First let me say that I appreciate the intellectual honesty of your acknowledgment of your uncertainty regarding knowledge beyond that which you may currently possess. That type of honesty is often scarce around here. Man, that takes guts. I admire that.
...but so far I haven't seen any compelling evidence that suggests one.
In other words, what you are saying is that there may be a universal purpose but you just haven't seen what you regard as compelling evidence for one.
Ok, fair enough. My next statements will probably offend you, but they are not offered in that spirit nor are they intended for that purpose.
I venture to say that the evidence is all around you. There is enough of it that any certain characterization of the world which asserts that there is not enough evidence to be certain is also unjustified. There is enough to hold us accountable. Assuming that you don't believe in God, I venture to say that the only reason that you do not find the evidence for Him compelling, when you get right down to it, is because of your prior commitment to yourself autonomously as the final arbiter of truth independently from anything the Creator might have to say about the matter. Isn't that true?
You might say, "well I don't believe in your God or any god". I understand that, but that denial also evidences my assertion that when it comes to truth, your allegiance is totally and finally only to yourself apart from anything God might have to say about the subject. In other words, from my perspective, you exclude the possibility of God and anything God might have to say about what is true simply because of your apriori desire to remain independent from God. That prior commitment to your independence from God is what causes you admit or reject whatever evidence comes before you. You epistemologically filter all evidence through your allegiance to yourself so that you will admit no fact that threatens your independence from God.
Cordially,
First let me say that I appreciate the intellectual honesty of your acknowledgment of your uncertainty regarding knowledge beyond that which you may currently possess. That type of honesty is often scarce around here. Man, that takes guts. I admire that.
So religionists hold dual standards -- Atheist's are intellectually dishonest for their "certainty", agnostics are "honest" for their uncertainty, and religionists are "honest" for their certainty. Huh?
Sure, there is enough evidence, but evidence of what? Every existing thing can be evidence of something else but so far there is nothing that points to the existence of a god IMO (or even to a particular god). The existence of a god is a an extraordinary claim and so it needs extraordinary evidence to back it up. If such a god exists he has never revealed himself to more than one person in the same way, at the same time. For instance there could be some people who don't know of each other and are not in contact with each other when the divine revelation occurs, who have the same vision and could report the same story indepently of each other. Of course this doesn't automatically prove a god but it would be a stronger point than the experience of only one person because you cannot say if this vision was indeed of divine origin or mere wishful thinking, a halucination or deliberate fraud.
Miracles are also often refered to as evidence of a god but most miracles (or even all of them) are the result of selective perception. Coincidences happen all the time but mostly we don't notice them if they are not in any way important to us. Now if a coincidence occurs that is very unlikely but also in some way beneficial to us or an other person many would consider that to be a miracle and that it couldn't have happend without the intervention of a benevolent deity.
An example would be a man who survives the fall from a high building. I'm pretty sure that a lot of people would consider this to be a divine miracle.
But now imagine the following thought experiment: you have many identical copies of the same person. Now you start from a certain altitude and throw a certain amount (let's say 1000) of them out of the window. Then you write down how many survived and proceed to the next story (you may increase the altitude also in smaller steps) and do the same thing again until no one survives.
Do you think it was a miracle that the guy who fell from the highest altitude survived? What is with those who fell from a lower altitude and survived? Are they lesser miracles?
Of course as one sees the number of the survivors decrease continually with increasing height it doesn't appear as a miracle any longer.
On the other hand, I'm convinced that if you only mention the person that fell from the highest altitude and survived it would be considered a miracle by many people.
You might say, "well I don't believe in your God or any god". I understand that, but that denial also evidences my assertion that when it comes to truth, your allegiance is totally and finally only to yourself apart from anything God might have to say about the subject.
Of course I can't let a being decide for me what is true if I'm not convinced of its existence ;-D
In other words, from my perspective, you exclude the possibility of God and anything God might have to say about what is true simply because of your apriori desire to remain independent from God.
In other words, from Ali's/Suresh's perspective, you exclude the possibility of Allah/Vishnu and anything Allah/Vishnu might have to say about what is true simply because of your apriori desire to remain independent from Allah/Vishnu.
You see, this also works with other gods. For you, your God is the one true god as is Allah for Ali and Vishnu for Suresh (in his case one of many gods). For me they're equally unconvincing. I haven't seen any compelling evidence for any god not only for your God.
That prior commitment to your independence from God is what causes you admit or reject whatever evidence comes before you. You epistemologically filter all evidence through your allegiance to yourself so that you will admit no fact that threatens your independence from God.
And I'd say the same also applies to you in some sense. You believe in your God and therefore everything you see is automatically evidence of his existence. But that is also the case for any other god (and other entities like gnomes, leprechauns, pixies, fairies...) people believed in (or still believe in). It's always a matter of definition: you say your god (or an other supernatural entity) created/caused this or that and since this or that obviously exists it also follows that your god (or...) exists. In this way you can "prove" everything.
I don't say that a particular thing could not have been created or caused by an omnipotent god under no circumstances. Au contraire. Such a being could have created everything, even the most trivial thing. It could have created our universe while I was typing this text. I hope you see that such an answer can be applied to everything and therefore it isn't a good explanation (actually it isn't an explanation at all).
I only say it may not have been a god and there could be a more parsimonious explanation. And as long as a natural explanation cannot be completely ruled out I don't see why we have to invoke a god or especially your God.
Regards