Monday, 06 July 2009
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From an Atheist: What Makes You Believe in God?
I'm an atheist. I have been for years. I refuse to believe in creationism. Tell me what makes you believe in God? Stories are welcome :)
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- From: d34thbreath
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Comments (179)
Jesus.
(No, really, it is that simple.)
The fact that I've had enough of believing in people. Or trying to.
ooh, i've been meaning to ask this question on revelife.
i know many things are not yet explainable, but i accept that i don't know them. i am curious as to why some people attribute them to the work of a diety.
i don't really believe in god. but i am open
minded towards any religion. i do find like many religions and their
certain beliefs that i believe in but I'm not necessarily one specific
religion
Hmm...Not a Christian, but I believe in simply a higher power/truth...just because I feel comforted by it, now that I think about it...
Mathematics. (And all that other stuff people will say
)
My freshman year in college I started gambling quite a bit, and unfortunately I got really good at it. Equally unfortunate (for me) was that my university was against gambling and was really against the games I had set up.
Long story short, I ended up transferring to MSU. I had a job on the side as a sales-coordinator for a copy/print company. For reply-length purposes I will spare you all the details of how dark and cold my life had gotten, but one day I was driving to work, about to tell my bosses good-bye and take up gambling professionally when I was overcome with frustration: I’d been raised in a Christian family yet God was devoid in my life—why? I prayed (screamed) to God and asked “IF it’s not to late for me, and you care, let me know today or I am calling it quits and leaving”.
So I went in, opened up the office, and started working. Brad, my coworker, got into the office before the bosses did, and we started talking (which we had never really talked before other than to say ‘hi’). I didn’t know what was happening behind the scenes at the time, but the Spirit began moving inside him and caused him to speak very boldly to me. He spoke of Romans ch. 8 to me and the Lord led him to rebuke me for rejecting God’s Spirit of Son-ship and replacing it with a spirit of fear. I was intensely quiet during all this, so I imagine he was pretty nervous, but Brad called me to either accept or reject God once and for all. He gave me the encouragement to ‘see it through’ if I decided to accept the promises (and live by them) that God has offered to us.
I didn’t quit my job that day. Rather I started meeting with Brad twice a week. Brad showed me that Christ (and Christianity) comes into lives in power, or He doesn’t come at all. With Power, Christ removes His Children from Sin and from a life connected to the world.
He was, indeed, correct! God called me to repentance and I have been living a life of repentance since then.
So, I was born in a Christian family—I thank God for my faithful father here on earth—however I had not been a Christian up until after College: I had done a few “Christian-ish” things like camps, baptism, and church, but I never gave my life to Christ. Having seen and witnessed the work that God has done, first through Brad and the ministry that he had been given from God to do, and after him, in various other Christians working with all the fullness of God’s grace and power behind them, I then decided to accept and partake of the promises in Christ.
Jesus and the things He's done in my mind and life, also my personal relationship with Him in which we communicate, love each other, and are the deepest friends.
the universe is far too stable to have come from anything other than an almighty Creator. and then there is us... we humans are so incredibly complex that we could never have formed on our own. i don't know nor do i care about either side of the creation/evolution argument, but i know that God was behind it in some way or another. in fact i believe it would be more magnificent if God were just the one that pushed the "stone of like" to get it rolling. everything changing and shifting for billions of years to finally end in us... it's far too perfect for anything less than a perfect, loving God to do.
the little things have me convinced as well. my wonderful loving girlfriend, my ability to write, and let us not forget the 94 i got on my physics final after an entire semester of Ds and Fs. God is great.
@harmonyminusmelody@xanga - Amen!
For me, Christianity makes the most sense. It explains that feeling I have when I've been betrayed, when people I love have died, when friends have been hurt by divorce and abuse - that it wasn't supposed to be like this. It explains the joy I've felt in the happiest moments of my life. It explains my desire to give my life for something more than just survival. It explains why I admire people like Jesus, like Mother Theresa, like Martin Luther King. It explains why hope in something is so important to me and the people around me. It explains why I see a touch of something divine in the people around me, yet at the same time I see how destructive we can be when we abuse our gifts, talents, and abilities. For me, the world makes sense in light of the bible. It explains everything about my existence - from the pain, to the joy, to the desire for purpose, to my admiration and desire sacrificial love, to my love for peace.
i'm more spiritual than religious and i frequently think about this. What seems to help is thinking about my experiences, i also believe that somehow we are all connected in some way for example i'll be talkin about someone or something and in that same day that person will call me or i'll see my favorite episode on tv...some things aren't explained and the universe is so complex to think we as humans hold all the answers is impossible, i frequently think that there's another existence than just being human...i can't really explain, i just feel it....
Are you serious? I thought you were a Christian.
Anyway.....experience is a BIG thing. Nothing beats that.
Also, the following is a section of a little booklet I have...
"Francis, Crick, who co-discovered DNA, calculated the possibility of 200 amino acids forming on their own at 10 followed by 260 zeros! That number is more than the estimated number of atoms in our entire solar system!
"The great astrophysicist Sir Fredrick Hoyle calculates the odds of biological life evolving on its own as comparable to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 blind people all solving a Rubik Cube at the exact same moment! Hoyle goes on to claim that life forming on its own would be less likely than a tornado going through a junkyard and forming a 747 airplane!
"Roger Penrose who helped develop Black Hole theories, estimated the odds of a "big bang" forming an orderly universe to be one in 100,000,000,000 to the 123rd power. This is similar to the odds of hitting a one-inch target on the other side of the universe or to the odds of a pole-vaulter's pole standing on its tip for centuries following a vault!
