Why do you believe in God and why do you believe the Bible is his word? (Micah, Deist)

[yakfish]

When I look at nature and the rest of the world we live in I can clearly see there must have been a designer behind it all. I feel it is unreasonable to believe it all just happened by accident. Its the who did it and why and what responsibity do I have to that creator?

[hiker45]

Originally Posted by yakfish

Its the who did it and why and what responsibility do I have to that creator?

That's a lot of questions in a single sentence.

OK, so you believe there is a god who created the Universe.

Do you think that god pays any attention to you personally or are you just one more life form existing on this planet. Does your god view you any differently from a lobster or a worm or a turtle?

[Horn of ‘83]

Originally Posted by yakfish

Please don't take that for granted. Not only have I read the Bible but I have studied it my entire life. Even so I still find myself doubting its validity. I understand every house has a builder, and the heavens declare the glory of God. I also know that according to 1Peter 3:15 that we should always be ready yo give a defence to anyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is within you with meekness and fear. I can't do that at this point.

Yakfish, I have yet to see you mention Jesus. What part does He play in all this?

[Cyber Munchkin]

Originally Posted by jimmiej

Yakfish, I have yet to see you mention Jesus. What part does He play in all this?

Excellent question, jimmiej

[Pleroo]

Originally Posted by yakfish

When I look at nature and the rest of the world we live in I can clearly see there must have been a designer behind it all. I feel it is unreasonable to believe it all just happened by accident. Its the who did it and why and what responsibity do I have to that creator?

Perhaps a better question to ask at this point in time (until you've settled the who/why questions for yourself) is, what responsibility do I have to the creatED? Even in the bible this idea is put forth in John's epistle when he says that you can't love a God you haven't seen when you aren't loving the ones you can see. So, our responsibility is to love.

That principle has a gone a long way in protecting me from the fear/anxiety one can feel about "not knowing" everything we think we need to know about God. That anxiety can lead one to cling to a book, organization or person that promises to have all the answers. When you think about it, how very limiting would it be to rely on any one source, which couldn't possible contain all the answers about an infinite subject, anyway?

[Leo58]

Originally Posted by Pleroo

Perhaps a better question to ask at this point in time (until you've settled the who/why questions for yourself) is, what responsibility do I have to the creatED? Even in the bible this idea is put forth in John's epistle when he says that you can't love a God you haven't seen when you aren't loving the ones you can see. So, our responsibility is to love.

That principle has a gone a long way in protecting me from the fear/anxiety one can feel about "not knowing" everything we think we need to know about God. That anxiety can lead one to cling to a book, organization or person that promises to have all the answers. When you think about it, how very limiting would it be to rely on any one source, which couldn't possible contain all the answers about an infinite subject, anyway?

100% agree, excellent post!

[Julian658]

Originally Posted by yakfish

I was born into a Christian family. I have always believed in God. I became a christian when I was 13. Now that I'm in my 30's I am beginning to see my faith weaken. I need more solid evidence for God. I have been doing a lot of reading, looking at different points of view. I like to hear why others believe what they believe, and what drew them to that conclusion. I want my faith to be my own and not just because that's what my parents and grandparents believed. I also need it to be based on evidence.

I was born a Christian. I do not recall a time when I was not a Christian. There was no need for conversion since i was born into it.

It is normal for any person with some intellect to become doubtful. Religion requires a belief in magic and mythology.

Many become agnostics, but continue to be church goers. They eventually adopt Christianity as part of their cultural heritage.

However, there are other Christians that need to believe everything with ALL their hearts. For example many in the forum believe that Noah lived to be over 900 years of age. Many think the Earth is only 6200 years old and denounce evolution. To fall into this category you need to turn off your ability to reason or at least adopt some other wishy washy rationalization.


Lastly, there is a subset of hard core believers that become atheists once they realize they cannot digest the magic of religion. Some believers are ALL or NOTHING types and it is easy to go from fundamentalism to atheism.

