Do you believe in God??

Question

Why or why not? What makes you so sure?

Answer 1

Nobody can prove any gods, much less a specific god, exist; many people will tell you their god exists but no others, but will never be able to prove it, even if they think so. Some will threaten you with eternal pain or promise eternal joy to get you to believe in their god; these are all stories, created for people who were scared long before we understood the universe. Now we have no more reason for these superstitions.

How terrible the bible in particular is:
http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
http://www.evilbible.com/

Did Jesus really exist?
http://www.medmalexperts.com/POCM/getting_started_pocm.html
http://nobeliefs.com/exist.htm
http://www.inu.net/skeptic/exist.html

How silly and horrible religion in general is:
http://godisimaginary.com/
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/

The alternative:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/
http://www.infidels.org/
http://www.positiveatheism.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism

Answer 2

I know God exists for a few reasons.

Theologically I have two:

First, I know experientially. The Kingdom of God is internal, and I've experienced God, and I can doubt it in the same fashion I doubt anything I experience, but the experience remains and is persuasive in its own right.

Secondly, I have seen manifestations of His actions around me. Again, these things might be able to be reinterpreted, but I did experience them and saw them.

The philosophical arguments are a bit too long for me to make here, but they are the stock arguments: the anthropic principal, the teleological argument, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, and the existence of abstractions (numbers are not real, but everything seems ordered by abstractions, which do seem to have a reality of their own if not material).

On the negative end of things, I find materialism to be contradictory and irrational (and all atheism must, of necessity, be materialist). Two examples will suffice to show this.

First, it destroys the base of its argument by destroying the philosophical grounds that we may know truth. If we are mere material, then our entire thought process is indistinguishable from that of a computer processor. While this might work for DNA (it is a form of binary), it can never work for the human mind. Computers have never dealt with knowledge. They deal only with numbers and programs. In truth, they only deal with whether there is a sufficient amount of energy on a circuit to make a connection or not, so the preceding sentence was generous. The computer doesn't delineate in any way between a text file on astronomy, an astrology program, or World of Warcraft. It's all the same, and the computer treats it all as real. If our brains are like that, we have no means of doing anything but crunching numbers, reacting to the environment, and ending the way we were destined to from the start. Since I believe I can know things (indeed this post is a manifestation of this belief, as was the question that elicited it) and can make up my mind, then I cannot accept materialism. If I cannot accept materialism, then I cannot accept atheism, for it thus destroys the foundations of knowledge (I have compressed the argument to the point of superficiality, and the weaknesses are a result of my poverty of expression in this medium).

The second problem is that materialism operates under the following aguments: that all genuine knowledge is either empirical or true by definition (such as a mathematical formula). However, that philosophical assertion is nothing of the sort. I cannot observe a philosophical rule, and it is most certainly not true by definition (the fact that educated people disagree on it is evidence on that). The core tenet is, then, contradictory and irrational with no ability to appeal to mystery (it cannot assert that human knowledge is so far above the human mind that it cannot be comprehended as one can with God).

As a principle, it forms the bedrock of criticisms about God, and as any contradictory principle, is never applied consistently. The non-material and philosophical arguments for God are never convincing. He is not self-evident and is unobservable, and therefore, the arguments cannot prove conclusively the existence of God (this is actually a counter-argument I've ran into numerous times). However, in countering the cosmological and teleological arguments on the universe, they appeal to a multiverse. What is the proof? String theory, or rather, string theories, all of which are equally plausible (and the meta-theory that incorporates them all is another of the same theories). It has no evidence beyond the mathematical formula, and there, a philosophical argument, a model with no empirical value at all, is the explanation for the cosmological and teleological arguments: the universe was caused by an unseen and unmeasurable multiverse, a "collision of branes." The fact that we can't measure it isn't a problem.

Thus, I have three factors that affect my decision. First, I have personal experience (having experienced God, He is more real to me than postulated branes and offers more observable evidence). Secondly, the philosophical arguments for God are formidable (enough that Antony Flew, who spent his whole life attacking theism found them, after many years of consideration, insurmountable). Thirdly, I will not embrace a philosophy that destroys the very foundations of knowledge and contradicts itself. Given those three factors, it is a *very* one-sided choice.

Answer 3

Yes of course.
1- From where has come the material, and every thing we feel it or see it?
How can one explain the existance, without God?

2- What about the soul, isn't there something is called soul?
Two of The first who described the soul were: Socrates and Plato. And Aristotle too.
If we don't have soul so we are not better than animals.

3- If we don't believe in God neither in soul so we should believe in this speech:
"I know onething that I know nothing".

Answer 4

Yes...
How can there not be a designer. The proof of his existence is all around us in the sun, moon, grass, stars, sky, plants, animals and all the things around us. In the earth, which is the right size, the perfect distance from the sun, has the perfect tilt, mixture of gases to support life, and a life cycle. We see design in ourselves as humans. We have brains and a nerve center that store knowledge and memories plus it tell us when we are in pain. We have ears that we can hear just the right amount not to little so we could hear others talk and not too much we can hear air molecules passing through our ears. We have eyes to see plant and animals and all creation. We have a heart to pump blood throughout are body. We have lungs to breathe in air. We have reproduction organs to continue God cycle.
Every part of our body has a purpose and was designed perfectly. Look at a cell! How much information is in something so small

Answer 5

I do'nt.Because there is no proof of any single god.Man created god and religion out of fear.However there is a cosmic factor-a super intelligence, a well knit system.No body can explain why the universe exists and how.The question of the existence or non existence existed for so long and no man can solve it.There is no use of arguing because it is beyond our comprehension.

Answer 6

No, I know there is no god.

I am sure because I know how man created god and why. god (or more correctly - gods) were created because early man could not explain the natural world.

The burden of proof is on the believer to prove the existence of god

Answer 7

even an atheist believes in a god, well unknowingly, he says we evaluted from monkies etc which means over a period of time we were created so in other words they say time created us so they unknowingly believe that time is there god., but wait science says that the universe began on a day which had no yesterday which means time started existing same moment as space started existing so there god "time" did not always exists so it cant be god.

Answer 8

I do believe in God. God is the reason why we all exist and God is our creator and savior.

Answer 9

Yes, and the claims that there is not a good argument for god's existence are misleading.

HTH

Charles

Answer 10

YES,THE BIBLE TELL"S ME SO,Romans 8:16The spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit,that we are the children of GOD.John 1:1In the beginning was the word,and the word was with God ,and the word was God. May GOD bless you