eowynn

The thing that finally made me question my belief, the thing that I finally could not reconcile was this: Why do I belive in God? I have asked my Christian friends, and they have not had any good answers to give me. So far, I have come up with these options:

1) A person is so indoctrinated with Xianity that they cannot get it out of their heads.

2) A person has had some sort of religious experience in which they "saw the results of prayer" or something along those lines. These experiences can be linked to many other scientific explanations which are more plausible than "God heard my prayer and answered it."

3) A person is afraid of punishment/wants rewards. This is a horrible reason for believing in any religion. You should not believe in something just becuase you fear punishment or want rewards. That is an extremely selfish reason to believe in a god(s).

So, for any people out there with strong religious beliefs, please give me a good reason to believe. I have nothing against the faithful, as long as they have a good reason to believe as they do. So far, I have found nothing.

theophilus

You can't know anything unless you assume God's existence and his self-revelation in Scripture.
How's that?

daemon

Put up or shut up, theo.

Slayer Moon

I can vouch for all three of these:

1. I was raised to resist such indoctrination through critical thought. Though I'm from a Roman Catholic family, we were never devout.

2. I never had any results from prayer because I have too much pride to grovel to imaginary beings. I do remember seeing one "result from prayer" on National Lampoon's Animal House, when a boy sees a woman hurtled into his bedroom window and cheers "thank you god". That one's classic!

3. God's nonexistence is logically provable. Given that god is omnipotent, he can do anything, even making a rock so big that he can't lift it, but then he can't lift it and is thus not omnipotent. And if he is omnipotent, he sould be able to lift any rock, and so creating a rock that he can't lift is another thing he can't do. So, omnipotence is impossible, and thus god, being omnipotent by definition, does not exist. Case closed! So given that simple logic blows god right out of the water, why should I worry about the Sky Bully making a souffle outta me just because I don't obey some silly list of thou-shalt-nots?

Slayer Moon

First, there are logical reasons against assuming god's existence, because god's nonexistence is provable. It's folly to assume what has been proven false.

Second, humans wrote Scripture.

Third, that's stupid! You have been indoctrinated into believing such nonsense!

WWSD

I was once told "because of the bible."
Obviously a stupid reason. One believes in god because the bible says to. One believes in the bible because god "wrote" it.
I believe in jelly because of peanut butter. I believe in peanut butter because of jelly. Together they make a sandwich. Thus there must be a god.
I was also once told that "everything" is evidence of god. Even Ebola? Nice god you have there that makes Ebola. That shuts some of them up. But not all of them.
Prayer and divine evidences also do not cut it. Why does god answer some people who genuinly seek him, yet ignores others who genuinly seek him. Knee jerk answer, you didn't try hard enough. This from xtians who are clearly omnipotnent and know everything. Otherwise how could they know? Well, you didn't find god did you, you must not have tried hard enough. Dumb. I can try all day to start a car with no gas in the tank. The harder I try, the nowherer I'm going to get. If something just isn't there, you're not going to find it no matter how hard you try. Xtians that give me this answer are the type who will push the empty-gas-tank-having-car down a hill and say "Look, there must be gas in the tank, you just didn't try to start it hard enough."
Why beleive in god? Where do you get your moral structure from? Believe in god and you are always going to be morally right. So does that include killing the innocent in god's name?
I, personally, have found no reason to believe in god, therefor I have no god belief.

theophilus

Oh yeah? Well you're stupid and your mother dresses you funny, so that proves you're wrong.

theophilus

You are mistaken. You have asserted your own infallibility, thereby making yourself god.

Mad Kally

Oh yeah? Well you still believe in childhood myths. God is Santa for adults, so that proves you're wrong.

Tercel

Um... yes...
Well I hate to burst your bubble here but your simple logic's not quite so simple after all - in fact: it's not valid.
Have you heard of something called Russell's Paradox and self referencing systems?

Here's an example of Russell's Paradox as it applies to set theory.
We can define a set as just any collection which meets a specific criteria.
A = {1, 2, 3}
B = {2, 4, A}
Here A is the set which contains the numbers 1, 2 and 3; and B is the set which contains the numbers 2, 4 and the set A. Now, we note that sets might contain themselves:
C = {A, B, C}
D = {all possible sets}
Such sets are called self referencing.
Russell's paradox is a set such that:
X = {All sets which are not self referencing}
Is X self referencing?
If X is self referencing, then by the definition of X it can't contain itself and is therefore not self referencing. If X is not self referencing, then by the definition of X it does contain itself and therefore is self referencing. -Russell's Paradox
What does this actually teach us? -That self referencing systems may in some cases be logically illegal.
What does this have to do with anything? Simply this: The question "Can God create a rock so big he can't lift it?" is self referencing. Thus your conclusion that God does not exist is invalid: It could equally be that the question itself is invalid.

Or, if you're stubborn and think I'm playing logic-tricks with the above, then try this: Define omnipotence as the ability to do anything logically possible. (As St Thomas Aqinas wrote: "Nothing which implies contradiction falls under the omnipotence of God") God making a rock so big he can't lift it etc is not logically possible for omnipotence since God can lift a rock of any size.

Tercel