>it's purposefully oppressed
Sometimes I wonder about God intentionally hardening people's hearts so that they CANNOT believe. And Jesus intentionally speaking in riddles so that most people would NOT be saved. Obviously His thoughts and methods are far beyond our understanding, but this never really made sense to me.
The Lord has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts so that their eyes cannot see, and their hearts cannot understand, and they cannot turn to me and have me heal them.
John 12:40
…to those on the outside everything is expressed in parables, so that ‘they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven.’”
Mark 4:11b-12