Does anyone believe in God without influence?

Question

Every person I've met who believes in God were told about God first. Kind of like you don't know language until your are taught (no one is born knowing English). By the nature of God as I understand it, you should be able to achieve belief and faith without any influence. First, is my understanding correct? Second, has anyone ever believed in God without influence?

I don't want this to be a debate of existence. Also, don't bring up the fact that someone had to be the first to believe, since you could argue they were making it up.

Answer 1

In this age, all the religious sources are widely available, be it Islamic, Christian, or Jewish. Therefore most of the people who believed in God because they were told about God, or read it from religious books. However in history there were a lot of people who came to believe in God through reasoning. The story below is a good example.

As in the case of the Bedouin, who came to the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and ex­plained how he attained faith, he said:

‘Camel droppings point to the existence of a camel. Footprints on the sand tell of a traveler. The heavens with its stars, the earth with its mountains and valleys, and the sea with its waves-don’t they point to the Maker, All-Powerful, Knowing, Wise and Caring?’

This bedouin attained faith in God through the use of his mind, therefore, we must not underrate the role of reason and thinking in faith.

Answer 2

Most of your answerers don't even understand the question.

First: Yes.
Second: No.

It's like people who hear a thumping sound of unknown origin or have a light that flickers occasionally in their house or find a photo on their roll of film with light leakage or double exposure and think 'it's a ghost'! Why? Because of popular culture. They're told these are signs of ghosts, so they choose interpret these events as ghosts, not as a possible squirrel in the attic or an old fixture that needs replacing. If they had never been exposed to the concept of the existence of ghosts, they would not consider it to be supernatural in origin.

You'd laugh if people told you quite seriously that ghosts sucked the juices of sunlight-enriched grasses so they can have the strength to remain on earth and avoid being pulled into hell (or even heaven), and show you the proof: brown spots on their lawns. Even if you showed them chinch bugs living in their lawn and the literature on chinch bug damage, they would still insist it was work of ghosts. It would be so burned in their brains they cannot conceive of a world without ghosts.

Answer 3

I did. I believed in God before I knew anything about him. I just knew he existed on my own. I understand that everyting that exists came had to have come from somewhere. Nothing gets you nothing. Unless someone does something to make that nothing into something. The universe could not exist on its own. We know from science that the universe had a beginning. We can also determine how long it was because we can measure the speed at which it is expanding. If we measure backwards we can determine (with relative accuracy) when it started. But what happend before that? What existed before that? What caused the universe to begin? What has enough power to create something from nothingness? Only God. Only a supreme being with infinite power, knowledge, ability. It cannot be an accident.

Answer 4

Paul the Apostle. (Acts the ninth chapter)-He wasn't influenced by believers, he persecuted them.
2nd-I believe that Faith comes by hearing (Romans 10:17)
I believe there have been instances where I could not draw conclusions or deem it coincidence. I believe in the supernatural because I have witnessed it--I still am.
The sun just hangs in the sky? C'mon
How did the other planets get here? Apes surely didn't put them there. The first chapter in the book of John in he Bible portrays a glimpse.

Answer 5

I wasn't a believer untill I was 40 years old. The influence , as you put it, was the fact that I found myself very close to the end, I had nowhere else to turn. I believe it was He who called to me.
When I took that step of faith and it was only a small step, He both saved and healed me.

We are worth a Son to God.

Answer 6

Did you learn to read without being taught. Did you learn to swim without direction? Did you potty train yourself? No thing on this earth is taught without influence. Language is learned by the influence of others, we learn by example. I believe in God because of the Godly ppl I have seen and admired, they showed me how to live the kind of life they did, and I am glad I made that decision.

Answer 7

What? Atheism is the reaction to the declare "there's a god" our reaction is "furnish evidence" This has no longer been completed. If human beings stopped believing in God then all human beings would be Atheist there does no longer be a non theory in something by using fact there would be no reaction to the declare.

Answer 8

Yes, I have a friend who was raised in a home in which she had to search for God independently. She is a devout Christian.
I had to come to believe in God on my own terms, using scientific and historical evidence. I WAS raised in a Christian home, but when I was thirteen, I fell away from it, until I was twenty-three.
My family tried not to push me, because they realized that I was a doubter, I had a lot of questions, and they couldn't FORCE me to believe.
I don't think I would have come back if that wasn't the case.
The first believers believed because they were WITNESSES. It's a lot harder now.

Answer 9

In some way or antoher all have had some outside influence... even you... you have some, distorted as it may be, knowledge of God... that is all that is needed when the time comes and the individual reaches that point of need to reach out to God... I was exposed to the God stuff by my grandparents and even got baptized to please them...but I did not believe all that "stuff"... and had no contact with any formal "church stuff" for over 40yrs... but that bit of knowledge that I was exposed to as a child came back to me when I needed it and when I truly needed to come to God

All who come to God in The Way He proscribes will recieve his free gift of Salvation... I will testify to that... on that day in that instant, it was just God and me... no man, pastor or priest... I did not even own a Bible

There is always unfluence... whether you acknowledge it or not... and when The Holy Spirit leads you when you reach that point of knowing that you need God...and this point can happen in an instant...with out you being even aware untill it happens... you will call up that of God that you know... throwing out the false and grasping The Truth....... It is not an easy to describe... I can not to this day adiquatly describe what happened to me in that instant of my Salvation...

I invite you to read my testimony of my first day of The christian Faith. it is not that long...here is the direct link to it so you do not have to wade through my website to find it

http://pages.zdnet.com/mikevanauken/outreach/id109.html

All honest seekers welcome

Answer 10

Your assumption is not really correct. The christian god (which I assume you are talking about) specifically requests his followers to spread the word and influence others to teach them about him.

This implies that even he knows that people wouldn't believe without help.