"Without God, Life Has No Purpose . . . . . . ."

[dfnj]

a poor example of logic
obviously bolstering a belief in God

belief in God should come about from the opposite direction

look in the mirror.....realize you are not your own handiwork
then seek the Creator

Hope?.....for what?
eternal life?
I'm fine with that
and reasoning that I am not the source of my life takes me looking for God

We are the Universes way of experiencing itself. We are made of the very stuff we are trying to understand. At the smallest precision of measurement, what is the IT that decides which quantum state is realized when the observer shows up. It's really quite amazing and disturbing to think there is something in nature we cannot see that determines how reality gets realized right before our eyes.

 

[Thief]

Is your faith so weak that even if we were accidents your life would still not have meaning?

RE: only God is perfect.

Why would you think our omnipotent God is anything but perfect by definition? Honestly, do you even think about God? Having faith in an omnipotent God is easy, how can you be disappointed by omnipotence. But having faith in your fellow man, now that takes some serious faith! People behave according to your expectations. If you expect people to treat you badly they will.

People are perfectly imperfect. To have faith in people is divine. To love people in spite of the imperfections is divine. The glory of God is not where your faith is challenged.

seems like you haven't thought about God.....

as for my fellow man.....He WILL treat me badly.....regardless my expectations

(used to live in a housing project)

 

[Thief]

We are the Universes way of experiencing itself. We are made of the very stuff we are trying to understand. At the smallest precision of measurement, what is the IT that decides which quantum state is realized when the observer shows up. It's really quite amazing and disturbing to think there is something in nature we cannot see that determines how reality gets realized right before our eyes.

disturbing ...is the pivot word here

 

[dfnj]

seems like you haven't thought about God.....

God is just a word. What the word means is defined by how it is used in sentences. What's left to be said?

 

[dfnj]

disturbing ...is the pivot word here

It's more than disturbing. It seems no matter how great our understanding of nature may seem, there's always some unknown variable that is mind boggling and could be interpreted as divine intervention.

 

[Thief]

It's more than disturbing. It seems no matter how great our understanding of nature may seem, there's always some unknown variable that is mind boggling and could be interpreted as divine intervention.

agreed.....

I run back to Genesis.....the darkness.....void....

and in some manner no human will ever know.....GOD
made a pronouncement...Let there be light!

I believe that one statement to be synonymous to .....I AM!

not a name per se

 

[leibowde84]

The evidence – for me – is the Writings of Baha’u’llah because there is no other explanation for them. The Works of Bahá'u'lláh

Only a Messenger of God could write those, Imo.

From what He wrote and what he did on His 30 year mission and because he fulfilled all the prophecies in the Bible.

I get it I really do, as I had been posting to agnostics and atheists daily for four years before I came here a month ago. No, the current lack of scientific explanation of some aspect of the universe does not prove God exists. No, the amount of people believing in God or our innate notion of a personal God does not prove God exists. Nobody can prove God exists objectively but there is a lot of evidence that indicates that God exists. The only evidence that God exists are the Messengers God sends. That is one reason God sends them, but not the only reason.

My reasoning is not circular because I did not use the Writings of Baha’u’llah as evidence for the existence of God. I first had to verify that Baha’u’llah was actually speaking for God before I accepted His claim that God exists, which is embedded in His Writings.

The evidence that Baha’u’llah was who He claimed to be is not that Baha’u’llah claimed to receive a message from God because that would be circular.

The evidence that Baha’u’llah was who He claimed to be is everything that surrounds the Revelation of Baha’u’llah, including who He was as a Person (His character); His mission on earth; the history of His Cause, from the time He appeared moving forward; the scriptures that He wrote; what His authorized interpreters wrote; what others have written about the Baha’i Faith; the Bible prophecies that He fulfilled, as well as prophecies of other religions that He fulfilled; predictions He made that have come to pass; the religion that He established (followers) all over the world and what they have done and are doing now.

All of that is verifiable evidence.

I meant that if we did not have the capacity to believe in God ,then a just God could not expect us to believe in Him. So God must have created us with the capacity to believe in Him, as the quote says:

“.... I have perfected in every one of you My creation, so that the excellence of My handiwork may be fully revealed unto men. It follows, therefore, that every man hath been, and will continue to be, able of himself to appreciate the Beauty of God, the Glorified. Had he not been endowed with such a capacity, how could he be called to account for his failure?” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 143

I guess my response to all of this is my initial question ... what is the evidence you are basing this on? You have referred to general KINDS of evidence for God's existence and your reasoning for believing the things you do (e.g., fulfillment of prophecy), but I would be interested in what pieces of evidence specifically you are referring to. Can you please provide some examples of specific evidence you are basing your belief in God on? Things that can only be explained with God (e.g., saying "we don't have enough information to understand this" would not be accurate)?

 

[Trailblazer]

I guess my response to all of this is my initial question ... what is the evidence you are basing this on? You have referred to general KINDS of evidence for God's existence and your reasoning for believing the things you do (e.g., fulfillment of prophecy), but I would be interested in what pieces of evidence specifically you are referring to. Can you please provide some examples of specific evidence you are basing your belief in God on? Things that can only be explained with God (e.g., saying "we don't have enough information to understand this" would not be accurate)?

What I listed was the evidence that indicates that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God. There is no direct evidence of God... The Messengers are the evidence that God exists, so we attempt to verify their claim to have spoken for God, being His Representative on earth.

What I base MY belief in God on would be different from what someone else might base their belief on so all I can do is say why I believe in God. It is because I believe that Baha’u’llah was a Messenger of God, and I believe that mostly because of what He wrote, but also because of what He did on His Mission. There are many ways of looking at this information, reading actual books or reading those in the Baha’i Reference Library online or watching u-tube videos. I have collected links to a few of those videos in case you are interested in a given subject.

Things that can only be explained with God (e.g., saying "we don't have enough information to understand this would apply to how Baha’u’llah was able to write what He wrote, including the rapidity with which He wrote it and the content.

“So prolific was this period, that during the first two years after His return from His retirement, according to the testimony of Nabíl, who was at that time living in Baghdád, the unrecorded verses that streamed from His lips averaged, in a single day and night, the equivalent of the Qur’án! As to those verses which He either dictated or wrote Himself, their number was no less remarkable than either the wealth of material they contained, or the diversity of subjects to which they referred.........A certain Muḥammad Karím, a native of Shíráz, who had been a witness to the rapidity and the manner in which the Báb had penned the verses with which He was inspired, has left the following testimony to posterity, after attaining, during those days, the presence of Bahá’u’lláh, and beholding with his own eyes what he himself had considered to be the only proof of the mission of the Promised One: “I bear witness that the verses revealed by Bahá’u’lláh were superior, in the rapidity with which they were penned, in the ease with which they flowed, in their lucidity, their profundity and sweetness to those which I, myself saw pour from the pen of the Báb when in His presence. Had Bahá’u’lláh no other claim to greatness, this were sufficient, in the eyes of the world and its people, that He produced such verses as have streamed this day from His pen.” God Passes By. pp. 137-138

That book cited is a history of the Baha’i Faith from 1844 to 1944. I have never made my way through that entire book, but when I first heard the title, I chuckled.... God Passes By.