Each one of us believes what we believe because of a number of extremely persuasive arguments...?

Question

Christians, as I understand it, believe in God because of The Bible, Jesus, the world around them, beautiful rainbows, as well as countless other things which all build to a credible and highly convincing point of view.

The same can also be said about every other belief system…
“We believe in our god because we have faith that x, y and z are true.”

Science is refreshingly different. The x, y and z that science holds to be true are all open to rigorous debate. If during investigation, x is found to contradict the evidence, then x is thrown out or modified and the researcher is highly praised and held up with great esteem by their peers for advancing science.

Christians etc. on the other hand, appear to respect their peers more the more they stick like sheep to the rut of sacred dogma. Don’t they feel that they’re missing out on something extraordinary?


(I know it’s difficult but please try to refrain from swearing at me. I very much appreciate any thoughtful comments.)

Answer 1

I do agree with some but you left out the testimonies of Christian people. I have had awesome experiences to know that God exists and He is in my life. These experiences are iron clad and are not a fabrication of my imagination.

When God says if you search for Him you will find Him. Then it would be true that an atheist will never find him. One needs to search with faith and hole heartily for God to reveal himself to them.

I thank God for Him making it fact in my life and will serve Him all of my days.

Answer 2

Wrong, for me at least, I believe in Jesus because I met him, in a spiritual experience. Up to that moment I was pretty open minded and believed in lots of different things, but after that moment I had my eyes opened. Like Saul of Tarsus who became St.Paul. It was a beautiful experience, and I could not deny the existence of the living Jesus afterwards. I also had to check out a few facts about the Bible as I wouldn't be told anything without proving to myself it was true, and nothing I have read or studied has ever convinced me that what I know about Jesus, God or the Bible is untrue. We are not all brainless idiots ready to believe whatever rubbish is thrown at us! And science is not the enemy of the Bible, it rather upholds what it teaches.

Answer 3

I think our beliefs come from ourselves. Absolutely everything we experience has an influence on our mental state and the way we think.

Whether we have faith in religion or science is not through the arguments put forward, but because of our mind and the choices we make. There are pretty convincing arguments, for and against, both religion and science. We choose to ignore those which we don't want to consider because we have already been influenced to think in a certain way. The way we think is constantly changing, due to everything we are experiencing at this moment in time, and it will influence our decisions in the future.

I agree that science is refreshingly different because it (along with Buddhism) allows you to question its rules and see for yourself how, why and if they work. Personally, I would rather put my faith into something that can reveal itself to me, without me devoting my life to its teachings, as opposed to being told what to believe, and not being allowed to ask questions.

Answer 4

"Don’t they feel that they’re missing out on something extraordinary?"

Nothing in your description of faith-based belief is inconsistent with a belief in the power of evidence-based science as you describe it.

Beliefs which are not supported by evidence and cannot be disproved (for example the existence of God) are outside of sciece, not inconsistent with it. Lack of evidence for a theory does not disprove it, it merely fails to prove it; it simply leaves the theory neither proved nor unproved (i.e., the theory has not been proved either true or false).

If people believed things in spite of evidence to the contrary, then that would be a different story, but that's not the thought system you're describing for "Christians etc.".

People can hold faith-based beliefs while at the same time believing in science for things that science is able to prove or disprove. There's no inconsistency here. How are they missing out?

Answer 5

We all live in the same world and at the same point in time and presented with the same evidence. Some, of course, access the evidence to a greater extent than others. However, the critical point is that we as human beings have extreme difficulty separating what is objective fact from what is inference and speculation. We have a tendency to make inferences from data reflecting our preconceived notions of how everything must work. This is true whether one is a "scientist" or not. I'm afraid many people confuse the ideal of what science is with the reality of what science is. Many scientists begin with a hypothesis, not because of purely intellectual progress, but because they wish to justify and substantiate their own philosophies. This is human nature. An evolutionist's lifetime of work might be rendered meaningless if if intelligent design is allowed to have credibility. To suppose that all scientists do NOT have agendas is to deny reality.

Answer 6

I disagree in that science is that different from religion. The facts that science provides us with are only proved to those who have the time and inclination to research the matters... the scientists themselves. The rest of us have to take the scientists word on those facts, which makes it no more different than taking the pope's or priest's, or other religious leaders, word on the matter.

More on this train of thought can be found in my blog titled "In the Know". http://blog.myspace.com/marleena_taitaya

Answer 7

Your understanding is incorrect.

Christ clearly taught that no one could believe in Him unless it were revealed from the Father.

True faith is a gift from God and involves hearing His voice.

It therefore has very little to do with 'persuasive arguments,' as you put it.

Your analysis, sadly, is a common one, and is the analysis of a blind man.

It is also commonly held by proud and arrogant people who consider they are intellectually superior. The pride of such people leads them to utterly miss the obvious, so that they become foolish.

Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools...

Such a mistaken analysis is therefore worse than useless.

Judge for youself who is in fact missing out and rather seek for what you lack.

Answer 8

"Life no argument. -
We have arranged for ourselves a world in which we are able to live - with the postulation of bodies, lines, surfaces, causes and effects, motion and rest, form and content: without these articles of faith nobody could endure to live! But that does not yet mean they are something proved and demonstrated. Life is no argument; among the conditions of life could be error."
- Nietzsche

Answer 9

I just believe in what I want to believe in! Until science can proove that Unicorns (for example) never existed, I will chose to believe in them as I would much rather be a person that is openminded.

As for religion, I don't believe in just the one God. Everyone has their own God.

This probably hasnt answered your question properly, but its just how I fell about believing & not believing of certain things. I could be classed as naive maybe but openmindedness is important to me :)

Answer 10

It is true that believing, or not believing in God is by faith. But what about the facts about Christianity. Where is Jesus, he isn't on earth? But it's a fact that he existed in the 1st Century. What about the Bible? How could that come together by so many people. Now you don't have to believe in anything I said but it comes from what we want to believe in. So if you don't want God you're not going to believe any evidence that people present to you.