# Why believe in "a" God? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 29, 2005, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967 "2005-09-29T02:32:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/61 "2005-09-29T19:26:29Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Only thing I can say to you is read up on the things you want to post on. Applying that “advice” to you would indicate that you should be prohibited from posting on evolution, the philosophy of science, U.S. history, and several other topics. You have gotten into the bad habit, in the last few weeks, of telling other people to do things “before they post.” You will stop doing that. If you have a point, make it. You are not to tell other people what to do–particularly since it is an “order” that you have clearly never followed, yourself. [/Moderator Mode] ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/62 "2005-09-29T19:36:38Z")
Thank you all. I did not “up and vanish” or anything. I have a job and subsequently was quite busy all day. I’ll catch up on reading the thread later. Yes, I’m new and learning. No, I’m not trying to be flippant. No, I didn’t intend disrespect. Yes, I will use the search button. I had a few beers to drink last night before posting – nothing overly exorbitant – but perhaps I have learned a lesson in self restraint and thinking twice before posting. I enjoy these forums. To those who would have me pitted, please give me a chance. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/63 "2005-09-29T19:46:44Z")
> [@Spatial Rift 47](#): > > Therefore, groups based around things other than the divine and the supernatural can (not that they always do, just that they can) fulfill the same function. In reality, many people use both. I agree with you. Family and friends (including various clubs and religious affiliations) function as support groups. People tend to identify with and reach out to friends and family in difficult times and therefore are less likely to commit suicide. But what **lekatt** proposes (I think) is that religious groups tend to suffer lesser incidences of suicide than exclusively non religious groups. I’m saying that this is a difficult thing to prove as I’ve seen no statistic to support this. Not that there aren’t statistics, just that I’ve not seen them. It’s also fair to note that **lekatt’s** assertions are equally wrong for the same reason. Members of a religious group may not be committing suicide because of family/friendship ties… not religion specifically. Though I can see how it’s easier to infer that conclusion from his perspective. > [@Spatial Rift 47](#): > > Nothing contrived. In a near death experience one dies, while dead they meet God in the form of light, or some being, or in different appearances. When they come back to life they believe in God. Only one person that I know of still is not sure, and I know of hundreds of them. Says you. Hundreds of people claim to have seen ghosts and UFO’s. Hardly considered proof positive of their existance. ---
**Author:** ![Greenback](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/2bfe46/32.png) [@Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greenback)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/64 "2005-09-29T20:09:43Z")
Just to clarify, that last quote should be attributed to **lekatt**. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/65 "2005-09-29T20:25:24Z")
Lots of good debate in here: even without me. Yes. I am an atheist. I absolutely have nothing against anyone who believes in faith, religion, God, Jesus, etc. I have nothing against anyone for any reason come to think of it. To me, religion was conceived by man to explain the unexplainable. In a lot of cases, from a scientific perspective, the unexplainable is explainable now. My thoughts revolve around why one would choose to believe in something that provides no proof. I know, you now say, prove there isn’t a God: I can’t. But I do know that there is not a persuasive amount of evidence to suggest God exists. To me, the amount of hurt, pain, violence, famine, premature death, suicide bombers, etc. is enough proof that God doesnt exist. Not to mention reality TV shows. Anyway, which “God is the right one?” was my other thought. It wouldn’t be acceptable as a Christian to state that your God is the all-powerful and loving God, whereas the deity of other religions doesn’t exist, or is evil. Therefore all Gods either exist, or none exist. I opt for none. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/66 "2005-09-29T20:26:08Z")
> [@Greenback](#): > > Just to clarify, that last quote should be attributed to **lekatt**. :smack: Sorry **Spatial Rift 47** … 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/67 "2005-09-29T20:30:58Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > To me, the amount of hurt, pain, violence, famine, premature death, suicide bombers, etc. is enough proof that God doesnt exist. Not to mention reality TV shows. That’s because you are choosing your own personal definition of god and attributing your own expectations of behaviour by him (her/them/it …?) I blame that Mark Burnett (?) guy for reality TV. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/68 "2005-09-29T20:42:39Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > To me, the amount of hurt, pain, violence, famine, premature death, suicide bombers, etc. is enough proof that God doesnt exist. Not to mention reality TV shows. No, that just shows that God, if such a being exists, isn’t as benevolent or omnipotent as we expect. ---
