Argument from Hiddeness

[Ooberman]

This is my version.


God = Perfect Being that does what it does perfectly. (For example, If God is Loving, he loves perfectly)

God is not obviously apparent in the same way other things in the universe are obviously apparent.

1. If God chooses to hide in some way, he'd hide perfectly. If God chooses to reveal himself, he'd reveal himself perfectly.

2. God, evidentially, hides imperfectly, and reveals himself imperfectly

3. Therefore, God does not exist.


That is, it makes no sense for God to hide from some people, or at some times, but then do things that "sort of" reveal himself to people. Especially something as, allegedly, so public and global as coming to Earth, telling everyone he is God, and raising himself from the dead...

Miracles, revelations and other actions by God, even evidence of Creation, Consciousness, etc. - all arguments for God are only half measures of revealing himself to people and the world.

If God chose to reveal himself, he would reveal himself perfectly, not partially and questionably.

After all, any partial revelation only adds to confusion and becomes more evidence for no God, or an arbitrary and capricious God. (Which isn't defined as perfect).


So, the partial, spotty record of God revealing himself is evidence against God.


For example, a spotty and partial record of water boiling at 212 degrees would be evidence AGAINST the claim that water boils at 212 degrees.

As it is, water boils, perfectly, at 212 degrees.

[playhavock]

Intreging idea if we grant that God is perfect then this is an imperfect messure to reveal itself to a limited number of people, thus God is not perfect / does not exist.

[ndf8th]

If God chose to reveal himself,
he would reveal himself perfectly,
not partially and questionably.

After all, any partial revelation only adds to confusion
and becomes more evidence for no God, or an arbitrary
and capricious God. (Which isn't defined as perfect).


So, the partial, spotty record of God revealing himself
is evidence against God.

i know nothing about how to be logical
but it sounds cool and solid to me
but being a nobody on logic I can not judge.

One way it can go wrong is that the notion
that God has to do things perfectly can be
just a false belief we humans have.

Where is the evidence for God to be perfect?

Yeah I know a lot of logical Believers and maybe atheists too
say that by necessity God has to be that way.

Why can't God be something entirely other.

The Wimpy God that is so insignificant that he is trivially true
as just an imagined idea or concept. such a god is very likely to be true.

People tell me that is so trivially true it is totally irrelevant.
How can it be irrelevant if it is the true fact about all gods?

[Ooberman]

That's the thing with Gods and theology, you can pretty much make up whatever rules you want.

Another possible rebuttal:

If the analogy of boiling water makes sense, water boils according to certain rules. 212 degrees at sea level, with no impurities.

One could extend the analogy to say that it's true water boils at 212, but only if all things are equal.

The analogy, then, would be God's revealing of himself is perfect given certain conditions in each person.


However, this wouldn't make sense for certain ideas of perfection.


For example:

1. A perfect teacher teaches the lesson plan to all students regardless of their abilities.
2. Jesus/God didn't teach the lesson plan to everyone who heard.
3. Therefore, Jesus/God is not a perfect teacher.

Now, why would a God - the Maximally Perfect Being - be a bad teacher?

It doesn't make sense.

Likewise, why would God reveal himself differently to different people, including people who never understood that revelation while they were living (people who died atheists or not of the "right" religion?).

After all, given enough heat, water WILL boil.

Given enough evidence, people WILL believe.

So, it's not a flaw in the water or people, but a flaw in the heat/evidence.

[1213]

If God chose to reveal himself, he would reveal himself perfectly, not partially and questionably.

If I say that God does all perfectly in my opinion and you say that he dont, who is right? Who can define the meaning of perfectly objectively?

I dont think God has revealed himself imperfectly. In my opinion many people just dont want to see and understand and therefore God remains hidden to them.

[Divine Insight]

This is my version.


God = Perfect Being that does what it does perfectly. (For example, If God is Loving, he loves perfectly)

God is not obviously apparent in the same way other things in the universe are obviously apparent.

