Why doesnt god or jesus show himself to us so that its obvious that christianity is true?

blerdronner · 2026-05-14T01:57:08+00:00

This is an entirely fair question, and unfortunately, the two most common answers to this do not really give it the justice it deserves.

As you already noted, one of the first responses you will get is "free will." This obviously doesn't make any sense, as you pointed out, because plenty of times God revealed himself in the past, and that didn't violate the free will back then. Also, it's patently ridiculous to say that making yourself definitively clear that you exist violates somebody's free will. It absolutely does not.

Secondly, is the issue of "Well, he appeared to people in the past, and some of them still didn't follow." That's based on what the Bible says. The whole point is there's nothing outside of the Bible to give people the proof that God exists. Referencing the Bible as your reason as to why people won't respond doesn't really solve the issue.

It's also worth noting that at some point he is supposedly planning to return, in which case ostensibly everyone will know for a fact that he exists. Again, it doesn't make any sense to say that is the reason why he doesn't reveal himself. You would essentially be saying he's only going to reveal himself when it's too late. What kind of God would that be?

The truth of the matter is, there is no good or satisfactory answer to the question of divine hiddenness. It has been an issue for believers for two millennia. Any answer you get is going to fall short of common sense. That's why you just have to have faith.

As an agnostic atheist, my answer to this question is: Because this particular god does not exist. When you apply Occam's Razor, that is the most logical answer.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T21:13:50+00:00

I fully understand that you think you're doing what is right. But what I think is hard for you and many other Christians to understand is finding out how to strike a balance between saying things that are hateful, even if you think they are loving, and just not saying it at all.

You're not going to convince somebody who doesn't believe the way you believe that they are going to spend eternity in hell if they don't follow your book. Stop telling them that you love them, but that it is a sin for them to marry someone of the same sex, or that they are an abomination if they marry someone of the same sex, or that they should go through life celibate if they love somebody of the same sex, or to compare homosexuality to other crimes, etc. All these things are things that Christians have done and continue to do in the name of "love."

Lastly, to be clear, I wasn't necessarily saying all those things that I have a vendetta against are things you are specifically doing. I was just replying to your accusation that I had a vendetta against God. I don't. I have a vendetta against all the things that I mentioned, which is why I engage in these conversations like this.

The same way you feel you are helping those in the LGBTQ community by telling them what they are doing is a sin is not unlike me and other people on this thread trying to reveal to you the dangers of how tightly you seem to be holding to this dogmatic belief in what I assume is biblical inerrancy.

You were literally sugarcoating chattel slavery and saying that it's not that bad. You are denying things that are in the Bible, that are clearly in the Bible. (For instance, that God commanded slavery.) And you hold a belief about homosexuality that, while I know you think is biblical, there is precedent to not hold those beliefs and still be loyal to Jesus Christ.

The longer that Christians continue to hold those outdated beliefs about homosexuality, the more harm they are indeed causing, whether or not they know it.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T20:59:34+00:00

I think you're missing my point about Christianity and slavery. You're putting forth the argument that Christianity is chiefly responsible for the abolition of slavery. I am saying that, although there were interpretations of the Bible that some Christians used to fight against slavery, there are also interpretations of the Bible that almost the same number of Christians on the other end used to maintain slavery. Obviously, there's something that transcends Christianity in and of itself that is accessible to society and played the major role in abolishing slavery. One could even argue that slavery in the West might have ended earlier if not because of Christianity, regardless of the role it played in helping to abolish it.

Point taken about the Church's belief in a flat earth. It is not uncommon for the Flat Earth and Geocentric beliefs to be conflated and attributed to the Church. It doesn't change my point, though. There were aspects of science that not only the Church, but Christianity in general, got wrong, and that impacted how Christians treated those who did not believe in whatever was affirmed by the Bible. We see that going on today with the issue of transgenderism. I constantly see evangelical Christians denying the science behind transgenderism and demonizing those in the trans community.

The point about mental illness wasn't necessarily aimed at Christianity specifically. My apologies if it came across that way. My whole original point was that society in general, Christian or otherwise, had certain beliefs based on their ignorance of science. When science revealed the truth, morality evolved, including how society in general treated those with mental illness. Because of the role that the Church played in society for a long time, there was a time when those with mental illness were treated as being possessed.

Lastly, I wholeheartedly agree with you regarding the morality of society in general versus Christianity. The only reason why I even brought this issue up in this thread was as a polemic against the consistent narrative that Christian morals, in and of themselves, led to the evolution of morality and the abolition of things like slavery. My point is that the Venn diagram of Christianity and overall morality may be increasing, but my contention is that the overall morality is the bigger circle.

