We live in a world where it’s possible to question the very existence of God, even the supernatural altogether. Our world also contains many religions that, more often than not, tend to break out along ethnic and cultural boundaries. Most of these religions claim to be the one true way to win the “game” of life — whether that’s through reaching enlightenment, receiving salvation, etc.
So for the sake of argument, let’s say that there really is a God, and he’s given us one of these religions that we’re supposed to follow. As most of these religions teach, picking the wrong belief system will result in horrible punishment that is likely to last an eternity. I already see lots of problems with this scenario, but let’s ignore those for the moment.
How are we supposed to know which religion is the true one?
We’re not born with the luxury of knowing about all these religions from a young age. Instead, each of us is raised to believe that one of the options (or none of them) is the truth, so it’s not until we’re adults that we really begin to learn more about the wider world. And at that point, we have a lot of preconceived notions to overcome. But luckily, these religions usually teach that God is a benevolent being that wants every single one of us to find the path to him, so we can reasonably expect that he’ll help us find a way to him.
The most direct way to communicate something to someone is to speak to them directly. So God could choose that method to let us know what he expects of us. If you’re into video games, this is similar to the tutorial dialogs that pop up in your game to let you know the rules. It’s a helpful tool. You can still press whatever buttons you like, but at least you’ll know what’s expected.
Of course, God doesn’t do that for us. Fair enough — what’s another method he could use? Ah, he could send us some kind of “cosmic email” — writing in the sky, or something like that. You know, something that would be nigh impossible for another person to fake. The message would be accompanied by the kind of sign that would give us assurance we’re dealing with the divine. The burning bush, Gideon’s fleece, Paul’s episode on the road to Damascus, etc.
But if God does this kind of thing today, he’s not ubiquitous with it. I’ve never received a sign like that, nor have most people that I’ve ever known. I guess that’s his prerogative, but it does make one question the Bible’s passages that say God is impartial. But I’m starting to digress…
So maybe God could send us some trusted messenger. It would need to be someone that I know well, so I could really trust what they’re saying. But again, I’ve never gotten such a message, and I also know that even well meaning people can sometimes be delusional. I’m not sure I want to risk my soul on such a message delivery system.
So God could send a messenger imbued with divine powers, someone that could work miracles that could only come from God. I would listen to an individual who could do the kinds of miracles that the Bible describes, but I’ve never seen anyone do them.
However, the Bible is a religious text that claims God did use this method a long time ago. Isn’t that just as good as witnessing the miracles for myself? Not for me. Thomas Paine said that once you tell a divine revelation to someone else, it ceases to be revelation and becomes mere hearsay. I have to agree. For me to accept the word of a religious text, the text would have to be incredibly amazing. The writers would have to demonstrate knowledge of things that they couldn’t possibly have known about ahead of time. When events are recounted in multiple places within the text, they must be without error or contradiction. When science is recounted, it must be without error — not simply a regurgitation of what was already known at the time. Its morals must be without reproach. If it gives prophecies, they must be without error.
If those standards seem too high, then maybe you aren’t truly considering what’s at stake. The soul of everyone who has ever lived hinges on the judgments of this God. Each and every soul should be just as precious to him as the souls of your own children are to you. Would you leave the fate of their souls up to chance, or would you do everything within your power to save them from eternal torture (or punishment, or annihilation — whatever your particular flavor teaches)? If you saw a windowless van pull up to your child and watched the driver coax them to come closer, would you stand back to see how your child reacts, or would you run to them as fast as you could, calling them back all the while? You don’t have to answer, because I know what you would do — you’d do what any decent human would do. Why doesn’t God do the same for us? If I’m currently bound for Hell, and I’m influencing my innocent children to eventually follow in my footsteps, why doesn’t God intervene to help us?
And before you say he does just that through scripture, the Bible fails every one of the criteria I listed out. In fact, I’m not aware of any religious text that comes close to meeting those standards. If we accept that God is loving, merciful, and just, then it does not follow that he would be the author of the Bible. I’d be happy to cite specific examples of the Bible’s failings, but I’ve written way too much already. Luckily, I have links to those examples on my home page.
It’s God’s overwhelming hiddenness that sounds the death knell on religion for me. As Delos McKown has said:
The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike.