And after atheism comes the last stage where a person believes again with no concerns regarding the existence or non-existence of God. This is the last stage and is a long journey for many.

[nateswift]

Originally Posted by Leo58

100% agree, excellent post!

Here's justice: I couldn't "rep" Pleroo 'cause it's too soon, so I gave you "rep!"

[Hawkins]

Originally Posted by yakfish

I guess the title pretty much explains itself. I though if would be interesting to see why people decide to become Christians? Why you believe in God? Why do you believe the Bible? How do you know God exists? How can you trust the Bible we have today is the one God intended for us to have?

From the multiple perspectives.

The question boils down to how will you be able to reach the truth of an after life.

Human intelligence, human knowledge and even science are not the reliable mean to reach such a truth (i.e., even when it is a truth).

The Bible is right about this, it is said that the Tree of Life is guarded from humans. Humans have no way to see through life beyond the physical death.

It an after life is a truth, it can thus be categorized as the kind of truth which is not reachable to humans in our time frame. Just like that there's no way for the truth of the existence of black holes can reach humans in stone age. The truth of black holes can't reach humans in stone age, just like the truth (if any) of an after life can't reach humans in our era.

The question left is, if so how can humans reach such a truth. If you are sent back to stone age by a time machine but without giving any modern resources, how will you be able to let them know that black holes do exist? The answer is, such a truth can reach humans in stone age by the one and only way called human witnessing. You are a witness in this case, humans in stone age will have to rely on you to reach such a truth. They have to choose to believe you or not. Those who believe in you will be able to reach such a truth, there's no other way round.

Human witnessing is a profound way for humans to reach a truth, without being realized by humans themselves though. Witnessing basically means you put faith on what have been said and written down by a small group of human individuals, who are believed to have a direct contact with a truth, to reach such a truth. The following are the examples,

1) history (i.e., his story)
You rely on putting faith on what have been written down by a small group of humans (called historians) to reach a historical truth. Under most circumstance, there's no other way round. By very nature of history that it is a result of witnessing. History is not evidence-based and thus can hardly be verified precisely. The more distant history is, the more impossible for its evidence to be collectable.

2) science
Science is verified with its predictability. However, science is commonly conveyed through human witnessing. You put faith on what have been written down by a small group of humans (called scientists) to reach a truth. 99% humans don't bother doing labs all the times to verify any scientific truth. They simply choose to believe what have been said and done by the scientists.

3) daily news about the truths occurred in this world
You have to rely on the media which is composed of a small group of humans (called reporters/writers) to reach such a kind of truth. You don't go out to the scenes to examine any truth by yourself.


Because humans rely mainly on witnessing to reach a truth (of any kind), it thus boils down to how a witnessing is validated. In today's world, you trust the media because of several things. It is a multiple account witnessing backed with technology such as videos and photos and voice records and so forth.

In terms of history, then all you can have at best is a multiple account witnessing where historians from various sources mentioned about the same event or same figure. Even though science is repeatedly verifiable, no one bothers to do the verification through a lab setup. Multiple accounts/sources of the same kind of experiment results, peer reports and etc. act as a valid witnessing for you to believe that what is said is a truth.

Now, which religion employs the same profound way, that is human witnessing, to convey a claimed truth? Only the Bible (OT and NT) are able to explicitly employ such a way to convey the said truth. Prophets are explicitly regarded as God's witnesses. Not only that the Bible employs a multiple account of witnessing which other religions are missing, martyrdom is employed to further validate the witnessing.

Basically, no witnessing is more valid than that the witnesses martyred themselves for what have been witnessed. The analogy is that it is claimed that there's a bomb near your house, people died to get the message out. There's no point there to choose to stay, yet this seems to be the choice of today's humans.

[evangelist-77]

.
One reason is that my personal spiritual experiences totally line up with the NT (especially).
I.E. God has proven to me many times (without any shadow of a doubt) ...
that we are to believe everything in the Bible.
And this includes the fact that miracles, the 9 spiritual gifts in 1 Cor 12, etc. are for today.
.