I'm not playing it to suit my needs, but rather thinking along common epistemological lines. If you want to assert that "everything we know about his actions and the current state of the world would suggest that to be false," you are clearly claiming to know enough about God's actions and the state of the world to draw that conclusion. I say you don't have that depth and scope of knowledge, because of the limitations of human knowledge. If you're at a dog park, you can rightfully claim that there are no hippopotamuses there because that's within the scope of human perception, observation, and knowledge. But I'm not going to believe if you assert there are no gluons there at the moment, because that's not within the range of human perception. By the same token, I don't trust that you have a thorough enough knowledge of God's presence, work, and a grasp of the complexities of human circumstances to draw the conclusion that God as omnibenevolent and omnipotent is therefore decidedly false.
> What we currently know is that God has killed the firstborn sons of Egypt to achieve another purpose, and we have zero indication that those children were evil little jerks that deserved to die and that their families deserved the trauma of losing their children.
Of course the children were not evil, nor were they jerks. The text makes no such claim. Did the families deserve losing them? That's more of a judgment call, since the Egyptians had as a nation killed the children of the Israelites. Is it right for the punishment to fit the crime? See, now it's more complicated. And since Pharaoh set himself up as the alleged the giver of all life and the monarch in control over death, it's more complicated still. Is it possible that there was more going on than your false accusation of "killing...evil little jerks"? Yet you are perfectly willing to sit in judgment over God when you have very few of the facts and a superficial view of an event 3500 years removed from you.
> We know that God sent 2 mama bears from the forest to maul a bunch of children who teased a man for being bald.
Once again, this is an insufficient and incorrect view of what was going on. It was a dark time in the spiritual situation of Israel. Ahab, one of the most godless men ever to sit on the throne of Israel, and his wife Jezebel, even to this day an archetype of evil, were dragging the country into child sacrifice, destructive religious practices, and immorality of every kind. The people were following, like sheep. God sent Elijah to confront the king and the false religion he championed (1 Ki. 17.1). Jezebel went on a killing spree, butchering prophets like beef (1 Ki. 18.4). The Lord wouldn't let go of his people and the covenant he had made with them, and commissioned Elijah to anoint a new king over Israel and recruit a partner, Elisha, to help set the nation back to rights. He sent prophet after prophet to confront Ahab with his evil (1 Ki. 20.35-43; 22.1-28). Ahab is killed in battle (1 Ki. 22.29-38), and the country has a chance, now, to turn around and be saved from the moral and spiritual cesspool.
The successor, Ahaziah, is not much better than Ahab. He's evil to the core. Elijah confronts him too, and he dies. Any judge that ignores evil isn't much of a judge. To let anybody get away with anything they want isn't justice, it's anarchy.
Elijah is taken away, and Elisha is his successor. Within the time of about a week, Elisha heads to Bethel, the house of God, where Abraham had met with the Lord and where Jacob had his vision of the stairway to heaven. He is minding his own business, or should I say the business of the Lord, when he is accosted by a group (unknown number; "42" is a generic term in their culture for a large group) of teens who, as members of covenant families ought to have been taught that cursing God's servants (prophets) was tantamount to cursing God, an action punishable by death. But remember, the country was depraved.
They mocked the prophet for his baldness. In those days, long hair was the mark of a true prophet. Also, the ritual cutting of hair is prohibited by the law. Now, Elisha was naturally bald, apparently, but the taunt was unmistakable: you're a fake and a fraud, and YHWH is both impotent and false. Everything about your God is illicit.
Elisha turned and rebuked their blasphemy, calling down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Was YHWH real? Was Elisha his true prophet? Did YHWH take any actions to preserve his people, keep them on the right path, and judge rebels? Would God do nothing to maintain the right, and just watch the country go down the toilet?
You'll notice that Elisha doesn't specify the curse. He rebukes them for their blasphemy. God is the one who takes the action. For all we know, all Elisha said is, "May God curse you for your blasphemy," and then to his surprise and that of the teens, 2 bears attack them.
