Is it Rational to Believe God Exists?

[SecretCatholic]

Reason leads me to faith. It is because I am a reasoning being that I can have faith at all. It is because of reason that I can accept God’s existence as a reasonable, though not necessarily totally provable, belief. I don’t believe “just because”. I believe because it is reasonable. I don’t believe in the church “just because”. I believe because she says reasonable things. So, without reason, I’d have no faith. And without faith, I’d have no ultimate reason for things.

 

[SecretCatholic]

Perhaps it is because I am a struggling Catholic and very lukewarm at the moment, but in some situations I almost feel embarassed to have a conversation on resurrections, virgin births, angels, miracles, etc. I even find myself struggling to speak the words of the Apostle’s Creed at Mass due to embarassment, even though I am surrounded by believers. I feel like that is the mind’s natural indication stating “no, these things are not rational to believe in or speak about casually as if they are so obvious.” I’ve also had many reoccuring experiences of profound disappointment. Things that I have put my trust in, my effort, time, energy have turned out to not be what I thought after all, and it seems I was only chasing my own perception. Just an illusion.

I feel like there is obviously no evidence and the answer to quell any questions is “because a book that spoke of bizarre events in an ancient language says so.” It doesn’t sound rational at all to me.

This is a social/psychological response. We are social animals, and when we feel that our ideas, and thus our own person, are subject to ridicule, we tend to shy- or run- away from them. In this case, religious ideas are taken as “primitive” and “unsophisticated”. But, this is just a perception. A lot of science sounds ridiculous and unintuitive, but that doesn’t make it untrue. Science has the benefit of empirical evidence. In spiritual matters, we must use reason via philosophy and, once we have enough reason, turn over the rest to faith.

I find a lot of current social and political practices primitive and embarrassing, but most people don’t, because they are judging them by current standards. I judge according to my reason and my faith, so I have a different perspective which find many things in the world today shameful.

I also find a lot of believers have unsophisticated ideas. But that falls upon the individual believers, not the faith itself, which has reasonable support from many extremely sophisticated and reasonable people.

 

[PMVCatholic]

Reason leads me to faith. It is because I am a reasoning being that I can have faith at all. It is because of reason that I can accept God’s existence as a reasonable, though not necessarily totally provable, belief. I don’t believe “just because”. I believe because it is reasonable. I don’t believe in the church “just because”. I believe because she says reasonable things. So, without reason, I’d have no faith. And without faith, I’d have no ultimate reason for things.

Very good answer. This reminds me of a quote from Pope John Paul II:

“We do not create the idea or concept of God from nothing; we create it (and rightly so) on the basis of external facts and the reality of the visible world, but also on the basis of interior reality.”
-John Paul II

 

[PMVCatholic]

Why do you say God could never be proven by empirical means?
If God showed up, and people tested this God’s body and DNA and photographed him and did a zillion tests and all those “observations”, etc, etc…it might prove the existence.
How can you be so sure as to say it could never prove it?
That’s giving up pretty easy, don’t you think?

.

Well, to say God could be proven by empirical means would be to suggest that God is physical. Though He became man in the person of Jesus Christ, He ascended into heaven and is no longer available for empirical confirmation.

 

[miguel]

Well, to say God could be proven by empirical means would be to suggest that God is physical. Though He became man in the person of Jesus Christ, He ascended into heaven and is no longer available for empirical confirmation.

There’s also circumstantial evidence…aspects of his physical creation that reveal the fact that he exists. This has been part of human knowledge for 800 years at least. Even Aquinas was relying on arguments for God’s existence from well before his time. Creation is physical and God was a spirit prior to creation and for most of creation’s existence. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is a blip in time compared to the whole of creation. We know him by his works. God Bless.

 

[Thorns]

There’s also circumstantial evidence…aspects of his physical creation that reveal the fact that he exists. This has been part of human knowledge for 800 years at least. Even Aquinas was relying on arguments for God’s existence from well before his time. Creation is physical and God was a spirit prior to creation and for most of creation’s existence. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is a blip in time compared to the whole of creation. We know him by his works. God Bless.

I dont believe circumstantial evidence always paints an accurate picture either.

