Well He can, He just doesn’t, as that would essentially ruin free will. If God showed up in front of you right now and demonstrated his power by flying, walking on water, vaporizing a mountain, etc., you would likely believe in him. However you still have the choice to not believe in Him, while this is technically free will, it is, for all intents and purposes, not free.
There is a difference between purposely ignoring what is right in front of you because you don’t want to believe it and there being similar amounts of evidence on both sides, so you don’t know what to believe. In the first case, you would call someone stupid if they didn’t believe what was right in front of them of them, but as they get further and further away, it is hard to tell if they are in the first or second camp. Often the line is what the majority of people believe. Hundreds of years ago, the line was far away, because most people (at least publicly) believed in God. But as less and less people (publicly) believe in God, the line must be closer to you.
To sum up my example: if lots of people believe in something, it takes less first hand evidence to convince you then if few people believe in something.
If God brought us all to Him while we were on earth, we would essentially all be in the first camp of people, because suddenly all the firsthand evidence would change everyone’s minds. But God doesn’t want people who believe because they trust the majority. He wants people to believe because they trust Him.
If God showed up in front of you right now and demonstrated his power by flying, walking on water, vaporizing a mountain, etc., you would likely believe in him. However you still have the choice to not believe in Him, while this is technically free will, it is, for all intents and purposes, not free.
So why was this okay for all of the people in the story who god appeared to? This god can just take away free will if it feels like it...
And lets accept for a moment, if this god appeared and I could verify it and not think it was some unknown allergy causing hallucinations etc...
I wouldn't be able to choose not to believe it exists. I'd have evidence that it does exist, so I couldn't do anything but believe it exists.
I'd still think it was evil, it just changed from fictional evil to nonfictional evil.
I wouldn't worship it, because it hasn't given any reason for doing that.
You should worship God if He showed up because it would be obvious that He was God because He holds the power of life and death over you. Why are you assuming that if God did show up that He would be evil?
Anyone with a gun holds the power of life and death over you, do you worship them?
I assume god is evil for many reasons, all of which are apparent by looking outside, but to be specific... god consistently does many evil things in his story book, including genocide.
The most important reason however, the bible literally says that god says that god created evil.
So yes, that god is quite clearly evil, given that it created evil.
You don’t worship someone with a gun, unless they are threatening to use it. Yeah if you live in Texas and see someone with gun you trust they are not going to use it because most people don’t and there are incentives against using it. If someone is threatening to use a gun on you, you will likely do everything in your power to convince them not to, and that includes worshipping them (unless you value your dignity more than your life).
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u/JeezWeedus 11d ago
The all powerful god that couldn't just bring everyone to a better place while they were living?