Benevolent Creator God?

[Mister Agenda]

Exactly, for a threat to be credible, the person making it has to be believably capable of carrying out the threat. I wouldn't be afraid of the president due to the US prez not being able to unilaterally nuke anyone, let alone individuals; but if the scenario was a madman with a suitcase nuke and their possession of the nuke was verified, I would be well-advised to run.

But in this scenario you're not the president or the madman with the nuke. You're a rando telling me the president or a madman with a nuke is going to atom bomb me if I don't heed your admonishments. The threat is not credible because the source of the threat has no means of carrying it out and their source is not only hearsay, that hearsay is contradicted by other hearsay and there are other randos yelling I better listen to them because it's really their dude who has the suitcase nuke and will nuke me if I don't heed them.

I don't believe any of them, so the threat does not intimidate me.

Well, I am not sure prophets are really random people. They didn't just claim we will be atom bombed if we don't believe them, they also came up with very impressive miracles that violate the way the universe works. Pretty compelling.. isn't it?

Stories about miracles are a dime a dozen and only compelling to people who already think the stories are true...but I suspect you understand that already.

If we were to accept religious stories, Jesus raised someone from the dead, that still wasn't enough for some people as evidence he is sent from God.. It's true that, absent miracles, we need a very compelling reason to accept grandiose claims, but any theist will naturally argue that this is exactly what prophets provided.

And any atheist will note that they do not find the stories of miracles very convincing.

At least one human must have received some guidance from God does not logically follow from 'God exists'.

You're right, we need the additional assumption of benevolence. Not much (nothing?) can be said if we assume the deity is malevolent, we could be brains in a vat meant to be tortured with the hope of meaning, or that existence means smth, etc.

Now, I would argue that the state of affairs in this world does tilt towards benvolence. A creator who wired us with maternal instinct and a moral compass clearly cares about justice and benevolence. There are many arguments in literature along these lines.

And the additional additional assumption that revelation is the only way a benevolent ominpotent being can order the universe the way they want. I'm willing to venture out on the limb of accepting that the reality we can observe is actually real, and in that reality natural causes easily account for maternal instincts. All of those arguments from literature are fatally flawed, logically speaking.

If I saw the Sun rising up from the West from where I live, I would certainly doubt my senses, it's physically impossible. I understand that the sun appears to go through some antics at or near the poles, so I wouldn't be so sure it was my senses or brain that was acting up. I know the direction the earth rotates, which is a very good reason to diminish my personal experience as delusional in that situation.

If I ever see the sun rise in the West I should get my head examined, and if you see that, so should you.

Actually, it's possible to experience that, I quote from a Quora answer I found after a quick search:

"If you set out shortly after sunset, and you fly more than 2000km/h (entirely possible in a supersonic jet) towards west, you'll fly faster than the rotation of earth, so you will “catch up” with the apparent movement of the sun across the sky. So after a while you'll have a beautiful “sunrise” in the west"

Thanks to modern technology, many things that we would otherwise dimiss as impossible are now possible or even mundane (like watching live TV, for example). If you were to go back some centuries ago in time with a TV, and tell people they could watch what happens now in another country or continent, they might think you are insane or delusional.

Why is it then a stretch to say an all-powerful God sent some entity to communicate a message. There is nothing impossible a priori about this, assuming of course that an omnipotent deity exists.

Why did I even bother with the caveat 'where I live' I wonder? Is trying to have a discussion with you pointless?