‘God loves us’ so says the bus

YT and the others here, may I offer this for your consideration? 

It comes down to were we created or did everything appear "by chance"?

If we (and everything else are created that implies the existence of a creator or God (the terms are kinda interchangeable) 

So now we have our god, BUT his mind is so vast and complicated compared to ours, that communication for us is virtually impossible, akin to me trying to explain radio propagaton to an spider that is climbing up my radio aerial making his web... 

Of course we are much cleverer than my imagnary spider, (the aerial really exists, but spiders dont; seem to build webs on active antenna systems for some reason) but the magnitude of the problem of directly understanding God, remains.

The bible has been challenged an awful lot over the years but apparently the secualr facts and events it described generally are true and not argued over, so we could give suck to the greater idea carried in the bible that our creator IS interested in us and has a plan for our betterment which transcends our own individual life and death. For those of us who live horrible lives and die alone maybe of murder or a horrible disease, God's love is very hard to see indeed, unless there really is more to life than we currently can see, like the area of my iceberg that lies under the water.

Now unlike most of you, I'm heading rapidly towards having spent a full 60 years, asking (pleading, demanding) God to GIVE ME WHAT I NEED in terms of being able to believe. (The message "ask and you shall receive" pervades the bit of the bible I've read)

Rather like my favourite apostle Thomas, I have little in the way of "faith", I needed to see and KNOW for MYSELF. It hurts me inside to just bumble on doing what I'm told without understanding why.

So that's what I prayed for. Enough information to function better.

Now I've received that, I tend to pray for the strength of character to function better in this world and whatever follows it...  

I do know that God loves us, but I'm a bit short on understanding as much about love as I would like to be.

And I know I'm pretty poor at practiciing it. I could do without that bit of knowledge some days...

You jump from "unlnowable" to "he loves us" is an amazing disconnect.

If you have faith, fine, fsith denied proof, but don't try and add logic to it.

The point is that logic and observation underpin my belief in a creator, not faith.

I then state the simple fact, that there is a huge gulf between his level of thinking and ours. (I can't create a universe off the top of my head when the idea hits me, God can).

There is however a testable assertion in the Bible, which I paraphrase as: "Ask for the knowledge of God, and you shall receive it". I also noted that when confronted by ignorant humasn directly in those OT stries that God is always happy to make an effort to explain himself, a tradtion seemingly carried on by Jesus when confronted with Doubting Thomas. (My kind of bloke, the sort that asks for proof rather than continue on blind faith when an authority figure makes an incredible claim).

It's taken me an awful long time and a huge amount of "testing" to be confident that God loves us, there's been approximately 40 years since I first got enough evidence to seriously consider God to be real, and start a program of testing, and It was only about 10 years ago, that I felt I had done enough testing to be sure that I was indeed living in a creation, and use it as a fundamental fact that really affects my life.

Alledgedly if you put in the effort to know God you will experience similar results. 

And as YellowTree points out, when faced with an incomprehensible life, where some of my fellow humans are doing the most incomprehensible (and from my limited perspective utterly horrible) things to each other, and to innocent bystanders, it really helps to believe that there is a creator and a plan.

I'm not great with words, and don't really want to be that guy who bangs on about God. But, I do genuinely enjoy sharing the good things in life that I can share, I'm that selfish that I really want the people around me or whom I encounter, to be more happy and prosperous after meeting me if that is in any way within my power to accomplish. It makes it easier for me to enjoy my own happiness and prosperity if I'm surrounded by unhappy resentful gits.

Knowledge of and a wish to engage with God confers power, and makes your life better, I am certain of that, and see it as something beneficial I should share. I don't expect to "make converts" but for those who like me find "religion" pretty unpalatable, people in big (or small) hats who want your money untrustworthy, yet observe the copious evidence that God exists and wonder what it means, Ive spent time that most peopel do not have to waste trying to find answers, or even ideas that work better than just making it all up as we go along. (Making it all up as you go along, the essential oppositional idea to living in God's creation, is GREAT for the GIFTED people who never make mstakes, but for the rest of us it's an effing nightmare, and I'm really glad of the other articles of faith and insights that have helped me avoidd some of the more catstrophic life decisions that I see less fortunate people taking. 

You're missing my point, a belief is an idea that *cannot* be proven or disproven by logic, by it's very nature faith holds it together.

I won't deny anyone their faith, it's theirs, not mine, to hold or discard. So I'm not arguing against your faith, I literally can't, there's no arguement to make because there's only faith at the bottom.

What I decry is the idea that there's logic in there, logic requires tests and provability. 

You're missing my point, a belief is an idea that *cannot* be proven or disproven by logic, by it's very nature faith holds it together.

I won't deny anyone their faith, it's theirs, not mine, to hold or discard. So I'm not arguing against your faith, I literally can't, there's no arguement to make because there's only faith at the bottom.

What I decry is the idea that there's logic in there, logic requires tests and provability.