According to whose definition....yours?
the fact is, the Christian view of an eternal punishment visited upon us by God is not reconcilable with the Christian view of a good God
Again.......according to your definition? God is a God of love....but of judgement also. These two things do not contradict each other at all.
A simple clarification for you.... Say a father has a son.... he loves that son very much. He's given him rules to live by, teaches him the laws... but the son ignores him and murders someone. The son is put into prison and given a death penalty. Now, is that father to blame? No...the son is to blame for ignoring the law.
God the Father set up the rules and laws..... YOU CHOOSE to go to Hell if you ignore them. He doesn't condemn you.......You condemn yourself.
Your analogy is a good one except for one crucial point: there is no crime that matches infinite punishment. Therefore, such a punishment is unjust by the human definition of 'just'.
If you are saying that God is just and good according to other definitions of those terms, how do you know that 'eternity' as we define it is different according to God's definition? This could mean that eternity in heaven if 5 minutes, because 5 minutes is eternity under God's definition.
As soon as you start letting God give words different definitions from the human perspective, you allow God to be anything. 'Salvation' according to God could mean 'damnation' according to us. 'Good' can become 'evil' and vice versa.
If God does not match our definition of the word good then he is not good.
If I cannot tell which religion is true (do Catholics go to Heaven or Hell? What about Mormons? Baptists?), how can I be responsible? For a law to be just and fair, it must be able for it to be known to be true. For example, I can look at every act of parliament and every statute and regulation. I can see the courts in operation and know that these laws are the ones I should obey, and not the laws of Afghanistan, for example.
It is impossible for me to tell which laws I should be following and what God. Thus, God is manifestly unfair and unjust if he condemns me to eternal punishment. (The reason I bold this is that sometimes I get the feeling that Christians do not understand exactly what this means).