Question for everyone?

Question

I'm an agnostic, not trying to convert anyone, just a question,

It has been said by many religious people that we are to have faith in God even thou there is no empirical evidence of God, and that if God wanted to give the world empirical evidence he would but what God wants is people who believe in him just based on faith.

So my question is, without any empirical evidence of God, how do we know that God wants us to have faith in God without any empirical evidence?

How can you know God wants you to have faith in God without any empirical evidence, without any empirical evidence to back up that that would be what God would want?

It would just seem to me like we humans are missing something, a MADE BY GOD 4006 BC cornerstone somewhere.

Answer 1

That's a very interesting thought. I believe faith comes from intuition. God is a mysterious power and we may not ever truly understand His ways fully. Maybe we will. Only time will tell.

Answer 2

Imagine this scenario:

A holy mans stands before a crowd. He says:"You must have faith in God and obey His wish. For those who believe are rewarded and those who disobey suffer for eternity." Then comes the crucial part:"Hear me, for the God speaks through me, his most faithful servant. Am I not your holy man?!"

That is were it all goes wrong. That is the point when it starts to be all about power and control. If the priest would have said something like:"It is in your heart that you will hear him." This would have given the power for the people and a simple way for themselves to judge if the god is speaking to them or not. When it is a matter of having believing the authority the problem with empirical evidence steps right in.

To make it short. It is the "holy men" who want faith without any evidence.

Answer 3

I agree! And keep this in mind... when God was "invented", there was a big lack of scientific proof about the way the world worked... "Why are all of these people dying", "Where did all of these locusts come from"... science can now answer these questions but back then... God must have willed it because they didn't know!

I'm part scientist and part Catholic and am on the fence as to my belief. I don't rule it out nor do I fully believe and don't allow someone that is not God himself change your mind. You can only believe if and when you WANT to believe!

We have no proof of our creation, nor do they! Unless you count words written by another human as being "gospel". What did they do way back when to entertain themselves... perhaps... story telling?

Answer 4

We are missing a lot. People are brought up to believe in God and their religion, similar to the way people are brainwashed. There is no questioning, proof, and ideas of angels and a beautiful white heaven awaits... Why do people believe this stuff? Can't they see that the only reason they believed in the 1st place is because they were brainwashed into believing? And the reason they continue to believe is because of faith, but what is faith? It is an excuse to believe something that logic tells you is unlikely or doesn't exist. So there's the Bible that was written by man, churches that were built by man, and Jesus who was a man. Trust me, I think religion is a necessity in our society, but I think people usually have the wrong idea. For instance, why do they feel heaven is a place? Why would you need a place to go to when you have no body or matter to take up space? Why do people think they will see their loved ones there? Are you going to go into your grave and steal your eyes so you can see? And why don't you apply religion to every part of your life like your Bible tells you to?

I see people being rude when they drive, not saying thanks when someone holds the door open for them, being selfish, eating too much at the buffet or really any restaurant, getting drunk at a party, listening to common music, watching raunchy tv or movies, cursing, jealousy, pre-marriage sex, hating other religions, being racists, wishing bad things on other people, trying to take advantage of people, wearing clothes that are too revealing, looking at those wearing the revealing clothes... This is everyday, everywhere, everyone. I really do try to do as few of these as possible in my life, and when I used to go to church I saw the exact opposite from almost every one of my peers that attended that church and any others. KNOW what being a Christian is all about, then THINK about what religion is and make your mind up from there.

Answer 5

God is simply the essence of all living things. Therefore just seeing something that exists is evidence of God. God is life itself. God is the trees, the ocean, the animals, childbirth, physical healing.
When you get cut and it heals as if it were never there, that is God! Science can not explain childbirth beyond the "Process by which it happens"
When you take a tiny seed and put it in the ground and it becomes a giant tree, that is God!

All other books, prophets, and spiritual labels are mankind's inventions. Conjuring's to explain the unknown and a opportunity to turn people into a God.
People are not God. They never were and never will be!
Have you hugged your tree today?

Answer 6

What is interesting is that God is alleged to have provided empirical evidence to some people. He spoke to Moses and Abraham, he appeared and did miracles in front of many witnesses as Jesus Christ. He knocked Paul off his horse and converted him. Many people still claim that they've received personal, but irrefutable evidence of God's existence.

So, what does it mean that God supposedly does this for some people, but not for everybody? If He wants people to belive in him only out of faith, why would he reveal himself to anyone?

Answer 7

Empirical thinking has to give way to rationalization, we Christians rationalize that God created the universe, and Humans, so we need no scientific documentation, it is by Faith alone that we can come to the realization that God exist just as was given in the books that He had people write.

Answer 8

In the bible, the whole trusting God thing appears more than 50 times! Obviously, it wouldn't be in there that many times if it wasn't important...you know the story of Moses and the passover? Well, that was a HUGE trust thing because the egpytians had no way out of it, but the Israelites, being God's chosen people did have a choice and in order to be sure that no first born in their household was to die, they were to put blood over their doors and windows. Basically, they were handing their lives and proving their faithfulness to God by doing that. They put their faith in Him and God proved his faithfulness right back to them that by trusting in Him, He would pass over and the angel of Death would not harm them. That's just one example of many in which God showed people that he needed their faithfulness in order to help them.

Answer 9

Aah, Mr Darwin - I hope you are young and I pray that God makes you live - till the time comes...

I hope you have done some study about this because when God reveals the future to you - you'll probably put all this nonsence away and bow your knees like the rest of us!

"Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess - Jesus Christ is Lord for ever!"

Just wait and see!

AMEN!

Answer 10

The faithful are not well known for critically analyzing the things they propogate. Among themselves, they almost never question things like this.

But I would use the same line of argument toward formal agnosticism (heh heh). If we can't know anything about god, then there's no way to know we can't know anything about god either, since to make such a claim presumes some knowledge of god - namely, that he is unknowable.