Finding Truth 
“I still see knowledge of God’s existence as a paramount step in the process because without that we have no reason to try and “do his will” or “align our morals to his” or “surrender our will to him” or whatever you see as important. If we don’t know whether a divine creator being even exists, I really don’t see how we can possibly try and figure out anything about him or what he might want from us.”
Hi Dave, I’m going to respond to this first because I think it paves the way for my future comments on your revised argument.
Human beings love to simplify. Generally it is a virtue – simplifying things down to their essentials helps us get things done. (I am an engineer, after all!) But Einstein said: “Make things as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
When talking of God, we are obviously struggling to understand, and it is understandable that christians would simplify – reduce God to simple slogans and statements of belief which can sometimes be over-simplifications. It is therefore understandable that non-believers would also over-simplify.
So I think you are over-simplifying, in several ways.
God doesn’t have to treat everyone the same as you seem to be assuming. Jesus gave different answers to every different person the gospels record as speaking to him, so why wouldn’t God be the same? So God’s requirements on people may differ.
This should be obvious. The OT Jews didn’t know about Jesus but were “God’s chosen people”. Some people today have heard of Jesus, some haven’t. Some have good accurate knowledge of him, some don’t (some even deny he existed). Some want to know God, some don’t. Some live more moral lives than others. Teachers, parents, even the law, treat people differently depending on circumstances. Surely a loving God, if he exists, might require different things of all these different people?
So I think the following might all be criteria God might use to “judge” people:
1. Believe in Jesus and you’ll be saved.
2. In as much as you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.
3. Did you obey your conscience?
4. Did you seek him and reach out for him?
5. God will accept everyone in the end.
Now the important thing for this discussion is that only #1 requires specific knowledge of God and Jesus. The only other one that mentions God at all is #4, and it doesn’t require knowledge of God, just hope or perhaps even desperation.
Now I wonder what you are thinking right now? That #5 makes all the others nugatory? (I’ve been dying to get that word in!) That most of them are not what christians believe? Let me say I offer them as possibilities, not necessarily as all part of my belief system. But each one is based on a passage of scripture! So who knows?
So I think you need to be more flexible in your thinking. How do you respond to this?
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Hi UnkleE,
I wrote “If we don’t know whether a divine creator being even exists, I really don’t see how we can possibly try and figure out anything about him or what he might want from us.” and you replied by offering five possibilities of what your deity may want. I think this just furthers my point. And we don’t have to stop at what the authors of the NT wrote. I don’t consider what they wrote more special than any other text. We can throw in some ideas from the OT as well as the Talmud or the Quran. Be flexible 🙂
We have know way of knowing what a deity wants unless they tell us. But we don’t even know if one exists! Maybe there is a deity that wants to see how well we can take care of a planet and it’s resources (uh-oh). Or maybe there is a deity that wants us to evolve into a more advanced species and humans were just another link in the chain. Or maybe there are no deities at all. Who knows…
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Eric,
Rather than go on forever discussing quote etiquette, I’ll just summarize my point and leave it at that: any presentation of the Newberg ‘faith’ quote which does not also include the accompanying definition of faith is virtually certain to yield an inaccurate understanding of what the quote is actually saying because nobody is going to infer the correct definition of faith, especially in the context of a religious discussion. Qualifiers are marginally helpful at best. Moving on…
I casually mentioned in the previous comment that my response was directed specifically at your use of the quote in the FaithStreet article. In that context of that article “it’s clear” that religion is not the driver by virtue of the definition of faith that was employed. In general, I would say that it is not clear whether religion uniquely contributes to the advantages identified in the research – it is possibly true that religion uniquely contributes (as you propose) but it is also possibly false (as I propose). My request for evidence of a study which managed to control for religion as something separate from the attitudes and practices that are religiously motived was a genuine inquiry, not an indictment against you. That would be very useful data for mediating between our respective positions.
I think you missed my point. There are several studies which demonstrate the health benefits of eating walnuts, but as one who is allergic to them, the net effect of my eating walnuts is negative. The point was that your original statement was not presented as “all else being equal”, so I was essentially asking you to defend the absence of other factors (and offered one possible factor to consider). More likely, we can probably just agree that it isn’t actually that simple and that even if believers are more likely to realize the mental health benefits presented in the research, this does not entail that the cumulative effect of religion is an increased likelihood of getting right answers in general.
