Why do you believe in God?

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Ft. Worth Frog

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I ask this because I was just curious as to why many of us in FYM choose to believe in God. Do you feel God does things for you? Is it for comfort? Tradition/upbringing? I would like for this discussion to remain free of any vitriol/mudslinging/criticism, etc.
 
Great question, Frog.

For me, it truly is a relationship. It's not so much believing in him like he's santa claus, but it's knowing him in a relational way. Now, does that mean I know all about him, of course not.

I did grow up in a Christian home, but I still had to find my identity in Christ and I'm still seeking God's will for my life.
 
All I can say is that I want to believe in Him/Her/It but i just don't/can't. The comfort of knowing there's some god seems to be really comforting and the best thing there could ever be. However, my (too) rational mind doesn't allow me (to believe) this....

I truly hope I am wrong and God really exists. I hope even more he/she/it/whatever will show itself to me, yet the odds of Him being true are way too low for me believing in It/Him/Her....
 
Living is easy with eyes closed,

Misunderstanding all you see

It's getting hard to be someone, but it all works out,

It doesn't matter much to me

But you know I know when it's a dream

I think a "No" will mean a "Yes" but it's all wrong,

That is I think I disagree
 
Vorsprung — If you want God to reveal himself, why don't you ask him to? He did to me, and you're right — it is the best thing there could ever be.

By the way, the Netherlands rule!:rockon:
 
It might sound crazy to some, but I feel as if I've seen his work. Doctors nearly assured that my mother would have ovarian cancer. This was in a time where I was in doubt, or spiritually constipated I suppose is a descriptive way to phrase it. I witnessed many prayers for her, and she made it by without it. After such an event, I began to doubt my doubting.

It's not because I was raised in a Christian home, but I feel that I see God's work being done, and that is what has convinced me to believe.
 
I was raised to believe in God, but as I got older, I found God on my own. I believe that there's a God because there is something bigger out there connected to all things and knows me better than I know myself. I don't believe out of comfort. That sounds like God is something that I imagined and isn't real. It is comforting, however, knowing we are not alone and there is a Higher Being watching over us and is connected to us.
 
Hmm. To say the least, it's complicated. And I don't want to start sounding "nutty."

Melon
 
I believe in god because all I have to do is look at the mountains in my backyard, smell a rose, or realize that the most complex machine ever made is the human body. Sunsets and rainbows are pretty cool, too. Way to many awesome things going on around me to just be a bunch of random chance.
 
nowhere man reply

When it's cold, it comes slow
it is warm, just watch it grow
- all around me it is here.
it is now.

Just a little bit of it can bring you up or down.
Like the supper it is cooking in your hometown.
it is chicken, it is eggs,
it is in between your legs.
it is walking on the moon,
leaving your cocoon.

it is the jigsaw. it is purple haze.
it never stays in one place, but it's not a passing phase
it is in the singles bar, in the distance of the face
it is in between the cages, it is always in a space
it is here. it is now.

Any rock can be made to roll
If you enough of it to pay the toll
it has no home in words or gold
Not even in your favourite hole
it is hope for the dope
it rides your horse without a hoof
it is shaken not stirred;
Cocktails on the roof.

When you eat right thru' it you see everything alive
it is inside the spirit, with enough grit to survive
If you think that it's pretentious, you've been taken for a ride.
Look across the mirror sonny, before you choose, decide
 
Cmon melon we won't think you're "nutty". Some people will think you are nutty just for believing in a God so feel free to fire away. If things startgetting to heavy in here we will just have to have Pax come in and restore order.:wink:
 
Right on! :wink:

I like BVS's answer...I believe in God because of love. I've felt God's love and care for me, and God helps me to love other people when it's difficult. God has loved and cared for me through other people, too, and that's a very great blessing.
 
Because too many things in the world and the universe can't all be explained away as lucky coincidence. And because things have happened to me that proved it to me personally.
 
You would not believe (or should I say yes you do believe) how many of my prayers have been answered when I learned to pray for the things in life that really matter--love & healing, others that need help that may not know it. Prayers may not be answered immediately but they are answered in the way that God feels is best for you.
 
Wow, I just want to say it's been very inspiring to read everyone's answer here. It's amazing to see how God has worked in all of our lives. I think our answers give us all a glimpse of our own unique relationship with him.

Party on Wayne, and party on Garth.
 
I am really enjoying this thread. It is nice to have one here in FYM that is relaxed and inspiring. BTW, since I started this thread, maybe I should give my reason.

Like many others, I see too much evidence of His existence around me for me to deny His existence. Though many times the world seems to be pretty messed up, there are always glimmers of hope for me. I have also seen Him work in my life-looking at how I got where I am now is nothing short of a miracle, IMHO.
 
what makes me want to believe in God is the idea that this can't all be an accident, and that there's more to me than flesh and bone.

what makes me unable to fully believe in God is the knowledge that for every delicious strawberry, there's cancer; that for every experience i have that feels transporting, there's a series of biological explanations for such an experience. we have no proof either way, beyond the "proof" we create for ourselves by gleaning meaning from meaninglessness.
 
