Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc - why does your god need you to proselytize for him?

[Rhea]

Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc - why does your god need you to proselytize for him?
Is he not powerful enough to bring the word himself? Needs the superior hand of the human to do it for him?

If a personal (unchanging) God were an actual thing, s/he/it would be able to communicate directly with every living thing in its creation. The (unchanging) sun, for example, needs no human to explain its existence or its actions to any other human.

When I look at you proselytizing, all I see is insecurity and fear. You know your god can't work without you, so in your fear of the truth that he's not there, you frantically try to use your human voice to create him so that he exists.

Many of you will claim, "our God instructed us to spread the word," in the paper bible written by men. But that brings the same question. Why would those men put that in there. Why would a god put that in there? Why would the god need humans to introduce him?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

God is invisible and incorporeal, so even though he wants to talk with people, they don't notice he's there. Every now and again, however, a person is born with a genetic quirk or specific brain chemistry which allows them to see and interact with him. He can then tell these people what he wants them to know and they tell others who write it down and go knocking on doors to spread his message.

For instance, right now God is sitting on the table next to me telling me that I should go and burn things. I am then proselytizing for him by letting the rest of you know about the divine command to go out and burn things. Praise be.

 

[Rhea]

Except you people in California. Don't you go burn things, mmkay?

 

[Keith&Co.]

Why would the god need humans to introduce him?

Because the secret of God's existence is that he is indistinguishable from a godless universe. Much time and thought is dedicated to explaining why God has oodles of power, and perfect motivations, yet limits his interaction with the world.

Because that make it easier to explain why bad things happen and god does fuck-all for the deserving who are affected.

 

[Lion IRC]

God doesn't need anything.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

God doesn't need anything.

Well, he has a weird way of showing it. Acts kind of needy, to tell you the truth.

 

[PyramidHead]

God doesn't need anything.

You misspelled "Bob".

.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Christians, Muslims, Jews, etc - why does your god need you to proselytize for him?

Maybe if Lion quibbles about 'need,' could phrase it, "with an allegedly omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent deity who could introduce himself to every individual at the perfect moment to ensure their accepting of his existence, his desires and his Word, why do we only get introduced to God by other humans?"

On the other hand, Lion probably doesn't want to come anywhere close to actually discussing the actual point of the thread, so he'll continue to shift the blame to the nonbeliever, asking the wrong question.

 

[Lion IRC]

Which other humans told Adam and Eve about God?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Which other humans told Adam and Eve about God?

Umm ... Hercules? Breaking into Eden and letting them know was the Sixth Labor. You should get more of a classical education.

 

[Rhea]

Which other humans told Adam and Eve about God?

Who told you Lion.
You know what the point is. Why are you fearful of discussing it?
Adam and Eve are imaginary, and you have no proof they even existed. So obviously that dodge does not score any increase in knowledge here.

Of all the people alive on the planet today - why do they need to tell anyone about your god. Why is it not assumed that your god is so powerful and loving that he gives the message himself?

Why are today's Christians terrified that people might not get the message if a human doesn't bring it?

 

[Rhea]

Which other humans told Adam and Eve about God?

When I look at you proselytizing dodging the question, all I see is insecurity and fear.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Which other humans told Adam and Eve about God?

When I look at you proselytizing dodging the question, all I see is insecurity and fear.

And it's a poor dodge, as we end up with the same question. Other humans told me about Adam and Eve, and about them talking to God, getting instructions and blame from God.

 

[Opoponax]

God doesn't need anything.

Well, he has a weird way of showing it. Acts kind of needy, to tell you the truth.

I've explained this to him before. He doesn't seem to understand the word need, nor does he seem to understand clear examples of how his god needs so much.

 

[Tigers!]

God is invisible and incorporeal, so even though he wants to talk with people, they don't notice he's there. Every now and again, however, a person is born with a genetic quirk or specific brain chemistry which allows them to see and interact with him. He can then tell these people what he wants them to know and they tell others who write it down and go knocking on doors to spread his message.

For instance, right now God is sitting on the table next to me telling me that I should go and burn things. I am then proselytizing for him by letting the rest of you know about the divine command to go out and burn things. Praise be.

Make sure you don't burn those leaves too fast Tom.

