Why Should I Believe In God?

[lightninfeet]

Oh boy. Somehow I knew this was going to happen. Salida, we need to go into this because, quite frankly, these all have flaws. I think it better you hear those flaws from a friend than be clobbered with them by some militant atheist seeking to score debating points.



The gospel writers made sure Jesus' life would fulfill the prophecies. Sorry, you can't use that life as fulfillment when the biographers knew the prophecies before they wrote up the life.

Most of Genesis was written around 500 BC and Genesis is a redacted document from 3 earlier sources. None of the sources go back to 4004 BC.
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The problem is that Luke's geneology and Matthew's contradict going back from Jesus to David. So you can't use them as evidence. Again, they were trying to put Jesus into the House of David because they were already aware of the prophecy and wanted it to apply to Jesus.
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Yes, I am afraid there are historical inaccuracies in the Bible. For instance, the empire described to David and Solomon is much too prosperus according to the archeological evidence. Also, the archeological evidence does not have Jericho being destroyed at any of the possible times for the Exodus and Conquest.

However, the entire premise is wrong. You are saying that, because the history is correct, then the theological statements have to be correct. BUT, you don't accept that for Homer. Recent archeological finds have corroborated much of the Iliad. But you aren't going to decide the Zeus, Athena, Apollo, etc. exist because of that. Sauce for the goose.



Sorry, but first surviving copies date to at least 125 years after Christ. The earliest gospel -- Mark -- is dated to about 70 AD.



You can't be serious. You are going to go with accuracy based on copies? In that case the Harry Potter universe is real because it has millions of manuscript copies.



LOL! Sorry, but lots of internal inconsistencies. I only mentioned one: the geneologies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. The crucifixion and resurrection stories in the 4 gospels also have inconsistencies. There are 2 contradictory creation stories in Genesis 1-3. I could go on.



1. 2 Timothy 3:16 doesn't make that claim. Instead, Paul claims scripture (by which he means the Torah) is inspired. BTW, in 1 Corinthians 7 Paul explicity says that chapter is pure Paul and is not inspired.

2. Jesus in Mark 10 and Matthew 14 says that the Torah was not "spoken by God" but written by a man. And the man made mistakes.

3. The Quran is claimed to be dictated by God. The Book of Mormon is claimed to have been written by an angel.



But Tyre was rebuilt. It exists today.



Sorry, but the word in Isaiah 40:22 is a circle. There is a Hebrew word for "ball" or sphere, used elsewhere in Isaiah, but not there. The Bible is based on a flat earth cosmology. That flat earth hangs in nothing.



Which scholars think Job is 3,000 years ago? Anyone who has felt a wind knows that the wind has "weight" because it pushes on you. Not science beyond what was known.
26:7 says nothing about gravity, but just "hangs the earth on nothing".

You are also forgetting all the errors in Job. Those storehouses of snow/hail, seas shut behind doors, etc. Job 38



None of them "prove" the Bible true. They do mention many of the same rulers mentioned in the Bible, but that gets us back to historical accuracy is not theological accuracy (the same applies to the archeological finds).

Plus, what you find in the Epic of Gilgamesh is the original flood story that the Bible writers plagiarized and re-worked.

What you can say is that the Bible is a theological document and that it provides evidence for the existence of God. Evidence in the form of personal experiences of people with God, often in the form of God's intervention in human history. But no, the evidence does not demand a verdict. Especially when the evidence is based on misinformation and faulty logic.

Coolest Christian ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1


Besides my wife...I like her.

 

[ellie'sforjesus]

All I have to say, is narrow is the gate we all must pass through, and few find it. Go on you tube and watch the videos entitled 23 minutes in hell, then if you don't believe in God, I feel so sorry for you.

 

[brinny]

It's your call, isn't it? If you don't know why you should believe in God, you are not seeking Him with all your heart. In that case He'll leave you be. No one can or should convince you to believe in a God you don't believe in or wish to. Each of us must walk that lonesome valley alone in seeking God. Thus it is with you as well. Seek HIM, not the "convincing reasons" to believe from His children. HE has the answers. We do not.

