Choose your own analogy.

When watching people use analogies to explain certain situations, I wonder if they think the analogy covers all situations, or only that particular one. If it's only one particular situation, does the situation they're analogizing then fall apart if the analogy comes into conflict with another situation?

For instance, I see a lot of atheists or agnostics say that if God does confront them after they die, they'll tell God they had no belief because they had no evidence. The Christian says balderdash! For there is plenty of evidence, and they use Intelligent Design or the complexity of life (possibly combining the two) or our morals or even a Bible quote to point to how we're drowning in evidence.

Then, when confronted with the difficulty many have in reconciling a loving, good, and powerful God with the existence of evil, I see another comparison pop up: sometimes it involves trying to help a frenzied animal stuck in a trap, but other times it involves a child. If you have to allow a painful test to be performed on your two year old child, the child could very well see the test as an "evil" act, but you know the test is for a greater good: to save the child's health or life. We should then approach God in the same way: we are the two year old child, and God is the one with the omniscient perspective. So long as there's a possibility that some greater good will come out of whatever evil we see or experience, God can still be considered loving and good.

I see a conflict between the idea of we're without excuse because of the evidence, and we should suddenly give God the benefit of the doubt because we're like the two year old child. In the first case, one is pointing to what they feel to be concrete evidence. In the second case, the only evidence the child has is the very painful test, which leads to the child disliking the parent. If the child screams at the parent, or lashes out at the parent, no one tells the child that s/he has plenty of evidence to believe the parent is right. Rather, we understand that the two year old is incapable of comprehending the purpose behind the test, and thus don't blame the child for his/her behavior. They're simply reacting according to what's happening to them -- reacting based on the evidence they have. Therefore, if we're incapable of fully seeing the grand picture, how can we then be held accountable for the inability belief in a God with attributes such as loving, good and all-powerful, based on the claim of a lack of sufficient evidence?

I realize that, in most cases, analogies are not meant to apply across the board, and are useful for describing the viewpoint in certain situations. But in the case of God, this is Someone who has consistent behavior. This is Someone who is claimed to have inspired a book that is seamlessly woven together without any contradictions. Shouldn't analogies used to elaborate on God not clash with other situations involving God?