What should we expect to see?

[Wertbag]

When looking at all of the various supernatural things that are claimed to be real by Christians, it is a classic question to ask "If such things were true, what would we expect to see?"

Now the majority of claims are invisible, you can't see God, angels (unless they want to materialize, but apparently, they don't), demons, souls, heaven or hell and even Jesus (no physical remains and is now pure invisible spirit).  But should they be?  The OT talks of God appearing numerous times, in many forms, of Him sending angelic messengers many times, of demons making themselves known.  So apparently, they can all appear if they wish, it is just that they intentionally do not want to remove the confusion from the world.

Would we expect this?  If the claim is God wants us to know Him and wants us to know His word, then removing doubt and confusion would be an obvious step to take.  Appearing to the world would convert millions to follow Him, would eliminate false religions and clarify what the rules are for everyone.  It is claimed to be what He wants, and yet He doesn't take the most basic steps to achieve that goal.

 

Divine Hiddenness is always a big problem for the religious, and there is the reverse query of Evil's hiddenness, where you can ask that if God finds it preferable for people not to know He exists or to directly reveal Himself, then Satan and his demons' boys should want the opposite.  The famous quote "The finest trick of the devil is to persuade you that he does not exist." both points to the fact we can't even show he exists, but also flies in the face of his goal of opposing God.  He should want us to know he is real, if God does not.

 

The question of what we should expect to see is also the basis of the Problem of Evil.  If the claim is made that God cares and wants us to be safe and happy, then the failure to have that happen goes against what we expect.  If the claim is God is active in helping people find their lost car keys, we'd expect He'd take action on the more horrific problems of famine, cancer, aids, ebola etc, but of course we see no such activity occurring.  If the claim is that God has all the omni traits, then those should lead to logical conclusions; if you love someone you would protect them from harm, you will want what's best for them, and if you had the power, you would make that happen.  The apologists have to work to change our expectations from what should be a straightforward question, to change it so that God can have a get out of jail free card due to "mystery".

 

Do we have a soul?  The majority of Christians believe so (although it is debatable whether that was the belief back in Jesus's time and earlier).  This is harder, as you need a coherent answer as to what a soul is and what it is claimed to do, in order to have expectations as to how that should affect our lives.  The common ideas floated include storing our memories and/or personality, which sounded fine back in the day but less so now that we understand brain injuries and the vast changes that can bring to who we are.  What is it that goes to heaven? Is it our soul containing who we are?  If so then we would expect not to be able to lose ourselves, as we have an external supernatural personality backup.  Of course, we can suffer head trauma that changes our personality, so either the immaterial soul is being damaged, or the claim isn't matching what we see.  Which version of us would reach heaven, the pre-injury version or post-injury?  Do we remain us, or are we wiped of what made us unique?  The soul is one of the least coherent ideas, squeezed out of the gaps in our knowledge that it was hiding in.

 

What would we expect of the bible if it were written by God as many claim?  Clarity seems a simple request, but one we don't get.  God loves everyone, so perhaps we should expect to see equality, mercy and redemption, and probably less killing of witches, gays, unbelievers, outsiders, babies and animals.  God is all-powerful, so we should expect His greatest enemy to be destroyed forever, for His followers to be blessed to be the greatest nation in history, for His followers to never lose a fight and for false religions to be removed from the world, but again He has failed to achieve these things.  We should see a single holy book that is undeniably His, we should see a single translation that reflects His words, we should see references to things that people of the time wouldn't know, germ theory, helio-centric solar system or dinosaurs for example, but we don't. 

 

If the holy spirit is leading people, we would expect all Christians to be divinely led to the same conclusion.  We shouldn't expect differing answers from the numerous groups, but upon prayer and meditation everyone should come to the same answer.  Imagine how powerful that would be, a single unified message that anyone could receive if they ask for guidance.  Instead, we have no agreement on pretty much every single question ever asked.  Every separate group claims to be led by the holy spirit, but all come to different ideas.  It's become clear that it is just a label that Christians apply to their already held beliefs as a rubber stamp of approval.

 

In reverse you can ask "What would I expect to see if it were all false?"  We would see a world divided, numerous false man-made religions all equally unable to prove their claims, numerous competing holy books, a failure for any one group to be superior to others in life expectancy, accident avoidance or disease avoidance.  We would expect morals to differ by country, region, over time and by culture, we would expect to see false claims being overturned by science and a greater understanding of the world.  We would expect natural answers to the mysteries of the universe. We would expect to see human traits that account for beliefs such as confirmation bias, sunk cost fallacy, and indoctrination.  We would expect to find people able to walk away and not be punished for such blasphemy.  We would expect the only justice we see is that which humans manage to impose themselves.  And basically, we would expect religions to fail to prove their claims if they are not rooted in reality.  I contend that the world we live in meets our expectations for a natural world but fails in many ways to meet our expectations of a world under the guidance and protection of an all-powerful, all-loving God.  Apologists don't answer these questions, they try to lower our expectations so that we can accept God's hiddenness and failures as somehow acceptable regardless of the claims.

[walterpthefirst]

Great piece of work there, Wertbag.  

 

 

However, your argument seems to be predicated upon the assumption of two things.  First, that god is loving and benevolent and second, that he has granted us the free will to freely choose to know and accept him.  And so you list the many examples of where he clearly fails to make himself known to us, so that we can see these examples and then choose to know and accept him as our lord and saviour.

 

But surely what the apostle Paul writes in Romans tells a different story?

 

Romans 11 : 32

 

For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.

 

People who are bound are not free.  A person in prison cannot just walk out of the front door, they are being confined against their will.  So by binding us over to disobey him god has clearly violated our free will.  This is not the action of a benevolent and loving god.  This is the action of a freedom-hating tyrant.

 

Why would such a tyrant be interested in making himself clearly known to us so that we could exercise our free will?  By screwing us all over from get go he clearly has little regard for our free will.  So, a revised understanding of god's nature helps to explain why he seems to have failed to make himself known.  The simple answer is that he doesn't care enough about us to be bothered.  All he really cares about is glorifying himself and receiving our praise, worship and adulation.

 

Instead of letting each of us choose in our own lifetimes, he did the choosing of who goes to heaven and who goes to hell beforehand, predestining us before we even existed.  Which is an action consistent with his tyrannical nature, but not consistent with his nature if it were loving and kind.

 

I therefore submit Wertbag, that many inconsistencies about failure to make himself known to us can be solved by realizing that god isn't loving and kind.  By realizing that he's actually a selfish, narcissistic and cruel tyrant.

 

 

Thank you,

 

Walter.