In defense of nihilism

Oh, the "God wants you to guess" idea.I have a number of points to raise about this:1) Having to guess does not make us any more free2) As James 2:19 says beleiving that God exists does not entail choosing to follow God.So since we cannot really choose to follow and obey God without knowing if He exists - indeed which of the many ideas of God is true - it follows that not knowing that God exists does not make us more free. If anything it makes us less free because it takes that choice away from us.

So we agree that God's failure to provide strong evidence of His existence has nothign to do with "free will".

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If God provided irrevocable (as opposed to the completely subjective 'strong') evidence as to his existance then there would be no such thing as free will. Everybody would have to believe in him.

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Completely false, because that sort of proof has nothing to do with free will. There's no value in choosing to beleive that God exists or not. Or in choosing any belief about a factual matter.

It seems perfectly obvious to me that choosing a belief in a simple factual matter has no value in itself. How could it ?And a Christian should at least consider the possibility that James might be right and the important choice is to truly follow God - a decision which will be manifest in works - rather than simply assenting to the idea that God exists.

That's a typo. It should be "choosing a belief ON a simple factual matter"As for the James reference I did consider the context of the verse, and it does make it clear that simple belief is not nearly enough. Managing to be as "good" as a demon is not especially impressive.

The simple factual matter is wheter God exists or not.And you see, to be quie confused on my point on James'. My point is that works stem from the desire to follow God not just to beleive that He exists. Beleiving that God exists and stoppng there is "Faith" of a sort, but it is the dead Faith that James speaks of.Works could, perhaps, be motivated by the belief that God exists - but only out of self interest in the hope of getting to Heaven. But isn't that salvation by works - isn't James point that true Faith will produce works of itself, without thought of reward ?

So here's a simple question. If you have proof that God exists - proof so convincing that you cannot deny it - and that does not interfere with your free will - how could making such proof available to everyone interfere with their free will ?

THere are several questions hereHow does just knowing something trample on your free will ? And how would asking to know it make a difference ?I wouldn't think that God would need an explicit request - after all how could we possibly direct it correctly without knowledge of God ?
So I would think that valuing and wanting to know the truth would be enough. Why then, do I not have proof ?

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The person who knows God exists can never again exercise their free will to say "I don't believe nor do I want to believe in God" Fine if they chose to relinquish that right. Not fine if they haven't

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So far as I cna see the only exercise of free will in that is whether to lie or tell the truth - which they still have. Actually believing or not is not an exercise of free will.As for your point about asking you neglect to mention that we are not truly in a position to ask properly - and God supposedly already knows what we want. I never suggested that it was a form of words.

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The main problem that God is trying to rectify is a distortion of position: God on the throne, man subject to God (I can here thehowls from here, sounds awful doesn't it? "Man subject too..."). Man wants to be on the throne. Man is a rebel

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This is witnessed by statement like that above. "I think...be enough". God has a problem with that. If God decided that you would have to crawl on your knees around the equator then that would have to be good enough for you. Your's is not to question him (although you can me) only to follow what he says. The thing is he doesn't ask you to crawl around on your knees. He simply asks that you acknowledge your current position before him. And none of what he asks is unreasonable:

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Well since he has a problem with reasonable statements and expects us to "acknowledge" something that we do not know to be true you contradict yourself. You can't assert that God does make unreasonable demands and then insist that he does not.

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So I would think that valuing and wanting to know the truth would be enough. Why then, do I not have proof ?

Can you see how the lack of acceptance of his authority is exhibited here? Don't worry if you can't. Me, I was kicking up and screaming blue murder almost up to the moment he turned on the light. He does love us after all

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You confuse God's authority with your authority. God isn't telling me anything - you are. So there is no challenge to God's authority at all..