A question about religion? - Part II?

Question

Why is God such a Coward? Why does God hide in the shadows of life instead of making his presence known to all clearly without question? What is God afraid of? What kind of God would make his will so ambiguous that endless numbers have killed each other in defense of differing positions of what is God's true will? Why does God allow his "works" to be misconstrued as pure happenstance? Why did God give us 5 senses to explore his world then deceive us to make the world appear much older than his "word" says it should be? Why would people worship a God that has been nothing but a deceiver and coward at best?

Answer 1

Because if he was a physical, detectable god, then Christians would have difficulty explaining his absence. The knowledge that god is undetectable is the ONLY reason that people can be sold into Christianity, century after century, its ingenius.

Answer 2

You are so, so, so filled with anger. I sympathise with you. You must have your reasons.

Please take a few deep breaths and try to think about something that would calm you down.

My answers:

1. God is not a coward.
2. God hides from those who are not ready to accept him, in order to respect their freedom. A man without freedom would be a bad joke, a sort of biological robot.
3. God is not afraid.
4. God's will is not ambiguous; humans are eager to misinterpret it. And then, some of us follow false prophets who teach the wrong things.
5. See no. 2.
6. The age of the world is not as obvious as our high school teachers present it. And besides, the main purpose of the Genesis narration is to show that the whole cosmos was created by God, and how sin and death entered it. The actual age of the world is not that important, especially if this is such a stumbling block to you.
7. Watch your word, blasphemy is not a funny thing.

Answer 3

I am agnostic, so either way - whatever, but I want to say this:

Why don't you switch perspectives?
Let's imagine for one moment that you are God. You have created your Universe and everything in it. Earth is merely a speck to you.

Would you make your presence known to the inhabitants on the speck of dust (that is Earth) which resides in your kingdom?
Would you feel cowardly because you are being mocked by some of these inhabitants - afraid of them?
Would it matter that the inhabitants fight over whether you exist or not?
Would it bother you that some say your work isn't yours, and that in fact it assembled itself somehow?

Of course not.
Why?

If you showed yourself, the point to life would be gone for them - the mystery solved. They would have their God to provide all the answers, so what then?
You couldn't possibly deprive them of answers. If you did that, then you may as well not show yourself... (oh?)

The inhabitants would divide - the worshippers, and the haters - the ones that resent you being there watching their every move, not giving them everything they demand, wanting to know why they should worship you.
The haters would resent the worshippers and wars would start.

Now you, as the watching in-the-limelight God, would do what exactly?
Destroy the haters because they are attacking the worshippers?
Give the worshippers better guidance to defeat the haters?
Let the worshippers die so they reach heaven quicker? Well then why make them wait at all? And why make the haters wait to get to hell?

Or... would you stay neutral, do nothing, and watch as all faith in you disappears, and anarchy is let loose on Earth?

If you, as God, showed yourself, there would be no point to life on Earth.

You have already given them the rules and the guide book, telling them everything they need to know. It is up to them to do the rest.
You as creator, need only show your face when it is their time to leave that place and move on. You are the unseen boss.

You gave them the gift of life, and ask a miniscule thing in return: appreciate that gift.
You punish the ones that don't and reward the ones that do.
Simple really. Leave them to it.

Like I said, I'm agnostic, but when you think of it like that I can kind of see why so many people worship God.
What I can't understand is why so many have to belittle the believers and try to find fault in what gives them comfort...

Answer 4

Faith is the belief in things unknowable, and unprovable. As proof denies faith, and without faith God is nothing (with apologies to the late Douglas Adams), there can never be proof of any God.

Those of faith would have you believe that the proof is all around us. Happily, my faith lies with science, not religion. With science, proof begets faith, so you don't need any mumbo-jumbo rubbish. Just open your eyes, and you can see science at work all around you. This is the true religion, and requires nothing more than common sense to see the path.

Answer 5

This is the reason why I don't believe in a god. I am more spiritual then any thing. I was raised a catholic so you would think I would believe all this hoop-la over him. And I know people are gonna read this and call me a heathen but answer me this......how can we have a different god for every religion??? Good question...

Answer 6

What a great question! You kinda already answered it! The 5 senses are illusions that the body creates to convince us that this life is real! This Life, or better said DREAM, is the creation of the collective mind of all humans. The guilt of being separate from God is what causes us to blame Him for things that happen in the dream. Because of this, waking up from the dream is the path to Heaven or oneness with God. Forgiveness is the only way out of the dream and that's what Jesus taught and is the only TRUTH.

