What is your best evidence for a god?

[MNoBody]

Interesting. You sound like you have looked for evidence as a detective would. What have you found that shows everything is alive? What do mean by “ alien”? That sounds a little vague.

alien as in difficult to describe as the words fail to convey the proper depth, context and meaning.
My experiences are my business [as it is with everyone], so those need verifying confirming, proving, testing retesting, etc......
which is why I have no pet theories to trot out to validate anything i say, nor are they required, same as the detective who need not discuss what he knows about his case with just every random skeptic looking for amusements.

 

[Brookhousek]

Evidence for a god doesn't matter. God is how you treat other people.

Surely how you treat other people is “how you treat other people”. This seems completely separate from any god.

 

[Brookhousek]

Jehovah said that he would have witnesses for his name and that they would preach in all the inhabited earth and then the end would come. The very fact that Jehovah has raised up witnesses for his name as he promised to do and they are preaching the good news of the kingdom in all the inhabited earth is proof of his Godship.

“You are my witnesses,” declares Jehovah,
“Yes, my servant whom I have chosen,
So that you may know and have faith in me
And understand that I am the same One.
Before me no God was formed,
And after me there has been none.
I—I am Jehovah, and besides me there is no savior.”
“I am the One who declared and saved and made known
When there was no foreign god among you.
So you are my witnesses,” declares Jehovah, “and I am God.
-Isaiah 43:10-12.

And this good news of the Kingdom will be preached in all the inhabited earth for a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.-Matthew 24:14.


Jehovah, the God of the Bible raises this challenge to all the other gods out there:

No other god has raised up witnesses for himself. And no other god has answered Jehovah's challenge:

“Present your case,” says Jehovah.
“Produce your arguments,” says the King of Jacob.
“Produce evidence and tell us the things that will happen.
Do tell us about the former things,
So that we may reflect on them and know their outcome.
Or declare to us the things that are coming.
Tell us what will happen in the future,
So that we may know that you are gods.
Yes, do something, good or bad,
So that we may be amazed when we see it.
-Isaiah 41:21-23.

Not one false god has presented their witnesses or have foretold what is now to happen as Jehovah God is doing through his witnesses throughout the earth. And Jehovah tells you why, the false gods the people of the world worship do not exist:

Look! You are something nonexistent,
And your achievement is nothing.

Anyone who chooses you is detestable.
-Isaiah 41:24.

The gods of the world are nonexistent.


But I kept looking, and there was no one;
There was not one among them to give advice.
And I kept asking them to reply.
 Look! All of them are a delusion.
Their works are nothing.
Their metal images are wind and unreality.
-Isaiah 41:28-29.

The true God has foretold that he would both raise up witnesses to his name Jehovah and give them the energy to fulfill his commission to preach about what he foretells to do for mankind...

"For “everyone who calls on the name of Jehovah will be saved.” 14 However, how will they call on him if they have not put faith in him? How, in turn, will they put faith in him about whom they have not heard? How, in turn, will they hear without someone to preach? 15 How, in turn, will they preach unless they have been sent out? Just as it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who declare good news of good things!”-Romans 10:13-15.

Wow. That was a lot of bible quotes. I still feel no more convinced based on some words that are written in a book? If I pick up a copy of Harry Potter I know it is a contemporary fiction. How do I know that the bible is more reliable?

 

[Brookhousek]

For myself, Jesus said that we would "know the truth" when we heard it, because it would strike a chord in us and prompt us to investigate whether that response was an invitation from God to get to know him...or not. (John 6:65) He also said that "the truth would set us free"......free from what? Free from all the false ideas that permeate the world's multitude of false religions. Unless you experience that freedom, its hard to describe it.

It started with the Bible's description of death...I had lost my father very suddenly the year before and had agonized over what had become of him. My church upbringing had me worried that he might be in a place of fiery torture and that didn't sit well with me.....the other alternative wasn't much better because if he was stuck in heaven, missing his family and there was no way to communicate with us;.....if he was looking down on us and seeing every mistake and seeing every awful thing that happened to us, how could heaven ever be a happy place?

