How are people so sure of god?

Question

I am a christan but how do we know there is a god? Christanity isnt the oldest religion. For all we know the prophets could have made all that stuff up for fame, and where is the proof that god actually existed?

Answer 1

Here's how to know. A man who loves the truth will search.
those who seek the truth receive a gift from God called faith.
Through faith comes revelation and a personal relationship with God.

Answer 2

'Faith' is probably the stupidest answer you could possibly have received. Having faith just means believing in something without evidence, so as an answer to a question about why people believe, it's just absurd.
In reality, the reason most people are so sure of their religion is because they were indoctrinated as children and taught that the Bible (or another 'holy' text) is unquestionable fact.

And I doubt whether there's a single person on the planet who decided to follow a certain religion because of an argument like Aristotle's. For a start, it's completely illogical. It begins with an unjustified assumption (that everything has a creator), and reaches a conclusion which isn't even consistent with that assumption. Secondly, it's an argument for a first cause, not for an intelligent god. There are many arguments like this one, and the only people who give them any credit are those who already agree with the conclusion (i.e. the existence of a god) before they hear the argument.

Answer 3

Yes faith but also logic.

Here is one philisophical explanation for the existence of God. It actually finds it's origins with the Philosopher Aristotle.
He called it the "Unmoved Mover"
The idea is this.
1. Everything has a creator (mover)
-i.e. you have a mom and dad
2. Since everything has a creator than as far back as you can go there must be a pre-creator (mover)
3. Thus you will go back for infiniti
4. Thus in time you will never get to this point. There is no beginning thus it doesn't make sense that we got here.
5. Thus there must be an ultimate beginning
6. A Creator that didn't need to be created.(an unmoved mover)

This argument for the existence for God doesn't make it all clear. We still ask, how did the unmoved mover get there? The Answer is difficult to swallow, He just was there.

It doesn't make perfect sense, But it makes more sense than the alternative. That God had a God before him that created him and that Being had a being that created him............to infiniti and beyond.
To Paraphrase Aristotle: it makes more sense to have an unmoved mover than to only have moved movers, that would be impossible.

Answer 4

You cannot know; no one can know - at least not when ‘knowledge’ (as opposed to belief) is defined to be objective, independent (of human desires or intentions), verifiable, and based only on the observation and analysis of empirical data found in the physical universe.

But, congratulations on having the brains to know what you do not know and the intellectual courage to ask the question.

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Q -

You cannot claim that everything has a creator (#1) and then claim that no creator created the creator (#6).

As for Aristotle: he believed that (1) everything on earth (actually, everything below the moon‘s orbit) was made of earth, water, fire, and air; (2) that the universe was finite and in the shape of a perfect sphere; (3) with the earth at the center, and; (4) the stars was the boundary marking the end of the universe.

Answer 5

2 words. "faith" and "experience". You need the faith for the first step. Then, if God is real (and cared), you will experience His goodness in your life. Just make sure you take the first step and let God into your life, or else you can't in any way experience Him for yourself.

Romans 5:1
1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

this is one on salvation, which is, quite frankly, the greatest blessing. And you can't have salvation without faith. And once you have been saved and justified...

Romans 5:5b
...because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

only then can you experience the love of God!

Revelations 3:20
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

Jesus is already knocking at the door of your heart! Let Him in! Only then can He become your personal Saviour, Counselor, Friend...

and regarding the proof of the existence of God...

Romans 1:20
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

The whole of creation bears witness to His existence!
(which may bring up another massive debate with evolutionists...but ah well, the rest of the passage in that section of the Bible deals with them =)

and your other question....

2 Peter 1:21
For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

preempted and shot down almost 2000 years in advance =) and frankly, no sane person would want to be a prophet....church tradition as well as the Bible tells us that most of them were well hated and killed...(tradition says that Isaiah got stuffed into a hollow log and sawed into 2...not pretty, to say the least)(Jesus summed up the fate of His prophets, and Himself, with the parable recorded in Matthew 21:33-41)

still looking for God? Don't be afraid to do the research!

