Why believe in God at all?

[nobspeople]

The obvious, selfish answer is 'to get into heaven'. But why else? Why should one believe in god? A god that plays aloof, many times allows the bed to prosper while the good suffer; a god that can create the whole of everything yet needs your money for his churches and spreading his word; a god that allowed the whole species to fall into sin right off the bat; a god that required himself/his son/himself to live and 'die' as a sacrifice to cover the sins of his creation - sins which he allowed; a god that allows 'wolves' into his flock to guide his 'sheep'; a god that won't allow himself to be proven and, instead, relies on faith - faith of flawed creatures - then allows eternal damnation (again, according to some) for not having enough faith; a god that allows his own disciples to argue amongst themselves over, many times, small, ambiguous things; a god that couldn't even write his own story; a god that seems to favor some over others; a god that can't be fully understood. And so on.
What benefits, outside of heaven, does God give that no one or nothing else gives?

[DrNoGods]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #55]

Perhaps DrNoGods it's best you desist from asking me off topic questions.

This response would also be off topic to the OP, but I think that anyone who has participated in online forums (I first set up and managed some in the mid/late 1990s using the old Matt's Script Archive "WWW Board", and later Discus boards, all on completely unrelated subjects) can see the general trend for (almost) all threads on any online forum.

Initial responses are generally on topic and this goes on for maybe dozens of posts, or several days, until the interested participants have made their comments and debated for a while. Then someone will make a comment in a post that creates an off ramp to another topic that may be related, but is not technically on the OP topic, and that discussion will follow the same path with possibly more off ramps until the thread eventually dies, or someone opens a new thread. And there are often multiple "subthreads" going on between specific participants as well so the thread becomes "bushy."

This is just the nature of the beast in my observation, and how strictly staying on topic is enforced is up to the owner of the site. A lot of good discussions have come from the path the off ramps take, but that is not always the case of course.

Back to the regularly scheduled program already in progress ... Why believe in God at all?

[Purple Knight]

Are you asking me how do I know Jesus hasn't already killed off all wicked humans...

Completely destroyed every single human government ...

Maybe he has.

And we are not currently living in a world without war suffering, sickness or death?

Emphasis added. No, I don't think we are.

[1213]

.... "if I would reject Him, I think I would also lose a lot,". This means you FEAR loosing a lot....

Sorry, I don't have any reason to believe you. I don't fear losing, I have no reason to fear it.

Don't you care that you lose your credibility, when you make baseless claims?

[JehovahsWitness]

Suffice it to say that if the end came tomorrow, no principle of the end time prophecies will be violated.

How do you know it didn't already happen?

And we are not currently living in a world without war suffering, sickness or death?

Emphasis added. No, I don't think we are.

I agree. The end prophecies point to the destruction of the wicked and the beginning of a new world of peace. We will know they have happened when we are in a "new world".


JW

[Tcg]

I agree. The end prophecies point to the destruction of the wicked and the beginning of a new world of peace. We will know they have happened when we are in a "new world".

JW

And when will one know that they are false claims? How many millennia must pass before it is obvious?


Tcg

[TRANSPONDER]

Suffice it to say that if the end came tomorrow, no principle of the end time prophecies will be violated.

How do you know it didn't already happen?

And we are not currently living in a world without war suffering, sickness or death?

Emphasis added. No, I don't think we are.

I agree. The end prophecies point to the destruction of the wicked and the beginning of a new world of peace. We will know they have happened when we are in a "new world".


JW

We are not holding our breath. The End Times prophecy promises an ideal Utopia which has more to do with wishful thinking than with any human efforts to make the world better.

[nobspeople]

.... "if I would reject Him, I think I would also lose a lot,". This means you FEAR loosing a lot....

Sorry, I don't have any reason to believe you. I don't fear losing, I have no reason to fear it.

Don't you care that you lose your credibility, when you make baseless claims?

When you said you "would also lose a lot,", you don't have to say 'I feared I would lose a lot' for it to mean you were fearful. You certainly weren't happy at the thought of loosing a lot.
And you speak about loosing a lot than say you weren't fearful of that?
Talk about no credibility.

[1213]

.... "if I would reject Him, I think I would also lose a lot,". This means you FEAR loosing a lot....

Sorry, I don't have any reason to believe you. I don't fear losing, I have no reason to fear it.

Don't you care that you lose your credibility, when you make baseless claims?

When you said you "would also lose a lot,", you don't have to say 'I feared I would lose a lot' for it to mean you were fearful. You certainly weren't happy at the thought of loosing a lot.
And you speak about loosing a lot than say you weren't fearful of that?
...

If I would choose to reject God, why would I fear losing something? Then I would obviously have chosen to lose the things that are related to God. Maybe I should have rather said, if I reject God, I reject also what comes with God. And I don’t want to choose that.

I think this could be compared to touching fire, I don’t fear fire, but I know it can burn, therefore I don’t but my hand on fire. Actions have consequences, even if person has no fear. And one wants to avoid the consequences, it is reasonable to not do the thing that would lead to them.

But, even if I don’t reject God, I still think there is no reward for it. God is good and does good things, not because person would deserve it, but because He is good. And that God has been good to me, is the reason why I want to be loyal to Him, not that I could get some reward.

[nobspeople]

[Replying to 1213 in post #69]

If I would choose to reject God, why would I fear losing something?

Come on now - you're playing verbal gymnastics. You said "if I would reject Him, I think I would also lose a lot,". Which means you thought about it and FEARED loosing 'a lot'. It's that simple. You don't fear loosing something WHEN you chose god, but before. Please be clear.
Everything else you've said past that is simply to confuse the matter. You chose god because, by you own words, you feared losing something.