From: yohan@endeavor.ksu.ksu.edu (Jonathan W Newton)
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: Why God is Hiding
Date: 26 Jan 1993 15:00:32 -0600
Organization: Kansas State University
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: endeavor.ksu.ksu.edu
Keywords: Why God is Hiding


In article <C1Dzv5.Frs@news.cso.uiuc.edu>, skillian@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Seth James Killian) writes:
>
>
>		To begin, let us assume the existance of a God.  We assume
>	this only because to assume that there is no God is to end the
>	argument before it has begun.  So, assuming that there is, in fact,
>	a God, he will have necessarily assigned humankind free will, as to
>	otherwise would be obviously pointless.  Free will (whatever that

I don't see why god's creations must have free will, but I'll grant it for the
sake of arguement.

>	may entail) is necessary for people to choose to believe in God, 
>	and this is the generally assumed reason for any God (still assuming
>	he exists at all) to have bothered with creating a universe and
>	inhabitants.  With the assignment of free will, the God has also

I think there are alot of people who would disagree with this.  I think the most
popular hypothesis, among christians at least, is that god created man out of
love.  God wants some sort of meaningful relationship with his creation.  Belief
is just part of the path to this end.  If belief alone were enough to satisfy
god, then why was he so upset with Satan who obviously believed in god.

>	assigned humankind the capacity for reason.  Time passes, and the 
>	creator ceases frequent and obvious interaction with his creations.
>	Those who had direct interaction with the creator die, and can leave 
>	only a book as a legacy to future generations.  The descendants of
>	the book writers begin to doubt the veracity of their forefathers 
>	claims, and begin to search for verification of the creator under an
>	empirical system of rational enquiry.  Finding none (or at least
>	insufficiently convincing quantities), the descendants cease to
>	believe in any creator, thinking the very idea just another foolish
>	belief of ignorant ancients.  So there exists no wholly reasonable
>	proof of God's existence.  Are the descendants then right in assuming 
>	there to be no God?  Not necessarily so.  To accord with the 
>	preservation of free will, any God could not allow his own existence
>	to be provable with formal logic.  If he were so provable, humankind
>	would not have any choice (the critical reason for our creation) but
>	to believe in God, thus undermining the nature of our freedom to choose.	Of

Wrong.  Knowledge never robs anyone of their FREEDOM to choose.  Knowledge can
make the decision obvious, but the act of making that decision is still an
exercise of free will.  I am as certain about my existence as I can be of
anything.  Relative to anything else, my existence is a fact.  In the face of
the evidence, I still can excercise this mythical free will.  How would knowledge
of god be a harm?

What is the point of having the ability to reason and choose, if you have no
information to apply this gift of reason to?  

>       course this does not lead to the necessary assertion that any God 
>	_does_ exist, it only shows that if he were to exist, we, as free 
>	humans, have no recourse but faith alone for any belief we might have.

This is definitely wrong.  Why is creating believers to bask in their worship the
only motivation a god could have? It doesn't take much to think of other
scenarios in which god has different motivations and even goes as far as
providing evidence of his existence.

Now, if you're saying that if god were to exist RIGHT NOW and faith would be the
only way to believe in god, then I completely agree.  If this is the case, then
what is your point?  

>	This is just something that popped into my head the other night, and 
>	I may have missed something glaringly obvious, or this argument may 
>	be as old as the hills, and have several standard refutations.  Either
>	way, additional thoughts would be greatly appreciated, as this line
>	of thinking is news to me, if not anyone else.
>
>		Seth Killian 
>
>

Jon Newton