To Christians: Why won't God reveal himself?

You're supposed to know yourself, stupid. Made in God's image and you don't even know who the fuck you are. Probably think you're a gynecologist or something.

 

But when you are dealing with something that is all-powerful, then why wouldn’t you need an extraordinary proof? When we live in a physical reality and are attempting to believe in a nonphysical reality, of course we would need something that affirms a nonphysical nature—something that is supernatural and beyond the laws of physical nature.

Certainly there are cases like that, but I personally, even in my most agnostic state of belief, wanted my life to be something more than a mere physical manifestation that would end with my death. Yet Christianity offered me hypocrisy and inconsistency, which I recognized even in my pre-teen years, and then I was expected to buy into it on blind faith. This was too big of a question to me to leave it up to a mere conviction of belief upon something that may or may not be. I was driven to find proof. I searched through all the world religions, a search I started very young. But by the time I was in my 20’s I had given up---I resigned myself to the Modern Day assertion that there can be no proof. It was then that I became agnostic, but I still did not like the implications. But science seemed to offer more proof of how things came to be, than religion could justify belief over its inconsistencies. (Only years after I had given up, did I learn that, yes, one can find proof in the nonphysical and a God or Absolute. It is very subjective and personal, but this proof can take on many forms.)

Yes, you are correct in so far as we define it in terms of faith. But again, when faced with hypocrisy and inconsistency, isn’t eternal life, versus eternal suffering, too big of a thing to leave to such a cosmic trick? It is not like a contest where the winner gets to spend 6 months in Cancun. Why should a mere 30 to a hundred years determine how a whole eternity is spent?

This already challenges the first inconsistency---why would a God who represents Love that is so deep and beyond human comprehension, and most importantly, that is ‘unconditional’ be handed out as a reward based on the ‘condition’ of blind faith?

At the same time, we are told to make a leap of faith, because there can be no such amazing proof, based upon a book that is filled with stories of amazing miracles and proofs, wherein God actually did come down, “waving his arms like, ‘Hello, here I am! Get me, I make miracles happen’." And we are to accept this book as completely true as part of that very same leap of faith.

To be consistent, then either amazing things can happen—proofs, if you will, and this holy book is true. Or there can be no proof, and the stories in this holy book are fictional—or at best, mere metaphor. I actually coined a term that refers to the dynamic at work here: Logosummonism. This is a dynamic that is most blatant in Western Culture, and involved marginalizing or denying the nonphysical aspects of reality, while allowing only a ‘rationally’ physical expression of the Absolute. Now this may sound like a modern thing---science is pretty adamant about there not being a nonphysical reality----but civilization has long had problems with the nonphysical, which it associates with death, irrationality, evil, and darkness. Therefore the Gospel of John lays out much of the foundation of Logosummonism for Western Man---the motifs of light, the word (logos which is not just a word but the word of rational logic), the word becomes flesh, and yet this physical word is the expression of unconditional love transcendent of mortal being and understanding---it is all there, disenchanting a universe for a people becoming overly obsessed with physicality.

Consider the alternative----there is a saying in the Native American Church that, ‘the white man goes into his church and prays to God, while the Indian goes into his tipi and talks with God.’ They aren’t simply referring to their own sacrament of peyote. The Natives who follow the Red Road (Native spirituality) experience and witness the power of the nonphysical in most every ceremony they participate in. The question in the OP, would be a silly question if directed to one of these natives. They do not question the existence of spirit or God, not because they are so primitive or backwards that they just outright blindly accept it, on the contrary, because they experience the supernatural extraordinary/overwhelming all the time. This is very hard for Western Man to accept—in fact, as most of you read this, you are already marginalizing or outright denying the reality which I am expressing. I’m not talking about things that happen in their head, or even the synchronicities that always precede and follow ceremony in nature (or that just happen anyway on a regular basis) and that we can write off as strange coincidence, I am talking about physical phenomena in a nonphysical context---spirits, animals, things of nature, alterations of physical reality, and so forth. I experience this in Native ceremony here, I’ve seen it in the Philippines, in the Pacific, and elsewhere too.

They acknowledge spirit and God as fact, and it gives meaning to their lives. It gives them comfort from the pain of physical life. It heals them. It gives them happiness. Sadly the white man's church has left them with poverty, alcoholism, rampant suicide… (Yes, these problems afflict those on the Red Road too----the church inflicted boarding schools affected 2 whole generations, and they are still dealing with the fallout.)

But don’t get me wrong, we can’t label this logosummonist dynamic as wrong, or bad. After all, the amazing things we have achieved in technology and science would have not been possible without this dynamic in play. But eventually it would inevitably lead to Nietzsche’s declaration that God is Dead. And the logical end-conclusion is the Nihilism we find ourselves in today.

I argue that blind faith and logosummonism has served its purpose. It is now time to rediscover a deeper meaning, value, truth, and authenticity within our being. We have to acknowledge the nonphysical. It may very well be that if Christianity fails to make this next step----that it will be replaced.

 

Let's see now; You think God is suppose to be your personal grapefruit delivery man just so you'll know he's really there. Interesting.

 

Maybe he does reveal himself but people don’t wish to see it that way. If you were a god, how would you wish for your creation to see you?

