I have NEVER understood this whole Lewis-based argument that if God revealed himself to us more openly we would be deprived of out free will. How could having better access to the information most relevant to my decisions make me less free?

Now that answer is obvious, because then you wouldn’t be atheist any more would you?

Onward to address some other misconceptions first.

Let’s get started on some of the vast array of problems that are inherent in this particular excuse for God’s absence. First of all, if the ability to perceive God’s existence necessarily results in the destruction of free will, how is it that Satan has any free will?

Basic flaw here: That Satan and his brethren are like us. Which is (of course) completely false. You have to understand that Lewis is talking about abolition of free will in Humans, no other life-forms applicable in that statement.

Secondly, the Bible promises that believers (and everyone else) will see God clearly, at the Second Coming, at the Last Judgment, and throughout all eternity. If God showing up means the rape of individual free will and/or its destruction, then believers can look forward to an eternity either of volitional rape or of the absence of free will altogether.

Shouldn’t there be no “or” there since you’re using the metaphor of “rape” as losing free will? And it’s because of free will that Hell is necessary anyway. To quote Lewis again: “In the end, there will only be 2 kinds of people. Those that say to God: ‘Thy will be done.’ And those to whom God says: ‘Thy will be done.’” Some interpretations of the 2nd coming is that there is no 2nd chance after it. But then that’s going to get into some deep theological stuff that’s been discussed for centuries.

If this is to be the final state of free will, what makes it so valuable that a loving Heavenly Father would prefer to see most of His beloved children burn forever in Hell, rather than risk compromising it during the brief span of our mortal years?

In asking the question, you sort of answer it. Yes He apparently considers it of utmost importance (not to mention the talk about “without choice, there is no love”). He apparently prefers that you and I have absolute freedom rather than absolute security.

Thirdly, Geisler and Turek follow Lewis’s lead in utterly forgetting the Gospel when they claim that God must necessarily be limited to showing up only in “the faintest and most mitigated degree.” In fact, for this particular argument to work, you need to reject huge swaths of Scripture, which speak of fire and brimstone, plagues of death and darkness, burning bushes and pillars of fire, to say nothing of Incarnations.

Well first of all, what you mention, could still be the “faintest and most mitigated degree.” Think about it as… “capacity for rejection.” In ancient times, beliefs in gods were quite prevalent (maybe even justified, but that’s another discussion). Thus, even with God’s appearance, ancient people would still be able to reject Him for someone/something else (and the Bible is filled with the Israelites doing so). Imagine now that even a fraction of what happened then were to happen today. Would not the world become 100% religious overnight? You have to think in context. That in the past, more of God could be seen, than can be today.

Geisler and Turek have inadvertently hit on one of the major inconsistencies of Christian apologetics: in order to explain why God does not show up in real life, you are forced to argue that some overriding circumstance makes it unwise and unloving for Him to appear. As soon as you do that, though, you are contradicting all the reasons the Bible gives us for why we should believe He exists. The Bible stories aren’t about people thinking they’ve felt some faint, mitigated sense of God’s presence, they’re about God doing all the sorts of things He should (and doesn’t) do today—if He really believes the Gospel, anyway.

See above. Also you have to remember that the Bible itself states that everything was in preparation for Christ (Christian view/edition anyway). Thus, everything in the OT was a set up for the NT. Now that Christ has come and changed the game, there’s no need for God to play it the same.

Until I read The God Delusion, I never thought of applying that question to the Christian God. When dealing with concepts of good and evil, apologists will say things like “well, God made those little children, it’s not wrong for him to kill them, or torture them in hell if they don’t do what he says.” As if the mere assumed fact that God EXISTS (and created us) means that he is both good and worthy of worship. That seems to be the logic followed by the fragile free will crowd, that even knowing he’s about makes us incapable of not following him. But one of the things I came to term with when I stopped worshiping him, is that, unless the Bible and his followers are extremely off base about him, I don’t think he’d be worthy of my devotion even if he showed up in my living room.

I suppose there’s an answer to that though, that somehow my being a “sinner” and how they think the only reason to leave God is because I want an excuse to sin, that him showing up would make me reject him harder because I can’t admit how awful I am, or something. But really, does that make any sense? Especially since THEY claim a great reason for following their God is the threat of eternal torture. If I were ambivalent on the matter, I think proof of their punishments would make me more likely to go their way. I’d only be willing to endure eternal torture if it were a matter of freedom and principle and love of humanity.

Also. Complaining about free will on the one hand and threatening with hellfire on the other? Yeah.

Suppose it’s 2000 and I’m deciding to invest in Enron or Amazon. Amazon’s looking like the real deal, a true winner in a web filled with shaky dotcoms. However, I can see the the new second Enron tower, and walked by the trading floor that is supposed to dwarf the Chicago commodities exchange. I know construction workers who built plants for Enron or laid cable for Enron. But one day at one of the newer semi-upscale bars in 4th Ward near the Enron complex I meet a drunk Enron employee who says the company has severly overreached and he fears his stock will be worth nothing. Then I meet another employee somewhere else who says the same thing. These two revealations prompt me to do some research, and while I cant get all the details I come to understand something is up. I put my money in Amazon.

How did meeting these two drunk Enron employees make me less free? How in general does having more access to imformation that allows me to act to satisfy my desires make me less free? How could having a personal revealation from God make me less free? If God exists and He lets me know with at least some clarity what He wants, how does this make me less free? As things stand I have only the obscure and problematic revealation of The Bible, and the incessant and conflicting yammering of its interpreters. This is not the kind of quality information I need to choose to fulfill my desires wisely.

In any case, the Bible is full of examples of people who had much more direct revealations of God’s will and power than I have had and they still rejected God. So the Bible itself establishes that even those who have firsthand experience of godly night can choose to reject Him.