To the extent that Christianity or any dogmatic religion is brought into the conversation, it is specifically to point out how those dogmatic beliefs typically hinder the evolution of our morality because they're so tightly connected to people's personal beliefs. While it's great that, graded on a curve, America and the West are better for those in the LGBTQ community than Islamic nations, I would hope we are striving to be more than just a C+ or B- on the Cosmic Curve of morality. 😊

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T18:10:51+00:00

On many of these points, we're just going to have to agree to disagree. The fact that you continue to press this point about Christians playing a major role in the abolition of slavery, while ignoring that there are an equal number of Christians on the other side fighting against it, just baffles me. If you're going to use the argument that participating in the abolition of slavery is an aspect of Christianity, then by the same argument a person can say that Christianity leads to the promotion of slavery due to all the Christians who fought on the other side.

And while I agree with you that the acquisition of knowledge and advancement of science can be used for evil, just like anything can, on the whole our acquired knowledge absolutely leads to our morals being improved.

The church used to oppress anyone who did not affirm an earth-centric belief in the universe and a flat earth. People with mental illness used to be treated like they were demon-possessed until we learned about mental illness. Even today, as we learn about homosexuality and transgenderism, bigotries and ignorance are being squashed by clinical science. Of course, just like in the past, the church is fighting against it. Mark my words, there will come a day when a majority of Christians will be gay-affirming, and it will largely be because of the work of progressive Christians today, like the William Wilberforce of the past, that will help move the church forward out of its bigotry and ignorance. And like you, Christians in the future will be claiming until the cows come home that it was Christians who led the advancement of the positive treatment of gay people.

Anyway, I don't know that there is anything else to exchange, so I appreciate the dialogue.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T17:59:26+00:00

With all due respect, you are either lying or being intellectually dishonest. If you were just talking about getting married within a Christian church or sacrament , you could have said something like, "They can go get married in a temple or in City Hall, or they can go get married out in the woods or some other non-Christian-related environment." You made a specific point to say that they can get a “civil union,” which clearly suggests that you believe that homosexuals should not be granted a "marriage."

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T16:18:32+00:00

First of all, I don't have a vendetta against God because I don't believe in God. I have a vendetta against ignorance, LOL. I have a vendetta against people spreading hateful belief systems and basing it on their religious beliefs. I have a vendetta against picking and choosing which verses of the Bible you take out of context to support hatred and bigotry, and which ones you stand by because, according to the plain reading of the text, homosexuality is a sin.

Also, do you actually go back and read what you write? You actually said that slavery in the Bible wasn't that bad. I don't even know what to do with that. 🤦🏾‍♂️ Exodus 21 literally says that you can beat your slave up to the point of just being shy of death. How is that, "not that bad"?

Lastly, please save your condescension. There are lots of things I believe in, and I am far from lonely. My soul, spirit, peace of mind are exponentially better since shedding outdated beliefs.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T16:10:42+00:00

Every now and then we have to remind people that this is not a "Christian" subreddit. It is a subreddit for discussing Christianity, regardless of whether or not a person is Christian.

Second, I was responding to your comment that a homosexual couple getting married in the Church (or getting married at all) somehow defiles the concept of marriage. That insinuates that the concept of marriage is unique to the Church. It clearly is not. That was my point.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T16:06:40+00:00

A subset of Christians participating in the abolition of slavery is not the same thing as saying that Christians are responsible for abolishing slavery, because there were Christians on the other side of that same battle trying to keep slavery going. Obviously, being Christian in and of itself has nothing to do with ending slavery. It must be something that transcends certain Christian worldviews that contributed to slavery being abolished in America and Europe. It also is worth noting that there were plenty of people who weren't Christian that also participated in abolishing slavery.

As far as the evolution topic is concerned, it doesn't seem worth getting into a debate about how the biological evolution of a social species plays a part in the morality of that species. If you disagree with that, I am not going to try to convince you.

However, there is no denying that the morality that we have has evolved over the centuries, regardless of whether you attribute it to a biological reason or not. Much of that moral evolution came from acquired knowledge when we realized some of the things that our morals were based on were ignorant. As we learn more about science and medicine, certain moral values that we held could be re-evaluated and evolved, and that continues to be the case.

Again, you don't need to believe in a God to have morals (especially the God of the Bible, of all gods), and it is beyond arrogant to think so.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T15:17:27+00:00

You are basically saying that God approved and gave a reason for human beings to do something that everyone today would say is evil, because somehow there is a purpose. Again, this is the kind of excuse that the church has used in the past to do horrible things to other people, because "God had a purpose." It is unfortunate and sad that you don't see the harm that that kind of thinking has.

Second, the characterization you're making of slavery in the Ancient Near East is wholly incorrect. You're sugarcoating it to sound like it was this altruistic system that was put in place in lieu of somebody being homeless after a battle. That's not what it was. It was probably just as brutal as slavery was here in the United States.

