Then tell us everything you actually know about God outside of what your holy book says since we can read. Does it all just come from your holy book and if not share with us all you actually know beyond what your holy book says.
Tell me what "faith" is and I will tell you why my faith is in my Creator rather than in what human intelligence imagines to be truth.
My "holy book" is not just a bunch of meaningless stories....it is a history that explains the Creator's interaction with his human creation, and in a relatively simple way it tells us how the universe began. That there was a "beginning" to it all. Science agrees.
It tells us how we got here. Science doesn't know, but it makes imaginative guesses about the process.
The Bible tells us why our life experience does not gel with our expectations in life. Why we collectively display sadness or disappointment when those expectations are not met.
Science tells us that we are just animals who form these expectations from our own evolutionary experiences, but that does not explain why humans collectively desire happiness, peace, security and loving family relationships as a norm. And why laughter is universal, a sense of humor, pretending (acting), poetry, enjoying fiction, creating music in a variety of genres, and any number of other traits that humans have exclusively.
It explains why something like death, (especially sudden or unexpected death which is accepted naturally by the vast majority of creatures on this planet,) is never accepted in the human species. Grief is felt deeply (sometimes for decades) despite it being part of our existence from the beginning. What does science do to explain this? Surely by now we should have 'evolved' the same kind of acceptance displayed in the majority of other creatures on this planet?
It tells us about free will and why it was given along with a superior level of intelligence, only to humans. In the animal kingdom, wisdom is pre-programmed in creatures to make their lives and interactions successful. They have no ability to conceptualise past, present and future, so their actions, (anything that sustains their species) are automatic......involving no ability to plan beyond the present.
How does science explain this?
My holy book explains why humans do not behave in a way that we might expect, given our 'natural' moral qualities. We are sometimes appalled that humans are capable of behaving in ways that are described as "inhuman" (not what we expect from humans...in fact not even what we would expect from animals who usually kill with no malice, but simply for a desire to eat.)
Science says we are just animals.....but are we? We might physically resemble some of them in some ways, but intellectually, we are poles apart.
The Bible tells us that the situation we find ourselves in is temporary, with a final solution that will achieve the Creator's first purpose without removing what caused our dilemma....the abuse of free will. We are the only creatures on the planet with truly free will and a moral sense (along with the faculty of conscience) to modify our behavior in a conceptualized manner. We alone can see where our actions may lead in the future and can avoid those actions according to that imagined outcome.
How does science explain that some humans can see the imagined outcome of their actions but carry them out anyway?
Our conduct on this planet demonstrates that humans are the greatest threat to all species that live here. As custodians, man has committed crimes against all of them for the sake of furthering his own greed.....and the misuse of science is in the forefront of that situation....man will ultimately lead to the demise of all life unless his behaviours are brought to a halt. He shows no real evidence of an intention to cease his behaviors......I believe that God will have to do that. In fact, he guarantees it.
The Bible has no unanswered questions...evolutionary science provides answers that never touched that part of me that demanded reasons that gelled with my own sense of logic and my own natural spirituality.
You asked 'what is there to threaten you with if there is no punishment'? And the answer is, there was never a threat in the first place. God doesn't "threaten" anyone.
He simply said that he was going to 'fill this earth' with humankind who would be caretakers of this earth along with its myriads of creatures.....he allows us to show him if we have what he is looking for in that role, or whether we are only interested in looking out for ourselves.
He will allow those who demonstrate the desired qualities to live on his earth but, as its "Landlord", those who trash his property and have no regard for his laws, or appreciation for his generosity, will be evicted. We determine by our own behavior, which side of that issue we have placed ourselves.
We either live or we die. Our judge can read hearts and motives, so there will not be a single person who will suffer an injustice in the outcome.
This is my reasoning on the matter.