A talk was given last year by a very popular speaker. He was trying to "prove" that there is a G-d from the tragedies at Meron, Surfside and Karlin. He made it seem as if it is SOOOO obvious nobody can deny Hashem after what happened.
Is there one person who was chozer bi-tshuva b/c of these events? Do they really "prove" Hashem?? If one believes then he sees Yad Hashem in everything. If he doesn't believe he says "bad accidents. They happen all the time".
When people offer these really weak arguments for the existence and providence of G-d they actually do more harm than good. People say "THIS is why you believe?" Then they happily assure themselves that their meaningless existence is in fact meaningless [while attempting still to contrive some fake meaning and purpose. Like climate change. If we would take davening as seriously as people take climate change then Moshiach would have been here long ago...].
We believe for far more powerful reasons than a few recent tragedies.
We believe b/c it is in our collective memory that Hashem took us out of Egypt with miracles and then gave us the Torah. We [as a people] were THERE.
We believe in creation b/c it is faaaaaaaaaaaaar more plausible that Someone created everything than that nothing created everything from nothing. It makes more logical sense that Intelligence created so much intelligence than that non-intelligence created so much intelligence.
We believe in Hashem the G-d of the Jews b/c of our incredible history. So incredibly implausible. I am a incurable history buff and never cease to be blown away by the incredible collective story of our people in addition to the individual stories that EVERY JEWISH FAMILY has. And the Torah foretold the basic outline of our future beforehand.
We believe in Hashem b/c we see that a lifestyle that follows Hashem WORKS. Morally, emotionally, spiritually and socially it is the best way to live.
We believe in Torah b/c we see the vast wisdom. The Torah we study was given thousands of years ago and the messages are EXTREMELY appropriate for TODAY. Actually - today more than ever.
We believe in Hashem b/c our Neshamos KNOW that He is our existence.
We believe for many reasons!! A few recent tragedies don't shake our faith in the slightest. But I wouldn't use them to "prove" anything to non-believers.