Luke 11:9
And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

so...

Isaiah 55:6
Seek ye the LORD while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

"work out your own salvation with fear and trembling" for "behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation."

Answer 6

Matthew 24:4


4Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one deceives you. 5For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I am the Christ,[a]' and will deceive many. 6You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. 7Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. 8All these are the beginning of birth pains.

9"Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. 10At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, 11and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. 12Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, 13but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. 14And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.


This is all happening already. So he is real. The Father, The son, The Holy Ghost, Jesus, God.. ARE ONE!

the reason i say they are one, because someone might say, But thats Jesus who said that, not God.

Answer 7

They are not`t so sure, have you ever heard of a thing called "Faith?"
This is what people use to believe in something that`s uncertain.
If everybody knew for a fact that God exists, what would be the need for faith?
I`m not saying faith is a good thing as a matter of fact I think it`s quite the opposite. It clogs the thinking minds cognitive process from analyzing problems critically.

Answer 8

PROVING THE EXISTENCE OF ALLAH (SWT)TO AN ATHEIST by Dr. Zakir Naik
CONGRATULATING AN ATHEIST
Normally, when I meet an atheist, the first thing I like to do is to congratulate him and say, " My special congratulations to you", because most of the people who believe in God are doing blind belief - he is a Christian, because his father is a Christian; he is a Hindu, because his father is a Hindu; the majority of the people in the world are blindly following the religion of their fathers. An atheist, on the other hand, even though he may belong to a religious family, uses his intellect to deny the existence of God; what ever concept or qualities of God he may have learnt in his religion may not seem to be logical to him.
My Muslim brothers may question me, "Zakir, why are you congratulating an atheist?" The reason that I am congratulating an atheist is because he agrees with the first part of the Shahada i.e. the Islamic Creed, ‘La ilaaha’ - meaning ‘there is no God’. So half my job is already done; now the only part left is ‘il lallah’ i.e. ‘BUT ALLAH’ which I shall do Insha Allah. With others (who are not atheists) I have to first remove from their minds the wrong concept of God they may have and then put the correct concept of one true God.
LOGICAL CONCEPT OF GOD
My first question to the atheist will be: "What is the definition of God?" For a person to say there is no God, he should know what is the meaning of God. If I hold a book and say that ‘this is a pen’, for the opposite person to say, ‘it is not a pen’, he should know what is the definition of a pen, even if he does not know nor is able to recognise or identify the object I am holding in my hand. For him to say this is not a pen, he should at least know what a pen means. Similarly for an atheist to say ‘there is no God’, he should at least know the concept of God. His concept of God would be derived from the surroundings in which he lives. The god that a large number of people worship has got human qualities - therefore he does not believe in such a god. Similarly a Muslim too does not and should not believe in such false gods.
If a non-Muslim believes that Islam is a merciless religion with something to do with terrorism; a religion which does not give rights to women; a religion which contradicts science; in his limited sense that non-Muslim is correct to reject such Islam. The problem is he has a wrong picture of Islam. Even I reject such a false picture of Islam, but at the same time, it becomes my duty as a Muslim to present the correct picture of Islam to that non-Muslim i.e. Islam is a merciful religion, it gives equal rights to the women, it is not incompatible with logic, reason and science; if I present the correct facts about Islam, that non-Muslim may Inshallah accept Islam.
Similarly the atheist rejects the false gods and the duty of every Muslim is to present the correct concept of God which he shall Insha Allah not refuse.

