Why is it that when religious people don't have any proof or a good answer then you just have to have faith?

Question

They seem to do this for anything regarding their religion that lacks logic. Or any far fetched aspect of their religion can be explained away as 'you just have to have faith'. Isn't this just a cop out?

For example:
You say that god is all love, but he created everything, then he also created evil didn't he?

Why is it that every aspect of the Genesis creation story contradicts what science shows us about the universe? (Why would god say the stars were there to give humans 'signs' when there are billions of stars that aren't visible with the naked eye?)

What did the carnivores on Noah's Ark eat? Also, why is there no record of a world wide flood in the geological record?

If incest is a sin, then why did Lot's daughters get him drunk and have sex with him to get themselves pregnant after Sodom was destroyed?

The list goes on and on.

Answer 1

Some Christians don't know all the answers, that's what there is to fall back on. There are answers for those questions however..


What do you think they ate while they were on the ark? There has been lots of research done on these issues.




edit: Just wanted to say that the Muslims do not have the logical answers. There are so many contradictions in the Koran it's not even funny.

Answer 2

Just for the record, I do not like the guy who asked this question. He is an arrogant man, enjoys poking people in the eye, but he does raise a valid point.

paintballer, I am not trying to be mean, but please give us some of those answers, and why can't anyone tell them to us without reverting to 'Just Have Faith'

Saying that evil created itself and cannot be destroyed by God, would be denying the omnipotence of God.

I am sure, cincity, that if all the Christians would leave us alone, we would be perfectly content to leave you alone.

Most of the people that believe the Theory of Evolution also know that it is possible, perhaps even probable, that it will be disproved and will not cling onto it with "blind Faith" as do Christians, we structured that thought structure (notice I did not say belief structure, an idea can be changed without shame, a belief, in the mind of many Christians, is concrete) on logic and experimentation. We, that is humanity, don't believe the Earth is flat, at the time that concensus was made, there was no alternative to question it, Christianity, indeed all religions (that I know of) were created in the same way. Religious people hold on to there religion based simply on the fact that it has not been disproved absolutely. That is like saying the Sun MUST orbit around the Earth because we have never been out into space far enough, or long enough, to watch.

I would very much like to argue with Taimur, but I don't know enough about Muslim beliefs, I just put this part in to show that I did not leave him out because his was well-written and thorough.

AdmiralBob, If God is all-powerful, and as Taimur put it 'Eternal' than how could there logically be an absence of goodness? I have been told by many devout Christians "God is everywhere" How can evil be the absence of Goodness, when goodness is everywhere?

God didn't add meat to our diets until after the flood? Then why do we have teeth that are adept at eating meat? There are fossil records that have humans eating meat well before we could have conceived of a tale as great as that of the Bible.

There are a great deal more than 3.5 billion people on Earth, just for clarification, the rest of your argument was generic and has already been adressed in a previous edit. That does, however make sense with the fish on the Ark.

I think that Christianity is basically a good religion, with decent intentions. I do NOT thoink that it is based on greed, as Smitty implied, but more misguided hopes.

Good answer Holigolitelee66 (I hope I remembered that right) I do not agree, but it was well-written and it addressed the subject at hand. (Which I already know I did not, so don't yell at me please)

If God is omnipotent, as has been told to me by many people, than how can free-will exist, he/she knows all that will happen, is happening and has happened.

I have also seen that blind faith in a car kill my parents. Those few times that Faith doesn't cover everything can be fatal.

To the answer above me... Dear God woman!

Answer 3

First of all, faith isn't based on logic. You are confusing the physical with the spiritual.

Why did God create evil? That's a good question, one that theologians have broken their teeth on for ages. My own opinion is that we need the experience. It's a growth thing.

Some Christians swear the Genesis creation story is literal. Some believe it is a parable. I sort of lean towards the second group. But then, I have never had the audacity to believe that God was going to give me details about how to create my own universe in just six days in the Bible. It isn't a technical manual, after all. That is what text books are for.

There weren't any carnivores on Noah's Ark. God didn't add meat to our diets till after the flood. Some say there is evidence for a world wide flood, others don't. Most religions seem to have a flood story, complete with a family of survivors who repopulate. For the time being, I think I'll just believe God.

Whatever made you think the Bible wouldn't report sinful behavior? People have always been people, why would the people in the Bible be any different?

Alot of folks like Christians. That's fine. Alot don't. That's fine, too. Nobody forces you to talk to Christians. If you don't like them, why not just leave them alone? The worst thing they can do about it is to pray for you....:)

Answer 4

God created everything, including Satan. Satan, full of pride, was kicked out of Heaven, caused Adam and Eve to sin, and the world has been full of evil ever since. God did not create evil; Man created Evil when he sinned.