Answer 7

You got a hard question there, you look angry at exsistance. God isn't a coward, just letting the human race stand on it's own, we all are not babies incabable of taking care of ourselves. Human beings have the ability to think and make choices ( Even though it doesn't look like it at times ). Every single choice a human being has ever made lead the world right to where it is, god let it's "children" makes some choices, you see the choices are wrong, what choices do you have to make up for it, or are you waiting for god to fix everything when you claim not to believe. The book your talking of about is nothing more than a kids book to the universe, I also advise you to check more religions than just one, cross reference ( Christianities book is full of holes, I found Islam an intresting read myself ). You have a choice to worship, if you don't that is fine, but your blaming god for the actions of other human beings and you won't even try to make anything they did better. You have only yourself to look for blame or cowardess. The world sucks, quite a few people in religion are absolutley evil and worthless, but not all of them are. When god gives you choice expect to recieve consequences from the choices. As of the gods Ideal, there Idols, you don't know all of god's children, 12 tribes aren't exaclty all human, remember the human race started as one single tribe in the bible... thats just my theory on it though. I feel the same way when looking at the world, but at the same time no better than to blame god when the choices are ours to make.

Answer 8

I think he has made his presence know. Romans 1 says "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities-- his eternal power and divine nature-- have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse."

In other words, He gave you 5 senses to explore His world; and it declares his glory! His works may be misconstrued by the world as happenstance, but He declares that it is not--especially all creation that He says was by His word. He reminds Israel over and over to tell the next generation of His mighty works (delivered from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, etc.) so that they may know that He is God.

But first and foremost God has demonstrated His love for us by sending Jesus Christ to die on a cross. Over and over Jesus told Israel that the one SIGN He would give them so that they could KNOW that He was God was "the sign of Jonah" (Matt 12:39-40). That He would be killed, on a cross, be buried, and like Jonah (who spent 3 days and 3 nights in a fish) would come back to life. Conquering death. That was his sign--to make his presence know clearly without question!

And He did just that. When Mary Magdalen found the empty tomb, an angle told her "He is not here; he has risen, just as he said." (Matt 28:6) Just as He said!

But most of Israel did not believe it. They "did not recognize the time of God's coming" to them (Luke 19:44). They "refused to believe" (Matt 22:3, Acts 14:2, John 5:40). In the same way, the world refuses to believe the simple gospel that saves: Jesus came from heaven, as a man, was the sinless Lamb of God, died on a cross for the sins of the world, and rose again (1 Cor 15).

Luke 16 tells us of Lazarus and a rich man, who die and go to Hades (not hell; not the final lake of fire). Lazarus is with Abraham on the "paradise" side and the rich man is on the "torment side". The rich man pleads with Abraham to go warn his family about this place. But Abraham tells him, "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets [the Holy Scriptures that already had that testify about God], they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead."

Well, guess what? Someone did rise from the dead! His name was Jesus. And Abraham was right, they are still not convinced! And it doesn't sound like you are convinced either.

As for the earth, it IS old. Billions of years probably. Genesis never says the earth is only 6,000 years old. It says God prepares the earth and makes a garden and MAKES MAN 6,000 years ago. Many Christians try to force a young-earth view when it is not needed. God made everything by His word...out of nothing. (Sounds like a "big-bang".) The reason many Christians are afraid of an old earth is because of evolution--billions of years needed for man to evolve--which is clearly NOT how God says He created man (or anything else). Man was created in the garden some 6,000 years ago. But the earth, can be as old as you want.

Finally, people fight over "God's will" because not everyone knows the one true God. Islam's god is not the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of the Bible. People believe in different "gods"...so of coarse those "gods" will have different wills. But no other "religion" in all the world, in all of history has a God who came to earth, die for man, and proved it by rising from the grave!

It is not "ambiguous" to those who know the true God through Jesus Christ. And He wants ALL to know Him! He is not hiding or afraid. Are you?


The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. (Proverbs 9:10)

Answer 9

The concept of GOD is based on Faith alone. The faithful believe god without any evident. For a rational person, God doesn't exist.

Answer 10

Because the whole idea is fictitious, for all the reasons you cite and many, many more. In any case, it can be shown that a belief in god (or for that matter, a belief in the absence of god) can lead to no predictable consequences, so it is a waste of time to worry about it.