What it's about is that 2 of the 4 rationalizations you made in your OP to explain why your god doesn't just show himself plainly to us are predicated on the notion that belief is a choice. But it isn't a choice.
I never said that belief was a choice. I said choosing to search is a choice.
Religion, particularly the fundamentalist variety, f*cks up your thinking in a lot of long-lasting ways, even after you stop believing intellectually.
It is difficult for me to understand from experience since I never had that experience, I can only imagine it. It seems like they have some kind of strange hold on you. It sounds pretty awful.
I think that it is within our control because we can choose to search for God or spend our time doing something else. What we end up believing is not in our control because we will only choose what makes sense to us; so for example, I could never believe that Jesus rose bodily from the grave because my mind cannot accommodate that belief.
If what we end up believing is not in our control, and what we want to investigate is not in our control, then what are you saying is in our control? We're not responsible for whether or how the process starts, and we're not responsible for what the conclusion of the process is (if it occurs at all), but we're responsible...for the process?
What we want to investigate is not in our control but people do not always do what they want to do. I do not want to go to work tomorrow but it is in my best interest to go because I have an important meeting and my boss expects me to be there. Likewise, even if someone does not want to search for God they might do it because it is in their best interest.
I am not responsible for not getting to work if I get hit by a car riding my bike to work, and my boss would understand why I did not get there for the meeting. That is outside of my control if I get hit. So I am not responsible for the conclusion of the process, getting to work and going to the meeting, because something happened outside of my control. I am only responsible to try to make it to work.
If people want to know if God exists then they are only responsible to make an attempt to find out. If they do not want to do that, there might be consequences just like there might be consequences for me if I do not want to go to work and decide to stay in bed. I cannot say what either consequence would be.
Is this another metaphorical teaching, or can I just take this plainly to mean what it says?
He sounds very much like he's trying to have his cake and eat it too.
I think it is easy to understand and it means what it says. What do you mean, trying to have his cake and eat it too?
Again, "free will" is a misnomer: our will is constrained in a bunch of ways.
I agree it is constrained in many ways, but not completely.
As we've discussed before, if your god doesn't care if I believe in him, then I don't care either. If he cares, he has the power to instantly reveal himself to me. If he chooses not to do that, he's responsible for that choice.
I have been down this road before. I cannot say God does not care because I do not KNOW if God cares. All I can know is what Baha’u’llah revealed and from that I draw some conclusions. In short, God cares that we believe in Him but only for our benefit, not for His benefit. God has no needs so God does not need us to believe He exists. God wants us to believe that but only for our own benefit.
Baha’u’llah wrote that God could have made all men one people, believers. He did not specify the method God would use and that does not matter. The point is that God could have done that if He wanted to. The passage goes on to say why God didn’t want to make us believers... In short, God wants us to do our own homework and become believers by our own efforts. According to this passage, God wants everyone to
search for Him and determine if He exists by using their own innate intelligence and making a sincere effort.
God hasn't demonstrably done anything, ever. If he exists, and he has the power to demonstrably show himself, but chooses not to, that's called hiding.
God has done nothing that YOU can see but that does not mean God has never done anything. You just think you would want God to show Himself because you do not know what would happen. I will leave you with a short quote that explains what would happen if God revealed His full Essence to man:
“Were the Eternal Essence to manifest all that is latent within Him, were He to shine in the plentitude of His glory, none would be found to question His power or repudiate His truth. Nay, all created things would be so dazzled and thunderstruck by the evidences of His light as to be reduced to utter nothingness.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, pp. 71-72
I do not think I would want to be around if that happened.
I don't see God making excuses. What I see are humans making excuses on behalf of God.
Believers are not making excuses for God because an infallible God cannot need excuses since He cannot make any mistakes.
Believers are just explaining what God does according to scriptures. The reason you think God needs excuses is because God is not doing what you want Him to do and you think God should do something differently; but any God that took marching orders from humans would not be omnipotent and any God that did not know the best way to communicate would not be omniscient.