 

[ellie'sforjesus]

Nice explanation Brinny you put it beautifully.

 

[Xyster]

Bible before Science-/Earth is a sphere-Isaiah 40:22
Air has weight-Job 28:25/Gravity-Job 26:7, Job 38:31-33/Winds blow in cyclones, Eccl 1:6

Documents that Prove Bible is True
Gilgamesh Epic, The Sumerian King List, Mari Tablets, Babylonian Chronicles
Archeological Finds
Excavations of Ur, Location of Zoar, Ziggurats and the foundation of Tower of Babel

NO it dont say SHPERE it says circle.....it not says AIR it says WIND.....it says not gravity it says NOTHING.....Eccl says nothing about cyclones 1:6 basicaly says sometime the wind blows north and somtimes south....
Documents that prove the bible true? I can show just as much where it is crap.....Archeological finds.. well the only thing that can prove is that people back then were religious it cant prove any of it is true....

 

[InsightSoul]

The Bible says that you cannot believe in God unless you are moved by the Spirit of God into believing.

It's that simple. That's why some people will not ever be able to believe in God while others can.

I myself had been moved by the Holy Spirit in the past. I can feel his works and his presence in me. I thank Jesus every day for letting me get to know him.

No one can tell you why you should believe in God except God.

 

[lucaspa]

If someone wrote down what they think of an event, then could that not be considered a personal interpretation? If that is the case, then do you not know what "Personal Interpretation" Means?

"Personal interpretation" as being used here means an interpretation by an outsider. As you were trying to reinterpret what happened to CS Lewis.

My "objection" Speaks directly to the fact that a personal interpretation is often times skewed.. So if Someone says They Believe XYZ about their spiritual beliefs,Or if you believe it for them, it is all still a Personal Interpretation. That Speak to exactly what it is I was trying to say!!!

Why did you capitalize "Speak"? Do you seriously think that Lewis' view of what was happening to him was wrong or skewed? That Paul's "interpretation" of what happened to him on the road to Damascus was "skewed"? Or Moses "interpretation" of the Burning Bush? If you want to discount "Personal Interpretation", then you have invalidated the very Bible you are trying to use as sole authority!

Post #11
God takes matters into His own hands and forcibly seeks out individuals.

"Forcibly" modifies seek. It does not mean, in context, that God brainwashes people. Instead, God provides experiences that are overwhelmingly convincing, even if a person initially tries to deny that the experiences are from God. Remember, Lewis entertained the hypothesis that he was going insane. However, the experiences could not be explained by insanity. Moses even doubted the Burning Bush, but God continued to speak and convinced Moses that this was God.

What you are doing is denying free will to God. You are saying that God must always be passive and can never take the first step.

The contact that lewis speaks of, is a storytellers way of describing the always open invitation that God has for everyone, everyday.

Welcome to a "Personal Interpretation"! That's not how Lewis describes it.

(It was His way of selling books) Lewis's "revelation" was not because God force Himself upon him. Lewis was confronted the ever present Hand of God. His eyes may have been open by a specific event, but only because his heart was not intent on being closed off to the Idea of God.

Notice that "specific event" and "was confronted". Who did the "confronting"? God, right? That is God taking the initiative. But yes, prior to this, Lewis' heart was intent on being closed off to the idea of God. As you say, "his eyes [were] opened by a specific event". An event initiated by God. And the event was so convincing, it "forced" Lewis to change his mind.

Your Original version has God taking free will from people and forcing belief upon them.

No, that is your Personal Interpretation of what I said. I'm afraid you misunderstood. You keep insisting even when I have explained more fully. Why are you so stuck on that? OK, now I know:

In Post 11:
"I would say this is not true. Belief also comes to people who have not sought God and had no wish to know Him."

Because for the general population if one believed he could simply wait God out, or that God would seek him out and force Him to believe.. then would that not "Openly promote a path to God that may not produce the Spiritual Fruit we need to become righteous before the Lord?"

