Why do you believe in God?

Question

I do too, but not the God that is leading our lives, but is only observing. Why does he (in your eyes) allow wars, poverty, drugs
murders of inocent? Why do you believe that almighty God what let anything like that happen, and this is a question for both Christians and Muslims. How does your religion explain these issues. Of course, everyone else is welcome to answer, as well.

Like, for instance, I was watching a documentary where a USA bomb killed about 7 people in the one civil home, and they took a body of a 5-6 years old boy that was killed in there and put it in the back of a truck on a pile of other bodies that they had collected after the air raid. Why did not God make that kid play in his friend's house at that time, or play somewhere on some safe street?

reading all the answers has promoted me for writting another addition.
It is easy to have a faith in God's love and profound message, and he loves us all, yada,yada...
We don't have bombs falling in our yards, on our schools and hospitals. Hell, we don't even see the ones that are we throwing on another continent on another country...Killing dozens every day. I think if it was aother way around, you all would be asking the question that I am. Why does not God help?

Answer 1

I don't believe in god, only in the basic christian values (which by the way are very similar to all other religions' values) because I was raised as a christian. Now being somewhat of an atheist, those values still guide me.

But people who strongly believe in god often bypass those values to serve certain interests. The American President is very religious and goes to war. The Israeli government is very religious and goes to war. The Islamist terror groups are very religious and go to war.

So to me, religion is a nuisance. Instead of focusing on the real message that teaches respect, peace, understanding and support of your fellow man, people get into fights about what a certain passage of the Bible, the Coran or whatever other holy book meant. They only twist its meaning to serve a purpose that is too often a negation of the true meaning of it all.

Answer 2

This is a question theologians have been arguing over since 'the oldest trick in the book' was written, lol.
Seriously though, first we must get some things straight before we ask this question. (oh yah, I'm Christian btw, just to clear that up) Firstly, God is a being of love, and He has a plan for everyone and everything. However, as humans we do have free will (yes, free will AND predestination - seems contradictory, but God created time and every dimension and whatnot, so He can do anything - different topic, sorry! lol), and we can choose to not follow God and not live out life for Christ who first gave His for us, and even if we do become saved we can still slip up, so yeah, this world is pretty messed up. However, despite humanity and satan and his followers, God is always in control, and everything happens for a reason.
Now, I'm gonna try to explain this in smaller terms, to better answer your questions.
Although we may be going through something that seems unjust or we may witness such things, we must accept where we are and do what we can (ask for help from Him, act as Christ would, etc.) having faith that our loving God is in control, and be at peace because of it. It's no easy task, like at all lol, but the life of a Christian does not translate to an easy one. Also, sometimes we may not realize it, but we may have done something wrong ourselves, which is easy to do being a human, trust me, I should know, lol. That's why the Bible is so good, because it teaches to help live our lives more for God and others and less for ourselves.
So yeah, I'm sorry if at points I didn't make sense, but I can try to answer any more qusetins that come up later, but I highly recommend reading the Bible and finding answers out your self, it sometimes means more that way.

I apologize for such a long comment, and also for any misspellings, if you don't feel like reading all, it can kinda be summed up in a phrase from a song by one of my favorite bands (Switchfoot):

"The Shadow Proves the Sunshine"

Answer 3

Because it is my FAITH and I have personally experienced the wonder of His power. I also do not think it is intelligent at all to believe in MYSELF above all else. How much more lost could someone be? Look around you. When was the last time you saw a perfect person? I thought so. When prayers are answered that you know no mortal could do, you can begin to see that God is real as can be. I aslo do not pretend that if God explained everything to me that I would be able to understand it. That is the same kind of presumptuousness that so many liberals have today, and it is really sad. Good question.

Answer 4

God gives us free will. We are the ones that bring on the poverty, war, drugs, etc. The Bible is clear that the world is going to experience all this and much more, all because of our sin. As for the deaths of the innocents, the Bible says "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints" and again at another place the Bible says He takes the young out to spare them. It's hard to deal with I know, but death is the least. Death is hard for the living, the ones still here but the dead ones are okay. The other miseries He will deal with on His schedule, not ours.

Answer 5

There is a wisdom to the Universe that we can't begin to comprehend. God is the Creator and He knows everything that will happen... The horrors that take place on this earth are tests of our strength, faith, and humanity. I believe that we have choices - but in the great 'flow chart' of our lives God already knows how we will choose. We are supposed to learn from the mistakes of our own human history - but we shortsighted humans seldom do! Because God is Forgiving and Merciful sometimes He lets us repeat our mistakes many times - they are opportunities for us to ask for His forgiveness... There is no other explanation for the wonders of our DNA - our world - our solar system... There is a God! And He wants all of us to realize His wonder and appreciate His Blessings!

Answer 6

I believe in God because everytime I leave Him bad things seem to follow me around. So He's not just an observer but he's active in my life.

By the way God has never allowed all those man made attrocities that you just mentioned. It's humans who allow it. I believe God has provided a plethora of choices and the dominant powers among us have to choose what's best for his/her community. But when things don't work out well because we chose the wrong guy, why should we blame God?

Answer 7

Why do I believe? Because I wonder how can life that is so complex exist. Why I also doubt? The same reason like you said, why if God exists He is like just observing. If He is the almighty, then He can act upon the problems of this world that already are extremes.

Answer 8

My God has given us all the right to free will. Some people lean more to the good and others tend towards evil. There will always be poverty. Look at the US, our poor tend to be the richest in the world and they complain that they do not have enough material things.

Answer 9

God gave us a freewill, therefore all of the crises in the world are caused by people. If God were to intervene he would be going against his freewill promise. Your right to choose God or not. So you have evil happening in the world because people choose to do evil and not good.

Answer 10

Why do bad things happen? God realizes that since He has given us free will, that we will only turn to Him in adverse times. The importat thing to remember is that we have free will. Most of the things that we fall into are of our own design. i also know that God protects me when I turn to Him in times of difficulty like you listed above.