the idea of a logic behind everything in the universe, the idea that both of us (and the Jesuits) find so appealing, is the most plausible evidence i see for the existence of God. i am still aware that we are grafting human understanding onto phenomena that might objectively exist but can only be subjectively interpreted. i can't view that as evidence, but more as the suggestion of a diety. i love that idea, and that is what i cling to, because it makes rational sense.
i don't, however, find any credence to the idea of God-as-parent. i do believe that, in the grand scheme of things, there is far more evil in the world than good. i believe man is born, he suffers, and then he dies. i think many of the good things we ascribe as proof of God -- the strawberry example -- are because we have strawberries; many people don't. in my line of work, i encounter lots and lots of documentary film, footage that has been taken in some of the worst places on earth. i remain utterly shaken to my core by the footage i've seen of mutilated bodies in the Congo, bloated bodies of children in Sri Lanka, and shattered skulls and liquified eyeballs after the Nairobi bombings of 1998. i don't find that a strawberry, a sunset, or even romantic love is enough to negate the sheer horror that is a part of life for so many innocent people who happened to be born in the wrong place, or sitting on the wrong spot on the couch when a stray bullet smacks through the skull of a 9 year old in southeast Washington DC. the world strikes me as amoral, neither objectively good nor bad, and largely what humans make of it. i don't see evidence of divine intervention, at least in a literal sense, and if there were, then this God has got a whole lot of explaining to do. calling him an abusive parent would be to put it mildly.