You are making the mistake that the only way to find God is for God to seek you out. I never said that. I only said that sometimes God seeks us out. In some cases. In many other cases (probably most) the individual seeks God. I was reacting to your statement that the only way to find God was to seek God. I am simply saying this is not the only way. See that "Belief also comes ..." And it does. God is not always passive. He is an active God. He intervenes in human history and in people's lives. Even when people seek Him out, He still intervenes in ways that the individual did not expect and did not want. It's just that sometimes He seeks individuals out and does not wait for them to seek Him.

So your suggesting that because someone one has taken their personal philosophy, and put it to paper and if that paper should be old, then it should supersede scripture?

I am saying that many Brothers have told you to seek God outside of scripture. It appears that you have never heard of these Brothers, and now you harden your heart against their advice.

Where do you think this supercedes scripture? It complements scripture. Or are you so stuck with your "Personal Interpretation" of scripture that your heart is hardened and you cannot listen to God?

Which is exactly why I wrote:
This is precisely why God Gave us His Completed Work in the Bible.

Where did you get the idea that the Bible is God's "Completed Work"? It sounds like you think God is no longer active in the world or in people's lives. Scripture is not "complete".

So we would not have to go out into the world with our finite understandings or be lead by our finite teachers to try and find a infinite God.

Isn't God also trying to find us? Remember, you are having "finite" people seek ("try and find") God. Whether they do it with scripture as guide or something else, that guide is still "finite". Scripture is just as finite as our understandings or teachers. In fact, aren't you using scripture as a teacher?

God has compiled enough information with in the pages of scripture to keep a humble man busy for the rest of his life.

If you can not find God in scripture and you need to experience Him as you see him, beyond the limitations of the bible, then I should say it is not God in whom you seek.

Wow. We are not to "experience Him"? Notice you said "limitations of the Bible". That makes the Bible finite. But you say God is infinite. I would say that you are not seeking God, because you are looking only within the limitations of the Bible. God is there, but God is also beyond the Bible. You cannot confine God to the Bible.

I simply was trying to say that if the God you find in the world does not match the God of Scripture, then the god You have found is indeed Not the God of Scripture. I also said that if you have to look solely to the god you find in the world, because you find scripture to narrow or too confining, then it is not God you seek.

The qualifier doesn't help much. Why did you capitalize "Scripture"? We capitalize "He" and "Him" when referring to God. Do you think "Scripture" is God?

Since truth cannot contradict truth, the God we personally experience and the God experienced by the authors of scripture should be the same God. However, there are 2 things we have to keep in mind:
1. Don't we interpret scripture? Could our interpretation of scripture be wrong so that our picture of "God of Scripture" is wrong? I would say this happens to Pat Robertson a lot, when he makes claims such that the Haitian earthquake is God's judgement for the Haitian people making a pact with the devil to overthrow the French.
2. Sometimes scripture is wrong. Read Mark 10 and Matthew 14. Jesus and the Pharisees are discussing Deut 24:1. Jesus is saying that Moses write scripture and, here, Moses got it wrong.

I would also say scripture is a tool to be used to define that relationship, and used to set parameters in that relationship.

So you would confine God to the straightjacket of scripture? I would say instead that scripture helps you keep from mistaking your own thoughts/ideas for a relationship with God. If Pat Robertson had looked at scripture, he would have seen how his claim was wrong.

But "parameters" in the relationship? No. God is going to set the parameters.

Seriously???

Yes, seriously. Did Moses and Paul find God only thru scripture? Since you are trying to make fun of my statement, I take it the statement is correct.

Does God speak to you through Burning Bushes? Does He light your paths with pillars of fire? Did Jesus Meet you on the road to work? Does God speak to you in the way He spoke to any of those men? No? Well then I guess what we have is a relationship that has to be defined by the bible.

Are these the only ways God can speak to us? Did He speak to CS Lewis these ways?

Sadly, what I am getting from you is that you don't speak with God. You don't have a relationship with God. Therefore you are clinging to the Bible as a drowning man clings to a life preserver. That is why you insist on a relationship defined by the Bible; the Bible is all you have.

I suggest you follow your own advice and seek God. Find that relationship with Him.

Where would sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and Godly teachings come from if not through the "Limitations of the Bible?" Isn't that how Joseph Smith Got His start?

