Ok, I too do not agree that Christianity is not a religion. But I do agree that Christianity's message is about promoting real faith in God rather than religious ritual and superficial behaviours/beliefs, as is described by Jesus "hypocritical Pharisee's! You are careful to polish the outside of the cup [that you can appear to be clean], but inside you are foul". So, if I was saying the same thing as LostMarbels, I would have chosen different words. But the words he has chosen are actually valid for hat he is saying. I think you are applying different meaning to his words (which is also valid meaning) and arriving at a different meaning than he is intending.
The Bible recounts several instances in which God directly intervened in human affairs. So I don't understand why you have difficulty imagining it.
Yes, those are miracles. I accept He is able to, but I don't think He wants to be the one who has to completely run the universe. It seems pretty clear that from the very beginning, He "made man in His image" - which means that mankind is intended to have that role. But mankind has chosen to do something with that power that God has not intended. So what, should He throw the laws of physics out the window? If you jump off a cliff you don't hit the ground? You can shoot to kill for food but not for fun? I cannot imagine that world. Please confirm that this is the sort of world you have in mind, and then I will have another question for you. Or maybe you want to think more about it first, because it seems like maybe you haven't really thought it through yet.
I imagine heaven being a place that laws of physics are reliable, but what I have described (as a guess of what you are wishing for) is a very different type of world than what I have ever imagined. Can you imagine that someone can hit another person for sport but if they try to hit another person to inflict harm, their arm will be unable to move? Unless you correct me, all I am going to see is this very unreliable world where basically nothing works as expected.
Expectations would need to be adjusted. But why is that problematic in itself? The laws of physics would still apply. But one person would not be able to effectively harm another.
Yes, this is what I said before - that He would need to control the entire universe. But it is very apparent that He doesn't want that. Ask any Christian about this, every single one of them will tell you "God does not want robots, He wants us to be responsible and to do the right thing, willingly and happily". So you are saying that He should tolerate people wanting to do the wrong thing, and actually step in to prevent them from doing the wrong thing? IIRC, He appears to have got sick of having to contend with humans who refused to do the right thing, and shortened their lifespan, apparently as a result: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6:3&version=NIV
I rather view that He wants to eliminate evil, as that is the conclusion that the whole Christian faith draws us to make, and He wants the world to be one that is naturally opposed to evil and loves to do good.
In what way would his intervention make us robots? If you are in a position to help someone who is being assaulted, at little or no risk to yourself, do you stand idly by out of respect for the "free will" of the assailant? Do you decline to act out of fear that your intervention would somehow make the assailant a "robot"? Is the assailant's "free will" more important to you than the wellbeing of the person being assaulted? Your refusal to act in this situation would be considered a moral failure, especially if the cost of intervening was negligible. How much more of a moral failure would it be if one deliberately refused to intervene when one's resources were inexhaustible?