I found out that the dead are "sleeping"...they are not conscious and they haven't gone anywhere. That was a great relief, because now I knew that he was not suffering or unhappy at being separated from us. He was just asleep. (Ecclesiastes 9:5; 10; John 11:11-14).....waiting for Jesus to call him out of of his grave, like Lazarus.....and to return him to us here on the earth once his Kingdom was established. (John 5:28-29) My next question was "what is God's Kingdom"?...and the answers just flowed.

Getting those answers, not from people who said "I think" but from those who showed me the answer straight from God's word, there was a hunger ignited in me that I really didn't know I had....the more questions I asked, the more answers I got....and the more questions there were.....the more answers were forthcoming....it was like a banquet! I wanted to know it all....but I had to be patient and learn a little at a time...only then could I put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

These were questions I had asked all my life....but they were never answered by my church. Now I know why.

I agree that a loving god who is all powerful would not be very loving who condemns someone to eternal torment purely because they didn’t feel there was sufficient evidence to believe.

 

[Brookhousek]

The best evidence is what we can observe.

Can you elaborate on this? What do you observe that leads you to believe?

 

[Brookhousek]

That would be God's Messenger, as they are all we can know about God.

Regards Tony

Hi Tony. I am not at all sure what you mean by this. What message have you received?

 

[Brookhousek]

The accuracy of “Ex nihilo nihil fit.”

And yet matter, and the finely-tuned forces governing it, is everywhere.

Your argument is nothing comes from nothing therefore god. Can I ask what other possibilities you have explored and eliminated? How do you know that there is not an explanation that you have not considered?

 

[Brookhousek]

you have no need to prove to any regarding what you follow.....if this deity works to make a better man of you then it serves it's purpose, if not, well, one can always try another deity on for size. there is a sizeable number .....maybe it was all about variety being the spice of life or something....hmmm...who could say.

The obvious question is why do I need any deity to make me a better man. If I am not convinced that there is sufficient evidence to believe there is a deity how can I take any guidance from it.

 

[Brookhousek]

@Milton Platt I'm signing off, so I will just post this now.

I assume you have seen a circuit board

This is a circuit board.

Would you say the circuit board was not designed, and has no designer?
Absurd right.

Let's suppose you never saw a circuit board in your life, would you conclude there is no way of knowing how it got like that. Perhaps you need more evidence it was designed?
How do we know it was designed?

This, they say, represents the connections in the brain... of a mouse.
It's incomplete.
They say these connections between brain cells, are about 200 from a mouse’s visual cortex, out of 1,300.
A tiny mouse.

Oh, they are looking at spending 7.75 million to map every circuit in the brain, but not to get side tracked, that's a different story.

Moving though, to the human body...
Why would you say the brain is not designed?

The appeal to complexity is a logical fallacy. This does not lead to a god. Merely because we see something that looks complicated there are many naturalistic explanations. Did you eliminate all of the possibilities before “filling the gap” with a god.

 

[MNoBody]

The obvious question is why do I need any deity to make me a better man. If I am not convinced that there is sufficient evidence to believe there is a deity how can I take any guidance from it.

who said you do?

 

[The Hammer]

What form do these interactions take? What let’s you know you are interacting with a deity?

Feeding the birds. Sitting amongst the trees. Watching the grasshoppers in my lawn.

Prior experience.

 

[ratiocinator]

The accuracy of “Ex nihilo nihil fit.”

I don't think anybody thinks that anything can come from (literally) nothing, what has that got to do with any god?

And yet matter, and the finely-tuned forces governing it, is everywhere.

And....? Why is a universe (a space-time) that exists for no known reason any more mysterious and unexplained than a god that exists for no known reason that creates a universe?

Both scenarios contain something completely unexplained but the second one contains a baseless guess as well.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

Hi Tony. I am not at all sure what you mean by this. What message have you received?

