Believers (of any religion), at what point in your life did you become convinced of God's existence? Could anything happen that would convince you otherwise?
Atheists, at what point in your life did you become convinced of God's non-existence? Could anything happen that would convince you otherwise?
Agnostics, could anything happen that would make you convinced either of God's existence of non-existence?
2007-02-12 05:05:37 · 31 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
toogethr, you make a good point except that I don't know of anyone who actually believes that dragons exist. However, if there were as many people who believed in dragons as there are people who believed in God, then I might wonder if there really was such a thing as a dragon.
2007-02-12 05:20:03 · update #1
Smily and robert c, I believe in God but I am just curious to know other people's thoughts and experiences.
2007-02-12 05:27:49 · update #2
i've always believed i guess, but not until i was around 20 did i start to make a change and seek after HIM, because after reading the bible i came to realize beliving is not enough, it says that even the demons believe and cringe with fear.
If there is ever a time doubt creeps into my mind i just have to think back to some ammazing things that God has alowed me to witiness. my sister and her boy friend (now husband) was on their way home from an UK basketball game when he fell asleep at the wheel. They ran through the gardrail and down the bank where they crashed into a tree. the tree broke into and came crashing down on the cab of the ford ranger.they were air lifted to louisville where my sister under went surgery. they had told us that her liver was busted open. you can't imagine how many people were praying for her at that very moment. when they went in to operate they found not a busted open liver but what looked like a pefectly welded together seam. Of course the doctors were baffeled and had no way to explan it.but we didn't need an explanation becaue we already new who was responsible for this miricle. That in itself would be enough to calm all doubts, but wait theres more!
Matt (the boyfriend) was in awful condition. he was in a coma for 2 weeks with brain injuiries, legs shattered, and much more wrong. the doctors gave him a 0% chance of living and if by some miricle he did live then he would be severly brain damaged. well, He did get his miricle, and Matt came out of the coma and only had some short term memory loss!(keep in mind we are all still praying and seeking God)well ammazed as the doctors were they still were delivering bad news. they said that he would not be able to walk. but they were proved wrong on that to, when matt started physical therepy. well then they said he would always walk with a limp. well those doctors were proved wrong agian.
Matt went for his check up with them and they declared him 100% recovered.and they have never ever seen anything like it in all reatity he should be dead.
Before this awful thing happened they were not on gods path but beatuty ended up coming out of pain and they both have transformed their lives and live for god now.
2007-02-12 05:53:04 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
As a child, if I had a question about why something was or how something worked, my parents told me to go to the library and look it up in a science book or encyclopedia.
Religion is great if you want answers without doing any work. It is very easy to put the "because of God" tag on everything...but if you study into any topic, you can find the true scientific and ultimately mathematical answer.
Anyway, if you read some of my other answers, I talk about how vast the universe is, and how there may be multiple universes (multiverses). We are a flash-in-the-pan. One day, the sun will engulf the inner planets as it enlarges to a Red Giant, and everything we have ever created or worried about will have meant nothing. Granted, we will be extinct long before that, anyway.
My point is: Apollo doesn't pull the sun across the sky every day. The earth isn't flat. All of the magical/religious explanations of the past have faded away into myths. You don't need a God to explain the universe you live in. You need an education and a drive to do research.
Also, if there is a God, he is a not a benevolent and infinitely-good being. Belief in Him has caused more death and destruction than any other single issue in history. There are a handful of people that try to use God's word to help poor people in 3rd world countries. The rest are hateful hypocrites that believe THEIR way is right and everyone else should be killed or converted. "Infinite love" my a**. All of the innocents that have been killed in his name, and could have been prevented with his supposed "infinite power"...when I meet him I'm going to kick the living hell out of him.
2007-02-12 05:16:38 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
When I was eight years old, I was a hardcore Christian. I prayed every night, I always went to church, everything. But then, I read the bible. I realized how incredibly hypocritical and contradictory the bible is. There are so many things that just didn't add up for me. I also wondered why there were so many versions of the bible. It's just one story, yes? So why are people who have never in their life known Jesus writing new stories about him? I believe there could have been a very wise man named Jesus Christ once upon a time who was viewed or could have been a prophet of some sort, but I do not believe he is a child of God and do not believe in God. There are quite a few other arguments I have as to the nonexistence of God, but I don't want to seem like I am attacking Christianity or Catholicism or anything like that. I'm a spiritual person. I'm not religious in any sense, but I haven't nothing against religious people at all. If you choose to believe in God or Buddha or choose to follow any religion whatsoever, more power to you. Go for it.
2007-02-12 05:12:18 · answer #3 · answered by Stilts1221 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
In 8th grade, I was a super emo kid. Then I saw my friend get hit by a car. The very first thought I thought was, "God is trying to tell me something."
I mean, normally I would have just though "Why God, why did you do this to me??" But I didn't. He wanted me to know that He sent that message to me.
The result? My life has completely turned around. I'm also a lot more outgoing too, a big step from my hermit-like existence.
Before I was pretty agnostic, but I had great friends at church who were there for me, so I don't think anything would have convinced me otherwise.