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know way of knowing? *slaps head*
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Freudian slip. 😄
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For the record, I do not wish to be party to the claim that Eric is being intentionally deceitful. I don’t think there’s anything more going on here than the confirmation bias to which we are all subject – even as we critique the biases of others. I have no reason to believe that my confirmation bias is any less likely to be influencing my interpretation and message. Hopefully a cordial discussion between opposing parties can serve to minimize its impact, reveal opportunities for improvement and lead us all a little closer to truth.
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Confirmation bias is not deceitful in and of itself and, yes, we all exercise it from time to time without any motivation to be dishonest. What matters here is intention There is no intention to deceive, no intention of holding back known information damaging to the bias. That’s all fine and good.
But…
When the bias is pointed out and clarified and explained and demonstrated and then the person continues to present the same old bias as if it’s not, as if it’s actually ‘scientific’, as if the supporting claim has been arrived at by relatively non-biased and independent examination, as if this is what the ‘experts’ find is the case, as if it’s not UnkleE’s preference for the bias plays no part but that it is these ‘experts’ who are making Eric’s claim for him, as if UnkleE is simply agreeing with the independent assessment, while knowing full well that none of these are the case but still presenting it as if it were, then I think a boundary into intentional deceit, an intentional dishonest presentation of the science, is being intentionally crossed.
And when this tactic is used time after time on blog after blog as if formulaic, then I think the only reasonable conclusion is that the intention is to misrepresent and misinform to support the biased belief position.
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Nate,
Last year I became troubled by patriarchy in the Bible. I was discussing the matter with my wife who is an OB/GYN and knows sexism from firsthand experience. She asked, “Why do you think patriarchy is bad?” Wow that was unexpected! I had to go back to the basics. I had to unlearn the whole conversation. Does patriarchy equate with sexism, is it inherently evil? If not, why did I think so?
It seems like an atheist dream come true that (1) God both cannot judge fairly and (2) the Bible is untrustworthy. If God is fair, that itself would take enough unlearning! So I pity the one who needs to unlearn more. It’s going to take a miracle.
B
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“you replied by offering five possibilities of what your deity may want”
Hi Dave, no I’m sorry, you have misunderstood me. I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. I said “Surely a loving God, if he exists, might require different things of all these different people? …. So I think the following might all be criteria God might use” I was suggesting they might all be acceptable criteria (of course if #5 was true, the others would be superfluous). So I am suggesting, and have said already, that God (I think) judges according to the light we have been given. If that is so, you don’t need to worry about not knowing, you only have to worry if you have responded to the light you have been given. (Which of course, in your case, if christianity is true, is considerable.)
“We have know way of knowing what a deity wants unless they tell us. …. Who knows…”
This is true, but if what I have said is right, it is not decisive. You will be judged by what you do with what you know.
If you get this, I wonder whether we can test a couple of points.
1. Do you agree that your argument relies on God having a definite standard we all have to live up to (something like #1), and we are “lost” if we don’t know it?
2. Would you agree that, if God judges something like I have said, the argument still needs significant modification?
I’ll post as soon as I have time on your revised argument.
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Hi Dave, thanks for your response. I always appreciate the way you approach things, even if I disagree with your conclusions. (I already had something prepared, so I was quicker than I expected.)
I think your reformulation of the argument is definitely an improvement, but I still think it doesn’t address the main problems I raised.
The main problem is that it still doesn’t mention human choice. Do you believe humans make choices about what we believe, or do you believe we are determined? It seems to me that the argument only works if you believe we are determined.
So I agree with the argument that God wants everyone to know him and to receive from him all the blessings that go with that. But here’s where the argument is too simplistic. For, if we human can have complex goals and motives, not just single minded ones, then surely God can too?
So I also believe God chose to create autonomous, conscious, hybrid physical-emotional-spiritual-mental beings, a “higher” life form than robots or animals. Allowing choice allows the possibility of refusal. Hence these two goals are not totally compatible.
So I think the argument fails at these points:
P2 doesn’t allow for the fact that a person can choose godly values even if they don’t know God. And both Romans 2 and CS Lewis suggest that is how people who don’t know God will be judged.