God is made known only by God's chosen Messengers.

Such as Krishna, Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad and in this age I see the Bab and Baha'u'llah.

Baha'u'llah has given a lot of information about God.

Regards Tony

 

[Brookhousek]

alien as in difficult to describe as the words fail to convey the proper depth, context and meaning.
My experiences are my business [as it is with everyone], so those need verifying confirming, proving, testing retesting, etc......
which is why I have no pet theories to trot out to validate anything i say, nor are they required, same as the detective who need not discuss what he knows about his case with just every random skeptic looking for amusements.

Random skeptic I may be. I only asked a question based on the fact that you engaged with the post.

 

[Brookhousek]

Feeding the birds. Sitting amongst the trees. Watching the grasshoppers in my lawn.

Prior experience.

These are all lovely experiences- I completely agree. However, my original question was about not having sufficient evidence. I am not sure how sitting under a tree would give me sufficient reason to think there is a god.

 

[Brookhousek]

I don't think anybody thinks that anything can come from (literally) nothing, what has that got to do with any god?



And....? Why is a universe (a space-time) that exists for no known reason any more mysterious and unexplained than a god that exists for no known reason that creates a universe?

Both scenarios contain something completely unexplained but the second one contains a baseless guess as well.

You are totally correct the universe is full of mysteries a plenty. Science is comfortable with the conclusion that we don’t know the answer. It might be the case that there is a god, but this is just one of many possible explanations. Taking a methodological naturalism standpoint many questions have a proposed answer. Science never claims to have a truth only a best explanation given current evidence. When an unknown is reached then we don’t know. The end. To propose another mystery to compound the mystery doesn’t seem to be a way to seek truth more a way to find comfort in our ignorance.

 

[Brookhousek]

God is made known only by God's chosen Messengers.

Such as Krishna, Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad and in this age I see the Bab and Baha'u'llah.

Baha'u'llah has given a lot of information about God.

Regards Tony

If I am understanding your argument - god exists because some men says he does?

 

[Hockeycowboy]

I don't think anybody thinks that anything can come from (literally) nothing, what has that got to do with any god?



And....? Why is a universe (a space-time) that exists for no known reason any more mysterious and unexplained than a god that exists for no known reason that creates a universe?

Both scenarios contain something completely unexplained but the second one contains a baseless guess as well.

“Completely unexplained” in your POV.... not mine.

 

[TransmutingSoul]

If I am understanding your argument - god exists because some men says he does?

That is not how I would see it. It takes a search to find the answer to this issue.

I see God exists, because the Manifestation has proven it to me, that God does exist.

The proof is the Messenger, the Person, the life and the Message.

Regards Tony

 

[Deeje]

I agree that a loving god who is all powerful would not be very loving who condemns someone to eternal torment purely because they didn’t feel there was sufficient evidence to believe.

Faith requires no evidence.....that is why its called faith. We all "believe" something or someone when we have reason to. Nature and creation is enough for me to believe that the material world and its living creatures are not the product of blind chance. No one will ever convince me otherwise.

The teaching of an eternal punishment in a fiery hell is certainly not a portrait of a loving God. It is the complete antithesis of his perfect justice......and it serves no purpose. God has no desire to torture anyone...why would he? He would rather just cancel your visa and send you back where you came from.

The Bible says there are three categories of people...the "righteous" who are guaranteed life....the "unrighteous" who may have lived an unrighteous life because of ignorance....and the incorrigibly "wicked". Jesus promises to resurrect the "righteous" as well as the "unrighteous", but the "wicked" he will let "sleep" forever. Isn't that fair?

The Bible teaches resurrection, not immortality of the soul. So once you invent conscious disembodied entities, you have to invent places for them to go......some are very imaginative, but none are mentioned in the Bible.

Everlasting life in paradise on earth is what we lost, and everlasting life in paradise on earth is what we will get back. Its really that simple. Either we qualify for that life by our conduct, or we disqualify ourselves the same way.