Garnet

Asimus created a thread called something like Atheists...why don't you believe in God? (Mods...please post the thread link...I don't know how.)

The responses have been very interesting. Now I pose the question...theists...why do you believe in god/goddess/gods/godesses?

Rules all...this thread isn't about debate of beliefs..of how a person is wrong or right. It's about what a person has to say about beliefs.

why? Because I'm a nosy wench.

woodheart

That is bad.

You should be ashamed of your self

Garnet

I know Wood...first I'm the threadkiller, then I'm the typo queen...and then the blank thread poster. *sigh*

all joking aside...I would like to read why theists believe.

woodheart

when I posted I saw nothing there. my bad

Dean Anderson

With pleasure....

She's talking about this thread.

converted

Looks like I am the first to answer from the theist view, so here goes:

Five Main Reasons For Me:
====================
1) Parents Beliefs: My parents were Christian and they brought me to church from early on. The religious values of parents generally gets passed on. My parents are good, grounded, level headed, moral, spiritual people, and I like their qualities.

2) UFO Encounter: In 1969 when I was 5, my entire family had an encounter with a UFO that lasted 30 minutes. It was saucer shaped, 40-50 feet tall, 100 feet across, glowing orange, and hovered silently for 30 minues less than 300 yards from our house. After landing once it hovered again and then flew away. That experience cast doubts in me about man's knowledge of the universe from a very young age. I am now an engineer who studied science all my life and this UFO sighting does not make sense given our current understanding of science. So, as many agnostics and atheists point to scientific knowledge as evidence that the Bible is incorrect in various places, I make the counter-observation that our knowledge of the universe is lacking.

3) First hand encounter with Spiritual World: I have has two encounters with spirits/ghosts in my life. In both cases, I did not see them, but I clearly heard voices. One could write that off as hallucination or mental illness on my part, but on the second occasion my wife witnesses the same event and we both heard the voice speak for a full 7 seconds a complete, clear sentence. Those two incidents proved to me personally that the spiritual world exists.

4) Conversion with Answers to Prayer: I like many persons that post on this board had many doubts and questions about the validity of religion. Between the ages of 16 and 36 I did not go to church because of my questions (e.g. why does Genesis in the Bible have so many conflicts with scientific knowledge (7 days creation, global flood,...)?, Since only 1/4 of the worlds population is Christian, how and why is Christianity correct of is there some tie between all religions?, etc...). I always felt like there was a God, but I had too many questions. I started going back to church when I was 36 because it was a positive influence on my life when I was a kid. I figured as a mnimum, church would establish a good basis of moral character in my children and then when they got older they could make decisions about what to believe just as I had made. One thing led to another and both my wife and I got drawn in. We both experienced a transformation from cautious skepticism to a point in which we saw prayers being answered, etc... Things that we would have believed to be Deja Vu expereinces or "odd coincidences" in the past were now occurring in conjunction with prayer. Most people would write off a series of "unrelated coincidences", but when I/we saw a repeated pattern over time tied with prayer we realized that God was interacting with us. I feel as though my life has improved due to my last four years of growth in the church.

5) Balancing Contradictions: I juggled the 4 major topics defined above around in my head and concluded the following:

a) Man does not know all that much about the universe. Our scientific knowledge is based on the dimensions that we physically experience and our general understanding of our planet as it applies and extends to the whole universe. Questions we will likely not answer in my lifetime include (a) what is outside the universe?, (b) what was here before the big bang?, (c) do other dimensions exist?, (d) is there life on other planets?, (e) what is dark energy and dark matter?, (f) etc...

b) The Bible does not have to be taken literally in all chapters. Some stories are likely parables (7 days creation, original sin, Noah's ark, Jonah and teh whale,...). The universe can be 20 billion years old. Dinosours existed and died off. Evolution likely occurs. However, the Bible does not lose meaning. The Bible is approximately 2000 pages long depending on the version, but there are trillions of pages of text in other books, periodicals, etc... The Bible does not have to have trillions of pages to be more meaningful. So in my opinion, whether God created man from dust or evolved us from Monkeys, it does not really matter to me.

c) I personally believe that the New Testament is historically accurate and Jesus was a real. I still think there may be some type of tie between all religions, but I personally am sticking with Christianity because I am familiar with it and because I have had prayers answered and feel there has been personal evidence of it's truth. I don't have enough time in my life to ponder all of the religious beliefs of the world and pick the exact right set of beliefs. I beleive that God will be happy if I live via the Christian belief system even if it is a "subset" of some ultimate belief system with ties between all religions.

Bottomline:
========
I am the first to admit that there are numerous contradictions between science and Christianity and there is a lack of physical evidence that God exists and is interacting with us daily. However, I have had personal experiences that I can't ignore or discount. It is not sufficent proof for most people on this board, but it is sufficient proof for me.

OK - start tearing me apart....

Nasreddin

Not a doubloon? Or even an escudo?

DinoStoned

We didn't evolve from monkeys, we have a common evolutionary ancestor.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Kassiana

I'm a liberal Pagan theist. I believe in Gods based on my subjective spiritual experiences. What I believe about the Gods comes mostly from what makes sense to me. I acknowledge the (necessarily) subjective nature of my beliefs. However, since I believe there is no punishment for anyone who believes differently than I, I don't try to convert anyone else and ask that no one try to convert me, either.

Plognark

I think you're safe, converted

Mods will probably enforce this heavily, since it looks like there's been lots of bickering lately, and some people (theists and non-theists) have been banned for generally being insulting assholes.