Kenny wrote:Kurieuo wrote:Kenny wrote:abelcainsbrother wrote:How can it be hard for you to believe God can cause and create universes easy to believe
It is easy for you to believe because you have faith. I don't have faith, so it is difficult for me to believe because there isn't any empirical evidence that points to your God.
There is empirical evidence that points to God.
However, God is Himself not accessible or testable by us empirically via scientific methods.
I'm sure you meant to latter?
I agree with the latter.
Ken
So then, to go through a list of issues I'd perceive you having against God's "hiding" if you will.
Purely for just interests sake.
You: Why doesn't God dwell amongst us in plain sight like the Sun?
Me: Why should God dwell amongst us?
You: Well, if God wants us to all believe, then that would do it!
I'd agree with you. It is in fact stupid of God, if God wants us to merely believe He exists, that God doesn't make Himself as clear as the Sun.
BUT, let's look at some points between a world wherein God is clearly known like the Sun
versus a world like ours where a knowledge of God can be buried and hidden.
1) The two worlds setup a quite different relationship between us and God, in particular, our personal freedom to accept/deny God is greatly affected.
2) In a world where God dwells with us, would we also live forever in such a world? (what would be the point of making it temporary?)
3) On (2), what of pain and suffering if this world be made forever? Tools that form true character.
4) Extending (3), should God also give us complete happiness, spoil us, give us every pleasure?
5) Could we seriously reject God in such a world wherein He exists as the Sun. Should we be able to hide from God?
Now if God made himself known in the world, there would also be a reverse of the question: "
How can I accept God if God doesn't make Himself positively known" --
-- this question would become "
How can I reject God if He forces Himself onto my life in the world." (
further note: "true love" would never be coercive but should always be based on a free decision)
In summary, we can clearly see many things would be different in our relationship with God, indeed even in the world, if God decided to live along side us as clear as the Sun.
The question then is, which one would we expect a divine entity (God) to choose?
Obviously it depends upon God's intentions and purpose in the world that God creates, right?
It seems a world wherein God allows us to hide, and bury knowledge of Him, is the best world to uncover our true heart.
Those who love, will seek and God (according to Christ and the Apostles) promises to reveal Himself to us.
Yet, a world wherein God just wants everyone to bow the knee and merely believe He exists, would in fact be one where God is as clear as the Sun and cannot be hidden from.
"
BUT, hey everyone believes" and so will be saved. God wants us to just believe He exists, right? No. Even Satan believes (James 2:19).
There is here an equivocation that happens and is made by Christian and non-Christian alike between "belief" and to "believe in".
For example, soldiers in a unit my believe their commander exists. BUT, they may not "believe in" their commander.
The difference is subtle, but hopefully clear.
So then to "believe in" Christ that he is God and existed, is different from
truly believing in Christ. Right?
And yet, many commit the error in making an equivocation of the two different meanings in "belief".
The religious language of Christians is always unclearly conveyed and parroted as something like: "
Believe in Christ and be ye saved!"
When no, to believe in Christ is to hand one's self over to Christ, their mind, body and soul... to
truly believe in Him.
There is a wide world of difference between these two understandings of "belief".
The first, isn't what Christianity is about -- that is, a mere belief in God or Christ.
(and there are those who will disagree with me, but that's fine -- they can be wrong!
)
Rather the sense of "belief" is one of your heart, where you want to follow God and serve him.
Not due to some divine stick, but rather because you do have a love for God and to do what is just and right.
This is the type of belief that Paul spoke of in Romans 10:9-15.
It would include believing in God EVEN when things don't go your way, or my way.
To trust in God, that He has the best intentions for good and us in the greater scheme of things.
You know, God could take away my family tomorrow, and I'd be very sad.
I may even question God's goodness. But, then, I submit that I don't see the beginning from the end.
That, at the end of the day, God is being God to take some and leave others for whatever reason.
But, still, I have faith in God as my Lord that He knows what He is doing even if I don't.
All I know, is that the evidence is at least clear to me, that God truly does exist.
So if I were ever to lose my belief in God, it wouldn't be a loss of belief in "God's existence" but rather a loss in belief of God as a commander I'll follow.
I truly wonder Ken, when you lost your belief in God and Christ as such,
whether it was more a case of a loss in trust in God rather than no longer believing God exists.