Who was "he" talking to?

[Godscreated]

I think you mean not all of them, there are many Jewish Christians.

That... can't really be a thing, can it?

Yes, Jesus came first to the Jews and then the gentiles, meaning they(the Jews) were suppose to take the message of Christ to the world. They had the same responsibility during the OT years and instead of taking God's message to the gentiles they condemned them and selfishly kept God to themselvkeptThey failed twice. When they were scattered during the Roman occupation and were without a land for 2000 years, it is my opinion God was punishing them for such a betrayal.

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They had to modify the Bible so they could say Jesus isn't Jesus. There only two denominations that do not believe Jesus is not God. I noticed you did not supply any of the many verses you say are in the Bible that shows Jesus sin't God. I'll give you a reference that will put an end to the nonsense that Jesus is not God, John 1:1-5.

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Yes, the JWs decided to take the bizarre step of modifying the Bible to fit their beliefs.  But they're not alone in their belief regarding Jesus and God.  I didn't provide the verses because I am sure that you know of them.  To save the time I'll just link to a couple of sites: One example. Another example.  As expected, there are a lot of sites describing how Jesus is or is not God or the Father, and they have differing explanations using various Bible texts to support their view.

I know some but not all, I've never found the need to investigate.

Keep in mind that I am not invested in proving one or the other, since I don't believe that any of the characters are real.  It's just an example of how the Bible being so open to interpretation muddles things for those who seek the Christian God, and how the confusion over so many beliefs and ideas implies that there is no guiding hand.

I understand your position and why you believe there's no guiding hand but, why blame/or discount God because of the mistakes humans make.
The way I study the Bible on certain issues such as this one is this, when you have verses like John 1:1-5 and the several verses where Jesus says He and the Father are One this doesn't imply they are the same God its an affirmative statement. So we have to take the verses that seem controversial and find how they fit with the verses that make an absolute statement. Why so many people want to grab on to certain verses and ignore those that make an absolute statement is beyond me. What could be better than finding the truth.

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In the past (ie before Jesus) only a few chosen people had direct access to God and only a chosen few ever received the Holy Spirit. The every day Israelis never saw God, heard from God or experienced the Holy Spirit.Actually no one has ever seen God, God revealed himself through  His prophets.

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The Israelites saw plagues visited on their slave masters, and a sea split open, and food fall from the sky, and water pour forth from rocks, and city walls collapse, and fire swallow up offerings and many other miraculous things that made it clear to them that there was a great force acting on their behalf.

The Egyptians saw those plagues and did not believe, even to the destruction of the army. If you were to see something similar would you believe that God did it. Or would you look for a scientific explanation and say that we will find it someday. Adam and Eve saw God, Satan and the fallen angels saw God yet each faltered, God knows what is preceived through the eyes will not be sufficient, it's that which is perceived through the heart (spirit) which will be susufficient.

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Then God revealed himself in the person of Jesus and once Jesus ascended into heaven the Holy Spirit was sent to convict and show people who God is. God now works with us individually, God says He will reveal himself through knowledge to those who truly seek and accept Jesus. You can't fool God, He knows that no matter what He did those who do not want Him will make every excuse they can. An omnipresent being knows all the excuses that will be.

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I think it's more like "God" cannot fool those people who searched and found nothing.  You may not be able to fool God, but you can fool people.  It's just that, as the saying goes, you can't fool all of them all of the time.

God promises to reveal himself to those who are looking to make a change in their lives. God doesn't want to fool anyone, He desires that all be saved. There are many on this forum who said they searched and found God but then decided He wasn't real, so you tell me how sincere were they to begin with, how was it they found something they do.not believes exists. How are we to trust what they say now, it's not the Christian who sounds delusional, to me its those who said they found God and then deny He even exists. They do sound kinda' if don't you think.

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They disobeyed God, He never abandoned them, on the contrary He saved them from their sin. Satan wasn't their god, though he wished he could be. He had a fatal flaw he could not create anything except lies. Disobedience is not total rejection, I disobey God yet I haven't rejected Him, I would think this is quite evident by my comments on this forum, disobedience is sin, rejection is disbelief

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The price they paid for their disobedience was death, so I'd say it was total rejection in their case.  They knew what eating from the fruit meant.  As perfect beings, they had no need for a redemptive sacrifice because they had control over their actions.  It was a willful act that they knew would separate them from God forever.  That sounds like rejection to me.