 

There is no all-knowing invisible man that lives in the sky.

 

It's cuz he or she is a big old tease!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

For his invisible qualities are clearly seen from the world’s creation onward, because they are perceived by the things made, even his eternal power and Godship, so that they are inexcusable. For although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God nor did they thank him, but they became empty-headed in their reasonings and their senseless hearts became darkened. Although claiming they were wise, they became foolish and turned the glory of the incorruptible God into something like the image of corruptible man and birds and four-footed creatures and reptiles. Romans 1:20

 

A deeply religious man is found guilty of rape and murder and is sentenced to life in prison. After 20 years of rotting in jail and praying every single day, DNA evidence proves he was not the rapist and killer. After he was released, the first words out of his mouth are "Thank God!!!! My prayers have been answered!!!".

Now either 1) God doesn't exist or 2) he is a big time a$$hole.

 

I think we see God reflected in the beauty of the natural world, but that's just me

 

You're asking an unanswerable question. Why doesn't the Lord of the Multiverse do magic tricks to convince you of His existence? Maybe because S(h)e doesn't want to. Maybe because you have too anthropomorphic a concept of God. I think of God in three contexts: (1) a metaphor for the ineffable, the great numinous mystery of existence that pervades all aspects of our experience; (2) ultimate meaning and value--the summation of human idealism; and (3) an expression of the integrated complexity of the multiverse. I'm not bothered if This doesn't drop a grapefruit on my head to let me know It's out there. It's important and functional for me in a variety of contexts, and that's all I care about. My "moment of clarity" began with Genesis 1:27 telling us that god created humanity in His own image. Since I'm not a fundamentalist, I don't accept Genesis literally, but the words triggered a line of thought that reshaped the way I view reality. I think of every human as reflecting an aspect of God. Obviously, that idea can't be tested empirically. It's a perspective I've chosen to go with, because it's so much more rewarding than the one I had previously. Maybe that was my grapefruit.

 

God is Truth (honest, unconditional, loving, complete, not wanting or needing). Basically anything else is not true, but deceptive. God will not acknowledge a deception.

 

I have a problem with a God that demands faith but gives no practical way of knowing that God exists. What a crock of shit.

I mean I realize I could go around and imagine I see this God in 'signs' (that one is the best... It's a sign! A sign to believe exactly what I wanted all along! ), nature, and all that... But that's just in my head. That isn't actually me perceiving an eternal all powerful creator.

Why doesn't God reveal himself in a way that doesn't already require faith to begin with? Oh, I know why. It doesn't fucking exist.

 

... I'm more bitter about this than I at first realized. This is awkward.

 

I agree with you. Except the last sentence. I have a very close friend who was video taped speaking to a group of people in California recently, and put on YouTube. He is a yuwipi man---a Lakota Medicine Man that performs yuwipi or spirit calling ceremonies. When he was introduced the man that introduced him said that the "one thing he has shown him is that, 'The Sacred is real.'" He qualified it with, "This is something you can't understand--you have to experience it." But I knew that 90% or more of that audience, most, if not all, of whom were white, did not understand what he meant, even if they thought they did.

Why doesn't God reveal himself in a way that doesn't already require faith to begin with? Because civilized man, especially Western civilized man, denies the existence of the nonphysical. We even have to anthropomorphize God into some old man with long white hair and a beard sitting on a throne in the sky. This is what I wrote about in post #22 above, but I guess it was too long for most people to read.

Christians have a Bible filled with supernatural experiences of God, from a burning bush to a booming voice from atop a mountain peak. But if anyone were to relate such an experience today, or any other kind of bona fide experience of the sacred, it is of the devil. To the indigenous populations who follow their traditional ways, everything is sacred, and God is everywhere. Ceremony is simply a technique to open up the veil of physicality and allow the nonphysical to present itself. I have been in ceremonies inside basements and living rooms where buffalo have physically entered, without physically being there---but you can feel them, even their breath on your neck as their heavy foot steps weigh down the floor, I have experienced eagle wings brushing against me, the ancient spirit of the wind, where no wind should even exist, I have seen rattles move around a room and around basement pillars. In one case, I have watched the rattles doctoring a person with a heart condition, healing him, as he stood next to a brick wall in a basement, but behind him as the rattles moved back and forth the brick wall had simply disappeared into a void giving room for the rattles to move.

You don't need belief, rather you simply need to open your self up to the possibility of a reality other than a physical one. you basically need to suspend all your Western programming.

 

I need to give this thought. You offer an interesting perspective. I may pm you with some questions so as not to hijack the thread.

 

Feel free---if I don't respond back right away it is simply that I will be travelling again soon. Andf just to clarify, when I am talking about this stuff---this is a spirituality not a religion so there is no prosyletizing or joining anything---and there are all kinds of spirituality---even at the core of Christianity----everyone has their own path. The problem I bring up is philosophical.

 

Don't forget that the spiritual involves principalities and powers. what one takes on board becomes an agreement in what to believe in, which effects their own spirit. Unconditional love lights a bright path to follow. Fear is always in the dark. Unconditional love is other than self, it's boundless (radiates). Fear is all self, it's bounded (implodes). Those that remain fearless become boundless (untouchable).