So the great omnipotent God is incapable of convincing us of his existence?
If you are serious in your desire to know God, the first step is to know yourself. There are steps taken along the way to knowledge of God. The first step is to learn who you are, or knowledge of yourself. Remember God is within you.
The rules are try to figure out who you really are, in the process anything about you that can change without changing you is not who you are. Example: your name, your job, your personality, even your age can change without changing who you are. This is the first step, and not an easy one, it attempts to connect you with yourself. If you are game, have at it, see how many more things about you can change without you changing.
I am going to bed, see you in the morning whenever.
Who gets to call it the worst possible way?
What, and give up no-show business?
Thats a big if isn’t it? I think for some the belief is that God is available for us to deal with directly but it is up to us to want to seek and commune with God rather than God wanting to prove his existence to us.
Me. What’s wrong with that? It certainly wasn’t the BEST posible way, was it?
That makes no sense. Why should we seek out something we’ve been given no reason to believe exsists. There’s a circularity with this kind of thinking. You have to first believe something is there in order to want to commune with it.
I also think the contention that God is available to those who seek is easily demonstrated to be false by the simple fact that millions who seek never feel they’ve found anything, and even those who do feel it can never prove it.
I think we’re still delving into free will. The clarity of the message IMHO has to do directly with our willingness to see it, and then our willingness to embrace it and act on it.
What posters seem to be asking is that God reveal himself and his plan, or his rules with clarity and still allow free will, or they are suggesting that any God who qualifies as truly benevolent would do so. I understand the feeling but I don’t think the conclusion is nearly as obvious as it is presented to be.
Using the parental analogy again, we don’t expect the same of our infant, toddler, 7 year old, adolescent, etc. etc. We don’t share the same rules and information with all of the, not because we’re trying to hide things from them but because we know they aren’t ready for it. even then how clear the message is in direct relation to the child’s ability to hear it and process what it means. That has a lot to do with experience.
I wouldn’t be so sure that your friends were the only deaf ones in that conversation.
There is no objective evidence for a god may be true, but that’s not the same as there is no valid reason to believe. IMO it’s our failure to understand and separate those details that stall a real discussion about faith. I’ve never found it to be only the believers at fault.
“Willingness” is a dependent variable. It is impossible to be willing without a reason, and God gives us no reason. It’s also manifestly untrue that even those who are willing will necessarily find anything.
I think the notion of free will is logical nonsense, but even so, I don’t see how it could be compromised by knowing that God exists.
Any God who is going to make salvation contingent on belief cannot be called benevolent if he offers no information as to what he wants people to believe. There are an infinite number of possible beliefs, all with exactly the same evidence. The only way to believe “correctly” is by sheer random luck. As I have often said before on this board. Refusing to offer evidence for his own existence, yet requiring that people believe in him anyway (something which cannot even be done voluntarily) is akin to making salvation contingent upon guessing what number he’s thinking of between one and infinity. How does randomly guessin, with no evidence whatsoever, which hypothetical religious paradigm is the correct one imbue somebody with special moral virtue.
Outr toddler know we exist and they know what we tell them, even if we don’t know why. God has never shown us he exists and never told us what he wants.
Seriously? There are lots of examples. Blind allegiance to anything that is founded more in emotion than in thoughtful reasonable examination of the facts is certainly problematic. Religion is hardly the only example though is it? How about nationalism? How about unfounded belief in any individual or group?
Never said anything like that
Nothing wrong with that at all. It’s just that in this case your opinion has no more weight than the most faithful zealot. You have no more chance of being sure or right than he.
At least you can know that a nation, a group or an individual actually exists and can communicate with them (not that I personally am blindly obedient to anything but my wife).
Sure I can. I am making an objective observation that the alleged incarnation of Jesus failed to show God’s existence to the vast majority of all humanity, past present and future. Nothing in Christian literature can positively prove God’s existence to a single human being alive today (or any of the people who lived before Jesus and virtually none of the people who lived at the same time as Jesus), or really to anyone outside of a handful of people in an obscure Roman province 2000 years ago. The number of people to whom God directly “showed himself” (according to Christian mythology) was statistically infinitesimal. Perhaps it wasn’t the worst conceivable outcome (I suppose that would have to be absolute zero), but it was a remarkably pathetic effort for an omnipotent being, made even more pathetic by the failure of any direct witnesses to leave any testimony.
You kinda did.
(Emphasis added)
This seems fairly clear you think people would not remained convinced that god existed. At the very least this seems to say god is incapable of convincing most people for any meaningful length of time.
A poor showing for an omnipotent being, IMHO.
Either he can’t do it, or he can but refuses to, or he doesn’t exist. Either he is not omnipotent, or he is cruel, or he isn’t.
His ways are mysterious and not for us to know? Then he has the same use to me as a book where the final chapter is missing.
This is not blind faith. Blind faith is having no evidence.
This is not blind faith. We have evidence that nations exist, and we know their histories.
This is not blind faith. We have evidence that these individuals and groups exist, we have evidence of their past and present actions, and from these we can make a determination of their future actions.
What else, besides religion, requires blind faith?
With all the due respect, {and I have plenty for your posts} I think you’re missing something. What is any quest for truth including scientific truth unless it’s seeking something we have questions about but are not sure about? You don’t have to believe in God in order to want to commune with him. You only need the question in your heart and mind, “I wonder if God is” or even something less specific.
I’d certainly say skepticism is understandable but the seeking you speak of is a very personal thing. If you want to talk just numbers then obviously most seekers find God don’t they? Honestly though, I don’t believe anything that flippant is accurate. People worship all sorts of things and apply all sorts of inappropriate labels. People say they tried to find God but neither you nor I can truly say what went on within their hearts and minds. I don’t believe in God the same way I used to, but discarding certain concepts of God doesn’t have to mean disbelief. Similarly, rejecting traditional concepts of God doesn’t mean seeking and not finding.
Not being able to prove something personal and subjective shouldn’t be that surprising.
“I had a dream last night about a talking bush.”
“Prove it”
“Well I can’t”
“Then obviously you never had such a dream”
“really?”
But the only reason you wonder if God exists is because you were told at some point that God exists. If you lived in earlier times, you might wonder if Zeus or Odin existed. If you looked for Zeus or Odin then, you were just just as likely to “find” them as you are to “find” your God now. People “find” their gods all the time. The problem is, though, is that they are “finding” different gods.
What can you say about your god to convince me to follow, that others cannot say about their gods?