‘even if someone does not want to search for God they might do it because it is in their best interest.’
"Might" and "should" are different things.
That is true. I never said should.
If I don't even know I have a job, why would I try to get to work?
You wouldn’t, but you might go searching for a job ‘if you wanted one.’
He argues that man has some version of "free will" while simultaneously declaring that, "Man is absolutely helpless and dependent, since might and power belong especially to God," and later:
"Also the inaction or the movement of man depend upon the assistance of God. If he is not aided, he is not able to do either good or evil. But when the help of existence comes from the Generous Lord, he is able to do both good and evil; but if the help is cut off, he remains absolutely helpless."
That does not contradict free will in any way. He is saying that we are dependent upon God in order to be able to
do anything, including making choices (in this case choosing between good and evil).
Absolute helplessness is literally the opposite of free will.
No, it is not. He did not say we are helpless, he said we need the assistance of God in order to be able to do
anything, including making free will choices.
Yes I understand, this is basically what your OP summarized. My point is, that line of reasoning is based on the faulty assumption that belief is a choice, which as we've now fully covered, it isn't.
God wants us to do our own homework and
make an effort to believe. According to this passage, God wants everyone to search for Him and
try to determine if He exists by using their own innate intelligence and making a sincere effort. If they do not end up believing, at least they made an effort. That is all that is expected, sincerity and effort.
‘God has done nothing that YOU can see but that does not mean God has never done anything.’
Yes, that's true, God could have done something in secret in his hidden corner of the universe. But the time to believe something is when we have evidence for it, not simply because we can't prove it's impossible. We have no evidence for the notion that God has ever done anything.
The thing is, we can never know what God is
doing and we do not need to know what God is
doing; God sits on His Throne of Glory and He is unapproachable and unreachable. Maybe you got that idea from Christianity that we are children of God, part of His family, but according to Baha’i belief, we cannot be ‘partners’ with God because we are not on God’s level:
“Beware, beware, lest thou be led to join partners with the Lord, thy God. He is, and hath from everlasting been, one and alone, without peer or equal, eternal in the past, eternal in the future, detached from all things, ever-abiding, unchangeable, and self-subsisting. He hath assigned no associate unto Himself in His Kingdom, no counsellor to counsel Him, none to compare unto Him, none to rival His glory.” Gleanings, p. 192
Presuming he exists, your God is omnipotent. He could show himself and prevent us from being "reduced to utter nothingness."
I have been down this road before too. No, God cannot do that because God cannot change His nature just because God is omnipotent; and if God changed His nature he would no longer be omnipotent… Logic 101.
So this is a lousy excuse to not show himself. He is choosing to hide. And therefore there are consequences to his choice, including the guarantee that a portion of the population won't believe in him. If he doesn't want to rectify that situation, that's his choice.
Do you really think the Almighty God cares if a portion of the population does not believe in Him? God does not care for Himself because God is completely self-subsisting and self-sustaining. God cares only for us, but if we choose to reject the evidence He provided He is not going to provide some other kind of evidence just to garner 100%, because He does not need it.
This reminds me of “mommy, I want a cookie, and you are not my mommy anymore if you do not give me the cookie.” In short, it is childish. Six long years I have been posting to an atheist on some other forums, almost daily, and he says similar things. It had to stop somewhere so I finally told him in a new thread I posted I will no longer respond to any more posts that are about what God could/would/should do and how God failed on His job; e.g., how the world “could have” been created differently, or how Messengers are a inferior way to communicate, etc. Six years is long enough.
We're rehashing the same argument from a few months ago. This isn't about what I want. This is about the logical conclusion of your god's alleged actions. He's supposedly the omnipotent one, we are not. He is holding all the cards. He made all the rules to the game, voluntarily.
If anyone has free will, it's him, surely. Therefore, if he exists, he's choosing to hide. That's just the inescapable conclusion.
God hides His Essence and that is the only thing He hides. God reveals His Attributes and His Will through His Manifestations who are a perfect reflection of God, mirror images. That is why Jesus said “I and my Father are one.” The same applies to Baha’u’llah and all the other Manifestations of God. They are God manifest in the flesh, but they are not God incarnate in the flesh because God cannot become a man.
If you want to understand why God cannot be comprehended directly, I suggest you read this chapter. It is a little advanced but if you do not understand it just ask. I do not completely understand it but I get the gist.
37: THE DIVINITY CAN ONLY BE COMPREHENDED THROUGH THE DIVINE MANIFESTATIONS
It may not be a conclusion you like, which is why I'm sure you'll adamantly deny it, but it is what it is. No amount of rationalizing (like telling us what bad things would happen if he did that - because by definition, he could prevent those bad things) changes it.
The main thing is not that bad things would happen if God revealed His Essence. The main thing is that God is, and has ever been, immensely exalted beyond all that can either be recounted or perceived so we could NEVER comprehend the Essence of God. That is why there would be no point for God to reveal it to us. Heck, even the Manifestations of God cannot comprehend the Essence of God; they just hear His Voice through the Holy Spirit.