**Author:** ![Pocahontas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecb155/32.png) [@Pocahontas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pocahontas)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/69 "2005-09-29T20:46:20Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > 1. Man invented God(s) to explain unexplainable events. > 2. Romans and Greeks had many Gods who we now dismiss as “mythological.” > 3. Bible was written by man. > 4. No doubt, a great human being who we now call Jesus Christ was born. > 5. But he was a man: like Newton, Einstein, Descartes, Edison, Ghandi, etc… > 6. With the progression of science, unexplainable events became explainable. > 7. Darwin - also a great human being - describes natural selection. > 8. Lots of people believe that Jesus Christ is a saviour and devote their lives to Him. > 9. Lots of people think the same thing about Alla, about Buddha, about David Koresh, Jim Jones, etc. > > You see where I’m going with this? > > Me: Life is a complete random happenstance on Earth. There’s no supreme being. There’s no existential meaning to life. We are because we are. When you die you don’t go to heaven. If you’re lucky you become a big bag of fertilizer. That’s all there is folks. Get over it and enjoy life while you can. Socrates was right. About this at least. We need to define our terms. You say you disbelieve in God, but what do you mean by ‘God?’ I won’t be coy with you. I will advance several options. I really would like to play Socrates with you, but frankly, I don’t have the time. So here it is. My favorite definition of God is “All-Creator.” But, I have just used another word, ‘Creator’ to define ‘God.’ Fair enough. By 'Creator’, I mean simply ‘something which is the cause of being and attributes of some thing.’ I won’t define the meaning of that pesky little word, ‘all,’ the root of so many paradoxes! The reason I like my definition is that wholly apart from whether any such being exists, is that it appears to be a ‘master attribute’ which provably implies the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnitemporality. Another definition is ‘All-Powerful’ or ‘All-Mighty.’ Another definition of ‘God’ is ‘the explanation of everything.’ Physicists also call examples of this GUTS, Grand Unified TheorieS. If Kantor, the author of ‘Information Mechanics’ is right, then the Universe is an information construct, and the duality problem of Mind and Matter is solved. Omniscience and Omnipotence would be equivalent in this last scenario. If everything being a thought in the mind of God, that would also make omniscience and omnipotence equivalent-a la Thomas Aquinas. (See the first chapter of the Gospel of John for a little summary of this metaphysical position.) All we see about us is interaction. When two things interact, what determines the result? Who is the Judge of the outcome of this contest? Will there be only one actor or two? Our intuition of ‘cause’ is one way. But, the science of appearances, otherwise know as physics, sees only mutual influence. Well, that brings up another possible definition of God suitable for physicists, i.e. ‘the Supreme Judge,’ the arbiter of all interactions. (Coincidentally ‘Supreme Judge’ was used as a synonym for ‘Creator’ in the Declaration of Independence.) Let me leave you with a little Latin proverb: “Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. Happy is he who has been able to discern the causes of things.” Virgil, Georgica, II, 490. By that standard, you are an unhappy lass indeed. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/70 "2005-09-29T21:03:16Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > To me, religion was conceived by man to explain the unexplainable. In a lot of cases, from a scientific perspective, the unexplainable is explainable now. I think your first sentence may be correct, but that you may have a simplistic notion (promoted by popular culture) as to what that entails. I suspect that your second sentence is (somewhat) incorrect, based on that same misled misunderstanding. While it is a popular notion that gods were invented to explain (for example) thunder, I doubt that many peoples actually ever used mythology in that way. Religion is more likely to be used to explain why good and evil exist or grapple with pain or to simply recognize a “greater” than humanity to celebrate in the cycles of nature. (We all know that thunder comes from Hendrik Hudson bowling nine pins with his crew.) This, of course, does not make religion (or religious explanations) reliable in any way. It can clearly be a matter of people imposing cultural expections on an outside being in order to reinforce those same cultural explanations or expectations. However, the notion that the things that religion “explained” have been better “explained” by science relies on a shared misunderstanding between adherents of (some) religions and (some) people who do not share those religious beliefs regarding what was actually “explained.” Such people confuse the details of the stories with the larger purpose intended by the stories and get into battles over minutiae that had nothing to do with the original intent. Again, recognizing this does nothing to establish that religion has any valid answers, but attacking religion on that mistaken level simply leads to frustration on the part of all parties, since they are arguing over the wrong topics in ways that can never be resolved. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/71 "2005-09-29T21:38:06Z")
> [@lekatt](#): > > Learn to separate the Bible, and religion from God. Many are just plain lost here. They can’t see God separate from religion, but in truth He is. That’s why I sometimes ask people to define the God they would want. What do you think? My Bible study showed that the evidence I got taught was true about one variety of god wasn’t. I haven’t seen any evidence for any others. Got some? (Hint: NDEs are not evidence for gods - even if true they could show godless life after death.) And I’m way too old to think wanting something makes it real. I want to look like Cary Grant, but I’ll deal with looking like I do, and being happy with it. A godless world doesn’t bother me at all, and makes a lot of sense. Atheists don’t have to deal with the problem of evil. Some people have problems with Why, but for me Why is a crooked letter. If there was a God like I’d want, the world wouldn’t look like it does today. