How does one rationalize faith in God? I'm just seeking answers...?

Answer 1

There's no rationalization. Belief in god is a coping mechanism and an obsession, much like a mental illness. God does not exist. We are all we get and Earth is pretty much all we have. So let's take care of the planet, take care of each other, enjoy life to the fullest and impeach George W. Bush to spare us from two more years.

Answer 2

You can't really rationalize having faith in God. Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as "the belief in things not seen." Some people simply will not believe in God without tangible, rock-solid proof that He exists. There's no way I can prove to you that God exists. I can point to documents other than the Bible that corroborate the historical accounts given, and I can point to archeological reports from Mount Ararat and the Dead Sea that further suggest that the Bible accounts are true, but I cannot take you to see God and I can't tell you exactly where He is so you can see Him with your own eyes. So in the final analysis, you have to decide whether you believe or not, and if you decide that you do believe in God then you are expressing a belief in One not seen, and that is faith.

Answer 3

Are we talking super human being here, or all encompassing deity? I think there are grave semantic issues in terms of what we actually believe god to be, the nature god and our individual perception of that nature. Everyone uses the same word, god, but when questioned they often have very divergent ideas of just what exactly god is and does. It's so often tied up with the man made dogma of churches it becomes confusing. You need to study and define for yourself what you think the nature of God might be and how it applies to you individually. I believe that organized religion is mostly a farce that can separate you from God. A long time ago they latched onto things that work, ie. prayer, spiritual relief, and giving. These things are quite real and work good, especially giving. If done with a pure sprite and no thought of recompense, it really does come back ten fold and then more. This counts in giving to yourself too. Seek with a honest heart and you will find. And remember, God has an amazing sense of humor. I have a wonderful brother-in-law who's been waiting for the rapture for forty years. He just waits and waits. My sincere hope is that it comes for him. It might be just what I need to slip in the back door. I never liked crowds anyway. If you feel this has helped you, don't hesitate to send me a check. Make it out to CASH. (Christan Association of Supreme Holiness)

Answer 4

Faith in God or religion in general really is just believing in a theory to explain things that have no answer. I believe in some form of higher power. There are just too many things left unexplained without God or a higher being.
Look at it from a scientific perspective: There is a law in science that says that matter can neither be created or destroyed. If you believe this, then how did all this matter that can't be created or destroyed in the first place get here? Think about that one for a while.
The important thing to remember, though, in your quest for religion is that you can be closer to this higher power when you search for it alone. Too many people get in your way of truly finding God. It's more of an individual journey.

Answer 5

I have struggled with faith all my life. Faith in a God one can not see or hear or touch.

I would see disease, war, starvation and death. How could there be a God, I would ask myself?

Then my middle son was born very ill. We didn't know if he would live or die. He had all kinds of medical complications. I had no one or nothing else to turn to, so I prayed. I prayed like my life and my soul depended upon it, on my knees crying and weeping, that if there is a God, He would look upon me and know me as his daughter and save my son. I didn't only want my son to survive, but I wanted him to have a chance at a "normal" life.

My son was in the NICU for 2 1/2 months. It took the first 4 years of his life to have a doctor finally look at us and say your son is perfectly normal and is doing great!

It was a miracle. I don't know why God chose to show me mercy, but He did. How could I not have faith? Faith is precious and I hold on, even when I think the world is against me and God has turned his back on me, I must believe that God is still there.

It is usually, I who turns my back on God. Not the other way around. It is just difficult to see it at the time.

Good Luck and Take Care

Answer 6

I am not entirely certain of the way "faith in god" applies to my life, but I think can at leat try to answer your question.

If someone wants to have Faith in God or anyone or thing, what they'd probably need to do is look at that persons track record...a consistent stream of events that can be deemed trustworthy would lead one to rationalize or conclude that God, or the topic of focus is worth an investment of Faith.

It would likely seem from this that, in terms of faith in god, many attribute the things they value in his qualities (perhaps the good in life, or the beauty) and conclude that these are examples of his continued reliability and thus deserves their faith.

Once again, I would not entirely categorize myself in that department...but I have a knack for looking through the eyes of others...

