aC; Basically you are saying (with scriptual support) that god has deliberately hidden the truth.
Basically you support the 'secret decoder ring' attitude of many religionists, that there are secrets buried within the text that only the select can understand.
How can this be if god is desirous none are destroyed? How can a loving god, essentially play games with the truth?
If god cares and loves us so much, why is information that could convince millions of people as to his existence hidden from view, so well that many people who are sincerely looking never find it?
It is not an Agatha Christie mystery we are dealing with here. It's people's lives. I find the idea of god playing games like that incomprehensible and morally repugnant. If it were true, it is elitist, deceptive, manipulative, and causes much unhappiness.
I'd far rather believe that this is just a twisted human idea, rather than the idea of any god.
You might not agree with me, but I'd like to see your reasoning justifying god's actions, if you believe in this 'doctrine of obscureness'.
You might immediately say "God doesn't have to justify his actions, he's god". Wrong. Just 'cause he's god doesn't make it right. And I thought that the past 6,000 years were to show God is justified in exerting Sovreignty over Humans, or do you have a view of that?
You see, looking at it from a slightly different angle, assuming god is real, the story is like this;
God creates humans.
God tells them they can do anything but THAT.
Satan decides he wants power, talks to Eve.
Eve does THAT, followed by Adam.
God is pissed, punishes Adam and Eve with eventual death to them and their offspring.
Some sort of divine wager is set up, whereby God says "Okay, if you know what to do, you do it, and we'll see if it works, and whether I tell the truth or whether the snake told the truth".
However, God had already taken away one thing that would help it work, eternal life, and added disease, and at various point where humans did get organised (Tower of Babel), immediately knocks it back down again
He then has a book written, hiding proofs that if stated clearly would mean that everyone would believe in God as a matter of course.
The fact that the book was so vauge it contributed to huge confusion of religions, as well as people not actually believing in God becasue all the evidence was hidden, is a clear sign of playing ineffable little games. If the truth hadn't been hiden, more people would have the truth, and would be happier, so god hiding the truth makes people unhappy.
To me, it looks like God in this scenario is playing a nasty game. He sets up a test that he knew they would fail, punishes them for it, and then, knowing the punishment sabotages any attempt at humans governing themselves effectively, sets them that as a test, to show whether he was right or whether Satan was right.
But, having done that, he doesn't let alone; Babel is a clear example of god breaking his own rules; the game was seeing if humans could govern themselves, when they do WHAMO!
I tell you quite seriously, if that is the 'truth', I'm pissed with god, he doesn't play fair, and that means God is a despot, the Bible is propoganda, and Satan is a freedom-fighter.
Of course, you don't have to agree with me. I don't seriously believe the above, it's just a clear trail of logic based upon beliefs I regard as silly, on the basis of where they logically end up. It's far more likely god doesn't exist than anything that absurd being true.
But I would like to see some refutation of the apparent unreasonableness of hiding the truth.
People living in glass paradigms shouldn't throw stones...