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/72 "2005-09-29T21:50:33Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > This, of course, does not make religion (or religious explanations) reliable in any way. It can clearly be a matter of people imposing cultural expections on an outside being in order to reinforce those same cultural explanations or expectations. > > However, the notion that the things that religion “explained” have been better “explained” by science relies on a shared misunderstanding between adherents of (some) religions and (some) people who do not share those religious beliefs regarding what was actually “explained.” Such people confuse the details of the stories with the larger purpose intended by the stories and get into battles over minutiae that had nothing to do with the original intent. Religous explanations originally included both the how and the why of the world. Women suffer pain in childbirth - how: because God demanded it; why: because Eve sinned. There are troubles in the world: How: they escaped from Pandora’s box. Why: she had a big curious. Science has showed the how part of religious explanations are wrong, but says nothing about the why part. Some of us accept there is no why, some can’t. Consider evolution. Theistic and secular evolution both agree on the how part, which does not include ID in the Behe sense. But theistic evolution, as I understand it, says that man was inevitable since God subtly directed evolution to produce us, while secular evolution says that it was just chance that we appeared as we did. Since the only way of resolving this would be to replay a billion years of evolution, and convince God, if he exists, that he should do things the same, the question is not resolvable. Is that a fair reading of theistic evolution? ---
**Author:** ![Everything\_is\_Crazy-Go-Nuts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/919ad9/32.png) [@Everything\_is\_Crazy-Go-Nuts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Everything_is_Crazy-Go-Nuts)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/73 "2005-09-29T21:51:19Z")
I’m not a scientific genius and probably can’t offer any hard evidence that God exists and that Jesus is his Son. But I offer this short story in hopes that someone out there reading this has been wondering the same as the OP… how can any educated person in the 21st century believe these so-called fairy tales? I grew up in an unspiritual home. We never went to church. We didn’t talk about God. My parents cared about my brother and I; they fed us and clothed us and taught us right from wrong (mostly). But they couldn’t give us the food we craved most… purpose and meaning to life. It seemed to me I had the anti-Midas touch… everything I interacted with turned to shit, so my purpose wasn’t to help other people, though I wanted to. I got passable grades but never excelled in anything, so I was not destined for educational greatness. It all seemed so pointless… pain, pleasure, intelligence, why did it matter what happened to anyone? I also was hindered by seeing a photograph in a National Geographic of a clitoredectomy somewhere in Northern Africa during my youth. I felt like any God who could not only allow such things to happen to his creatures, but had FATED women to it by the way he created people (women around the world are subjected to such horrible things because, let’s face it, we tend to be weaker more naive about the ways of this evil world). I told God I hated Him and He could keep his stupid religion. When I was 16 I hit rock bottom. I was cutting myself and thinking seriously about suicide (it has been pointed out already in this thread that disconnected people are more prone to suicide). But when I realized how serious I was about killing myself, I just had to ask myself, “If I died right now, would I go to hell?” Surely, as pointless and painful as this life is, if there really is a hell and the few things I’ve heard are true, killing myself would be like leaping from the kettle into the fire. Sorry, that was an awful pun… ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/74 "2005-09-29T21:57:20Z")
Why believe in one god? At last count, there are over 5 billion entities on this planet with the power to understand & remake their world. Gods, if you will. Which kind of cheapens the whole “divine rights” thing. ---
**Author:** ![Everything\_is\_Crazy-Go-Nuts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/919ad9/32.png) [@Everything\_is\_Crazy-Go-Nuts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Everything_is_Crazy-Go-Nuts)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/75 "2005-09-29T22:00:43Z")
Sorry this is so freakin’ long. Anyway, I decided to put the suicidal tendencies on hold so I could check out religions and see if they had anything to offer. I read the Quaran, the Talmud, the Torah, a compilation of Confuscious sayings (not, I’ll grant you, religion, but a nice collection of rules governing behavior, nonetheless), Zoroaster, Hindu, Buddhist… I was so hungry to know who God really was and IF He really was. And though in all those books I found many good rules for people to live by, they seemed, as was mentioned before, to have been written and thought up by men (as in, mankind). I thought, “Maybe I’ll just choose the best aspects of each religion and sort of cobble something together. God will see my effort to make sense of all this religious madness and take pity on me.” But then someone said to me something I never expected or forgot. "You can’t just make the religion of Briana (yes, my name’s Briana); that’s just another addition to the already crowded libraries of religion. If you really want to know God, you have to believe that one of the religions was not invented by man, but was given by God himself. There is no other way to know God than to have God reveal “him"self to you.” ---