Answer 7

Faith is simply belief. And for each person, their personal beliefs are just that- personal. My belief in God is based on my own experiences, my own thoughts, etc. If you do not believe in God, your belief is based on your own thoughts, experiences. There is no one way to explain faith in God. And rationalizing personal thoughts and beliefs is not entirely possible to people that do not share the same views.

Answer 8

Rationalization has nothing to do with faith. Faith is believing in something that cannot be proven. It just "is".

Answer 9

I love Jesus Christ, he is the reason for my existance. I beleive in God becouse I can feel him and he has been so good to me words cannot describe. I guess you just have to seek him to find all of the gifts he has to offer. If you do not seek him I dont think you ever find true happyness. And you certainly will not have a name like " big mama carnivore". Just think about it the enemy does not want you to have everlasting life! Seek him.

Answer 10

Anyone with any reasoning ability realizes that there is a decent chance there's something bigger than just what is seen. On top of that many people have either had things occur in their life that seem to point to something bigger or else look around at the world and find how things in Nature so amazing it can seem hard to believe there isn't something bigger.

The American Psychological Association had a book out that dealt with highly gifted individuals, and it was stated that a certain type of intelligence often includes people's feeling as if they have a higher calling. A natural tendency toward being a spiritual (not necessarily religious) person can come with a certain type of intelligence. If a person is generally a spiritual person it can be natural for him/her to notice things that could be signs of some larger force's operating in or over the universe.

People with any reasoning ability know that it is impossible to know for sure that there is something bigger, but sometimes they combined any spiritual leanings they have with the realization that having faith can help at times, and they decide to believe rather than not believe. There are even some people who can't quite believe but who are actually afraid not to believe "just in case" they're wrong.

Religions sometimes muddy up the issue by preaching things that defy common sense, but then again non-believers can muddy things up sometimes by ignoring common sense as well.

The word, "rationize", implies that there is no possible way God could exist and believing in something bigger requires some stretching of what is reasonable. A better choice of words would be, "How does one reason out faith in God"; and the answer to that is that they see that there is as much a chance that God could exist as there is that God doesn't exist, and then they factor in some things they've seen or felt in life that seem to add weight to the belief in God. They then either decide to believe because things seem to point to a God or else they decide not to believe in spite of the fact that so many things point to God's existence but because they cannot believe until they have 100% proof.

Some people believe just because that's what they were told. Some people don't believe because they may not have the intellectual ability to reason out as much reason to believe as possible.

Some people won't believe because they know how there is a scientific explanation for most things in the universe. Believers may think that because there is so often a scientific explanation for things there is yet more reason to believe that something bigger is at the root of life. They can see the scientific explanations as evidence of a brilliant design.

People who don't believe what can not be proven through science are taking the "proof approach" associated with science. People who do believe may actually also be taking a scientific approach by seeing that there is no conclusive evidence that God does not exist, and until there is that possibility cannot be ruled out.

This puts the believer back to either going with a gut feeling or a need to believe or the fact that there's as a good a chance God exists as the chance God doesn't exist or anything that the believer has seen in his life that seems to point to God's existence and/or the mental peace of choosing a side rather than stewing over a question that can not be answered on Earth.

Believers don't think they need to "rationalize" their faith. The think everyone needs to reason things out for himself

The reasonable person (particularly one with a good awareness of science, history and literature) will consider all forms of life through all of time, see what they have in common, and believe the must be some one, unifying, force that is larger than all living things and beings. The same person can also consider all forms of life and see how small and insignificant each form is, no matter how advanced it may be among other forms of life. It can seem quite clear that there's a good chance something/someone much bigger has to be running the show.

People who believe can look at people who don't and wonder how on Earth they can rationalize their lack of belief.

When my son was four or five years old I hadn't said much about God to him by that point. Still, one afternoon there were some particularly fluffy clouds that had the sun coming through them and casting dramatic and well defined rays down through the clouds. My son saw them, and with awe in his voice he said, "That's God." I was struck by what seemed to me his natural awareness of the concept of God and streams of light coming through the darker spots in the clouds. Sometimes that kind of thing is enough to make a person wonder - and wonder, after all, is much of the reason many people believe.