If god has set things up so that we can't use logic, reasoning, and evidence to find out then it exists, then it's hiding (from the rational, at least). Why should I care about a god that hides itself?
God has set things up so that we
can and should use logic, reasoning, and evidence to find out then it exists, so God is not hiding from the rational.
Religious beliefs
are subject to logical reasoning but religious beliefs cannot be proven by logical arguments since the premise "God exists" can never be proven and thus no conclusions can be drawn.
It's a baseless assertion. That was easy.
It is not baseless since religion is the only source of information about God. Atheists only make themselves look ignorant and foolish when they deny the obvious.
You've basically just said that there is, and that's quite apart from the fact that just looking at the world and its disparate and contradictory religions, is enough to tell us that, if a god exists, it is hiding.
The disparate religions can be understood by logical reasoning and I have already explained why they exist. It is because God reveals a new and different religion in every age and that religion is suited to the age and people to which the religion was revealed. Religions do not contradict each other, they are simply different from one another. The religious believers have misinterpreted the scriptures so they 'believe' that their religion is the one true religion and that is why religious people are at odds with one another. This all makes logical sense IF you bother to think about it and you look at human behavior.
You just use what you see religious people do as an excuse to reject religion in general but that is unjust and irrational.
So can we use logic or not? Make up your mind!
I just explained that above. Of course we should use logic. God gave us a rational mind to use
As for why it should be easy to see the message from god, it's the same reason that it shouldn't be difficult for people to find out that there is a treatment for some nasty illness or a vaccine. Your god (according to your description) is doing the equivalent of somebody who developed the only COVID vaccine, not announcing it to the world but setting everybody puzzles that they have to solve and not telling them what they'd get if they solved them. It's comically absurd. If you happen to like rummaging around in old superstitions in case there might be some truth there, then you might find your god's message, but if you just make a rational judgement that there is no obvious message, then you won't.
That is the fallacy of false equivalence because you are comparing science with religion and they are not the same. Humans communicated to humans that there is a vaccine, but God is not a human so God is not going to announce that there is a religion He wants everyone to follow. You have to talk to other humans to find out about this religion, or go looking for yourself.
It is so absurd to expect God to hand you information on a silver platter just so you won't have to go looking for it. Do you think that developing the Covid vaccines was easy? No, scientists had to work hard to develop them and they had to use their rational minds. Atheists do not want to be required to think, they want God to do everything for them so they won't have to do anything at all. I consider this lazy.
God is supposed to announce that there is a message for everyone with a loud speaker in the sky. C'mon, give me a break. This is what is comically absurd.
Atheists don't do any rummaging around, they just complain that God should have done something differently because they don't like how God operates, through Messengers that establish religions. Atheists are like small children who wanted chocolate ice cream when mommy gave them vanilla. This is the psychology. It is not logic, it is illogic.
There is an obvious message but in order to find it you have to (a) get past your confirmation bias and (b) go looking for it. I already told you where the message is, it is in the Baha'i Faith, so that makes it a lot easier.
Repeating the contradiction about logic. I've used my rational mind to reach the conclusion that a god such as you describe cannot exist because it's incompatible with the world we observe.
How is the world we observe incompatible with a God existing? What would you expect to observe if God existed? To say you can you 'know' what you would 'expect to observe' is just a projection of human ego.
We have will but it isn't at all free in the sense that everything we do has reasons (unless they are partly random), and chains of reasons (cause and effect) would stretch back to creation (again, unless there is some true randomness). We cannot possibly be free with respect to an omnipotent, omniscient creator. It would effectively have chosen our every thought and choice.
That is completely illogical. Just because God knows what we will do that does not mean God causes us to do it. There is no connection whatsoever between God's knowledge and what happens in this world.
“Question.—If God has knowledge of an action which will be performed by someone, and it has been written on the Tablet of Fate, is it possible to resist it?
Answer.—The foreknowledge of a thing is not the cause of its realization; for the essential knowledge of God surrounds, in the same way, the realities of things, before as well as after their existence, and it does not become the cause of their existence. It is a perfection of God.......
Therefore, the knowledge of God in the realm of contingency does not produce the forms of the things. On the contrary, it is purified from the past, present and future. It is identical with the reality of the things; it is not the cause of their occurrence........
The mathematicians by astronomical calculations know that at a certain time an eclipse of the moon or the sun will occur. Surely this discovery does not cause the eclipse to take place. This is, of course, only an analogy and not an exact image.”
Some Answered Questions, pp. 138-139
To say that humans have no free will is just a cop-out, a way to try to abdicate responsibility. It is absurd and illogical to say that to even think that God chose our every thought and choice because if God had done that all people would be good and there would be no evil in the world. There is good and evil because people have free will to choose between good and evil.
So your god made people so badly that they don't deserve anything from it? Unjust and incompetent.
That is not what I said. I said that whatever we do get from God is only by God's grace and mercy, not because we deserve it, and there is a logical explanation for that. It is because God is fully self-sufficient and fully self-sustaining that God needs nothing from humans, so we can logically deduce that anything God gives us is only by His grace and mercy.
God has no needs that God does not have to give us anything at all unless he chooses to. Not all humans are undeserving but many are. The humans who have rejected what God has given them, His Messengers, are undeserving because they throw back in God's face what God gave them by His grace and mercy.
I don't believe there is a god, but if there is, of course it would have a moral responsibility to its created beings.
God has no moral responsibility because God is not a human. Only humans have moral responsibilities. God is good by His very nature, He does not have to try to be good.
God owes humans nothing but nevertheless God gives humans what they need. God made a Covenant with humans, which is a agreement that He would send Messengers for their benefit. However, the other side of that Covenant is that humans are responsible to recognize and follow the Messengers.
This would be entirely true if god was amoral or immoral, it's a contradiction with a good and just god who would owe its creation a duty of care.
God does not have to care about humans but God does care about humans, and that is why God sends Messengers in every age.
