As you can see from my profile, I am one of the dissenting points of view on this website. In real life I have posed this question numerous times to Christians and I never get a straight answer.
I will elaborate on what I mean. Try to picture the world and universe just as it is now, except that it did not come about by your god's creative powers and that it was created by natural processes and that any notions of a higher power or life after death scenarios were just made up delusions produced by the human mind.
Just imagine for one moment that the scenario I gave above is true. That being said, why do you think you would believe the things you do? In almost every single case where I have spoken to Christians regarding this issue, I never manage to get an answer out of them. The most common answer I get is that "I can't imagine a world without God, therefore I cannot ponder it" or "it is pointless to imagine something that I know is untrue" Basically they try to avoid and dodge the question as much as possible.
Personally, I think the reason for this is that they are either so rigid in their beliefs that they are incapable of thinking apart from that, or they don't want to admit to certain things that would make their belief system look nonsensical. EG, that their beliefs are a coping mechanism for facing their mortality, that their beliefs are arbitrarily passed down from them in the environment that by accident of birth they just happen to be born in, etc. Things like this show that religious faith is motivated by subjectivity and ideology and not objectivity and evidence.
So, are there any souls brave enough to take the challenge? Tell me what you think, why would you believe in a God if there wasn't one?
I will elaborate on what I mean. Try to picture the world and universe just as it is now, except that it did not come about by your god's creative powers and that it was created by natural processes and that any notions of a higher power or life after death scenarios were just made up delusions produced by the human mind.
Just imagine for one moment that the scenario I gave above is true. That being said, why do you think you would believe the things you do? In almost every single case where I have spoken to Christians regarding this issue, I never manage to get an answer out of them. The most common answer I get is that "I can't imagine a world without God, therefore I cannot ponder it" or "it is pointless to imagine something that I know is untrue" Basically they try to avoid and dodge the question as much as possible.
Personally, I think the reason for this is that they are either so rigid in their beliefs that they are incapable of thinking apart from that, or they don't want to admit to certain things that would make their belief system look nonsensical. EG, that their beliefs are a coping mechanism for facing their mortality, that their beliefs are arbitrarily passed down from them in the environment that by accident of birth they just happen to be born in, etc. Things like this show that religious faith is motivated by subjectivity and ideology and not objectivity and evidence.
So, are there any souls brave enough to take the challenge? Tell me what you think, why would you believe in a God if there wasn't one?