do you believe in God?

Question

One time, I watch the debate and the topic is: "If there's a god or not" . The affirmative side says that there's a creator which He create the things in the world with beauty and DESIGN such as the trees, animals, mountains, moons. etc. So this means that if there's a DESIGN, there is a DESIGNER. However, the negative side says that if there is a DESIGN, why does the DESIGNER let his design to destruct or destroy? Why the animals died? Why the moon has spots? Why the volcano explodes? Why the human turnig old, ugly, and decayed? Then alterations goes on and on...

Answer 1

I am an atheist because I don't believe in god or other deities and the word atheist describes this state of disbelief. I don't believe in deities because no argument or evidence presented to me in support of their existence has been convincing.

1. Biology adequately describes life and emotions without appealing to mystical invisible dieties

2. Astronomy adequately describes the formation of stars/planets/universe/etc without appealing to mystical invisible dieties

3. Geology adequately describes the evolution of the Earth, land formations, etc without appealing to mystical invisible dieties

4. Psychology describes the human psyche better than appealing to mystical invisible dieties

5. Appealing to mystical invisible dieties is an appeal to ignorance

6. There's no physical evidence for the existence of mystical invisible dieties

7. A myriad of mystical invisible dieties have been posited by emphatically superstitious societies and have been proven to be products of overly active imaginations (today's religion is tomorrow's myth) and ignorance.

8. Believing in mystical invisible dieties seems to become quite absurd when those who posit the mystical invisible dieties begin explaining why and how they exist in the face of contradictory physical evidence.

9. As scientific knowledge increases, the role of the mystical invisible dieties oddly gets pushed further and further back.

10. Mystical invisible dieties are mystical invisible dieties (ie can never be found by empirical methods)

Answer 2

Yes I do believe in God and I do believe that one may come to the conclusion of the existence of God by the light of natural reason. There are, of course, the stock arguments of the five ways of St. Thomas of Aquin, the Onotological argument via St. Anselm, and the argument from Design, of which I approve. Personally, however, I find it utterly awesome the being is aware of Being and this is the real "proof" for God. To imagine that consciousness as we have it would emerge from strings and quarks would seem to indicate something behind the scenes. If you take materialsim seriously, all we are are just self-contained bits of energy...but how can this energy be aware of itself?

To EFW-As I commented on another question...a empircal epistemology discounts our ability to know causality and undermines our foundation of science. If you believe that only the sensual is true then you deny a great amount of reality.

Answer 3

I often wonder if the answer to this question matters. That doesn't mean that everyone shouldn't ask the question of themselves, but I don't think subscribing to an organized religion is the same as reflection and personal inquiry. I haven't been able to answer that question for myself yet. I think I believe in God, but I don't even know what it means to believe in God. Does it matter to God or me if I hold a belief or don't? Isn't my image of God as an old white man with a beard and staff really silly?

I think the problem is that I look at religions as merely stories and tales designed to get at God's essence and power. They don't have any literal truth, in my opinion, but rather they perform a very important signaling of the organization of the Cosmos. Things exist, and so they must have come into existence from somewhere, but how?

You might enjoy this famous 1948 exchange between two very famous philosophers. See the link.

Answer 4

We simply do not know.

Human arrogance proclaims either God definitely exists, or he definitely does not. So those types of debates will never be solved. The idea of God (and intelligent design) is not falsifiable. So, you could say you believe that the creator -- be that God, Santa, the Easter Bunny, or Casper the Friendly Ghost -- "designed" the universe. To which I'd say, "um, ok."

Because there's no way to prove or disprove it.

Answer 5

most people don't have reasoning to why they believe in god. they just say it's faith. their right to a certain extent. when you look at things that decay do you see the flower that it produces. or have you ever watched a moon go from sliver to full. i don't try to see all the negative in it. i try to see what comes from it. have you ever looked at chlorophyl. or just a drop of water under the microscope. it wasn't just a designer it was a "god" who created it. all things happen for a reason, that's what i go with. i'm 15 and my dad just died last december. he was cremated and now were going to spread his ashes into the ocean. to me i'm just letting him become a bigger part of the world. sometimes mistakes are made. so it has to get worse before it gets better. after a volcano happens the soil is made fresh and new. shouldn't that mean something. you have to decide for yourself. i can't tell you.

Answer 6

Stephen Hawking - renowned physicist and not necessarily a religious man stated that if science were to look at all the finite things that would have to take place in order to support life, they would HAVE TO come to the reasonable observation that it would be statistically impossible for us to be here. No one can find the exact mix of life sustaining variables on any other planet or galaxy we have explored to date. It puts science in the rare and contrary position of having to stand by their notion of there being no divine designer yet saying science has not been able to find this reproduced anywhere in the known universe, nor can we reproduce it ourselves. The designer's plan according to many texts of many belief systems included free will of the in habitants. We destroy and ruin because we choose to. We have employed our free will to become idiots.

Answer 7

well not everything is gonna go right in your life there would have to be some stumps in the world cuz just like us animals have to die and there has to be some destruction cuz not everything is gonna be a walk around a beautiful park and of course I Do believe in God

Answer 8

Yes, the reason I believe he is letting these things happen is that he was questioned whether his way is best or that we could rule ourselves, this time period is him showing that his way is best and when he thinks is right he will reverse the things that man has done to Earth and turn it into a paradise. where people don't get sick and die like we do now.

Answer 9

do i believe in God? yes. Can I prove that he exists through logical means? no. Why? God does not work/dwell in, what we would consider logical means. There is simply no way to logically prove the existence of God to others through our limited channels, but I do believe that the only way to prove his existence is through a personal experience/encounter...

...check out notreligion.com

Answer 10

to me, god is what is good in all of us. i believe religion was created to help people express what is good, but got taken too far and is often misunderstood, unfortunately. I don't belive in a creator or an afterlife, so i suppose i don't believe god as much of the world does.