1. If God chooses to hide in some way, he'd hide perfectly. If God chooses to reveal himself, he'd reveal himself perfectly.

2. God, evidentially, hides imperfectly, and reveals himself imperfectly

3. Therefore, God does not exist.

But wait a minute! What portrait of God are you talking about?

It appears to me that you're focusing in on the Abrahamic Hebrew picture of God.

That's only one picture of God, and a truly horrible one to be sure.

There are other pictures of God, some don't even demand that God is necessarily "perfect", but then again that could depending on what that concept even means.

What one person deems to be 'perfect' another may not, thus bringing the very concept of "Perfect" into the realm of subjective opinion.

Here are two things to consider:

1. God may very well have hidden himself perfectly.

If the Eastern Mystics are right there is no way of proving that God exists.

Moreover, atheists are totally convinced that there is NO EVIDENCE whatsoever that even remotely suggests that a God might exist.

Thus God has indeed hidden himself PERFECTLY.

Here's a second thing to consider:

2. I am PERFECT, yet I am not God. Or maybe I am? If only God can be perfect?

How do I know that I am perfect?

Well, it dawned on me a few decades ago on a warm summer evening as I was weeding my tomato bed. I was also smoking weed at the time, but that's an aside.

In any case, I had finished all my major chores and so I was grooming the tomato bed. I'll grant you that it was a small bed. Only about 6 feet by 3 feet. It contained six individual very healthy large tomato plants that had been well-staked above ground. So it was easy to see the entire soil of the bed and the six individual stalks of each of these six tomato plants.

Being somewhat high from smoking the weed, and thoroughly enjoying my hobby of weeding my favorite tomato bed it suddenly occurred to me that I had completed the task. There simply were no more weeds to be found. I had completely weeded this small tomato bed PERFECTLY.

You can't achieve anything better than having removed every single last weed. Having removed all of the weeds constitutes a PERFECTLY completed task.

Being high at the time this insight truly stuck me as being quite profound. I had just proven that perfection is indeed possible even in mere moral human form.

I am a PERFECT weeder!

I rejoiced and stood up with my arms outreached toward a newly risen moon in the twilight sky and proclaimed, "I achieved perfection!" I imagined the moon could actually understand my proclamation.

Then I began to roll another joint to see if I could become perfectly high.

A whispering voice came though the wind from the moon saying, "You already are perfectly high my child".

Thus verifying my perfect nature twice over.

[playhavock]

I dont think God has revealed himself imperfectly. In my opinion many people just dont want to see and understand and therefore God remains hidden to them.[/quote]

I want to see and understand. I do not see any reasion to belive in a thing called God nor do I even know what the word meens.

[Ooberman]

If God chose to reveal himself, he would reveal himself perfectly, not partially and questionably.

If I say that God does all perfectly in my opinion and you say that he dont, who is right? Who can define the meaning of perfectly objectively?

I dont think God has revealed himself imperfectly. In my opinion many people just dont want to see and understand and therefore God remains hidden to them.

Your claim that he has revealed himself perfectly to you is proof that he doesn't reveal himself perfectly, since you are claiming he truly reveals himself and is capable of doing it perfectly, and you are testifying it to me but God is not revealing himself to me except via your testimony.

Why isn't he revealing himself to me like he is to you, but instead is only using you to partially reveal himself to me?

[1213]

I want to see and understand.

If that is really truth, I am sure that you will see and understand. But it all may not come in one moment.

[1213]

Your claim that he has revealed himself perfectly to you is proof that he doesn't reveal himself perfectly, since you are claiming he truly reveals himself and is capable of doing it perfectly, and you are testifying it to me but God is not revealing himself to me except via your testimony.

Really, you have not seen the Bible?

Why isn't he revealing himself to me like he is to you, but instead is only using you to partially reveal himself to me?

How can you say that God has partially revealed himself, if you dont have seen him fully?