On Hell and Forgiveness

[Angrboda]

If God were to appear to everybody everywhere as unmistakably real, undoubtedly a few more people would believe in God and the redemption of Christ than do now.  Perhaps some who believe now would turn away, but it's more sensible to presume that more people who didn't previously turn to God then would do so than would turn away from him.  The consequence of those few turning toward God would result in eternal happiness for them.  The gains are thus infinite.  Moreover, Steve has repeatedly said that people who believe in God are more moral than those who don't.  So this is something that God could do which would be infinitely better for people as a whole, and which he chooses not to do.  So God is choosing a world that is infinitely worse than the one we could have.  How is a hidden God good again?

Cue the ‘God doesn’t want to violate our free will’ argument.

Somehow, acknowledgement and worship doesn’t seem to count for Yahweh unless it’s performed by people who don’t have good, compelling reasons to do so. Slavish credulity, offered as an act of “freedom” is the ridiculous alleged bottom line.

Christians want to have it both ways. They want to suggest that the evidence is sufficient to compel belief in a rational person, but at the same time claim that by providing sufficiently compelling evidence, God isn't compelling people to believe. You can't have it both ways. Either belief is a result of unreason or ignorance, or God is violating our free will by coming to earth and performing miracles and resurrections. Even Steve admits that reason alone isn't sufficient to bring a person to God. If what brings a person to God isn't reason, then belief is by definition irrational.