Does God Want Us To Know The Truth?

Inspired from another thread:

Originally posted by SwissGambit
...Does he [God] feel the need to explain every single thing he does in detail? Why should he? Surely we can figure some things out for ourselves.

Response from josephw
Why? Because He wants us to know the truth.

Surely if God wanted us to know the "truth" of his existence, he would reveal himself to us in a tangible way, would he not? How can one reconcile the premise of faith with God's desire for us to know the "truth". The two seem incompatible to me.

Am I way off base on this?

Originally posted by darvlay
Am I way off base on this?

The same applies regarding the age of the universe. If the earth is only thousands of years old as believed by some people, then God went to an awful lot of trouble to plant false evidence (such as stars, fossils, rocks etc etc) to the point that one is left with the question "who am I to refuse to accept what God clearly wants me to believe? (that the universe is billions of years old)"

I think that young earth creationists recognize this problem which is why they go to such extraordinary lengths to deny any data that contradicts their beliefs (which is most of science).

Originally posted by darvlay
Inspired from another thread:

Originally posted by SwissGambit
...Does he [God] feel the need to explain every single thing he does in detail? Why should he? Surely we can figure some things out for ourselves.

Response from josephw
Why? Because He wants us to know the truth.

Surely if God wanted us to know the "truth" of his existenc ...[text shortened]... for us to know the "truth". The two seem incompatible to me.

Am I way off base on this?

Everything that happens in a universe created by an omnipotent and omniscient god is necessarily what he wanted to happen all along. It impossible that anything can happen contrary to his wishes. In such a universe, our level of knowledge and our rate of learning are exactly what god intended. If we do not know the truth, it is because god did not desire for us to know it. If there are people who doubt god's existence, it is precisely because he planned it that way.

Originally posted by darvlay
Inspired from another thread:

Originally posted by SwissGambit
...Does he [God] feel the need to explain every single thing he does in detail? Why should he? Surely we can figure some things out for ourselves.

Response from josephw
Why? Because He wants us to know the truth.

Surely if God wanted us to know the "truth" of his existenc ...[text shortened]... for us to know the "truth". The two seem incompatible to me.

Am I way off base on this?

It depends on how tangible a revelation you want, and how strong God's desire is. The average Christian theist thinks the Bible is a sufficiently tangible revelation of God's existence.

Originally posted by rwingett
Everything that happens in a universe created by an omnipotent and omniscient god is necessarily what he wanted to happen all along. It impossible that anything can happen contrary to his wishes. In such a universe, our level of knowledge and our rate of learning are exactly what god intended. If we do not know the truth, it is because god did not desire fo ...[text shortened]... If there are people who doubt god's existence, it is precisely because he planned it that way.

It impossible that anything can happen contrary to his wishes.
---------------------ringwett--------------------------

Unless he created a universe in which such a thing was possible and things contrary to his wishes could happen. You could say that , well , he wished for a universe where things could happen contrary to his wishes.

Would this mean that God had made himself not omnipotent all of a sudden? If he had done this then technically we could say he was not omnipotent , but then again realistically he would only be truly "non-omnipotent" if he was never able to wrestle this back at any point.

So somewhere along the line it's easy to feel that you haven't quite thought this through properly.

Originally posted by knightmeister
It impossible that anything can happen contrary to his wishes.
---------------------ringwett--------------------------

Unless he created a universe in which such a thing was possible and things contrary to his wishes could happen. You could say that , well , he wished for a universe where things could happen contrary to his wishes.

Would this where along the line it's easy to feel that you haven't quite thought this through properly.

Well, one of the two of you hasn't thought it through properly, anyway... 🙄

Originally posted by knightmeister
It impossible that anything can happen contrary to his wishes.
---------------------ringwett--------------------------

Unless he created a universe in which such a thing was possible and things contrary to his wishes could happen. You could say that , well , he wished for a universe where things could happen contrary to his wishes.

Would this ...[text shortened]... where along the line it's easy to feel that you haven't quite thought this through properly.

Sounds like the old 'stone too heavy to lift' thing again. You can puzzle that one out on your own.

Originally posted by darvlay
Am I way off base on this?

No, but then you didn't follow it up to its corollary: Any so-called revelation is false.

Originally posted by darvlay
Inspired from another thread:

Originally posted by SwissGambit
...Does he [God] feel the need to explain every single thing he does in detail? Why should he? Surely we can figure some things out for ourselves.

Response from josephw
Why? Because He wants us to know the truth.

