount of suffering there is in the world. He made the world far more terrible than it would otherwise have been!

GIZIMOTH: How?

BOOBLEFRIP: Think about it. By giving us free will, God be sure we will agonize endlessly about what we o. For free will brings with it the torture of temptation. And then, when we succumb to temptation, we feel guilty. Knowing that being free, we could have done otherwise, we feel awful about what we have done. We end up torturing ourselves. The exquisitely evil Irony of it all!