They rejected what God said not God. That's evident when we read they were hiding from God, not out of fear but out of shame for what they had done. They were sorry which shows repentance, thus the sacrifice of the animals to cloth them and thus the need for a blood sacrifice to pay for the sin. God told them they would surely die when they ate fruit from the tree, this is a two fold meaning which I do not believe they totally understood. The death through separation came first and I do not think they understood this part, I do believe they understood the second part, the physical death. They were perfect and traded it in for knowledge they didn't need, today people are not perfect and some reject the knowledge that will make them perfect in the eyes of God. Seems a strange thing to do IMO.

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How do you think you could ever find God when you reject the very beginning of His book. Adam and Eve knew the punishment for their disobedience and for God not to carry out His providential judgment would be for Him to deny His providence, justice, who He is. The sinful couple could not be allowed to reach the Tree of Life, that would have doomed them to live in sin for eternity, this is what hell is, God saved them from this torment.

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But that's what shows that they rejected him.  They had a way to die without rejecting God-- they could have stopped eating from the Tree of Life.  They took a route that forced God to act on his promise.  It was a direct shot at him.

As for finding God, I was a devout believer for many years.  I didn't reject anything until I took the time to try and make sense of it.

The Bible doesn't say they ate from the "Tree of Life," they did not have to to live forever. As long as they did not disobey God death would not have come.
You say you took the time to make sense of Christianity, yet you missed this important information. Could it be that you have missed even more important things.
You say they took a route, do you mean they took a route to death? Why would they do such a thing that would make no sense at all. If that's what you meant maybe you should rethink this position.

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They rejected his authority, not quite as severe but, when someone speeds on the highway you have rejected the speed limit law but not the law as a whole

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Yes, rejected his authority is a good way to put it.

That's what I've been saying all along, they rejected His authority through disobedience, they did not totally reject God.

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I can't say you, but many on this forum would make every excuse they could. Many of the Jews rejected who Jesus was and especially the religious leaders, Jesus said this himself, "you have seen yet you reject what your eyes have shown you."

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I think this shows how difficult it is to know that we have found the right God or the right religion.  If even the people who saw miracles firsthand were sufficiently unimpressed that they would not accept Jesus --or in the case of the Pharisees, conspired to murder him-- then there is little hope for those who seek now.  Jesus himself admitted that the gateway to salvation was long and narrow and few would find it.  Most would only walk the path to destruction.  That is a far cry from someone who wants everyone to be saved.

Here's another example of what you have missed. Jesus told Thomas that he believed because he saw with his eyes, then He said blessed are those who will believe without seeing. Yes Jesus said the road and gate to salvation is narrow and that many would miss it. He wasn't saying it was hard, look at it this way, the narrow road is the word of God and the gate is Jesus, the word (road) leads to Jesus (the gate). So you see it's not hard to find the road (Bible) they're everywhere and when one reads it to seek Jesus (gate) He's not hard to find. Jesus was saying many would reject Him because the Bible teaches we have to surrender and many are to self centered to give themselves over to (trust) Jesus. Here's another example of Jesus being God, He knew in the future that most would reject Him, He could only know this if He were the omnipresent God. See what I mean about studying the Bible and finding out how things fit.

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I do not know who taught you you couldn't think for yourself as a Christian,

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In my experience, most Christians claim to be open-minded and free-thinkers while rejecting any ideas that would challenge their beliefs.  The JWs are no different, they insist that they teach one to "think for yourself" while dealing harshly with anyone who comes up with ideas that are not endorsed by the leadership.  If you are convinced that you have found the truth of God, you will want to safeguard it from attempts to undermine it.  Taken to an extreme, it's not surprising when people completely close their minds to anything that challenges it.

In my experience if one is sound in their belief they have nothing to fear from challenges, I think you can see I have no fear of being challenged. Why, because I know what the Bible truly reveals, how do I know, I'm looking to God the one who wrote it to teach me about His word and the real truth to be found.
Question if you were not a JW then why do you keep bringing them up, you've said many things against them yet you use them to defend your position? A Christian should always have an open mind, not to find faulting his belief but, to find the truth in his belief.

My pads going crazy so I'm going to leaveoff Herman answer the rest later.

GC