A deity who is cruel and double tongued tends to chase people away instead of drawing them towards the light. I've run into those people. Many grew up in churches that taught that God refuses salvation to most, meddles in their lives causing all the pains, heartbreaks and sufferings while at the same time proclaiming that he is perfect love and justice. They could not stomach the contradictions and so either ran into the arms of atheism or created a quasi-Christianity that removed the problems but also removed the deity of Jesus and the divine authorship of the bible.
As the daughter of an abuser let me unveil some of the subtleties of abusive behavior that others do not know about. An abuser has a wooing side and a harmful side. With their lips they proclaim their love for you, they tear up at the thought of you not understanding that. In order to keep you they give gifts, pay attention to you and make you feel like they have changed. But their true nature and behaviors belie all of that outward show. Once they feel comfortable that they have retained you as a pawn their true nature comes forth. They are cold, cruel, capricious and blame you for everything that goes wrong. Is it any wonder then that people who have personally known abusers question and deny these heresies about God's character and behavior? When you have known the face of evil you can spot an abuser or abusive behavior clearly. You don't fall for the cover story, the contradictions, because you've seen them all before. So when a theology tries to tell you that God behaves just like an abusive person you cry foul at the very notion that the perfection of the universe could be so slandered.
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