P3 ignores the same fact, plus it is possible to follow someone without absolute proof that they exist. It would be possible to follow someone on hope alone, but most of us would want reasonable evidence, which I believe we have.
P5 doesn’t account for the christian teaching that the Holy Spirit will lead those to truth who are honestly looking. The issue is often not God’s willingness or ability, but people’s willingness.
P6 ignores the fact that God can know and do whatever he chooses, but if he allows us choice then he cannot make us choose (that would be a contradiction).
And a minor quibble with P7 – most atheists are quite aware of the idea and possibility of God, it is belief that is lacking, not knowledge.
How do you feel about all of that? (I think this is a very helpful discussion, as I want to think more about this argument. So thanks.)
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@anaivethinker
Don’t mind me jumping into this.
“Why do you think patriarchy is bad?”
I have heard Muslim women saying that it’s actually good that they wear veils and cover themselves and protect their purity. I can easily say:
“Why do you think having women covering up is bad?”, and say I pity the one who needs to unlearn more. It’s going to take a miracle.
What you said earlier explained nothing.
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It’s taken me a while to catch up on all these comments (there have been some great ones!), and I’ve gotten very interested in this discussion between Dave and unkleE. Not to speak for Dave, but I’d like to offer some of my own thoughts in response to unkleE’s most recent comment:
But real choice requires knowledge of the available options.
This is an easy accusation to make, but I don’t think it’s a very fair one. It’s that whole “you didn’t want it badly enough” excuse. I know that I’m sincere, and the Holy Spirit certainly hasn’t helped bring me to Christianity. But of course, since you’re not me, it’s easy to assume I’m either lying about that, or I’m somehow mistaken… “let God be true and every man a liar” in other words. The problem is that it’s begging the question of God’s existence.
2 things here:
1) The first premise lists God’s omnibenevolence. Sure, I suppose God could do whatever he wanted (as Job and Romans 9 argue), but if he’s truly omnibenevolent, then he’s limited to doing what’s best for people.
2) Knowing God exists beyond a doubt doesn’t force people to serve him, unless you disbelieve most of the Bible’s stories, where God’s heroes sin against him over and over (Cain, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Balaam, David, Solomon, Jonah, etc, etc, etc).
I’m getting sleepy, so I’m going to stop here and hope that what I’ve written is at least marginally coherent. 🙂
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Hi Travis,
Firstly, I appreciate your comment about confirmation bias, and I agree with it.
Secondly, I have read your latest comment, and am especially concerned about your comments about my use of Newberg and the conclusions of the studies.
I have quoted from the studies, and no-one has shown that I quoted out of context. And these are the things I have said (bolded for emphasis):
“Why do neurological and psychological studies (ask me to reference them!) show consistently, though not of course totally, that religious believers’ brains are operating well, often better than non-believers, and their mental, emotional and physical health is, on average better?”
After my first reference to Newberg: “Now it isn’t only religious faith that can have that effect</b?, but religious faith is obviously one of the main things they are considering. …. I am NOT saying that these studies prove God exists. They simply say that religious belief and practice more often than not has good effects on the person.” That is what his research shows, and I made no further claim on top of that.
Then I gave two more Newberg quotes in response to questions from you. They were taken from his website, from his summaries of his research, and they were the whole summary. How can that be selective or biased?
Then we can look at my webpage that Ken referenced, and there you’ll find statements like these (bolded for emphasis): “Religious believers, overall and with many exceptions, have better health and wellbeing …..People who attend religious services …. say they generally feel healthier (though the reason for this isn’t clear) …. The causation and mechanisms are not always clear …. None of this “proves” God exists”.
The only time I mentioned Newberg’s work I made a very factual statement: “Religious practices are generally beneficial for mental, physical, and spiritual health and improve how our brain functions, but fundamentalist beliefs can increase prejudice and damage our brain.”
If you look at all the references there and quotes, I made no more claims than the papers themselves say. I never said these facts proved my beliefs to be true, in fact I clearly said the opposite. I did indeed say the equivalent to “all else being equal”, several times.
So where have I been even inadvertently selective?