2007-02-12 05:10:55 · answer #4 · answered by CrazySnail 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I've always felt that there is more to life than just being the "sum of its parts". The same mixture minus some unseen and undocumentable thing is just soup or rock. My education as a biologist just confirmed that, and gave me an immense respect for the feats that everyday life performs to keep us living. I find it hard to describe in concrete terms what the "more" is and my religious philosophy changed a few times in my life. When my children were born, I was very moved and it was easy for me to feel that there was something more here because the kids had personalities and life even before they were born, even before I could feel them move or even before I knew they were there. A lot of our personality and "soul" can be identified adn described by its biological components (brain tissue, connections, hormones, and the like) but why this is different than when it exists in another form (and we call it organic but not alive) is why we continue to argue and debate religion.
There will come a day when we understand where this comes from, and it probably has biochemical roots. But seeing the magic of biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics means that while I may someday be an "atheists" rather than a "theist" doesn't mean I will change, just the label.
2007-02-12 05:18:55 · answer #5 · answered by Huggles-the-wise 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
valuable element. ATHEIST a million. have you ever believed in God? have been you reported as an Atheist? or have been you reported as a Believer/Humanist/Agnostic? Is your loved ones/kin customarily Atheists/Believers/Agnostics/Humanists? no longer probably. i became reported via a Pagan/Catholic (sure, truly) and an agnostic. Neither have been extraordinarily attracted to "changing" me, so you might chat. I by no ability attended church, or truly had plenty interplay with faith aside from analyzing approximately it for my very own leisure. My is frequently Catholic and Episcopal Christian. 3. How do you realize that God isn't genuine? i do no longer. Atheism would not declare there is not any god. Atheism states that considering we've not any information of a god, disbelief if the logical place. So when I say i'm an atheist, i'm announcing that i do no longer think in a god - no longer that i've got self assurance there is not any god. 4. what style of initiatives do you carry out to help the worldwide/mankind? I ran a truly great fundraiser to help Japan those days. i attempt to stay in touch with nationwide and worldwide information, and act while needed. I did some volunteer supply up-smoking fabric for a pair of twelve months. 5. i understand you do not have self assurance, yet, is there any element of you that secretly does/needs to have self assurance? Nope. i discover the organic worldwide pleasurable sufficient as-is.
2016-09-29 00:28:58 · answer #6 · answered by intriago 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I always believed in God for the most part...because it was more logical to me...having a conscience, the Earth "just happening" to be the exact distance from the sun...to keep the Earth just the right temperature...etc...
At age 25 is when I knew....God revealed to me directly by His power that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He was crucified for the sins of the world. And God also showed me which Church to join.
As far as anything that could happen to convince me otherwise = The facts will always remain the same...That Jesus Christ is the Savior...and I hope and pray that I will always retain this knowledge and testimony....BUT the devil is also real...and he is at war with us all...IF (God forbid) that I was overcome by the devil...(which could come if I rebelled or fell away etc...) then the devil would have power over me to deceive me...
for me there is no going back to neutral ground of not knowing...
if I fall away from God then it would not be well with me...BUT in spite of all that...the facts would still remain...that God does live and that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world.
2007-02-12 06:28:20 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Um.. I was pretty young. About 13 before I saw the flaws with the Christian god and took the Agnostic approach to things... a little more research and person to person experience later, I was a full fledged Atheist!
Nothing short of a god showing up and shaking my hand would convince me of the existence of a deity at this point.
2007-02-12 05:10:37 · answer #8 · answered by B-Hole 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Speaking as a theist who eventually became an atheist: there wasn't a single point where I simply said "Oh gee, deities don't exist." It was a long process for me. I just felt less and less of a need for deity until I eventually lost interest in the idea. At some point I realized I was practicing religion out of guilty feelings of obligation, as opposed to doing it because I still really wanted to.
Looking back, I see that there were certain things that motivated me to being religious (need for identity, a love for ritual, being defensive in a community where my reilgion was in the minority, etc.) which changed as I got to see more of the world. I found other ways of fulfilling what religion had provided for me.
2007-02-12 05:12:19 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Age 13, I knew and still know that God exists, He is my Heavenly Father, He knows me and cares for me, He is always available to me. There is no thing that can now or ever will convince me that He does not exist. I have seen terrible acts perpetrated by man upon man. That is not God. God weeps for the offender and the victim. He is the one sustainable strength that exists and maintains the hope for all in this world.
2007-02-12 05:11:51 · answer #10 · answered by Answergirl 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
At the point in my life when I began to question everything and to accept only that for which there is actual evidence available did I begin to be an athiest. I think you've phrased your question incorrectly: athiests do not need to become "convinced of god's non-existance", they simply need to see that there is no evidence for the existance of god. There is a subtle difference. For example, do people who do not believe dragons exist need to come to a point in their life when they become convinced of the non-existance of dragons? No, of course not. It is those who claim something exists that have the burden of proof on themselves to become convinced of it. We do not ordinarly go around disproving the existance of things we do not have any evidence for, we simply acknowledge that they don't exist.
2007-02-12 05:14:04 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