A question I recently received is why has God (from a Christian, perhaps Jewish perspective as well been so quiet to human kind for so long? The idea being, via the question, is that humans have walked the Earth for over 100,000 years and it seems odd to this person that God only began speaking with us recently (2,000 years ago). But that’s not exactly true, is it? From the Judeo-Christian perspective, at least in the bible, God was present in the lives of his chosen people and until, possibly 400 years before the birth of Jesus, where, in the Old Testament that God became silent.
Let’s recall, at least for many fundamentalist and evangelical Christians at least, the Earth is not that old. Humans have not been walking the around this planet for hundreds of millennia, but for possibly 6 or 7 thousand years. All anyone need to do is go visit Answers in Genesis to get an idea of what is possibly a majority view of those believers, or at least that’s what they’d like the rest of us to believe.
If we only look at holy books as evidence for any God, then we may probably say, there isn;t a God for any of us, no matter the religion. Certainly lots of people pray, and some describe their paryer experiences as actually talking with their God, we have no reason to believe that any of that happens. I know, as a former Christian, when I look back upon my prayer life, that it was probably more similar to meditation than anything else. Anyone, as former believers,. that’s prayed before, may probably say the same.
What believers are forced to recognize is that some God speaks to them, today, through prayer. But in the ancient past, those same Gods interacted with their human creations. Why did any and all of these go completely silent? Of course it’s because the stories we’ve read in any book are just that: stories. They are mythology that developed over time and , in ther christian bible, from the fall of Jericho, to the Story of Jesus is nothing more than a fable, handed down, generationally, so that the beliefs of those elders, mostly unknown today, are cairned forward.
In the ancient past, humans had a need to describe natural events that occurred around them. From the seasons, to plagues and earthquakes. They, of course, invented magical beings that controlled the weather and also punished the people for their lack of worship. Religion is nothing more than a method of controlling the populace.
Were theere gods that spoke to men in th ancient past? Doubtful and we should consider any and all of these stories, as just that and nothing more. Fairy tales to scare the children in one instance, and in the other, to give them comfort. If that is the methodology of any god, then it’’s poor. You don’t convince followers by threats, and that’s probably the difference between Old and New Testament.
Is it possible that none of these ever actually existed? Is it that maybe, just maybe, some decided that their god did in fact speak to them in the ancient past? But why wouldn’t that same being talk to us today/ Think of the wars and starvation that may be prevented just because we know there is some god, somewher, looking out for us. But we don’t have that privilege and never will. Why? All of the ancient texts are as I said, fables, that describe the world and nature for those of our ancestors.
God is silent today most likely because he/she/it doesn’t, and never has, existed. Our need to believe in some supernatural being, controlling every aspect of our lives is an artifact of our history, ancient history, and has nothing to do with our lives today.
Conservative Skeptic 
The idea of a creator has historically been substituted for true knowledge about reality. Its hard to accept or believe that in the 21st century, there are still people who don’t know any better.Ignorance of natures ways & scientific facts led the ancients to invent gods to explain the explainable and to lord it over every aspect of human life. Mythology & superstition were essentially the only tools they had in the shed in those times to explain reality. They resorted to speculation and interpretation, rather than observation and investigation. Classifying objects and phenomena by superficial observation rather than empirical evidence.
Now I can understand somebody reading the Bible for pleasure because it’s arguably a great work of literature it’s certainly an interesting cultural artifact but it’s not the Word of God. And its really time that we stop pretending that it is or even that it might be. God is the main character in the book and if you read it you’ll quickly see this he’s an interesting personality if a little crudely drawn. He’s basically an attempt to put a human face on the creative life force. But unfortunately, we’ve saddled him with all our own petty prejudices and made him a bit too human for our own good. Because one thing I’ve noticed is that being human really only works for humans. It doesn’t work well at all for deities. Human gods tend to be willful violent and unpredictable in a shallow ego driven kind of way. The bible is a very ambiguous book. It contains both messages of peace and violence. So it depends on how you approach it because that’s exactly what you’re going to find. It’s a mixture of a little history and a lot of exaggerated fiction. Written during an era where knowledge was almost completely limited to completely non-existent. Written by men, inspired by…men. Written by ignorant, superstitious, desert dwelling, tribalistic human beings who were dealing with life and death issues like injustice & oppression. Where some men who were afraid of knowledge and understanding used “god” as the ultimate authoritative puppet to speak with their voices because they desperately needed to control the thoughts and actions of other people for their own survival.
As for the men who wrote the bible, they are long dead and long gone. And I think their purpose for those times have been served. Because we’ve moved on from the desert and discovered a few things about the world, the universe, and our place in it. And we no longer need ancient superstitions to tell us how to engage in reality any more than people a thousand years from now need us to tell them how to behave. We no longer need to made to feel helpless and in need of guidance, when the truth is we don’t need guidance from them any more than we need a flashlight to see our way around in broad daylight.
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Well, of course, they are silent because we stopped listening to them and in their depression they faded away to near nothingness. Except, I suppose, those Abrahamic Gods who still speak and appear to their believing fanatics, driving some to violence and some to live in a benign delusion.
“Atheist might not believe in God, but God still believes in them.” Isn’t there a puking avatar somewhere?
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