Religious people: What types of things in life make you believe in god?

Question

- Does god actually answer your prayers? If so, how? Do any of you hear his voice answering your questions, if not how do you know his answers?

- What makes you think the world was intelligently designed? I know it is a beautiful and very complex, but why does that mean it was designed by someone?

- Have you seen something you would consider a miracle? If so what was it?

I am very curious about these questions, and i am undecided whether I am religious or not.

Answer 1

I believe in God because of the miracle of love, because of compassion, because there has to be a reason why bad things happen to good people, because it brings me peace and joy to search for the meaning in what seem like meaningless events, because it makes me a better person to attempt to align my behaviour with His standards.

I don't hear God speak. I think that God answers our prayers by guiding us to ask Him, and then we open our hearts and minds to "listen", and find the right answers using our own intelligence.

I don't think the world was intelligently designed. I think that God created the environment in which evolution could occur.

I don't believe in miracles in the sense of supernatural phenomena; I believe in everyday miracles, such as the infinite capacity of some people for forgiveness and love, for the birth of beautiful children, and for the power of God to guide the behaviour of most of the planet (directly or indirectly, and via many different messengers, ie Buddha, Mohammed, Jesus Christ, Krishna, Zoroaster, indigenous teachers, etc).

I studied genetics and biochemistry at university and was an avowed atheist until my late 20s. Then I discovered the Baha'i Faith, and found that I could be both religious and rational!

"Every religion which is not in accordance with established science is superstition. Religion must be reasonable. If it does not square with reason, it is superstition and without foundation. It is like a mirage, which deceives man by leading him to think it is a body of water. God has endowed man with reason that he may perceive what is true. If we insist that such and such a subject is not to be reasoned out and tested according to the established logical modes of the intellect, what is the use of the reason which God has given man?" - Abdu'l-Baha

Answer 2

First question: What types of things in life make you believe in God?
Answer: Flowers, trees, birds, sky, sun, moon. You name it! Accidents don't produce such wonders. They have been created. It's the only way! Can you imagine a TV by accident? A computer? Of course not! So how could life, which is infinitely more complex, ever have been an accident? It's ridiculous to think so. It's like not seeing the forest for the trees.

Second question: Does God actually answer your prayers?
Answer: Not always so I can tell. But when I'm sincere and persistent He has been there. Not the way I have expected, or hoped, but He comes through loud and clear when He does. And then, there you are, being blessed in ways you never expected.

Do you hear His voice?
Answer: Not that I recall, however He can speak to you in the small things. One day I was in such turmoil over a huge decision I had to make. I wanted peace SO much(!), but could not decide which way to go. Either way would change the world of my family immensely. So in my daily card file the quote for the day, which I just happened to read, said,"Peace comes in knowing you are doing the best you can with what God has given you to work with." It made me feel so much better, and gave me the strength to carry on!! Though many could think this was a coincident, it seemed too "in the moment" to have been so. I carried that card with me a long time. I still have it.

Have you seen something that was a miracle?
Answer: Yes. We all have. There are the everyday miracles like the sunrise, all of nature, the birth of a baby, the universe as it is, ourselves, for heavens sakes the oceans, and the jungles! I could go on and on. These are all miracles though we take them for granted. Why?
Another miracle we've all seen is that the Bible, which is writings from 2000 years ago (!) is still here!!!
Everyone wants to know about God, but so few bother to read His book!! Pages and pages and pages, and letters and letters written to us!!! But many would still say "So what." That proves nothing!" If you want to know, but don't bother to look, then how much did you really want to know?

I know there is a lot of terrible things going on in the world today. Too many to mention. But know that it is not because of God's righteousness that these things happen, but because there is such a great lack of it! No one thinks they need God, so they go their own way, making ALL kinds of trouble!! You name it!! Jesus taught peace. True peace. And love. Abiding love. With everyone out for themselves it's no wonder we have such turmoil!

So know that you are, no matter what, religious. The question is: What is it that you believe in? A creator of heaven and earth, and beauty, and love, and sweetness, and nectar, and life, and you?
Or nothing?

Answer 3

First of all in order to answer your question you have to separate the belief in God and Religion. One doesn't always follow the other. I do believe in God but have big problems with organized religions. Anytime I look around and see things that cannot be created by man but by nature, that is proof to me that there is a god.
Your second part of the question about intelligently designed is a very good one. You know we do have a brain and we are supposed to use it and think about issues like that. Problem is that maybe just maybe our brain doesn't have the capacity to understand how the world was created. For instance can a house cat make up a good bowl of chilli? Of course not and I suspect we aren't permitted to know everything that we think we should know because of our own limitations. If this is true then we just assume that we have a lack of intelligaence but there is something or someone out there that does know everything.
I see a miracle in everything living and in everything that I can't create.