In contrast, those who’ve chosen to argue with me (I only spoke initially to Nate, everyone else has started the discussion) have limited themselves to shooting the messenger, accusing me of bias and dishonest reporting, or being obdurate (when I have been no more firm in my opinions than they have), or they have simply laughed at the scientific data. No-one has shown any sign of having read the papers themselves, no-one seems willing to accept the clear evidence that religious belief and practice is beneficial regardless of the cause, and no-one has offered any evidence-based explanations of these facts.
It is not me who is avoiding the facts!
So I appreciate your comments before, but in the end my argument is that the so-called rational people are not showing concern for evidence, and I’ve still yet to see a worthwhile explanation.
Finally, to sum up, it may be true that social interaction provided benefit A, and it was the mind’s version of “faith” that provided benefit B, and so on. But there are many, many studies that don’t show any subsidiary causes, there are many many conclusions that only identify religious or spiritual belief or practice as the common factor.
How do you, or anyone else, explain this if the papers don’t?
Thanks to you for being the recipient of this rave and to Nate for allowing me space on his blog. I appreciate both of you.
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Eric,
I’m honestly a bit surprised by this response. I thought I had clearly identified the scope of my comments but you seem to think that I’m criticizing nearly everything you’ve ever written on the topic. I’m not. There were only two comments that I critiqued: the way that you quoted Newberg from the FaithStreet article in your response to Carmen and the ‘right answers’ line in your first comment to Nate. Everything I’ve said in relation to Newberg was directed at that quote and the “all else being equal” comment was directly specifically at the ‘right answers’ line. I stand by those critiques but they were not intended to imply a broad criticism of the entirety of your case.
These would have to be assessed on a case-by-case basis, but in general I agree with what you said earlier: “they don’t define the how – because the studies weren’t designed to do that.” My suspicion that independent factors are still at play is in part an extrapolation from the cases where those factors are identified. Thus the request for studies in which those factors are explicitly controlled against. It’s an honest inquiry.
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Hi Travis, I’m sorry if I over-reacted. I didn’t think anything other than that you’d questioned my use of Newberg. So I addressed that, but tried to sum up everything that had been said in that one response. I accept that you have an honest inquiry. My only problem is that so many people seem to want to question the findings that are there. I think I’ll leave it at that. Thanks again, I appreciate your responses.
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Hi Nate, it’s nice that you get to comment on your own blog! 🙂
Like I said to Travis, I think I’m ready to take a rest from this thread, so I’ll try to be brief.
But real choice requires knowledge of the available options.”
Not always. Sometimes knowing the options forces your hand. And in present company, you all know the options as far as christianity is concerned. I think if someone can’t see that the historical Jesus is good and worth following, then I’m not sure what more knowledge would convince them.
“This is an easy accusation to make, but I don’t think it’s a very fair one.”
I tried to be very careful with my wording there not to make an accusation. I referenced christian teaching, not my own belief, and I said “often”. I certainly don’t stand in judgment on you or anyone, and I’m sorry if you thought I had. But it seems obvious to me that people believe and disbelieve for many reasons, some worthy, some less so.
All of us have an investment in the viewpoint we hold – me, you, everyone here. It would be foolish to think otherwise. So the dilemma for all of us is that it is quite possible that, even with the best of intentions, our investment is stronger that our openness to new truth.
So the possibility is there all the time. But just as I resent it when people make it about me as if they know it is true for me but not for them, so I would not want to say anything that you could similarly resent, because I couldn’t possibly know one way or the other.
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Hi UnkleE,
“Do you agree that your argument relies on God having a definite standard we all have to live up to (something like #1), and we are “lost” if we don’t know it?”
I think the “love and follow” portion of the argument can be replaced by any requirements you desire and could even be different for different people. I still think that we would need to know what those requirements are before we could choose to follow them or not. Let me give an example.
Let’s say, for a moment, that Allah is real and that he was expecting you to perform the five pillars of Islam. How could you possibly make a choice to perform them or not in your current situation? Wouldn’t you first need to know that Allah was real and expecting it of you?
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kcchief1 wrote, ” I too have questioned , not the statements unkleE shared from some of these studies, but the additional statements he didn’t share.”
and from this unkleE says, “You statement is making an inference to dishonesty that is itself quite dishonest. I am honestly surprised and disappointed in you.”
unkleE, you were neither surprised nor disappointed. 🙂 You had some new people in the audience and you thought you could use some of your old lines . Only problem was you had some of your old sparring partners present who were prepared to engage you.
