How do you know God is real?

Are you willing to say that you could be wrong. That God could just be merely a crutch?

I am. I think that makes my faith stronger.

(PS- I am sorry the gigantic literal velvet hand must have destroyed your house)

In one of my theology classes (Science and Religion) my conservative evangelical proff (triple PhD, evolutionist, creationist) and most of the class (including atheists) called a Dawkins-esque atheist on the statement that he "knows there is no god".

 

I was there....wide awake.

You weren't.

If God were a crutch, it's not a very good one. Crutches are supposed to make life easier. It's all about the faith.


-

 

No difference, really, between hearing real people's voices and hearing the voice of God.

 

crutches only make life easier if you use them...and only if you need them, not want them.

 

Perhaps god is good, it gives people a sense of purpose beyond that of themselves or even the physical universe, which really people want to think they don't need, but they do, otherwise you wind up with the nihilist culture that we have growing around us.

 

i agree mad, one of my best friends has just become enlightend. He does so much good as far as helping people and just a kind soul. Not to say he couldnt do it with out believeing but that helps him feel as if he has a greater purpose in life

and as far as believeing in god i just look around and think there had to be a creator. i dont think anyone is goining to persuade someone one way or the other tho.

 

yet


-

 

It isn't about proof. I can't explain what I've experienced in a scientific manner, because it goes beyond human reasoning. That's also why the way God is said to be, even by Christians, is a broken, or at best incomplete image, looked at through the lens of our cultures, upbringings, etc. And in fact, human reasoning in general is flawed because of the same lens. No one sees the world in the same way, so what's logical to one person may seem utterly simplistic to another.

 

I would rather walk on my own accord than use a crutch

 

So would most people with crippling disabilities.

 

Say guys...

How come they locked the " Bible Questions?" thread?

JusWonderin


-

 

They stopped it because it reached 2000 posts, but they started another one.

 

Imo, religion needs to be illegal. I think everybody would be happier and better off this way.

 

I was under the impression that you don't know that God is real, which is why religion involved faith...

 

Well, according to the Bible that would bring on Armageddon.....

 

I am a history and biology major...and strangely I find that my biology classes generally reaffirm my faith while my history classes make me question it. I see God in science but if I am looking at almost any religion in history a reasonable explanation is that the people needed it to explain things that they could not.

Regardless of this, I still believe that God is there. I do not know all the specifics...organized religion has tarnished faith with human interpretation. I figure that I will never know the answers on Earth therefore it is pointless to dwell on them. Maybe it is the easy way out...but why discuss the problem of evil when it is literally impossible to reconcile it with the knowledge base we have?

I recently read St. Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles and found a lot of great insights in it. One point that made sense was that as a human we instinctively search for a higher being...instincts, as a rule, exist to promote survival. Therefore, mankind's instinctive search for God is survival mechanism...for eternal life.

I find religion a matter of convenience. People pick and choose what to believe depending on many factors including upbringing and lifestyle. I still find it fulfilling to pursue a relationship with God...even though I have to acknowledge it may to hard for me to understand the world without God...

So basically I am confused...but I kind of like it that way

 

All of us are confused. The fact that you recognize your confusion makes you less confused than others. The ones who issue confident pronouncements about God and the nature of reality are the most confused of all.

 

God would be a cold and distant God if he didn't interact with his people and pinpoint to his existence.

If God created the universe and left it alone, then that would be the deistic view of God. This view of God makes God uncaring. That's not to say that God does or doesn't exist. That could just very well be the nature of God.

If God existed and has and still does care then he would interact with his people. If this kind of God existed then it would make sense to me that he would reveal his intentions for us and would not want us to be confused. This kind of confusion would be equivilent to a bad parent that neglects teach good habits to their children.

So if God interacts with us in ways other than outlined throughout world religions, then I would ask why hasn't this God made himself known in some way discernible to us? Unless his ways were not meant to be discernible to us, at least not outright, then what would his intentions be? What would this God's intentions be for allowing us to feel confused and not know of his existence if he did care for us?

Either God is caring and wants us to know how we should lead our lives or he isn't caring and does not care whether or not we know or God doesn't exist at all because otherwise why would God design death and disease into his creation? If such a God existed, then that would lead me to believe that such a God was malevolent and such a prospect would be more terrifying than a universe built upon neutral forces of metaphysical naturalism. At least with the later, I could accept the primal forces in nature and become at peace with it because I know that it is without sentience and isn't trying to harm me. But with the former consequence, acceptance would not do me any good because such a sentience would know how to prolong my torment under his tyrannical and evil grips despite my motivations to do otherwise.

 

I believe in God because it makes more sense than not believing in God. We did not create ourselves. And if human beings are the highest form of beings, then why don't we know all the answers? To me, it is logical that there is something greater than ourselves.

 

One just needs to look around to know he exists. If our sun were a bit closer or further away we couldn't exist. If the earths axis was just off a bit we couldn't exist.
The air we breath, salt in the oceans...... just way too many things had to be perfect for us to survive on this planet. These things didn't happen by chance.... the odds would be impossible to understand.
Look at it this way..... take your watch apart.. every piece and put it in a box. Now shake the box and open it up. Is your watch back together? Nope. Now do it again over and over again until it is put back together. It will never happen. The same thing goes for the earth and humans....... the odds of us existing without a higher power are the same as your watch coming back together in one piece. IMO