Any God an atheist does not believe in, no one should believe in... for all belief is based on a idea of the 'thing' 'not believed in'.
God is not an 'idea'... a 'thing', a 'being'.
God is the Ground of 'being'... Being and non-Being itself.
God ALONE is real.
Reading scripture (of any religion) from a human perspective, it may appear that God is capricious and cruel. From that perspective, the stories told about how God treats humans may rightly invoke terror.
Read from the 'perspective of God'... the words of all the great religions are 'Good News' indeed :)
Words come in two forms:
1. The most common words are those to which 'meaning' is attached. They deal only in ideas. Ideas only reference other ideas. (try to 'define' any idea without reference to other ideas). Ultimately, all ideas together form the closed self-referential set of all 'numbers, forms and meaning'.
Ideas are useless when seeking the 'essence of Reality'.
Even the most rigorous scientific 'scientific theories' simply use mathematical models of theoretical objects (quantum field, sub-atomic particles, atoms, molecules, proteins, cells, etc... to stars, galaxies, super-galaxies and the background radiation), and their theoretical properties (charge, spin, mass, temperature, etc), along with mathematical 'laws' that describe the relationships between the theoretical objects... to determine their theoretical behaviour.
We say a theory is valid when the theoretical behaviour of the theoretical objects maps or predicts the observed behaviour of observed objects... observed in and by Consciousness.
Theories essentially only describe the 'theoretical behaviour of theoretical forms'.
That is all.
They say nothing (nor can they ever say anything) about 'essence', or the 'experience of life' (what it is to See and Hear and Feel and Taste and Smell and Know), such as: eating a pie at the footy with friends, the terror and thrill of battle, the pain of losing a child, or the delights of your first love, arguing with your boss, watching porn... or any other experience... each of which is infinitely greater than these few words convey!
Only in 'experiencing' is the 'experience' perceived.
Which is to say, no scientific theory can even come close to revealing this Consciousness in which and to which this 'play of life' is apparent.
2. A few words may be read as 'signposts'.
A sign to a waterfall tells you nothing about the 'reality' of the falls itself. To recognize the 'reality' you have to go and look to where the sign points.
The words that take the second form are 'meaningless' words. They simply direct attention to Reality. Words like: 'God', 'Invisible Living Spirit', 'Life', 'Consciousness', 'Seeing-colours', 'Hearing-sounds', 'Feeling-feelings', 'Tasting-flavours', 'Smelling-odours', 'Knowing-ideas'... 'Awareness'.
To 'cognise' the Reality such words indicate, One simply directs attention to 'here and now'...
Being Aware of Awareness itself :)
This is a link to some Biblical references that point to the nature of Reality, using contemporary terms to elucidate THIS to which they point:
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-best-nondual-biblical-quotes/answer/Michael-Haines-10
Self to Self :)