"Indeed, those who are pure naturalists-- who believe that evolution explains our origins without any involvement by God-- have a couple of oth tough questions to answer.
"For example how did inorganic material become alive? Do we have any actual evidence that this has ever happened?
"As we observe nature, we understand that matter tends to become disorgainized over time (entropy). If the world was created without intervention, how did matter become so well organized all by itself? Does chaos + time = order?"
Tell me what makes you believe in God?
FAITH. A God-given GIFT of faith to believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. If want to believe in God in all sincerity, just ask for faith to believe.
to me, the existence of a higher power is just a nice little fairy tale. i'm agnostic, so i'm open to it.
but unlike most here apparently, i have no problem believing that we exist by chance. and i think that people who base their belief in God on what they perceive as a perfect order are just looking for comfort. whatever works for them... but i don't need it.
Well I don't believe 90% of the bible. I think all religions believe in a bunch of fairy tales. What leads me to believe there is a God(or gods) is the complexity of our world including the lifeforms. I just think religion is an attempt to control us.
I also don't believe God is watching us or any of that shit. If anything he made the planet, started evolution and moved on.
I think I'll always believe that I'm free, that I'm not merely an aggregate of muscles determined by antecedent conditions. I'll always believe I am a singular self, one person. I'll always believe that people were created purposefully and as equals. These sort of things have always inclined me to believe in a personal God. I don't think they can be reconciled without believing in a God. But these things account for maybe 30% of why I believe.
I experience the effects of sin, I see how it blocks out my perception of God, how it shrouds him and alienates me from others. I think that what Paul says about sin is really accurate. If it were all myth, I can't explain why it should be even remotely relevant to my life. But alot of what he says is true. After giving my life to God and allowing him to change me, I know I've become different. For some reason, the stuff that the disciples, like Paul and Peter, said were true to me before what Jesus said. It was after I gave myself to him that alot of his words took on meaning. "Remain in Me as I remain in you." He is so very raw, so sacred that language and rituals don't do justice, but so very merciful that he allows us to use language and rituals to relate him.
As far as why I believe there is higher power, it just makes sense to me.
It seems way more logical and probable that some kind of higher, intelligent power(s) "designed" our existence in some way...whether through evolution, and regardless of the involvement this God(these Gods) in our everyday life. To avoid the cliche-ish clock example, I'll use a different one. Suppose you find a bomb in an airport. After securing everyone's safety, what is one of the first things the team investigating the bomb look for? They look for signs of who was responsible for placing the bomb there, who made it, etc. The question isn't if someone was responsible for placing it there or if someone was responsible for making it, it's a given. Anyone on that team suggesting that the bomb just appeared over time without any purpose for existence nor any person behind inventing it would be considered a mockery.
At the very least, the idea that anything of any complexity-whether it be a bomb or the entire universe-just exists without anyone/thing of intelligence making it possible is not anymore probable than the idea of the supernatural. Still, to me it is more probable that there is a higher power of some sort. I's absence of apparent involvement in our lives only supports the idea that this is a higher power, transcending our human limitations, not just a smarter or bigger version of us.
Of course none of the above automatically leads us straight to Christianity. To keep it brief, for me the way of Christ reflects the most humane, just, civilized, well-balanced path mankind could pursue, and His gospel message is consistent with His life and purpose. Christianity reconciles the supernatural with the natural.
I think that too many people reject the idea of a higher power because they assume the higher power must act in a way that we approve of or agree with in order to be valid. God being real doesn't automatically mean we're going to like what He does, in fact just the idea of an existent God doesn't automatically mean that this God is good or has our best interest in mind.
I think its better to approach the matter openly, seeking to find out who God may actually be, not looking for God to be what we want Him to be and declaring He isn't real because we discover He can't what we want Him to be.
But ultimately, if there is no God, I'd still die satisfied knowing that I lived what I found to be the best life possible... a life reflecting the way of Christ... that's reward enough for me....even if there is no afterlife or eternal reward.
Besides my own subjective experiences, it makes more sense to me that an eternally intelligent existing being created all the complexities in life, than for them to somehow all evolve from some inorganic soup of substances or to come into being out of nothing.
As a fellow atheist, I'm interested in the answer to this question as well. Sadly, I even after reading the comments, I still don't fully understand faith. I get it intellectually, but not emotionally.
I believe in God because of some personal things that have happened to me. I have felt the Holy Spirit. Before I received it I would see people speak in tongues and shout and praise, but I didn't quite understand it. Then one day a lady prayed for me and I began to cry. The lady told me I had received my language and then I noticed that, after she called attention to it, I was speaking in tongues. I was not in control of that at all. I had to be 10 or 11 at the time. I wouldn't expect you to take that reason seriously, as you probably have not felt it, but it was one of the most frightening yet gratifying experiences I've ever had. I was a believer before then, but that one experience was God making himself known to me. I believe in Jesus, also...but I can't recall one overwhelming experience (other than my dad and sister almost dying)...I just have the faith. And if you've ever been given a prophetic word or have seen someone receive a prophetic word, it's pretty convincing.
Also, I believe in God because I'm sure there is a devil.
Oh..and I believe in Creationism...but I also believe in evolution. I believe God created the universe, but he also allowed the universe to go in whatever direction it wanted. So he created living creatures, but in doing that he set processes in place so those creatures can grow and transform on their own. Kind of like how he created humans, but gave us free will to choose our own paths. If that make sense.
Science proves itself wrong. Darwin even admitted to being wrong =]
The experiance with God! The feeling of being overwhelmed with God! Just that part of you calling out to him and letting it reach Christ. When you truely encounter a time in your life when you cant go on and the only escape you see is God! And you feel his power and the Love he has for you! It's amazing!