Answer 4

Well, it comes down to whether any proposed argument against God is any more likely than the arguments for God. The only argument that truly holds any water is the fact that we have not yet recorded conclusive physical evidence for the existence of God. This is the only objective argument against God.

The only objective argument FOR God, in my opinion, is the scientific principles of matter, and the fact that matter must necessarily exist in time, and that everything extant must come from something previous. At some point, when moving back to even the remotest, most primitive particle, that one particle had to come from somewhere or something, and evolution can only provide an asymptotic solution to the problem, infinitely approaching a beginning but never actually reaching it. A divine argument, where one being or source is the basis for all others, allows for a "beginning" of finite matter. Although we may not have physical evidence for it, such an argument allows us to reach just one step further back than evolution and the Big Bang. Thus, for me, it is ever so slightly more probable.

Answer 5

Yes, God answers my prayers. That still small voice of peace, love, and understanding. Take a look around, a big blast could never place in order the alignment of the planets and stars and hold them all together in place. All forming and doing a job to work together. I've seen devils prayed out of people, people healed, plus my self was saved by God from two car wrecks (1) we rolled a mustang 5 times, do 120mph. (2) drunk out of our heads we drove on the interstate highway and ran up under the back wheels of a Simi truck. The paramedics pronounced me dead. Soon as the wreck happened, my mom awoke from sleep with the need to pray very badly, she didn't know why or for what, but she prayed and God saved me that day also. These are real true miracles. God loves you, you should love Him back.

Answer 6

Hello,

I do not consider myself a "religious person" but I do believe in a higher power and intelligent design.

No, I do not nor have I ever heard the voice of God. I do not believe he speaks to us directly. Anyone who says they heard him is a nutjob.

I think that what we hear is our intuition, which is different from instinct.

The fact that we fall in love, that we can feel physical pleasure from emotional roots, the fact that we are all so deeply and obviously connected... means there is something more that we're not aware of.

The Bible is mostly allegorical, and people distort it and take it dangerously too literally.

Organized religion is a complete mess.

I do not know if I believe in "miracles" you would normally think of, other than the miracles of birth and death. Birth is a pretty cool one, though, I must say. The fact that the sun continues to rise and set.. there's a miracle.

Answer 7

I'm not super religious, but when my son was born he was born with a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. It's basically just a freak thing that happens. His stomach, spleen and intestines were in his chest cavity, which prevented his left lung from growing to full capacity and pushed his heart over. Most children born with this do not make it and the ones that do have problems as an extension of that. Looking at my son you would NEVER know he almost didn't live. I was not religious before he was born...but when your child is born with something that threatens his life you start praying, even if you never did. I can assure you that the ONLY thing that saved my son were the prayers. We were living in Japan at the time (my husband is in the military) and the base we were at could not care for him, so he was sent to a Japanese hospital where he stayed for over a month. The base held service to pray for him, our family prayed, our friends, strangers....it was unreal! He is truely a walking, breathing miracle!

Answer 8

I am responding to your questions, though I don't know if I meet your criteria (a religious person). I am a member of the Society of Friends (Quakers), though my views aren't necessarily those of other Quakers. To me, prayer is my opening my mind and heart to the present moment, in inner and outer silence. It doesn't involve asking for anything, only being. I see all that exists, has existed, or will exist as intricately and inextricably interconnected. God (probably we need another word, as this one has so much baggage) is that in which we are, not a person-like all powerful all knowing being somewhere out there who pulls strings and favors some over others. As to miracles, yes! When I am truly open to the present moment, and when I respond to what is before me, marvelous "coincidences" occur. This is as much a part of everyday life as breathing. When I "follow" in this way, people I need to meet or who need to meet me just turn up. Ways open that need to open. I don't regard these everyday miracles as worked by some divine being, but maybe by the divinity in which we are all immersed and of which we are all a part. I do feel it necessary to add, though you didn't ask, that I don't think anyone is favored by the divine more than anyone else, and also how your life is going is unrelated to being in this divine soup we are in. "Saints" can and do have awful things happen to them. People aren't punished or rewarded for their behavior by an outside force.

Answer 9

- you dont actually hear his voice. he answers it in his way. even if it wasnt exactly the answer you were looking for, he answers them, he knows what's best.

- well god designed the earth, and well he knows what he was doing, so you just know...

- many different things can be a mirical, and they dont have to be big and grand. like the birth of a child, what a mirical that that person can have a life.

religion is very good. you wont regret it. i am part of the mormon lds church, and i know people make fun of us and stuff, but i strongly recommend it. you get the religion and the fun.
i hope i answered some of your questions... :D

Answer 10

Answer to prayers? eh. Usually you get your effects through life's serendipitous arrangments.
The fact that we respond to the 'beauiful and very complex' array in a viceral and universally human response. I see no reason for this other than to foster these ideas on faith, philosophy, etc.
Miracle: All around us.