Too bad every aspect of Genesis DOES NOT contradict what science tells us about the Universe; quite the contrary. And as for the stars, there have been an estimated 1 million stars for every person on Earth to personally own. That is a lot of stars. 3.5 billion people on this Earth, personally owning 1 million stars, that is a LOT of stars.

Carnivores on the Ark, ate meat, duh! Who said anything about them killing the other animals on the Ark? I'm sure Noah did some fishing (there is a lot of water outside, especially with the flooding, so there were bound to be fish). Carnivores, I'm sure, also ate rats and mice, as they multiply like crazy. And who knows, maybe already had some meat prepared for the carnivores.

Lot's daughters were messed up. In fact, the whole city of Sodom and Gemorrah were messed up. They were bad people. Just because Lot was a Godly man, doesn't mean his daughters were Godly women.

if there is anything else you would like to know, please feel free to ask. Or better yet, check out www.drdino.com

Answer 5

God tells us in Hebrews 11:6 that w/o faith it is imposssible to please Him - so faith is a good thing, not a cop-out. Everyone has faith on some level. When a person tells you that they love you, you either have faith to believe them or you don't. Faith happens on a regular basis with no scientific proof whatsoever. Please read Hebrews 11.

God is all love, but He gave us a free will to choose good or evil. He wants us to serve Him from a free will rather that be like a puppet that has no choice. Jeremiah 17:9 tells us that the heart is deceitful and wicked. However, when we choose to make Him the Lord of life He changes our heart and gives us a brand new start.

I guess you would have to be more specific about the contradiction between the Bible's account of creation and science. But I think that it takes a lot more faith to believe in evolution (or the "Big Bang" theory) than it does to believe in a Creator God. For example: If you took a watch and took all the pieces of it apart, then put it in a sack, then began to shake it, and continued to shake it until it returned to it's original state before you dissassembled it, how long do you think it would take? No doubt, it would never come together again. Yet, one tiny cell of the human body is thousands of times more complicated than that entire watch. And the workings of the universe are thousands of times more complicated than that. How could it all just happen without a creative, intellegent Designer?

Genesis 1:14 says that the lights in the heavens are "for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years." Deuteronomy 4:19 actually warns us against worshiping the sun, moon and stars as some do through astrology or "signs." However, the star was certainly a sign to the wise men (Matthew 2:2) that the "King of the Jews" (referring to Jesus) had been born.

Concerning the stars that cannot be seen with the naked eye - are you saying that you believe in something that you can't see? That's faith! This universe is so amazing, so unfathomable, and so complex that the more we discover just reminds me of how great our Creator is.

I suspect that all of the animals on the ark were very young so it wouldn't have taken much to feed them. But nonetheless, if they were full-size it wouldn't be any problem for God to feed them.

There is a record of a world wide flood in the greatest history book of all: the Bible.

Incest is sin! Lots daughter's chose to sin. That is why they had to get him drunk before they could sleep with him - he was a righteous man and would not have slept with his daughters if he had been in his right mind. God didn't need their help, but we sometimes forget that.

Keep reading and studying, but please do it with an open heart. Ask God to reveal His truth to you as you read, as He is the only one that is all-knowing and very much able to do so.

Answer 6

Well....these are my beliefs, and they may not be totally logical but that is where the faith part comes in I guess!
My feeling is that many people believe in things that aren't based in logic...let's say love for example. There is no empirical evidence for the existance of it, no hard cold facts to support it, and yet, I would dare say the majority of the people in the world (except if you are a hard core cynic or a sociopath!) have felt it, and feel it is a real thing.
My belief is that God( that is what I call my higher power...for lack of a better name!)did create both good and evil, I agree with you there! However, I believe he also gave us the ability to choose between the two and it is our choice which path we follow.
As far as the Biblical stories go, my belief (and I imagine I am going to catch some flack for this from fundamentalists!) is that they are just that...stories! The facts are the books of the Bible were written by men, and although they were inspired by God, they were still written by human beings who, of course, are fallible. I look at them as stories meant to teach a lesson, inspire, provide us with some basic moral guidelines to live our lives by.
As an educated individual, I can understand your questions, and your difficulty in understanding how people can "buy into" religion. However, even if none of what we believe in is true or logical, it does provide people who have faith with some comfort and guidance in their lives. And, if the basic message of many religions is to love other people, be kind and try your best to live a good life (although I fully realize some people use religion as an excuse to commit vicious, horrible things against others) I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing!
A side note on Lot..many cultures do not have a taboo against incest. In fact, in some cultures, where the number of available partners is limited by geographic location, or even self isolation, they see nothing wrong with it. Not that I agree of course! Also, again, Lot's daughters made the choice between right and wrong. And, as we well know, people don't always make the best/"right" decisions for themselves.
Faith is NOT logical....never has been....never will be. LOL...Guess you either have it or you don't! Hope this helps!