Take a house that no one lives in. Over time animals break in and and rummage through it looking for food, leaving it a mess. The open windows and doors let the the wind blow in, knocking things over and making more of a mess.

Now I can come across such a house and claim, “See. This is the house that a Mad Man lives in. You can see the circumstantial evidence that shows he violently thrashes his own living space and lives in his own squalor! He leaves his door wide open and you can see the gnaw marks on his furniture which shows he chews on them!” when in fact, no one lives there.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

There’s also circumstantial evidence…aspects of his physical creation that reveal the fact that he exists. This has been part of human knowledge for 800 years at least. Even Aquinas was relying on arguments for God’s existence from well before his time. Creation is physical and God was a spirit prior to creation and for most of creation’s existence. The incarnation of Jesus Christ is a blip in time compared to the whole of creation. We know him by his works. God Bless.

There is also circumstantial evidence against the existence of God. For example random natural suffering, and lack of perfectly clear instructions from God to us.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Why do you say God could never be proven by empirical means?
If God showed up, and people tested this God’s body and DNA and photographed him and did a zillion tests and all those “observations”, etc, etc…it might prove the existence.
How can you be so sure as to say it could never prove it?
That’s giving up pretty easy, don’t you think?

.

I could be convinced through evidence. If someone (or some people) were able to demonstrate a clear violation of some law(s) of the universe at will, I would be perfectly willing to entertain the hypothesis that they had supernatural powers. If subsequent investigation revealed no other plausible explanations, I could be convinced.

For example, suppose a faith healer was healing amputees (i.e. regrowing entire limbs.) There is currently no known method for accomplishing this so a supernatural hypothesis would be plausible (although natural limb regrowth is theoretically possible.) Before this could be deemed evidence of the supernatural, though, scientists would have to examine the healers methods. They would have to rule out things like deception (e.g. use of drugs) or coincidence (e.g. the faith healer’s ritual just happens to involve natural substances which combine to induce limb growth.) Once this was done, and the scientists were unable to reproduce the effects without the faith healer, I would be willing to strongly consider supernatural explanations.

Now, if that sort of thing happened regularly, the collective effect would be fairly convincing evidence for the supernatural.

 

[Thorns]

I believe humans naturally dont believe in anything, because if nothing is perceived through the senses then theres nothing to wonder to believe in something or not. Its either there or its not.

Belief in God must be taught to us and even then, all that is taught goes against nature, logic, and reasoning. It requires massive explanations and relies on delicate, specific words and their very particular connotations. Basically, its too complicated to conclude naturally on one’s own, therefore I find it not rational IMO.

Another reason why circumstantial evidence doesn’t work comes to mind. Let me ask, is it rational to believe Zombies exist? Dead bodies are a reality, graveyards exist (their dormant dwelling place), and we all have brains (their favorite food). Therefore we can conclude that zombies exist. Obviously this is false.

 

[Bradski]

Belief in God must be taught to us and even then, all that is taught goes against nature, logic, and reasoning. It requires massive explanations and relies on delicate, specific words and their very particular connotations. Basically, its too complicated to conclude naturally on one’s own, therefore I find it not rational IMO.

There’s a simple thought experiment you can do to test that.

Let’s pretend that at midday today GMT, all records of all religions that exist or have existed disappear from the world. Buildings, books, statues, icons, films, literally everything. In addition, everyone loses all memories of all religions, past and present.

Would we still develop religions? (I’d say yes). Would Christianity be one of them? (I’d say no, notwithstanding that most people here would say that God would reveal himself to them so they would still remain Christians).

 

[Thorns]

There’s a simple thought experiment you can do to test that.

Let’s pretend that at midday today GMT, all records of all religions that exist or have existed disappear from the world. Buildings, books, statues, icons, films, literally everything. In addition, everyone loses all memories of all religions, past and present.

Would we still develop religions? (I’d say yes). Would Christianity be one of them? (I’d say no, notwithstanding that most people here would say that God would reveal himself to them so they would still remain Christians).

Let me clarify… Belief in a specific deity, religion, and specific laws must all be taught. In any religion, any of the deities are never realized or are obvious. We must be taught about their origins, their abilities, their personalities, etc. No one concludes that all on their own.

