Why God?

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RavenStar

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I was just wondering...Why do you believe in God (assuming you do)?
Just a question I've been curious about lately.
 
It is a fair question.

I think most peoples concept of God is conditioned upon their upbringing.

Lilly if you were born in Saudi there is a very good chance you would be happy in a berka saying there is no god but Allah.
 
But why believe? Is it thought this is this mainly because of conditioning through upbringing? That's a curious one that.

I reckon you take your pick fors. Literally...lol.
 
blah, sorry fors. I meant it in reply to what deep posted, about the religion or God we believe in is based on our upbringing. And as usual, I make no sense.

So what I meant to say, is "Is it thought, that our choice IS because of [this] conditioning in our upbringing?"

The sentence got me thinking. Of course like anything, you get your exceptions where we grow up, make our own way in the spiritual way etc, but overall, I think raven's question is a good one. Is it because of conditioning that we believe in a certain God or other? Largely, it probably is. Guess I'm just wondering at what other factors help shape our views.
 
deep said:
It is a fair question.

I think most peoples concept of God is conditioned upon their upbringing.

Lilly if you were born in Saudi there is a very good chance you would be happy in a berka saying there is no god but Allah.


And if I were born in China I'd be bowing to Budda.



Why do I believe? Certainly not from my upbringing. I was never forced to believe, I'm not even baptized - my parents didn't like making that decision for me.

I believe because He loves me. Because He will never give up on me, like others, or even myself, will. Because I choose to be a believer....not because I was forced to be.
 
Thanks Angie & deep. Some thoughts:

The "other factors" could be
- fear of death i.e unknown
- acknowledgment of one's limited wisdom
- personal experiences of the supernatural
- logic
- loneliness

-----------------

I think it takes *just as much* conviction and guts for someone to be an atheist and abandon his religious upbringing, as a Christian has when he stands by his beliefs in God. But this is only the case sometimes, because some atheists remain atheists out of sheer laziness.

Of course, no matter how strong one's convictions are, they can also be terribly wrong. I'm stating the obvious, aren't I, so I'll shut up :)


rungifiers
 
I wouldn't say there's any one reason why. I believe through faith... but I wouldn't necessarily call it blind faith or amount it to the result of my upbringing. I have seen the work of God in others' lives and have experienced it in my own. To suggest that the presence I have felt is fabricated in my mind would be to suggest that I myself can perform miracles :tongue:

I've always believed in God but there's something else to be said about truly knowing Him and commiting your life to Him, which is something I have not done until recently.

Take God out of the picture and life would be meaningless... there would be no reason for our existance.
 
Great question! I think people want to believe that there is something beyond themselves, that guides them through life. Whether that is God, Allah, Budda, or whatever, people want to believe that there is something bigger than them. It stems from the big question of "what happens when we die?" Do we just (for lack of a better term) become fertiziler, or do our souls and life essence move on to another place?

While I was never raised religous, and do not belong to any specific religion now, I believe that there is something out there...of course my western, anglo upbringing labels that entity God.
 
The beauty of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ is that He calls each of us in a different way. I was not raised in a Christian household or taught to believe in school (despite going to a Jesuit high school with 4 years of religion class). Through college I was a staunch agnostic, tormenting my Catholic roommate to provide a defense for his faith.

By age 22, God turned my pride, my ?I am the master of my fate? attitude to a realization that I am nothing but a sinner. Jesus turned by hatred over what I could not control into love. The truth in God?s Word (learned in an academic fashion) sprung forth in an amazing way.

Bottom line, belief in Jesus Christ is inevitable. It is written: " 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord, 'every knee will bow before me; every tongue will confess to God.' So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. " Romans 14:11-12
 
I agree...great question, Raven.

My answer: God is obvious to me. I'm sure that's an unsatisfying answer, but it's what I've got. There are things I've seen that seem only attributable to God (e.g. the complexity and order of the universe, circumstances in my life that I simply cannot attribute to "coincidence," and - more than anything else - people whose lives have been radically changed), which are confirmed by something inside me screaming out that there is a God, that there has to be a God, that there is much more out there than just what I can see. Does that make any sence? Sorry.

In his book The Problem of Pain (which attempts to answer the question "Why would an all-loving, all-knowing God allow people to experience pain and suffering?") C.S. Lewis spends the first chapter addressing the question of why people believe in God. If I had the book in front of me, I'd just type some of the best passages, but I don't have it here, so instead I'll try to summarize some of his points, and I'm sure it will sound rather convoluted. It's been a long time since I've looked at it. So don't let me turn you off to the book. It's really good.

