I agree that physics and evolution are a part of the evolving knowledge of science and part of the universal knowledge, but I do not consider them answers? in and of themselves.
They are - jointly - the best answers we have. I doubt there can be any serious question about that.
Absquatulating? please define and clarify
Oh my! This is perhaps the best American coinage ever in my opinion - it basically means to get up and leave abruptly - as the Deist god apparently did immediately after creation.
Math is a descriptive discipline developed by humans to provide tools for human use and science that reflects reality, but is not reality and of themselves govern everything. I believe there are ultimate laws of nature that govern our existence that our natural laws and our math are descriptive of this reality that evolve over time.
I agree with this but if you take the laws of physics as the fundamental description of reality that makes math the ultimate.
You have presented an awkward unrealistic view of Dualism.
No I haven't, I have presented a deliberately glib version (because the basic idea is very simple) of Platonic dualism in which the immaterial and unchanging (mathematical/divine - take your pick) laws are insulated from the "leaky pots" of Heraclitean change that characterizes the real (physical/mundane - take your pick again) world that humans inhabit. This is the same dualism that gave rise to the notion of an almighty creative deity so fundamentally aloof and fenced off from its creation that it was not only infinitely above and beyond the physical creation but entirely inaccessible and past any possibility of comprehensibility except by divine grace and miraculous revelation. For most of humanity's religious or spiritual past, it seems to me, people were far more "in touch" with their deities - they inhabited the trees and streams. Even the God of the Baha'i faith began as the God of Horeb (Mount Sinai). But that tribal deity who inhabited a part of the same real world as his bronze age subjects has been abstracted so far into unreality that by the dawn of the age of enlightenment he was nowhere to be seen - hence the rise of deism along with science in the 18th century - and atheism hot on the heels of the deism a century later.
Creation would reflect the attributes of God, and not God reflecting the attributes of Creation.
Well I beg to differ and I would argue that the evidence of history is that deities tend to reflect the intellectual attributes of the human creation as history unfolds. Again, I doubt you would seriously argue against that. The difference is you attribute this reflection to the kindly wisdom of an ineffably wise deity, whereas I attribute it to the best we could come up with at the time.
You are assuming your extremely accride biased view reflects the reality of what the Baha'i Faith is and what it believes..you have not accurately presented the Baha'i Faith believes...
I said the Baha'i faith is "a curious admixture of Christian and Islamic mythology and 19th century social reform ideas" - would you care to present any key aspect of the Baha'i faith that is not found either in the earlier Christian/Islamic traditions or 19th century social reform ideas?
the Baha'i Faith does not support process theology.
That is one of my points - if it did, it would IMO be more relevant to the 21st century.
the evolving cyclic nature of our physical existence would reflect the attributes of God and not what God is
Again I beg to differ.
you have not presented an unbiased assessment what the Baha'i Faith believes...Nor have you presented alternate belief systems nor scenarios that reflect the universal.
I was not intending to do either.
Do you consider philosophical naturalism to explain the universal?
What is "philosophical naturalism"? I mean that as a rhetorical question. But yes I do believe the answers are to be found in naturalism - i.e. we look at
what is and try our best to explain it without complicating the issue by imagining
what is not and inventing explanations that only end up in even deeper unexplainable mysteries. IOW I believe the partial explanations of naturalism are preferable to the non-explanations of theistic supernaturalism. And the sooner 'religion' gets that, the better its chances of avoiding sliding into the abyss of eternal irrelevance - if it hasn't already.
Ultimately, the universe has to be its own best explanation, just as the reality of
@shunyadragon 's life or
@siti 's life (for example) is the best possible explanation of itself - don't you think? So perhaps - I am suggesting - "god" is ultimately nothing more and nothing less than "the life of the universe" - and to us - at any point in time - "God" is the best explanation of that "life of the universe" we can come up with...but right now, Abrahamic monotheism simply doesn't cut the mustard - its too tribal, too earth-bound to be at once sufficiently inclusive and sufficiently expansive for the post-post-modern world of connected humanity. And simply repackaging Yahweh/Allah and dressing him up in modern (without the posts) social notions (universal suffrage and all that) will not do. At least not for me at any rate.