(You may refer to my article, ‘Concept of God in Islam’, for more details)
QUR’AN AND MODERN SCIENCE
The methods of proving the existence of God with usage of the material provided in the ‘Concept of God in Islam’ to an atheist may satisfy some but not all.
Many atheists demand a scientific proof for the existence of God. I agree that today is the age of science and technology. Let us use scientific knowledge to kill two birds with one stone, i.e. to prove the existence of God and simultaneously prove that the Qur’an is a revelation of God.
If a new object or a machine, which no one in the world has ever seen or heard of before, is shown to an atheist or any person and then a question is asked, " Who is the first person who will be able to provide details of the mechanism of this unknown object? After little bit of thinking, he will reply, ‘the creator of that object.’ Some may say ‘the producer’ while others may say ‘the manufacturer.’ What ever answer the person gives, keep it in your mind, the answer will always be either the creator, the producer, the manufacturer or some what of the same meaning, i.e. the person who has made it or created it. Don’t grapple with words, whatever answer he gives, the meaning will be same, therefore accept it.
SCIENTIFIC FACTS MENTIONED IN THE QUR’AN: for details on this subject please refer to my book, ‘THE QUR’AN AND MODERN SCIENCE – COMPATIBLE OR INCOMPATIBLE?
THEORY OF PROBABILITY
In mathematics there is a theory known as ‘Theory of Probability’. If you have two options, out of which one is right, and one is wrong, the chances that you will chose the right one is half, i.e. one out of the two will be correct. You have 50% chances of being correct. Similarly if you toss a coin the chances that your guess will be correct is 50% (1 out of 2) i.e. 1/2. If you toss a coin the second time, the chances that you will be correct in the second toss is again 50% i.e. half. But the chances that you will be correct in both the tosses is half multiplied by half (1/2 x 1/2) which is equal to 1/4 i.e. 50% of 50% which is equal to 25%. If you toss a coin the third time, chances that you will be correct all three times is (1/2 x 1/2 x 1/2) that is 1/8 or 50% of 50% of 50% that is 12½%.
A dice has got six sides. If you throw a dice and guess any number between 1 to 6, the chances that your guess will be correct is 1/6. If you throw the dice the second time, the chances that your guess will be correct in both the throws is (1/6 x 1/6) which is equal to 1/36. If you throw the dice the third time, the chances that all your three guesses are correct is (1/6 x 1/6 x 1/6) is equal to 1/216 that is less than 0.5 %.
Let us apply this theory of probability to the Qur’an, and assume that a person has guessed all the information that is mentioned in the Qur’an which was unknown at that time. Let us discuss the probability of all the guesses being simultaneously correct. At the time when the Qur’an was revealed, people thought the world was flat, there are several other options for the shape of the earth. It could be triangular, it could be quadrangular, pentagonal, hexagonal, heptagonal, octagonal, spherical, etc. Lets assume there are about 30 different options for the shape of the earth. The Qur’an rightly says it is spherical, if it was a guess the chances of the guess being correct is 1/30.
The light of the moon can be its own light or a reflected light. The Qur’an rightly says it is a reflected light. If it is a guess, the chances that it will be correct is 1/2 and the probability that both the guesses i.e the earth is spherical and the light of the moon is reflected light is 1/30 x 1/2 = 1/60.
Further, the Qur’an also mentions every living thing is made of water. Every living thing can be made up of either wood, stone, copper, aluminum, steel, silver, gold, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, oil, water, cement, concrete, etc. The options are say about 10,000. The Qur’an rightly says that everything is made up of water. If it is a guess, the chances that it will be correct is 1/10,000 and the probability of all the three guesses i.e. the earth is spherical, light of moon is reflected light and everything is created from water being correct is 1/30 x 1/2 x 1/10,000 = 1/60,000 which is equal to about .0017%.

Answer 9

The proof lies in everything around you. How could we possibly be here without some type of God or Heavenly being? I believe that deja vu gives us a glimpse of something that we had already seen before.

Answer 10

Because you exists. What created the universe? What created the thing taht created the universe? And so on...only explanation is that there is a Creator that existed from the very beginning though that is too complicated to be absorbed by the human mind.