Answer 7

My biggest question is if God created only Adam and then made Eve out of Adams rib (for companionship) and they had Cain and Able two sons. How did mankind multiply??

Did Cain and Able sleep with their mother to breed?? (which is incest?)

If there is a God why do some many people suffer in the world? (for example disabled) Why isnt everything fair for everyone?

Why are some people millionaires while others cant afford to buy a meal??

To be honest, I think the bible was written by a stoner! 3/4s of the stories are like a fisherman exaggerating about the fish that got away. None of it makes any sense and the bullsh*t just kept growing and growing as the tale was told. (like Chinese Whispers)

All religion and faith has done over the past thousands of years is cause fighting, wars and bloodshed over someone not sharing their beliefs and they call themselves christians or religious? I call that a bunch of hypocrits!

Answer 8

This is not a copout. God instructs us to have faith, so we do.

God did not create evil - He created imperfect beings that fell, and evil rose out of this naturally. God allows evil to exist because He wants us to have free will. He wants us to love Him by choice, because by force it would not be real love. Sometimes, when evil attacks us, He allows it because it will be best for us in the long run. He is acting as a Father. Often, when evil attacks us, God steps in and rescues us, again, as Father.

The Bible was transcribed by men under the instruction of God, and interpreted and translated by men lots of times. You can expect some minor errors. Also, it was written for all men, especially those long ago. God put His words in terms peoples' tiny brains could understand. The apparent contradictions in Genesis can be reconciled when one understands that the Bible is not always to be read entirely literally. Besides, in your example, who said the signs were for men looking with only their naked eyes? We see many stars with technology and use them as signs. In the future, we may travel among the stars, using the ones we cannot see now as signs. Sometimes, God's creation has a use, but is also just a beautiful tribute to God's awesomeness. God created beauty, too.

As for the predators on Noah's ark, Noah was instructed to bring enough food for all the creatures on board. He did. The Bible does not say it was only grain that he brought. God told Noah to bring seven pairs of every kind of clean animal and two of every kind of unclean animal. Also, God can do whatever he wants, and he wanted the animals to survive so they could repopulate the Earth. God found a way to make it work. Some argue that there is geological evidence of the flood, while others argue that there is not. Perhaps the flood did not really cover the entire Earth, but just the part that man populated, or just what man perceived to be the entire Earth. The original Hebrew translation uses not the most common word for world, meaning literally the entire Earth. It uses the one that can also mean land or country. See the previous paragraph for an answer regarding the literal interpretation of the Bible.

As for Lot's daughters, Sodom (everything they ever knew) destroyed, they felt that they needed to have children to support them and affirm their importance. Children were how women defined themselves and their roles in that time. Also, they were living in Sodom, surrounded by the sinful culture that God ended up destroying. Some of that must have rubbed off on them. The Bible does not say this was OK, and I know it doesn't say they were punished. God's people are just that - people. Nothing ever says they are perfect and without sin. In the same book, Abraham lies, and there are countless other sins that go unpunished. People are imperfect sinners. That is why we need Jesus.

The list of rebuttals goes on as long as the list of arguments against the Bible.

Having faith is the only way we can be saved from our own sin, and the Bible helps us keep that faith.

We could go back and forth like this all day. I can only tell you that Bible study, regular prayer and meditation, and faith are the only way to truly understand God and his word.

Answer 9

Well I don't know what this business about "just have faith" is about, because I myself have rarely answered in such a fashion.

Take this "You say that god is all love, but he created everything, then he also created evil didn't he" business. I've never answered that with "just have faith," but rather always challenged that question's manicheist assumptions. Evil is not a "thing" and cannot be "created" - it is an abstraction used to describe, as Augustine put it, the absence of goodness: an absence that is caused when people pursue their own selfish interests at the expense of others. Since it is not a thing or substance, it isn't necessary for God to have "created" it.

Answer 10

Hello!! Religion has always been based on faith. That is why it was called that. Faith is the only thing religion has and it differs from person to person. There would be no born-again Christians had they not lost their faith in the first place and, if there had never been faith, there never would have been religion. Of course we would have no faith in our fellow man, but that is just mincing words. Faith is the foundation of all we do hence, it is the logical answer for those who do not wish to discuss what they don't know the answer to. I have faith in my God, but that doesn't mean I have all the answers to all the questions. I trust in His judgment and figure I will find out what I need to know when I get to heaven. That is providing I still care about this earthy stuff when I get there. Good question!!