It was because not everyone was ready to understand. The purpose of this life is not to convince everyone of the truth and force them to follow it. It is a process of growth all must do individually. If God merely wanted everyone to know the truth, He could send an angel to appear to everyone and proclaim His word, and show all kinds of miracles that everyone would be forced to recognize. But Jesus also said if they would not believe the words of the prophets, they would not believe though one were raised from the dead. Parables gave a way for Jesus to teach to the public, where they would have to be prepared to hear, and would have to open their minds to the voice of the spirit to understand, thus those who had not prepared themselves and were not honest seekers of truth would not understand, while those that were open to the voice of the spirit would see.
I find myself in concurrence with (Q) once again.
Considering the magnitude of the decision to believe in Jesus or not, don¡Çt you think God could offer us a little more?
People believe what they
want to believe. Science has, on a few occasions, contradicted the Bible (not irrefutably, of course)
Never was a Christian forced to acknowledge these contradictions as truth.
If an angel appeared in front of me, I would not necessarily feel forced to either believe or ignore the word it proclaims. The angel could be an illusion, or sent from a being like Satan, or some other random deity.
I would certainly be inclined to believe in Jesus, how is that forceful?
Knowing this (as I¡Çm sure God would) why hasn¡Çt he sent me any angels? He could save me from eternal torment in hell. He should get off his bloody arse and do so, eh?
From your reasoning, I could agree that some should not be ¡Æsaved¡Ç this way, but each person is different. Surely individuals like (Q) and I, who I can safely say would not feel ¡Æforced¡Ç into the decision, could be payed a visit from one of God¡Çs little messengers?
That excuse simply won't do. You may not know it, but from what i've been told, i'm positive a being like God does.
I can only come to one of two conclusions-
1.) Your God does
not care for me in the least
2.) He doesn't exist.
I'm guessing the former is more favourable?