That last quote is a good example of the inherent evil of every "One-True-Way-ity", as per the Atheist's Wager. If rejecting their specific brand of religion is considered a crime by their deity, then their deity is by definition immoral (not just amoral) and unworthy of worship. CS Lewis put more thought into it - I disagree with his reasoning, but at least he was working from a moral foundation.

"The duration of the crime clearly has little or nothing to do with the duration of the penalty." -- The duration of the effects of those crimes both correspond quite well to the duration of the punishments. Replacing $260 takes a few days, and the punishment is comparably short (and probably includes paying the money back). Murder lasts the rest of your life, and often, so does the punishment. They're also all finite, in the sense that the murder victim and the executed murderer would have died eventually, so there's a finite change in lifespan.

You nailed it on the head - the Abrahamic religions can only jump to this conclusion not by anything we could possibly have done, but charging the difference between us and the divine as a crime we are held accountable for - unless we accept the divine proposition.

Paying back money you stole or having your life taken from you because you took another's life are punishments that make sense with respect to the effects of the crime committed. You did something that caused an inconvenience to someone else, and you were inconvenienced in turn to the same degree. I'd like to understand what inconvenience one causes to God by rejecting Him? If not believing in God is the ultimate "infinite" crime, it must cause him some infinite amount of trouble for the punishment to be appropriate, no? Does that follow from an omnipotent God? I don't see how it can.

@DarthFennec This is getting more into religion than philosophy, but the concept of "evil" as it is presented by the Christian religion is not as simple as "causes inconvenience or harm".

@Graham: Theorem: there is at most one true religion.

@Joshua, I think that you're on to something, but it might be smarter to say "there is at most one true theology", since a religion, depending on how you define it, may be different with another and still be compatible with all of another's truth-claims.

@elliotsvensson Doesn't the theology just cover the different minor variations within the religion though? And once the theology diverges enough, the different theological branches define themselves as different religions (or more to the point, deny that the other is the same religion). Sunni/Shia, Protestant/Catholic/Gnostic, and so on.

@Joshua With the famous statement that an atheist only rejects one additional religion, compared to a follower of any religion; and if the follower of that religion can say why they've rejected all other religions, they'll understand why the atheist rejects theirs as well.

@Graham, using the lazy google definition for religion, a religion has two branches: theology and worship... the theology might be the same, but the worship might be different. Worship is not truth-claims, as far as I can tell.

@elliotsvensson Right. I've heard people use the argument that there's 10,000 branches of Christianity that all claim to have "the one truth", but this is incorrect; as a great number of those are not in conflict with each other on most things.

@elliotsvensson Sure. But the Sunni/Shia or Protestant/Catholic divides are truth-claims. In both cases the base religion has undergone dogmatic schisms of what is considered "truth", in spite of there being no change to the religious texts or teachings on which they're based.

@Graham: I define the athiest as having the religion of matter.

@Graham For some Christian splits; certainly. But not for the vast majority of the 10,000+ denominations.

@Graham It's evil according to what definition?

@Gendolkari Agreed. But to allow them self-determination, it really depends whether they see themselves as compatible aspects of the same religion who can coexist. If they don't, they aren't.

Putting a human in the hell for eternity does not have rehabilitational purpose. In any other case it is possible for an omnipotent God to simply destroy the soul/human. Since this, the first choice is universally more evil than the second and God is evil.

@jpmc26 Of the top of my head, I'd define it as causing intentional harm without a purpose which can be justified on moral grounds. "Because my religious texts say that God says so" is not an adequate justification.

@Graham I think you misunderstood my question. I'm asking what those "moral grounds" are. How are you defining morality? "'Because my religious texts say that God says so' is not an adequate justification." ??? This seems to be a gross misunderstanding of the answer. The answer is laying forth axioms to define evil. This is not quite correct, but the gist is something like: 1. Good is infinite. 2. God manifests infinite truth and love, making Him good. 3. Man has very small, finite good. From these axioms, we arrive at the conclusion that man is evil because of his lack of good.

@DarthFennec What if the harm (or "inconvenience") is to other created beings, rather than God? The government which executes a punishment is usually not the victim of a crime, after all.