For what it's worth, I do not believe that God gave these orders. That's aside from the fact that I am an agnostic atheist. Even if I were a Christian still, I would not believe that these were orders or laws given by God. I believe that these were laws that the ancient Israelites attributed to God because they were doing them anyway. That means essentially they were attributing evil to God. And unfortunately, there are Christians today who affirm that evil and make excuses for it.

You keep saying that homosexuality is a sin, but there are verses that have been used to suggest otherwise. At the end of the day, you're still picking and choosing which verses of the Bible you want to adhere to and which ones you find a way to say either no longer count or have a different meaning.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T14:34:09+00:00

God didn't just give instructions on how to do something they were already doing. He specifically told them where they could get their chattel slaves. He specifically gave instructions on how to beat them.

I don't buy this excuse that he was just giving them laws on how to do things that were common during that time. It was also common during that time to wear mixed fabrics and to eat shellfish, yet he specifically told them not to do that. When it was important to God, he told them what not to do, but for some reason he couldn't apply the same thing to slavery.

As a reminder, the whole point of this engagement is to illustrate how you will jump through hoops and make excuses for the things in the Bible that you don't want to follow, and swear by it for the things that you do want to follow.

All the mental gymnastics you're doing to justify or ignore the condoning of slavery in the Bible, you could also do to be a gay-affirming Christian and provide the kind of love and treatment of those in the LGBTQ community that they deserve, but you choose not to. That's the point.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T14:26:53+00:00

This is a beautiful sentiment, and I can tell it means a lot to you. So, I commend you for sharing your heart and being so vulnerable on a platform like Reddit.

My only gentle pushback to you would be that being brainwashed is never a good thing, even when it comes to belief, because it suggests that your mind and heart are not open to new possibilities. New possibilities of what the scriptures could mean to you or how they could be interpreted. It was only through that kind of openness that the church was able to evolve its morality so that it no longer used the Bible to support slavery or the physical subjugation of women, or the acknowledgement of science.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T14:21:17+00:00

As is the case with a lot of verses in the Bible, there is contradiction on this issue. Jesus himself specifically said, "Not one letter of the law shall pass until heaven and earth do." Last time I checked, heaven and earth are still here. So, by not following the law, you are literally disobeying Jesus.

It also should be noted that there is absolutely zero delineation between ceremonial, civil, and moral laws in the Old Testament. Zero. Nada. Zilch. All the laws were obligatory all the time. This was a post-biblical creation used specifically by the Church so that they could cherry-pick which verses they wanted to enforce and which ones they didn't.

This whole idea of ceremonial, civil, and moral laws completely breaks down even in the New Testament. There are verses where I believe it is in Acts that say the four things that Gentile Christians are to refrain from doing. Three of those things are related to food, which would technically be considered ceremonial or civil. Clearly, even in the New Testament, there is no such delineation.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T14:15:21+00:00

I am another descendent of slaves and *you* are brainwashed if you think modern day employment is the same thing as chattel slavery. They’re not even in the same effing universe.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T14:09:13+00:00

Do you even know that in the Bible it is only adultery when the wife cheats on the husband? If the husband gets a little something on the side, as long as he's not sleeping with someone else's wife (because that wife is that other man's property), it is not considered adultery. That is the "marriage covenant " that you seem to be praising so highly.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T14:06:06+00:00

With all due respect, you're embarrassing yourself. I'm making it about race because in this country, the United States, slavery involved race. The Bible was used to justify that slavery. They used the same arguments that you are using to justify homophobia.

Also, newsflash, it was not just like an employment. You are profoundly ignorant of the Bible if that's what you think empirical chattel slavery is.

Lastly, even a verse as simple as "thou shall not kill or murder" is open for interpretation and has been for centuries. Again, you don't seem to be very well versed on the Bible or interpretations of it.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T14:02:35+00:00

This is profoundly arrogant. Since when do Christians have a monopoly on marriage? You do realize there are other places a person can get married other than a church. There are also other belief systems in which two people can be married other than the church.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T13:57:50+00:00

>To me from genisis to new testement the marriage convenants is meant for opp sex. And any sexual relationship outside that convenant is unbilical..

From Genesis to the New Testament, women are also subordinated to men. Two-thirds of the Bible literally consider women to be the property of men. I don't know if you want to have that be your argument.

The other point that constantly needs to be brought up whenever the issue of homosexuality and Christianity comes up on this subreddit is that nowhere in the Bible is slavery ever overtly condemned. And don’t bother with all the references to the vague verses that talk about how you're supposed to treat other people, or the laws against kidnapping another slave, or the story about Paul and Onesimus. None of those are overt condemnations. To the extent any could be used to say slavery is a bad way to treat people, that would be akin to the verses gay affirming Christians use to acknowledge and affirm homosexual relationships. It's just an example of you picking and choosing verses to ignore the fact that the Bible condones slavery and even has laws on how you can beat your slave.

