Why should people believe in God?
- Thread starter wynn
- Start date
As there is no purpose shown for the cosmos, or even if some people retreat to "can't possibly know", then we are still all free to make whatever meaning we choose out of our existence, as existence, in addition, must ever take priority over essence, but for SciForum discussions, since it is ever present, we having been thrust into it… and so it is that one can choose to believe in God for reasons of comfort.
I think it would be better to say;
"Because they might need something to belive in, or they might not believe in themselves."
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
Just because we cannot see God through either a telescope or a microscope is no reason to assume that he does not exist.
This is not the thrust of the question.
Why good will it do me to search and find God?
What benefit is there for me in believing in God?
What will I really lose if I don't believe in God?
In short being unconditioned is a prerequisite for getting free from conditioned life - not meeting that grade simply means one will be decked with any of the millions of life in the pursuit of (ephemeral) desire
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Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
1. According to CS Lewis, you will find joy, unlike any other joy you've experienced before on this earth. Any happiness, any enjoyable sensation, they will all fail to match the joy from one's connection with God. It isn't easily attained, and it requires faith and acts to maintain, but it is well worth it.
2. Aside from the spiritual benefits, will could constitute a whole other thread, let's focus on the more temporal aspects. First, there is a peace you receive. You have your faith in the Lord, and you trust that He will guide us, give us strength, and urge us to gain salvation. Additionally, you gain direction to your life. You now have what God asks of you as a compass in decision making. Whereas you may have done some immoral or less-than-noble action in the past out of self-interest, you will now act (God-willing) in accordance with what the Lord has commanded us to do. Lastly, you will join a community of believers who share similar interests, have faced similar struggles, and can help you, through prayer and action, when times are tough. However, I want to stress that NONE of these reasons are sufficient to 'justify' a belief in God. One must truly seek God for the right reasons - these are just things that happen as a result. For if you seek the temporal, you will not gain the eternal.
3. You won't really 'lose' anything in that sense. If you were a believer and stopped believing, you never actually lose anything (well, other than a loving relationship with God and the chances of salvation, but even that isn't lost forever). You can ignore it, try to run from it, denounce it, detest it, do whatever you want with it. But once you know and believe in the truth, it will always be the truth to you, no matter how hard you try to convince yourself otherwise.
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
There's no convincing reason that I know of why people should.
I don't feel any guilt over my own failure to believe, nor do I feel like I'm shirking my religious responsibilities or anything.
Of course, if I instead believed that God exists, then I'd probably respond that it's best to believe in important truths, especially ones that are as transcendentally important as God - when our very salvation depends on it. Or whatever it is that my tradition had taught me to think.
But I don't believe in God, so the 'why should' question is kind of a non-issue for me.
A similar question that I am intellectually engaged with is the -- 'why do people believe in God' question. There's no longer any suggestion that people are in any way obligated to believe in God. But the fact remains that throughout history most people have indeed believed in God, or in gods or spirits or heavenly powers of many sorts, and that's something that still needs to be explained.
That's why I'm interested in things like the emerging cognitive science of religion.
Mind Over Matter
Registered Senior Member
I believe in God because the life, death and teaching of Jesus reflect the fact that everything we consider most precious on earth - truth, goodness, freedom, justice, beauty and love - converge in the reality of one loving Father in heaven. It's as simple as that! The alternative is a barren, empty, meaningless desert of futility...
i think it's actually very simple and obvious. it's because of the conscious, emotional and cerebral aspects of life which can't be concretely seen at all times but experienced.
it's the essence of life is why people use terms like spirits. some need something more concrete so define it as a entity called god etc.
I suppose that you, however, do believe in justice, love, truthfulness, beauty, inquiry, ... and that you also feel some measure of necessity or obligation to believe in these things - right?
(According to some religious traditions, believing in these is an indirect belief in God, since God is understood as being the source of these things.)
Those are parts of human nature... I don't know why you need a personification for them...
I don't think believing is a choice, but if one makes the choice, then
the reason becomes the individuals.
jan.
People find those qualities without the teaching of Jesus, and would not
doubt find your analasys of the ''the alternative'' an insult to them.
Don't you think you're being quite arrogant?
jan.
I believe in karma. I believe in good actions and good reactions. I believe a religion can be centered around a set of good ethics that are true and unchangable over time.
I believe there is good and bad in the world and most of it is bad. But there is good in the world too and it's admirable to follow that path.
And I believe there is a God behind it all.
It is possible to consider that we are working our way towards immortal thought- to transferring or creating immortal machines that are our higher functions that live on for million of years. In this case we're all the Play-Dough that will ultimately become a permanent sentient prescence in the universe.
What would be better than being able to live a billion or more years and travel the universe in your thought machine?
I believe there is good and bad in the world and most of it is bad. But there is good in the world too and it's admirable to follow that path.
And I believe there is a God behind it all.
It is possible to consider that we are working our way towards immortal thought- to transferring or creating immortal machines that are our higher functions that live on for million of years. In this case we're all the Play-Dough that will ultimately become a permanent sentient prescence in the universe.
What would be better than being able to live a billion or more years and travel the universe in your thought machine?
Of course we could possibly do all that anyway without supernatural help.
False dichotomy. Has a lot of assumptions, the main one being that the god is the christian one.
The Atheist's Wager is better, as it covers all bases, and only fails if you have a god that isn't benevolent, in which case you were probably in trouble anyway.
Yes i kinda agree. BUT you can use Pascal's Wager for something. Namely to find out which religion is the best one to choose game mechanically. The right religion to pick (as they all have the same chance of being right), would be the one with most to gain by believing it and most to loose by being non believer.
I don't understand this.
What do you mean by "then the reason becomes the individuals"?
For example saying "I believe in God for my own sake"?