He makes the point that the fact that people believe in God (and in particular what they believe about God) is evidence that there is a God. Why would Homo sapiens, evolving from earlier hominids, look at the dark, cold world around them, full of misery, suffering and death, and attribute it all to a good and wise Creator? Lewis argues that looking at the universe around us could never have lead to a belief in a good God. There must have been some other source which, despite the horror of our world, led people to believe in God.

This post is getting long, and I can't devote much more time to it, so I'll plagarize a bit. Here's what someone else wrote (quotes are from The Problem of Pain):

originally written by some guy on some website:

"The spectacle of the universe as revealed by experience can never have been ground for religion: it must always have been something in spite of which religion, acquired from a different source, was held". But, where should we look for the sources?

The "experience of the Numinous", a special kind of fear which excites awe, exemplified by, but not limited to, fear of the dead, yet going beyond mere dread or danger, is the first source; the other is the moral experience; and both "cannot be the result of inference from the visible universe" for nothing in the visible universe suggests them. Likewise, the identification of the Numinous with the Moral, "when the Numinous Power to which [men] feel awe is made the guardian of the morality to which they feel obligation" must be viewed as utterly "unnatural" and very much unlike mere wish fulfillment, for "we desire nothing less than to see that Law whose naked authority is already insupportable armed with the incalculable claims of the Numinous".
Now I'm really confusing you. Just get the book. Or I can try to explain more if you're really wondering about "the experience of the Numinous."
:)
 
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Spiral_Staircase said:
Now I'm really confusing you. Just get the book. Or I can try to explain more if you're really wondering about "the experience of the Numinous."
:)


Another really well thought-out and heavily researched pair of books are "The Case for Christ" and "The Case for Faith" by Lee Strobel.
 
RavenStar said:
I was just wondering...Why do you believe in God (assuming you do)?
Just a question I've been curious about lately.

I know "his" spirit, thats why I believe in "his" existance.

Its very simple... I had a feeling which was so intense and uniting, and well - thats what I call God.
 
Spiral_Staircase said:
Why would Homo sapiens, evolving from earlier hominids, look at the dark, cold world around them, full of misery, suffering and death, and attribute it all to a good and wise Creator?



famous rungi said:

- fear of death i.e unknown


 
Why would the fear of death lead us to believe that there is a good and wise creator behind all the death and misery in the world?

Actually, why would we even fear death? At first it seems logical, because we do fear death. But try to look at it objectively. Again, think of an early Homo sapien, why would he look at a dead body and think there is anything unknown, or anything to fear? It is something that was alive and now is dead, and it's flesh will be consumed, like every other living thing on the planet. I don't see why reason would lead him to believe that there might be something more, something uknown. People have always had some fear of the dead. A graveyard is a scary place. Why? What could be more harmless than a dead person? I mean, they're dead!

But for whatever reason, we believe there might be something more, something unknown beyond death. C.S. Lewis says this is something that "cannot be the result of inference from the visible universe," and I tend to agree. This is what he calls "the experience of the numinous." It's that illogical feeling that there is something unknown and probably more powerful than you out there....something that you fear, not because It is necessarily evil, but simply because it is unknown and powerful, and if It were against you you would be in trouble.
 
Spiral,




Lewis is a favorite of many Chistians and they accept and adopt his arguments as sound because his arguments support their views. That?s ok, I have not studied them much and will not reject them out of hand.

Looking at it objectively is good. That means outside of one?s belief system.

I don?t think early homo sapiens had the concept of God.

I don?t think anybody fears the dead, except in the relationship that they do not want to be dead. Most living creatures fight not to die. Because of humans reasoning ability they have come up with a concept of not dying even with physical death, how comforting for those who participate in the belief system.

All the many religions. - What we call the three great religions, Christianity, Islam, Judaism.
Hinduism, Buddhism, even the ancient Egyptian and meso-American religions all have one common denominator. All promise life after death.

One could conclude: Why God. -- Because with God comes religion and a promise of life after I die, and after my loved ones die. It is comforting and I choose to believe.

As for me, I dont know. I dont reject the concept. I like the moral values expounded in the Bible and other religious writings. There are many common beliefs shared by most religions. They are just common sense for humanity to coexist and survive in healthy communities.

After we die I don?t know what happens. But while we are alive it is to everyones advantage to create a better world for all.

When I was younger and participated in a religion, they were always talking about the hereafter, God?s plan, eternity, etc. My life is so simple now - not thinking about all that. I do the right thing because it is right and comforting to me. I feel in harmony with myself and that I am making a contribution to the betterment of those that come after me.
 
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