It is the modern age that defines love as enabling one to do whatever one wants with no consequences. Love is not an enabler of evil, as 1 Cor. 13 says, "Love does not rejoice in iniquity."
Is it love to protect and enable someone to harm another person? Would you say no? But why not, if they cry, "You don't love me if you don't enable my ability to abuse!"
"Because that's not how I define love."
"Yea, but, you are talking about God abusing others!"
"Is it abuse to stop abuse? If not, why not? You could define abuse that way if you wanted to get what you wanted regardless of consequence!"
So you think telling someone to do something, and torturing them if they fail to do so is compatible with love? I think you need to take a long hard look at your own relationships, and see if there is abuse there. I am not saying you abuse your partner, you may well be the victim, and have normalised his or her abusive behaviour. Here are a couple of web sites that might help you.
It’s not always obvious that you’re in an abusive relationship. Learn some of the key signs to look for.
au.reachout.com
"Was I overreacting?" I asked myself. "Was I being too sensitive? Was he right that I was acting crazy?"
www.healthline.com
I say this because torturing someone
is not love, and if you think it is, there is something seriously wrong.
It is simply how you define abuse, as inflicting suffering on another for reasons you find insufficient. God has sufficient reasons. He is not harsh, he is severe... his love has qualifications...
No. Again, look at those web sites. It is
not okay to abuse your loved one. Saying they deserve it does not make that any better.
Whether God has sufficient reasons is highly dubious, but even if he does, then the loving thing to do is to unconditionally forgive. Holding a grudge is not loving. Venting your anger on someone is not love.
Torturing someone for eternity because they chose not to love you is the antithesis of love.
God has the right to value himself above humans. God has the right to impose rules upon humans. God as the right to punish humans.
None of which relates to love.
When he uses that to excuse torturing people, that is not love.
The differentiation between harshness and severity, is that harshness does not desire the well-being of the subject, nor give any effort to attempt to help the subject. If God could in any way be more "cruel" than he is, that is, he could maximally inflict suffering, then he has to have at least "some" love and goodness even by your warped standard that makes humans not suffering the exalted and supreme value over God.
Torturing someone for eternity does not help the subject (I am assuming the usual Christian view here).
But the reason we can logically argue God is indeed, maximally good, is because he is maximally good within the framework of righteously and justly exalting himself.
Not if he tortures people for eternity, and says they deserve it for failing to love him.
There is nothing morally wrong with not loving God. That is part of the human right to freedom of religion - it recognises that worshiping any god, or none, is morally acceptable.
As you say, the crime here failing to exalt God, because all God cares about is people worshiping him. Again, the antithesis of love. Taking, not giving.
Considering the argument that might makes right—who is to say God would be "unloving" even if he is harsh; when one could describe love as ennoblement to do evil, if one so wanted, any action at all could be deemed unloving. I could argue you are not "loving" God by harshly criticizing God's actions.
I am not sure what your point is.
You seem - in your post in general - to be trying to redefine love to mean something it is not. Love is certainly not "ennoblement to do evil" - no one thinks that. We all know what love means, at least approximately. When Christians say "God is love" then either they mean God can be identified with the concept of love
as it is conventionally understood, or they are just playing the Humpty Dumpty game, and it is, in essence, a lie.
God could be defined as a bully if God had no desire for or effort to help the well-being of his subjects.
But he does.
So tell me how torturing his victims for eternity helps them.