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Originally Posted by Actor
How? As long as God chooses to remain hidden then for me to "know he exists" would require me to set aside logic, something which I cannot choose to do. Since I cannot do that then what you suggest is Pascal's Wager. But surely God, if he exists, would know that I was simply betting an overlay. Is that what this hypothetical God wants?
Then there's Clark's Third Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." To that add Actor's corollary: "Anyone in possession of a sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a god." The cargo cults of the Pacific (e.g., the John Frum Religion) are evidence of this. If God were to reveal himself to me how could I be certain that what I was witnessing was not an alien from some other planet with a technology that I simply could not understand?
If the Bible is true then is it not possible that that is exactly what Yahweh is: an alien with an advanced technology? Think about that. For an alien to travel to Earth at half the speed of light in a starship the size of a space shuttle would require more energy that that of the earth spinning on its axis. With that much energy at his disposal parting the Red Sea would be no problem. Ditto making the sun stand still for a day (i.e., stopping the Earth's rotation). Global flood? No problem. Outer space is filled with hydrogen atoms. Ten hydrogen atoms = one molecule of water. To get rid of the water afterwards just convert it back to hydrogen. Ditto any other miracle in the Bible.
Why would he (they?) do such a thing? Who knows? Maybe he thought it would be a great joke to pull on us before flying off to another solar system. Maybe "the fall" was a case of Adam and Eve getting hold of one of his books (or computer terminals) and starting to understand the technology, and the "fruit" bit is just a metaphor.
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No, what is required of you to know that God exists is to humble yourself before him and ask him to reveal his truth to you in the scriptures. But this you won't do because you cannot do this either. And this utter spiritual helplessness requires even greater humility than if you could do anything at all to help yourself out.