For Joseph Smith, no. Smith claimed he had an experience equivalent to the Burning Bush or Saul: an angel came to him. Notice angels came to many in scripture, including Lot and Mary. So actually Smith fulfilled the demands you tried to make of me above: "Does God speak to you in the way He spoke to any of those men? " Smith claims God spoke to him in these ways.

So why don't you believe him? You set the criteria, but now you won't adhere to it.

Also, Smith did not lose the Bible as a spiritual guide. Instead, he claimed he had additional guidance.

I personally do not think Smith was visited by an angel. But you should think that.

 

[lucaspa]

NO it dont say SHPERE it says circle.....it not says AIR it says WIND.....it says not gravity it says NOTHING.....Eccl says nothing about cyclones 1:6 basicaly says sometime the wind blows north and somtimes south....
Documents that prove the bible true? I can show just as much where it is crap.....Archeological finds.. well the only thing that can prove is that people back then were religious it cant prove any of it is true....

Xyster, what Selida is trying to do is a non-sequitor (does-not-follow). She is saying that because these parts we can test are true, then the parts we cannot test are also true. But then, Selida is trying to show you reasons to believe in the Bible, not God.

As you are demonstrating, that attitude is easy for atheists to attack and deny. But in doing that you are ducking the real issue: belief in God. It's a lot easier to say that Isaiah does not really say the earth is a sphere than it is to deny the existence of God.

You are taking the easy path, but ignoring the real issue.

 

[lucaspa]

You should believe in God in view of one, single word: Creation.

Creation simply demands a Creator, and the most scanty or far fetched proposition for random coincidence accounting for our universe and the higher order of creatures in it, aught to be considered as sheer nonsense to any intelligent mind.

A point of explanation about science. No one is saying that the "higher order of creatures" is due to "random coincidence". Gravity is not "random"; it only attracts. Chemical reactions are not "random". Only certain chemicals come from specific chemical reactions. Natural selection is not "random", either. The "selection" part is the exact opposite of "random"; it is pure determinism. Misstating what science says about how we got here isn't going to help you convince anyone.

Someone of inconceivable attributes had to have deliberately and intelligently constructed us and it all,

Notice what I bolded. "Constructed". Instead, the processes discovered by science are what constructed us and what we see around us.

The issue isn't whether what is "natural" constructed us. The issue is whether "natural" excludes God. There is nothing in science that says "natural" means "without God". Christians believe that God sustains all the "natural" processes. Atheists believe that the natural processes happen on their own.

Science does not know. Science is agnostic. So right now Creation does not "prove" God. What science has discovered about Creation permits God. Please do not tie how God created to God's existence. If you pick the wrong "how" (as you have done), then you call God's existence into question.

 

[lucaspa]

Coolest Christian ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1


Besides my wife...I like her.

Why thank you. I will happily concede the title to your wife.

 

[Lemmiwinks]

No, I'm not a troll. Thanks for asking.

I am simply wondering why I should believe in god. I've tried to find out via other sources, but nothing has given me any solid answers. So maybe you can.

If the world is as it should be, then I don't think there isn't any reason to believe in God; but I don't think the world is as it is supposed to be, I don't think that people are the way they ought to be, I think the world is all wrong. I think the bible rings true for me because it addresses this sorry situation. Pain being God's megaphone.

 

[elahopes]

No, I'm not a troll. Thanks for asking.

I am simply wondering why I should believe in god. I've tried to find out via other sources, but nothing has given me any solid answers. So maybe you can.

You are couragous for coming on here. Bless you!!

For me, I just can't get away from the 'fact' that there is a God. I see it everyday in children (I am a teacher)...I see it everyday in nature and the cohesiveness/design of it all...and the beauty of it all....and the amazing creativity of it all....and even in the fact of our free will, and how we are not made to believe (even tho many have tried and still do thru coersion/guilt).................and most of all, IF someone did make this whole thing up, then they were a genious!!! Because thinking up a God who says He not only loves, but IS love...THEN comes to earth in bodily form....THEN walks among us in powerful ways...THEN gives His life....THEN raises to show us that He hasn't gone....THEN sends His Holy Spirit to actually be inside and with us....is the BEST to me among all thought and religions. :^)

 

[mark46]

1) I guess you are looking for intellectual proofs. There are such throughout the ages. Just google to review them. BTW, while there is a difference between beleiving in non-materialistic events and believeing in God, it seems that the first step is to understand what 99% of folks have understood over the ages: there is more to life and this world that the material world and material events. For me, it is clear that there is design in the universe and that it is not merely the result of proablistic materialistic events.