 

[Tigers!]

Which other humans told Adam and Eve about God?

Who told you Lion.
You know what the point is. Why are you fearful of discussing it?
Adam and Eve are imaginary, and you have no proof they even existed. So obviously that dodge does not score any increase in knowledge here.

Of all the people alive on the planet today - why do they need to tell anyone about your god. Why is it not assumed that your god is so powerful and loving that he gives the message himself?

Why are today's Christians terrified that people might not get the message if a human doesn't bring it?

Why do you think or believe that today's Christians are terrified?

 

[Lion IRC]

Which other humans told Adam and Eve about God?

When I look at you proselytizing dodging the question, all I see is insecurity and fear.

I didn't dodge the question.

Keith&Co falsely asserted that humans only learn about God from other humans. That is not only scripturalky false it's also logically incoherent. It's like saying we only ever learn about global warming from other humans - who heard about it from other humans who themselves heard about it from...etc etc as if nobody ever experienced direct evidence of global warming.

It's as if you people are totally incapable of grasping the concept of theophany.

 

[Opoponax]

Which other humans told Adam and Eve about God?

When I look at you proselytizing dodging the question, all I see is insecurity and fear.

I didn't dodge the question.

Keith&Co falsely asserted that humans only learn about God from other humans. That is not only scripturalky false it's also logically incoherent. It's like saying we only ever learn about global warming from other humans - who heard about it from other humans who themselves heard about it from...etc etc as if nobody ever experienced direct evidence of global warming.

It's as if you people are totally incapable of grasping the concept of theophany.

I think it's pretty safe to say that 100% of the people here have heard tales of a god appearing before a mortal. Most have heard such stories by the time they're 5 years old. As a matter of fact, immortal beings, or at least higher beings appearing to mortals is a common feature of fairy tales.

Now, you could say that someone, somewhere, at some point in the distant past had a kind of god-concept come to them unbidden. That is, in order to explain something, the idea of a higher being was conceived of without this person ever being told of such a thing. That undoubtedly happened, and it certainly happened to more than one person, as is evident by all of the ancient religions that predated the Abrahamic religions or that arose at roughly the same time in other parts of the world.

However, none of that is even marginal evidence of the existence of any single god, as is shown by the fact that religions did, and still do vary considerably. If anything, it's evidence that there are lots and lots of different gods. Notably though, the continued existence of these gods would seem to depend on people believing in them. IOW, ancient civilizations have gone extinct, and their gods have gone with them.

Anyway, does a person imagining a god = god appearing before them? It can be said with certainty that such an event doesn't fit the definition of theophany.

And of those who have claimed god appearing before them, how are we to distinguish between a vivid hallucination and a real experience? Why are ancient Jews given more credibility than some modern self-proclaimed prophet and voice of god on earth? If it's due to numbers and time, that argument fails miserably for obvious reasons.

Just because a word, such as "theophany" exists, it doesn't mean that what it purports to describe is real. The word "unicorn" exists too.

 

[Keith&Co.]

And Lion takes us right back to the OP.

If God exists, and is willing to expressly reveal himself to SOME people, why not all?
Why is anyone tasked or motivated or spending their day with spreading the Word of a tri-Omni God?

Why are there third- or fourth- or worse-hand accounts of these events, these people, these miracles?

With climate change, we are able to go out and directly examine the tests and results and even replicate the experiments to validate the observations made. And if it's made-up-shit, like Cold Fusion, the Paluxy footprints, Archeoraptor, etc. the lie becomes apparent, sooner or later.

So, why doesn't everyone get a face-to-face with god?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It would seem that if God were omnipotent, the amount of time and energy it would take to simultaneously speak to every single person who ever has lived, is alive or will live would be exactly the same as it would take to speak to one person at one point in time. So, if God actually took the time out of his day to speak to one person, why not just speak to everybody while he's at it? Since he's also omniscient, each one of those conversations could be crafted to have the maximal effect for the person he's speaking to as well, so there'd be zero doubt or confusion about who he is or what he wants once the conversation is finished.

For someone who threatens such dire consequences for those who disobey him, a little bit of due diligence on his part to ensure the proper message gets out would be somewhat omnibenevolent of him.