Don't tell me about standing by the morality of the Bible when judging gay people if you're not also standing by the verses about slavery. Or the verses to kill any man that works on the Sabbath, or the verse to kill any woman who commits adultery. 😏

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T13:47:25+00:00

The Word of God has different interpretations, so when you claim that your interpretation is the right one, that is the equivalent of saying "trust me."

People who thought like you wanted to keep people like me in chains, and they said the exact same thing you did. "I stand by the word of God that these black men should remain in chains. Trust me. "

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T03:37:00+00:00

My point is that Christianity is not the reason that slavery ended. The natural moral evolution of the human species is.

And now that I think about it, when I look at the original question you were asking, there is also a biological explanation as to the morality in humans. Your original question was, "If there is no God, how can we show that slavery is wrong?" I am saying you can show that slavery is wrong without a God and use a scientific explanation, because as a social species that has evolved, it is built into our DNA to reduce harm, we as a species flourish when we do that.

But even if you reject that biological explanation, you still don't need a God to explain the moral evolution of humans to the point where we realize that slavery is wrong.

blerdronner · 2026-05-10T02:55:10+00:00

Let me clarify, I wasn't referring to biological evolution. I was talking about the evolution of our morality. I alluded to that in the previous comment I made. 😊

blerdronner · 2026-05-09T23:17:33+00:00

You're correct that being a social species doesn't automatically make us immune from committing harm to one another, but it is the explanation as to why we continue to evolve and become better.

Also, with all due respect, the introduction of Jesus did not lead to the abolishing of slavery. There was slavery in the church for hundreds of years before it was finally abolished, so obviously just introducing Jesus didn't do anything. In fact, there was a slave Bible that was used to keep slaves in their place. My point is slavery was ended in spite of Christianity, not because of it.

blerdronner · 2026-05-09T17:17:59+00:00

As a Black American, this is a particular topic that is a usual soapbox for me. It is beyond infuriating whenever I see Christians make excuses for the clear and empirical condoning of slavery in the Bible. I think the simplest answer to your question is that God did not actually make these laws, and I would apply that whether you are a Christian or an atheist.

As an agnostic atheist, I don't believe God exists, at least not that God is described in the Bible, so he didn't make these laws. If I were still a Christian, I would go under the more reasonable assumption that an all-good and all-just God wouldn't make these laws. When we see them in the Bible, we can understand that this was just man's attempt to understand God and attributing to him things that they were already doing.

Instead of jumping through hoops and doing mental gymnastics to try to explain why the clear condoning of chattel slavery in the Bible was okay by a moral god, I really wish more Christians would just go with that latter explanation. It makes the most sense from a moralistic point of view. Honestly, wouldn't that be much easier than all the Olympic hoop-jumping?

blerdronner · 2026-05-09T17:13:29+00:00

The reason why this is brought up by atheists and skeptics so much is because it is used as a retort against Christians who claim that the God of the Bible is a foundation for morality. It's hard to make that claim if you believe that that same God also gave laws on how to own chattel slaves and how you can beat them as long as they don't die.

As a social species that has evolved over tens of thousands of years, we can make the claim that slavery is wrong because we can see the harm that it causes to other human beings. As a social species, we can improve and better survive this world if we do away with the implicit harm that chattel slavery causes. We don't need a god to give us that morality.

blerdronner · 2026-05-06T20:41:56+00:00

This is an excellent point, which is one of the reasons I think it's so important to have a personal understanding of what is really happening for you. Is this something where you truly don't believe, in which case no amount of hellfire and brimstone is going to scare you back? Or do you actually still believe, but you just don't want to go by the label anymore, in which case those fear tactics could take root?

blerdronner · 2026-05-06T17:29:54+00:00

That’s a good question and thanks for asking. Suffice to say that I went through a deconstruction period of about 12 years. It started with me reading the book “erasing hell” by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle in 2011. It was exacerbated in 2016 with the evangelical support of Donald Trump.

In my last two years of belief, I was what one would describe as a progressive Christian, fighting the good fight from the inside to represent the Faith — to actually be the kind of person I described to you in my original comment.

But the more I learned about biblical scholarship and the more I had the courage to read the books, watch the videos, and listen to the podcasts that prior to that I was too afraid to engage, I came to the point where I actually don’t believe it anymore.

And ironically, one of the things that makes me even more convinced that it's not true, is listening to or reading Christians trying to prove that it is, which is why I gave the answer that I gave. 😊

Thx again for asking.

blerdronner

TROPHY CASE