So you reverted to your rope-a-dope routine .
1.)You acted insulted, “You statement is making an inference to dishonesty”
2.) tried to be the victim ,”In contrast, those who’ve chosen to argue with me have limited themselves to shooting the messenger, accusing me of bias and dishonest reporting,”
3.) decided to retreat ,”I think I’m ready to take a rest from this thread”
But in reality you yourself said earlier, “Hi Ken, you and I are old “friends” and old sparring partners.” kcchief1 says, “unkleE, this is the reply I expected you to make. 🙂 We are getting to know each other too well. :-)” unkleE says, “I like to keep the customers satisfied!:)”
I think this pretty well sums it up 🙂 , except don’t be surprised for unkleE to have “the last word” And for the newbies, if you provide 100 peer reviewed papers to support your view , unkleE will provide 101 to support his. Just sayin 🙂
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50 reason to be ashamed of jesus
http://dwindlinginunbelief.blogspot.com/2010/11/reasons-to-be-ashamed-and-not-fan-of.html
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A lot of good stuff here, some not so good. But it serves as an introduction to some of the nasty bits Christians like to pretend isn’t really there.
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To be saved you must know God the father of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.
Isaiah 44;6-8 “Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God. And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me, since I appointed the ancient people? and the things that are coming, and shall come, let them shew unto them. Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.”
John 14:6-11 “Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life:
👁no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.👁
If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake.”
Acts 17:29-33 “Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. ✅And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:✅ Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter. So Paul departed from among them.”
We cannot come to the God, the Father of us all, except through his Son Jesus Christ. God knows who you are but you don’t now him.
We can tell what is wrong when somebody does it to us. If somebody lies to you, you don’t like it. When somebody steals from you, you don’t like it. When somebody hurts or even murders your children, you don’t like it. When somebody sleeps with your wife, you don’t like it. When somebody makes fun of what you believe in, you don’t like it. When somebody gets drunk and becomes a nuisance to everybody around him, you don’t like it. Even if you do all these things you know they are all wrong when somebody does them to you. Even you Carmen, are miffed at me for Quoting the Bible.
We all know these thing are wrong if somebody does them to us. And if we decide we don’t want to do them to other people we find out that it is not that easy. Because, we are all born sinners. But thanks be to God, we can all be forgiven and saved through Jesus.
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….. Groan…. Not that ‘filthy sinner’ routine. 😦
You going to be telling me I’m destined for hell soon too, Charles? 😉
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Charles … *gag* Get over it, for your god’s sake!
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I enjoyed the comments as much (if not more so) than the posting! Good job, Paulie!
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UnkleE,
“P2 doesn’t allow for the fact that a person can choose godly values even if they don’t know God.”
So in this case you’re suggesting that the requirement for this person is to “choose godly values”, whatever those might be, and that some people might obtain those without knowing it? I would contend that an omnibenevolent God would not leave something like this to happenstance.
“P3 ignores the same fact, plus it is possible to follow someone without absolute proof that they exist. It would be possible to follow someone on hope alone, but most of us would want reasonable evidence, which I believe we have.”
Let’s change the word impossible to unreasonable. #3: It is unreasonable to expect someone to love and follow someone else without being aware that they exist.
“P5 doesn’t account for the christian teaching that the Holy Spirit will lead those to truth who are honestly looking. The issue is often not God’s willingness or ability, but people’s willingness.”
In this case you’re suggesting that the requirement is to “honestly search for truth”. Again, how would anyone know to do this and in which way would they go about doing it?
“P6 ignores the fact that God can know and do whatever he chooses, but if he allows us choice then he cannot make us choose (that would be a contradiction).”
Nate already pointed out the limits of being omnibenevolent. Also, no one is saying this God needs to force us to choose, he should just let us know that a choice exists (especially if we are expected to make a choice).
“And a minor quibble with P7 – most atheists are quite aware of the idea and possibility of God, it is belief that is lacking, not knowledge.”
I am not aware of a deity, named God, that actually exists. I am, however, aware of a plethora of man-made writings on the subject.
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