Pete.. you asked: "would you believe,even if he spoke directly to you?"

A number or time here at Mudcat I have described scenarios that would be very convincing. (The clouds parting and a voice from above appearing to all humans simultaneously in their own languages, for example.)

Now... *IF* I heard a 'voice' speaking only to me...sort of inside my head... I would be curious, but not convinced. Why? Because mentally disturbed people claim this sort of thing every day... and some use it as explanation for committing terrible crimes. "God told me to do it!"

I assume that *IF* there were a genuine God who was "all powerful" and who wished to speak directly to me, he could do so... (that is sort of included in the definition of "ALL powerful"). But I am sure that "all powerful" is only a human linguistic concept for what we 'imagine' a god to be like. It is an obvious thing to add to a list of 'godly attributes', but it leads to famous conundrums such as "Could God create a stone so heavy He couldn't lift it?" Then the game becomes 'interpreting' the idea so that it is not a contradiction..... and that, Pete, is the most obvious problem for sceptics like me. We see these 'human' concepts, claims, scriptures, stories and ideas in dozens of cultures & religions... and we see people (priests, theologians, translators) spending their lives trying to reconcile confusions and contradictions and promote ONE version as 'true'.
This leads to the obvious example of 'circular reasoning', where they start with the assumption that "there IS one absolute truth", and then construct arguments trying to defend the version they are most familiar with... usually handed to them as children by family & friends.

I ask again... if a "God" wanted this mess to end (including all the war & death over religion) and all people to see the **TRUTH**, why just tell a few people thousands of years ago?