Surely if God wanted us to know the "truth" of his existenc ...[text shortened]... for us to know the "truth". The two seem incompatible to me.

Am I way off base on this?

according to some people on this site, god is mean. god is obtuse. god is a sadist. god likes ignorant people. god does a half-assed job. i don't like those people.


to support the above, here is some things that god does.
-god creates a world in such a way in which he is required to intervene on a constant basis. he let's sisters and brothers and cousins have incestous relations and then makes sure that the kids don't end up retarded or with genetic diseases.
-even if he constantly intervened in the old days
-god creates light without a light source. then remembers light should come from somewhere and makes the sun and stars.
-god creates the world 6000 years ago but then scatters fossils around, geo data and more to suggest the earth is a lot older just to screw with us.(test our faith of course)
-makes abe barbecue his son to test his faith. the reason behind this was that the omniscient god would see whether abe was enough of a fanatic killer willing to kill his own son. which makes us wonder what manner of followers god wants.
-the Job story was one of my favourites: sees a man without flaw, devout in his belief and what does he do? he pushes him and tortures him until he cracks.

i could go on.

these people i don't like consider the bible is to be taken literally. as in all of it is true and happened exactly as it is written. except some parts that are metaphors. and some parts rendered obsolete by jesus's teachings. and some parts that were misinterpreted to justify horrible acts. the problem is that you, the atheist or average person are too stupid, heathen, infidel to understand the meaning behind the bible. your judgement has been clouded by satan, modern society, god, whatever and you cannot see the light until you accept jesus.

Surely if God wanted us to know the "truth" of his existence, he would reveal himself to us in a tangible way, would he not? How can one reconcile the premise of faith with God's desire for us to know the "truth". The two seem incompatible to me.

Am I way off base on this?[/b]

last time he did we crucified the guy. would we do the same, probibly

Originally posted by Zahlanzi
according to some people on this site, god is mean. god is obtuse. god is a sadist. god likes ignorant people. god does a half-assed job. i don't like those people.


to support the above, here is some things that god does.
-god creates a world in such a way in which he is required to intervene on a constant basis. he let's sisters and brothers and cous ...[text shortened]... y satan, modern society, god, whatever and you cannot see the light until you accept jesus.

How is the reader supposed to know what is a metaphor and what is literal? Once you establish what is metaphorical, how is the read then supposed to know what the metaphor is supposed to represent?

Originally posted by lausey
How is the reader supposed to know what is a metaphor and what is literal? Once you establish what is metaphorical, how is the read then supposed to know what the metaphor is supposed to represent?

It's open to interpretation. What's wrong with that?

Originally posted by lausey
How is the reader supposed to know what is a metaphor and what is literal? Once you establish what is metaphorical, how is the read then supposed to know what the metaphor is supposed to represent?

common sense. reasoning. intelligence. free discussion without the fear of a fiery hell if you get it wrong. understanding that god is love, everything else is filling. not allowing a dude to tell you what is metaphor and what is not just because he claims he is chosen by god and you are not.

an example of what i am talking about is the church believing the earth was flat, then round and fixed when magellan made the journey, then revolving around the sun (even if they burned a few "heretics" before that). what i am saying is that belief changed throughout history when the world changed around them. some refused to believe the crap unscrupulous or simply ignorant "chosen" ones were handing out and started thinking for themselves.

Originally posted by Palynka
It's open to interpretation. What's wrong with that?

Sounds reasonable to me. 🙂

god said go forth and multiply. on that little saying the catholic church is forbidding the use of condoms because it is god's will that we multiply as much as we can. as a result, overpopulation, std's, poverty, etc.

this is an example of how someone interprets the word of god.

now let's assume someone doesn't want to listen to this directive the catholic priests gave. and rather than telling the catholic doodz to fuk off and give up the whole catholic religion(which is not all that bad) he sits down and has a chat with the pope about the meaning of go forth and multiply:
-first of all it doesn't say breed like rabbits and never stop.
-secondly, it doesn't say that sex is yucky and an afront to god so therefore have at little sex as possible.
-god making sex fun and then forbidding it qualifies for "another way god is scrwing with us"
-sex outside marriage is supposed to be bad no matter if there is a condom involved or not. so the fear of a child is supposed to frighten the would be sex buddies? isn't angering god enough?
-this command was given when there were supposedly only two sex buddies around, adam and eve and was followed by"and rule the earth". don't you think there would be a best before date on this command? and we already rule the world, don't you think we should tone it down with the baby making?