Irvine, thanks your honesty. I think the two things you mentioned that make you want to believe in God are true. :wink:

As far as your other points, consider this — for some cancers, there's a cure.
Also, a series of biological explanations for our experiences doesn't negate God, does it? That's kind of like saying knowing the colors on a painting negates the painter. I believe science is simply the study of God's handiwork.
 
coemgen said:
Irvine, thanks your honesty. I think the two things you mentioned that make you want to believe in God are true. :wink:

As far as your other points, consider this — for some cancers, there's a cure.
Also, a series of biological explanations for our experiences doesn't negate God, does it? That's kind of like saying knowing the colors on a painting negates the painter. I believe science is simply the study of God's handiwork.


yes, but for many cancers, there is no cure. and there are tsunamis. and we could continue.

as for the science point ... i'm sympathetic to what you've described, as it's a Jesuit idea. however, science could not show any kind of objective proof of God, since God, almost by definition would exist beyond scientific measurements, he is the unmeasurable, if you will. and we're talking very basic definitions of God as well. there's such a tendency to humanize and personify God, to call him father and view him as a stern parent who thinks nothing of smiting his children with earthquakes and floods ... that vision of god, to me, is rooted in nothing other than superstition. at the end of the day, we create God in our own image, and while that doesn't negate his existence, (you're right, and that's why i remain agnostic), it does reveal the fact that notions of God might be merely extentions of biological processes and that it really is all relative.
 
As far as your point on cancers and tsunamis, you're right. There's much about this world that's horrible and sad and I can understand why it would cause people to doubt God. I believe all of the bad crap in the world is the result of sin in the world and a dark force in the world.
The point I was trying to make in saying there's cures for cancer is this — yes there's crap out there, but we, as humans, continue to exist. We're being sustained. Think of all the things that could've wiped out the human race by now. Yes, the tsunami's occured and hundreds of thousands of people died, but why do people care so much to help out as they have? What causes you to cry out in anger and want to do something - a simple biological accident, or something that's there on purpose? How do we know God isn't sad about it all?


I do agree with you in terms of scientifically proving God's existence as a being. However, there is ample evidence of his exisitence, I think.

Also, people call him father because that's a relational definition of him given to us in the scriptures, which reveals a lot about God's nature.
 
the idea of a logic behind everything in the universe, the idea that both of us (and the Jesuits) find so appealing, is the most plausible evidence i see for the existence of God. i am still aware that we are grafting human understanding onto phenomena that might objectively exist but can only be subjectively interpreted. i can't view that as evidence, but more as the suggestion of a diety. i love that idea, and that is what i cling to, because it makes rational sense.

i don't, however, find any credence to the idea of God-as-parent. i do believe that, in the grand scheme of things, there is far more evil in the world than good. i believe man is born, he suffers, and then he dies. i think many of the good things we ascribe as proof of God -- the strawberry example -- are because we have strawberries; many people don't. in my line of work, i encounter lots and lots of documentary film, footage that has been taken in some of the worst places on earth. i remain utterly shaken to my core by the footage i've seen of mutilated bodies in the Congo, bloated bodies of children in Sri Lanka, and shattered skulls and liquified eyeballs after the Nairobi bombings of 1998. i don't find that a strawberry, a sunset, or even romantic love is enough to negate the sheer horror that is a part of life for so many innocent people who happened to be born in the wrong place, or sitting on the wrong spot on the couch when a stray bullet smacks through the skull of a 9 year old in southeast Washington DC. the world strikes me as amoral, neither objectively good nor bad, and largely what humans make of it. i don't see evidence of divine intervention, at least in a literal sense, and if there were, then this God has got a whole lot of explaining to do. calling him an abusive parent would be to put it mildly.
 
so why doesn't he do something about it?

also, to clarify, i use the example of suffering to show why the idea of a paternalistic God doesn't make sense to me; suffering does not negate the idea of God-as-logic-and-order behind everything.
 
Why do I believe in God? Because only a Higher Being could have created this amazing thing called the human body. In fact, I believe in evolution because it's so amazing that only God could have done it.
 
verte76 said:
Why do I believe in God? Because only a Higher Being could have created this amazing thing called the human body. In fact, I believe in evolution because it's so amazing that only God could have done it.

first, i am sorry if i am derailing this thread, but it seems to have evolved into more of a discussion than a group profession ... if anyone feels like my comments are in appropriate for this thread i'll take them elsewhere. no problem.

but, anyway ... doesn't this also beg the question, then, that if God made something as amazing as the human body (and i agree, it is amazing) did he also make cancer? Lou Gherig's disease? the body seems also designed to suffer and be a magnet for pain as much as it is a wonderous machine and a magnet for pleasure, if not more so. the presence of sheer physical pain disturbs me greatly, based on my experience (and, again, i'm dealing with stuff on video, not real life ... and please note that the footage i see is raw footage, not edited, not sensationalized).

i suppose that all i'm asking, really, is that while i agree that there is unspeakable beauty in the world, and this looks like God's handiwork, is he not also responsible, then, for the horrors of the world?
 
coemgen said:
I believe all of the bad crap in the world is the result of sin in the world and a dark force in the world.

So your saying that all the bad things in the world are partially the result of human sin? So your God creates humans, gives them free will, allows them to sin (as he knows right well they will) and then punishes them for it?

To be honest, such a being sounds to be not worthy of respect, let alone worship.
 
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