Why do people believe in God?

Question

Despite having no evidence that God is real, people still continue to believe. I can't see why. It's hard to believe some man in the sky lives in a magical place and controls everything that goes on. It's easier to believe God doesn't exist. And "it's called faith" and "look in the Bible" are crappy pieces of evidence.The Bible is nothing more than a fairy tale book to me. It's stories are so far fetched and very hard to believe. It doesn't have any historical documentation in it. All it is is historical myths. I don't listen to any Christians on my questions because I get crappy answers like "God is in you" and that "you are breathing because of God." Sorry, but that's not convincing me there is a God.

Answer 1

Because humans are weak they need a reason for the unknown and support.....even if it is false....A fact of life

Answer 2

I have been thinking about this alot and it is your perspective that blocks your ability to find an answer.

In statistics, there are a class of tests called "goodness of fit" test. Like all tests they can only be used to show something is false, but everyone, including those who know better, accept them when fitted as good evidence of how the world works.

All of the major religions pass the goodness of fit test. Rejecting scriptures as false is meaningless both statistically and in practice. Any written text, purporting to carry stories of meaning whether the bible, an high school algebra book, or Darwin's "Origin of Species," will and must fail causality testing. The reason is that any foundational book will eventually fail such a test. Darwin was wrong about a lot, but his method and broad framework survive. The scriptures are wrong but the method and framework survive. The Earth isn't flat, the center of the Universe...etc. Also, your high school algebra book is also a deeply limited and subtley incorrect book (if you need PhD level math).

So in religion, causal type tests are inadequate. Science is superior to religion precisely because it presupposes that it is incorrect but just cannot find its own mistakes yet (you should read Einsteins they were real winners).

The problem with goodness of fit tests is that passing such a test often means you simply have not collected a sufficient amount of data. Religion works because people frame their data collection within the boundaries of their thinking and so miss or misinterpret significant points of data. People tend to become atheist only when they hit a big failure in the goodness of the fit of the accepted explained truth and the data. I think this is why atheism is not dominating the world right now. Religion adapts as science does to its reality, coopting contradictory data into the new framework. The Great Religions do not have a static framework, whether it is the Catholic "apostolic tradition," or the "Oral Law" of Judaism, or the interpretation process in Islam, or the philosophical extensions of Buddhism and so on. The religion is always framed in terms of the actual reality.

There is actually very little in the data that strictly contradicts a divinity, and most people don't have that level of thinking open to them.

Answer 3

Most people believe in God because they think that this world is too complex to have just evolved. They think that there had to be a mind behind it.

We have found some actual basis to some of the events detailed in the bible such as the great flood. Many societies have depictions of a great flood around the same time.

I am personally not a very religious person, but I don' t think that all of the events could have just been dreamed up. Either that, or there is some actual basis to them but they have been warped over time.

Answer 4

That's why we can only get into heaven by faith in Him. He gave us all we need in the Bible. If God isn't 'real' then how were things that hadn't happened in this world yet prophesied in the Bible.

1) Four world empires to arise: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome (Daniel chapters 2, 7, 8).
2) Cyrus to be the warrior to capture Babylon (Isaiah 45:1-3).
3) After Babylon's destruction, it would never be inhabited again (Isaiah 13:19, 20; Jeremiah 51:37).
4) Egypt would never again have a commanding position among the nations (Ezekiel 29:14, 15; 30:12, 13).
5) Earth-shaking calamities and fear toward the end of time (Luke 21:25, 26).
6) Moral degeneracy and decline of spirituality in the last days (2 Timothy 3:1-5).

AND U CAN CHECK ALL THE ABOVE AGAINST HISTORY BOOKS

Answer 5

why do people believe in evolution and/or reincarnation when there is no way on the face of God's green Earth to prove its existence. You are wrong to say that the Bible lacks historical documentation i can only tell you to do your own research, the Bible is very hard to understand God does exist the proof is there it is just a matter of faith and by the way faith is an abstract form of evidence.

Answer 6

I haven't believed in " the man in the sky ...in a magical place" type of god since i was 5 yrs old. Most religions have a much more mature and sophisticated view of the spiritual life than that. Read a little philosophy of world religions and also try out CS Lewis' Mere Christianity and the Problem of Pain.

Answer 7

It's a way to explain this mysterious universe that we live in without having to actually study anything or look for any answers ourselves. It's a very primitive paradigm and one that continues to dominate humanity. You see primitive minds had no means of explaining phenomenon, such as, the sky being blue, rain, the existence of plants and animals, plagues, wars, floods, famines, ya know things we can easily explain now.

Answer 8

Please do not be insulted but your concept of God is that of a young child. For example this is what you said:"It's hard to believe some man in the sky lives in a magical place and controls everything". Well look around you and tell me this perfectly balanced universe did not happen by accident. Tell me that someone like mother Teresa never went to heaven after all the good she did. Tell me the Butterfly's and birds in your back yard are not in fact a miracle.

Before you delete my Christan values please read this paragraph first. All our great physicist of today are now trying to tell us little people that all the mass in this huge universe we live in and is all around us, started out smaller than a molecule, before the big bang. Now you tell me which makes more sense. The Bible or that c*ck an bull story that I just read in Scientific American? Yet most the minds of today's physicist are that of atheist but they want us to buy the smaller than a molecule idea? Now you tell me in an edit which story makes the most sense? If you can make sense of that molecule story then explain yourself, because as a college educated man I want to understand this molecule idea please???

Edit update: If you have an answer here and you are an atheist and you thumbs down me then please explain the molecule story. Do not thumbs down me without an edit update. Please educate me.

Answer 9

Saying that you can't disprove god is like saying you can't disprove that fire farting dragons don't exist. The proof could be that we are all living and nobody has figured out how life works. We can't only go so far with microscopes. I for one choose not to believe.

Answer 10

Belief- the acceptance of things aas though they are true. A nice way to describe ignorance and as long as they live with this principle they'll never accept the fact that the scriptures originated from ancient cultures.

Ignorane= Ignoring facts.

Answer 11

Because living life thinking that once you die, that's the end is just plain depressing. I should know. I was an atheist, but then I became a Christian after I experienced the power of God. God loves you, my brother, and it isn't to late to convert.