**Author:** ![Everything\_is\_Crazy-Go-Nuts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/919ad9/32.png) [@Everything\_is\_Crazy-Go-Nuts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Everything_is_Crazy-Go-Nuts)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/76 "2005-09-29T22:24:14Z")
This person also told me that though I was very open-minded to have tried to research so many different “exotic” religions, I couldn’t really call myself open-minded until I had given a fair chance to all. And that included boring old run of the mill Christianity. This is the important point I think some people miss. I wanted religion. I didn’t think I wanted to really know God. I wanted rules and laws and regulations by which I could be counted righteous. But something stirred in my soul that day… a barrenness, and a hunger. I had lived so long without any connection to God… How do you scientifically explain such a hunger? You know you’re hungry when you feel hungry (for food, I mean). You don’t take a blood test and measure your blood sugar or stomach enzymes. You just realize something is missing from your life. And I thought about all the religions I had read into, and to be fair, I tried again to “find God” in them, to satisfy my hunger. The more rules I read, the further and further I felt from happiness. “I can never do all this,” I said. And then I read the Bible, from the front cover to the back (not too hard since I had already read the Pentateuch–the first five books–when considering Judaism!). And the more I read, the more I could see the God standing behind the laws. God said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Okay, this God values humility and service. God said, “The Lord your God, the Lord is One.” All right, this God values unity. God said, “If I can do any amazing thing, but have not love, my life is meaningless.” So He values love, over all other things. And that really hit me hard. The God of the Bible values love. Love is patient, love is kind. It doesn’t envy, it doesn’t boast, it doesn’t seek it’s own good, but the good of others… The more I read, the more I realized that it is not God who hurts us, it is people’s sin (sin being another word for “unlikeness to God”). The further we get from him, the more pain we cause one another. Somewhere in the middle of 1 Corinthians chapter 13, I gave my heart and life to Jesus forever. Because I knew, without a shadow of doubt, that He loved me. As I continued in faith, I looked for more and more proofs that God is real. Proofs for God are… well, there isn’t anything I can tell you to MAKE you believe. I can give a list of interesting references, including one book titled The Signature of God. It summarizes some, if not proofs, very solid evidences that the Bible is true. For example, in the pentateuch, God gave the Israelites all manner of rules for washing and ceremonial purity. He instructed them to wash their hands and isolate themselves if they had certain illnesses. And yet, in those days, they had no understanding of germs and how they could be transmuted to one another. Many contemporaries of the time thought all illnesses were caused by demons and other things. Could you really tell me that Moses thought up the whole washing thing on his own, without the guidance of God? ---
**Author:** ![Scott\_Plaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Scott\_Plaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scott_Plaid)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/77 "2005-09-29T22:27:37Z")
I do not agree with your opinion, but I shall defend your right to speak unto, etc. (Or however that old quote goes) However, I don’t believe need to make more then one post. I am pretty sure that this forum allows for mega-long posts. P.S. I love ypour username! ---
**Author:** ![Everything\_is\_Crazy-Go-Nuts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/919ad9/32.png) [@Everything\_is\_Crazy-Go-Nuts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Everything_is_Crazy-Go-Nuts)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/78 "2005-09-29T22:28:54Z")
I did just shanghai the thread just now, and I’m sorry for being long-winded. But… “If anyone is hungry, let Him come to me (Jesus) and eat.” ---
**Author:** ![Everything\_is\_Crazy-Go-Nuts](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/919ad9/32.png) [@Everything\_is\_Crazy-Go-Nuts](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Everything_is_Crazy-Go-Nuts)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/79 "2005-09-29T22:30:00Z")
😉 Thanks, I like my username, too! ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2005, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967/80 "2005-09-29T22:33:44Z")
> [@Everything is Crazy-Go-Nuts!](#): > > But then someone said to me something I never expected or forgot. "You can’t just make the religion of Briana (yes, my name’s Briana); that’s just another addition to the already crowded libraries of religion. If you really want to know God, you have to believe that one of the religions was not invented by man, but was given by God himself. There is no other way to know God than to have God reveal “him"self to you.” But which god or gods? And which religion? And doesn’t that make most religious people around the world wrong? And if they are wrong and you are right then aren’t you tempted to feel a little superior? And wanting to do something about it? How do you know you’re right anyway? And why would god reveal himself to only a small segment of believers? And why through just a select individual or small group of those? And how do we know he has when there is no evidence beyond their word? Phew… I can go on but that’s a start… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-believe-in-a-god/323967.md?page=5)