So lets say I create a religion called Ghdhdjsmrb and that god loves red, hates calamari, loves to breakdance, and talks backwards. What are the chances someone else in the world would come up with, or realize such a religion in this exact order, without being taught?

 

[Bradski]

Let me clarify… Belief in a specific deity, religion, and specific laws must all be taught. In any religion, any of the deities are never realized or are obvious. We must be taught about their origins, their abilities, their personalities, etc. No one concludes that all on their own.

So lets say I create a religion called Ghdhdjsmrb and that god loves red, hates calamari, loves to breakdance, and talks backwards. What are the chances someone else in the world would come up with, or realize such a religion in this exact order, without being taught?

Religions develop. Nobody creates them (well, with notable exceptions such as Smith and Hubbard). You didn’t have a couple of guys making things up over a couple of beers in ancient Greece working through a cast list to fill the required pantheon.

Religions develop. Mainly from a fear of the unknown. Nobody wants to die, so maybe someone could help in that regard. Let’s call him Osiris. Someone must be making that thunderous noise during the storm so let’s call him Thor. I don’t know how we got through that battle - we must thank someone for it. Let’s call him Mars and sacrifice a goat in his honour and he may help us next time.

Apart from the rather risible examples that we have had in more modern times, almost all religions are hundreds if not thousands of years old and developed when people’s understanding of the natural world was pretty slim.

And pretty slim is what I would give the chances of a religion starting from scratch today.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

Let me clarify… Belief in a specific deity, religion, and specific laws must all be taught. In any religion, any of the deities are never realized or are obvious. We must be taught about their origins, their abilities, their personalities, etc. No one concludes that all on their own.

My preferred version of the thought experiment is to imagine we send a group of babies off to another planet along with all our scientific knowledge and none of our philosophical/theological knowledge. If we contacted them in a few thousand years, what might they have come up with?

I think it is well established that our early religions typically formed as attempts to explain natural phenomenon (e.g. ocean storms, thunder, the sun.) So if a “philosophically primitive” civilization already had the natural explanations for those things, would they ever posit the existence of a God?

It’s obviously possible that they would, but I think it is not some foregone conclusion. I will note that our historical “proofs of God” come from people who had already been exposed to the concept of gods. Would someone without any exposure to ideas about gods ever come up with and be convinced by those proofs on their own? If they did, would their God be fundamentally different from ours? For example, they might conclude that God is perfectly a-moral instead of perfectly moral.

 

[miguel]

I dont believe circumstantial evidence always paints an accurate picture either…

Not always but sometimes it does.

 

[miguel]

There is also circumstantial evidence against the existence of God. For example random natural suffering, and lack of perfectly clear instructions from God to us.

Divine revelation is abundantly clear. No suffering is random. God has a plan for suffering. For example, he allows it to soften our hearts for our brothers and sisters.

 

[thinkandmull]

I often sense that my belief in God comes from my intuition as a baby that everything came from my dad. I don’t think Vatican I taught that God’s existence can be proven like a Euclid proposition; it’s different type of intellectual thought, which could be doubted with sufficient reason but contrary to the Truth of the arguments. Ye, it makes sense

 

[Hans_W]

Divine revelation is abundantly clear. No suffering is random. God has a plan for suffering. For example, he allows it to soften our hearts for our brothers and sisters.

I would be careful here. The Problem of Evil is a huge problem and you cannot just sweep it under the rug. What about the immense suffering going on in nature?

 

[abucs]

I would be careful here. The Problem of Evil is a huge problem and you cannot just sweep it under the rug. What about the immense suffering going on in nature?

Which is why the incarnation of the suffering Christ is so powerful.

God suffers with us. Evil is to be overcome through God, if we so choose.

 

[Hans_W]

Which is why the incarnation of the suffering Christ is so powerful.

God suffers with us. Evil is to be overcome through God, if we so choose.

When I said “suffering in nature” I mean the immense suffering in the animal kingdom.

 

[miguel]

I would be careful here. The Problem of Evil is a huge problem and you cannot just sweep it under the rug. What about the immense suffering going on in nature?

It is a huge problem. Death is a huge problem. We know it came into the world as a punishment for sin. Sin was not God’s intention. God’s intention was free will and for man to use his free will for good. God Bless.