Why does God show himself to the believers but not to the skeptics?
When you ask a Christian how they know their belief is true, they’ll often say through personal revelation or that they have directly observed God. However, it’s usually the case that they were Christians prior to this occurring. So why would an all-loving God show himself to those who already believe he exists but not show himself to skeptics?
There are only two reconciliations to this that I can think of:
God shows himself to plenty of skeptics, but of course, they then cease to be skeptics. You admit this with your usage of the word ‘usually’. That word undermines your entire argument.
First, you are not contradicting what he said or seeming to understand it.
But here are some other possilibities in your specific case. Given your belief system, you rapidly made the experience fit in one of the categories you are comfortable with.
Imagine the solipsist who does not believe other selves do not exist. He sees the bodies move, hears the words, but cannot see or experience other experiencing. He has a paradigmatic denial.
Amazing how long people - in non-pagan Western circles - thought animals did not have consciousness.
So one way to open up the false range of options in your OP is to point out that God may not be experienced like a chair is or a new species of owl, but rather God is experiences as a facet of things present.
Then it seems you are taking an empirical approach to God - which is fine - expect it is as if religious people are necessarily empiricists. Revelation need not be empirical. (personally I wish the Abrahamic religions were more empirical at the level of ontology, but that’s the pagan in me).
But even at the level of things, people are much less likely to see them if they do not believe they exist. This gets stronger when they are invested in the thing not existing.
[b]Means, he intentionally himself neither tries to hide from the skeptics nor revels to the believers. Anyone, who has the eye, can see him, whether skeptic or believer. All believers do not see him either. They only believe that he is there and they will be able to see him one day.
The God has been sending the message time and again, and perhaps will do that again. But, if anyone is skeptic, and does not want to see, it is his choice. The God is fine with that too. Some learn from the faith but some do that through skepticism. That may take time but both ways end up at the same point, sooner or later.
The God is not in any hurry either. He has plenty of the time. He does not want anyone to have faith unless one does not deserve that. One may take as much time as one wants to struggle. That is the limited free will that the God has given to all. He has been put everything on the table to take a call but he never pushes anyone either way in the final moments.
He acts as a facilitator, not an imposer.
He wants everyone to stand on their feet, instead of the help of the crutches. Yes, just like children, in the initial stages, one may use the help of such persons, who have been learned walking. They are there and willing to give a hand, if one wants. That would be shorter and smoother process.
Or, of course, one can avoid helping hand and opt of trial and error method too to learn walking. That option is also available, though that may be cost some more time and perhaps some bruises too. But, at the end of the day, one can certainly learn walking from that too[/b].
I know many Christians who were atheists and became Christians.
They didn’t become Christians out of boredom, they believe they were shown the Christian path (by God).
They also generally believe God is present for all to see if they wish to see (the whole free will thing again).
God is not a dictatorship but allows people to be free
Freedom is a poorly understood concept as most people are enslaved and think that freedom is choosing between Burger Kind and McDonalds.
There is no God that can ‘show’ itself to believers.
‘Show’ = empirical manifesting itself and is observable for testing and verification.
In fact, the idea of god is merely a transcendental illusion that believers reify as real, and granted, to deal with an inherent existential dilemma.
Believers believe in God based on faith, i.e. not on reason nor proof, thus ‘show’ is a moot concept in this case.
Any believers who thought they saw god [as shown], is likely to have seen a hallucination.
Skeptics who are evidence-based will never ever see a god as it is impossible for God to exists as real, thus no possibility of evidence to convince the skeptic.
Basically the belief in God is by default based on faith, thus there is no question of ‘show’ here. This itself is sufficient to justify my point.
In addition, I can justify why God is an impossibility via Critical Philosophy [re Kant]. This is a complicated presentation, but since 1 above is sufficient, there is no need for me to present the latter.
Note the OP presented ‘show’ in relation to ‘believers’ and ‘skeptics.’ In this case, the term cannot be bias to merely the context of the believers and religionists.
When you stated, ‘I do not think you understand what “show” means in the context of religion,’ you were trying to push in a special meaning for the term ‘show.’
My reply was we should just stick to the general conventional meaning, i.e. dictionary.reference.com/browse/show?s=t
which is relevant and acceptable for the believer and the skeptic. Otherwise both will be talking pass each other and thus bad communication skills.
Again the same question. How do you know that? What if the proof is of such kind that cannot be shown to others, but can be experienced in person only?
No, you cannot, ever. Kant has not done that either. He merely tried, though unsuccessfully.
To proof that there is no God, you have to present the complete alternative ontology of the existence, without any gaps, right from the before the stage of Big-Bang till now.
If this is how you define “show” then your prior point is not justified as we cannot take faith to purely have a religious meaning (we want to be consistent).
Faith = confidence or trust in a person or thing (you have faith in many people and things and believe many things and people without direct proof).
You cannot justify (show) why God is an impossibility. It has been tried a million times before and everyone has failed. You too have failed.
Note sure of your point.
In this context, “faith” = belief without proofs or reason, thus ‘show = evidence based’ do not follow.
I have no issue with ‘experienced in person only’ and kept personal as long as it is not brought out to the public sphere and agreed with another or in group. I understand ‘god’ is a necessary and useful illusion to the individual and if confined solely to the individual, there is no issue.
My issue is when a group of people get together, assumed their personal experiences are of the same entity, write holy texts and therefrom commit all sort of evils upon non-believers and others.
How can you be so sure of the above if you have not done the necessary to comprehend at least 80% [40-50% is not enough] of Kant’s work relevant to the issue.
I have read enough of Kant to understand he had managed to justify why a real God is an impossibility and why a transcendental idea of God is a critical necessity for the majority. Kant presented what is termed Critical Philosophy to put the idea of God in its proper perspective.
Kant’s expositions and justification cover what is before the BB till now and into the future.
It is not for me to present and justify it to you in this lifetime, rather …
If you suspend judgment and take the trouble to get a good grasp of Kant’s Critical Philosophy, you will be able to do that in this lifetime.
If he wants the skeptics to believe he exists, then that would be a compelling reason for him to provide enough evidence to the skeptics to get them to believe he exists.
When you say “has the eye”, what do you mean? I don’t know any skeptics or atheists who can see God. Unless what you call “God” actually is some real thing in this world all people see regardless of whether they think they see it. If so, what real thing is it you’re calling “God”?
Please elaborate. A believer doesn’t see God but will see him later. What does that mean?
Skeptics don’t choose to not hold a belief that a god exists. I assume you don’t hold a belief that the Norse God Thor exists. Was that a choice you made to not hold such a belief?
What do you mean by “faith”?
God has plenty of time? I thought he was timeless. Or do you believe he operates within time?
Mutcer who started the OP is a skeptic, so the term has to be consistent with his intentions. Note I am taking both ‘show’ and ‘faith’ in their conventional sense and meaning. There is ‘faith’ as a religion and ‘faith’ as ‘having faith in anything’ in the conventional sense. A religious theist would use both sense of faith, i.e. a faith of exercising faith in God.
My approach is very different from the typical claims of the militant atheists and others.
Note I mentioned ‘God is an impossibility via Critical Philosophy [re Kant].’ When you get a good grasp of Kant’s Critical Philosophy [accessible publicly] you will understand my point.