Now, let's look at that attack a little closer. First of all, you know how bears attack. You've seen it on youtube. They're not fast like leopards. Let's be realistic—if two bears attack 10 kids, the 10 kids are going to run in 10 different directions; 42 kids are going to run in 42 different directions. Two bears are only going to get two kids. The rest are going to be GONE with the wind. And it doesn't say any of them are killed. So it's impractical to assume that all of them were mauled. The boys would run for their lives. But the effect would be the same: the Lord will not allow his name to be blasphemed without impunity. Now, I may have also already said that ravaging wild beasts were often seen as punishment sent from God. The point is clearly made even if only two boys are injured.
> We know that God commanded the Israelites to commit genocide on an entire population except that they may take the virgin women as their reward
About this you are patently wrong. There was no genocide, and no such command. In the ancient world, the "kill 'em all" was common warfare rhetoric for "win a decisive victory." The Israelites were not slaughtering women and children. The only cities Israel destroyed were Jericho, Ai, and Hazor. There was no genocide. This is a much longer conversation, but I've had it dozens of times. All of the research and scholarship shows you to be incorrect.
And as far as the virgin women, you haven't done your homework here, either. The Israelites had strict sexual morals, and they were specifically forbidden to rape women during war. If they intended to bring a woman back to marry her, there was a ritual of at least a month long before they could be wed, and if the marriage didn't work out, the Israelite man couldn't just toss her out like a piece of trash. She was protected under Israelite law.
> Each of these stories describe a God who is less than all-loving.
Therefore you are wrong when you conclude this. But I fear I'm running out of space for the rest of your post.
> Maybe there's a damn good explanation, but until then the only reasonable and compassionate position is that God acted some degree less than all-loving with those actions.
There is a very good explanation, and your conclusion is based on misinformation and lack of information.
> I am applying my god-given sense of morality to conclude that he (if the bible is an accurate description of him) is sometimes a real piece of shit.
Well, isn't this a piece of irony. You seem to think your God-given sense of morality supersedes the morality of the Giver. Given the choices, I'm confident you have misunderstood the Giver.
> For this position to make sense, you would have to assume that God has not designed any limitations to our minds and bodies and that he has never interfered in our worldly existence or affected anyone's free will (ahem, such as hardening the pharaoh's heart). If you are taking that position, you are either lying to me or lying to yourself.
Of course our minds have limitations. It's a point I've been making all along as to how you are judging God with too limited perception and thoughts about him, along with quite a bit of misinformation, distortion, and lack of information. But if God is going to intervene as you wish him to to stop all the innocent suffering, His intervention would have to be on the level of total robotic control over us.
> ahem, such as hardening the pharaoh's heart
Another misunderstanding. You are playing with far too many superficialities. Pharaoh hardened his own heart before God says anything about it, showing that when God "hardened Pharaoh's heart," he wasn't doing anything actively (as you have implied), but merely let Pharaoh pursue the course Pharaoh had already decided to pursue.
Pharaoh reveals a hard heart from the starting line towards the people of Israel (Ex. 1.11-22). Pharaoh also shows a hard heart towards God in Ex. 5.2. Exodus 7.13 says Pharaoh's heart became hard and he would not listen to them. Exodus 7.14 says Pharaoh's heart was unyielding. Exodus 7.22 says Pharaoh's heart became hard. Exodus 8.15 says Pharaoh hardened his own heart. Pharaoh is said to have hardened his own heart in 8.32. And THEN we read that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. God hasn't done anything actively like interfered with his free will, but rather has left Pharaoh to harden his own heart. By the time in 9.12 it says for the first time "The Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart," Pharaoh was resolved already to pursue the course he had freely chosen. God gave him over to it (as in Romans 1.18-32: when people exercise their free will in rebellion against God, he doesn't stop them but lets them do it. He doesn't interfere with their free will.) God is not forcing Pharaoh to be rebellious, Pharaoh has already decided that on his own. God isn't actively forcing Pharaoh to do anything against his will, but rather just affirming what Pharaoh has decided on his own. God "hardened" hearts that are already hard. They made their choices, God brought elements into their lives that should have turned them around but only cemented them further in their positions. It is only in that sense that God hardened hearts.