2) With regard to proof, do you believe that Abraham Lincoln existed? How about Plato? Do you believe that astonauts actuall landed on the moon? How do you proved any of this?

3) I would recommend anything by CS Lewis, "Mere Christainity" might be the most relevant to you.

3) Do you believe that the world is "whole". Is your life "complete". Call it the "god gene" if you must, but do understand that there is a hole/wanting/longing in our hearts that only god can fill.

4) If you need to have an intellectual "reason" for the choice of belief, consider the consequences of accepting God (and following him) and not accepting God.

A) REJECT and THERE IS NO GOD - you are right and your life is somewhat
less restricted. You are NOT likely be happier.

B) REJECT and THERE IS A GOD - You have lost a life of peace on this earth and you have lost everlasting life.

C) ACCECT and THERE is NO GOD - Your life will be somewhat more satisfying and happier.

D) ACCEPT and THERE IS A GOD - All is fine and you have the peace beond all understand in this life and you will have eternal life

I would note that a mere statement belief is useless. Obviously, if you really believed that there was an all-powerful, all knowing God who by his mercy could give you life everlasting, you would follow him.

No, I'm not a troll. Thanks for asking.

I am simply wondering why I should believe in god. I've tried to find out via other sources, but nothing has given me any solid answers. So maybe you can.

 

[cateye]

A couple of comments:

I guess you are looking for intellectual proofs. There are such throughout the ages. Just google to review them.

No. I'm not looking for proofs. Proofs are a mathematical concept. What I am looking for is empirical evidence. Got any?

BTW, while there is a difference between beleiving in non-materialistic events and believeing in God, it seems that the first step is to understand what 99% of folks have asserted over the ages: there is more to life and this world that the material world and material events.

Corrected that for you. That there is anything supernatural about this world is merely a assertion. Iow, not supported by any genuine evidence from the real world, hence: useless.

For me, it is clear that there is design in the universe and that it is not merely the result of proablistic materialistic events.

Ahem. I'd be interested to know what metric you use to deduce design.

Do you believe that the world is "whole". Is your life "complete". Call it the "god gene" if you must, but do understand that there is a hole/wanting/longing in our hearts that only god can fill.

An 'argument from desire'? I want fairies to exist, therefore they exist?

If you need to have an intellectual "reason" for the choice of belief, consider the consequences of accepting God (and following him) and not accepting God.

And an argument from 'good feelings'. Drugs make me feel better, therefore they are good for me? Not a very good argument, if you ask me.

 

[razeontherock]

A couple of comments:

No. I'm not looking for proofs. Proofs are a mathematical concept. What I am looking for is empirical evidence. Got any?

Yes I do, As a matter of FACT. Tons and tons, and tons. And TONS.
I also have tons of proofs, but I digress.

What makes you think any of that could possibly do you any good? Exercise some critical thinking here. Seriously!

Done? Now consider this:

Jesus told the rich man in hell (suffering torment type hell) that even if someone were to return from hell to warn them, (his Brothers, in this case) it would do no good. What would help is reading the Bible, and making a decision based on that.

You're literate. The New Testament is short. I'll suggest just like I would to anybody else, start in the Gospel of John and read straight through. Just don't give in to the human flaw of closure! Towards the end, the harder stuff won't make sense but mastery of the Old Testament will bring much greater understanding.

Look at the tests ancient texts are subjected to to determine authenticity. 500 men plus women and children saw Jesus rise straight off the ground and disappear in the clouds! After He was publicly executed no less. That story passes these tests far more than other things we accept as fact. Everything in the Bible hinges on that one fact.