Why do you believe in God?

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I_question_God said:
Well I have been going to the zoo for 6 dern years and the same apes and monkeys havent turned to men just yet … 😃

no but in all seriousness, something tells me all of this earth, and creations did not come from 1 organism.
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Gee, do you think speciation is that quick? Gee, I think it would at least take a few generations, and it would not work in a population with a small sample size. It takes many isolated populations for speciation to initiate (except in the case of sympatric speciation) .

Well, what tells you that? The so-called “Holy Spirit”? Could you refer to any studies in a peer-reviewed journal to support your claims?
 
ribozyme said:
Gee, do you think speciation is that quick? Gee, I think it would at least take a few generations, and it would not work in a population with a small sample size. It takes many isolated populations for speciation to initiate (except in the case of sympatric speciation) .

Well, what tells you that? The so-called “Holy Spirit”? Could you refer to any studies in a peer-reviewed journal to support your claims?
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hahahahah 😃 :rolleyes: no I don’t what makes you have “faith” in speciation?

Listen apperently you didnt read my other posts or anything I ever said prior I have many beliefs and trying to fit me in you “cookie cutter” is not going to work. I’m unique
 
There are so many things to support for my belief in God, but one of them is that I look back to my life and see how He has planned my life. Sometime, things had happened to me and I thought this was tough, but then, because of the things had happened, many great things came afterwards.

So, the above is about Faith. Another thing that helps me know there is God is by miracles given by God that happened to me and my family - My mom was very sick and we thought she would be paralyzed for the rest of her life, but we prayed a lot and now she’s healed. For me, I had some visions and physical contact with some supernatural that I could not explain myself.

I can go on forever, but I hope my answer helps you a bit.
 
mpeterdc said:
What makes you believe in God? Even if you’ve never lost faith, what is it that makes you believe? If you were an atheist or agnostic, what made you believe? If you were a polytheist or pantheist, what made you believe that there was one personal God?

I’m sure we can all learn something, so I’m looking forward to reading your responses. Wishing you well

Pete
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Hi Pete!

I was an atheist before I became Christian. I read the New Testament and discovered the compassion and love of Jesus. I wanted to be a “Jesus-follower”, he became my idol, I wanted to experience His love and to live my life as He wanted me to.

Faith itself is something other then wanting to believe. I wanted to believe, but I had not the power in me to do so. I could have just ignored this feeling, and kept on being an atheist. But I knew I couldn’t live on like that, knowing that there might be something better. It was like I was standing freezing outside a warm house and couldn’t find my way in. Through the windows (the bible) I knew life inside was much better than outside. Desperation and hope led me to use the knowledge the biblereading had given me, and I prayed to God asking Him to give me faith.

From that moment on, I became a Christian. My faith is a gift from God, it is not something I have to “produce”.

The fact that God is one and personal makes me feel safe. I am never alone, and He has control no matter what happens. He is the strongest, the ruler of the universe. There are no other gods, nor humans or demons that can threaten Him. He is my protector. The thought that the allmighty God cares for me is an awsome thought.
👍
 
To be utterly honest… because my mother taught me to believe in God.

Since then I’ve never had a single doubt. I’ve always known deep down inside that he is there.

There have been a couple times that out of curiosity, a thought experiment if you will, that I wondered what the world would be like without God. Those thoughts were dark and horrible. A world of Chaos and hopelessness. Even if I had not always felt the reality of him, I couldn’t bear not to believe in God. Life would become meaningless.
 
Hello Pete,

I have always beleived in God. I remember saying my prayers at bed time every night even though my parents never did (AFAIK).

Ever since my conversion in Lourdes, I have never looked back. I know in my heart and soul that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. I think the love that God has for us is astounding despite our ingratitude and sin etc.

God is the only “thing” that makes sense in this crazy world of ours.
He makes life worth living. Praise and Glory be to God our Saviour!

God bless,
Noel.
 
nkelly said:
Hello Pete,

I have always beleived in God. I remember saying my prayers at bed time every night even though my parents never did (AFAIK).

Ever since my conversion in Lourdes, I have never looked back. I know in my heart and soul that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. I think the love that God has for us is astounding despite our ingratitude and sin etc.

God is the only “thing” that makes sense in this crazy world of ours.
He makes life worth living. Praise and Glory be to God our Saviour!

God bless,
Noel.
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Would you please tell us about your Lourdes experience?

What does ribozyme think about the miracle of Lourdes? (Google it if you don’t know the story.) Or, for that matter, if a miracle happened before your eyes (like a tumor disappearing) would that be enough to perhaps sway you even a little bit?

I will post some peculiar “coincidences” that happened to me recently that reaffirmed my belief that God does help show us the Way.

Let’s all pray for ribozyme and other atheists who’ve posted here for the Holy Spirit to open their hearts so He may touch them directly. Seek and you shall find; and keep seeking.

Mimi
 
Like another poster said, I can’t imagine NOT believing in God (the one, true God). Can’t imagine believing in an idol, like a fertility goddess or something, either. Being Catholic was always part of my culture. I knew Catholic and Lutheran; nothing else existed in my vocabulary until high school. I fell away from religious practice and prayer in college; had several serious boyfriends while pursuing a degree. An untimely pregnancy interrupted that pursuit. Long story short, my son was put up for adoption. A closed adoption; mom told me to think of him as God’s child, and I entrusted his care to God and prayed for his adoptive parents.

27 yr synopsis: marriage, 3 more sons, teaching in a Catholic school (I think this was active grace), getting reaquainted with Catholicism; mom died shortly after dh and I had our first son. Mother’s Day tough bc of that and not knowing where my birthson was or whether he was even alive. But he searched and found me! I KNOW prayers were answered. Reaffirmed by the fact we have over 50 sycronicities and similarities; he looks more like me than my other sons; lots of other stuff we couldn’t possible have planned; one of which I think is the coolest:
This happened just a month or so before we met each other and had been communicating for about 3 months, anticipating how this was all going to work out with my family, friends, etc. How would I break the news to my kids?? How would my friends react?? It was an emotional rollercoaster.

One day, while Doug (birthson) was working (about 1,000 mi away in another state), he decided to go make some copies of photos for me at the library. He took a less familiar alternate route, and stopped at an intersection; looking up, he noticed the street was Douglas St. (his first name)! Driving on, he came to the next street which was my given name, Miriam St. This can be verified by Mapquest. God really does give us Signs!

Catholics call them Signal Graces. Once you believe and are open to God working in your life, you wil receive signal graces. It is awesome being a Christian!

Oh yes, I have another story about my son, N, which I’ve already posted. I believe he was saved from injury in a rollover car accident overseas. I’d begun saying the rosary daily just the year before the reunion. Our Lady is a powerful intercessor!

AND my dh converted to Catholicism 6/05!

Mimi
 
I was an atheist one day and a believer the next. Can’t explain it. It was as if God cut open my brain and poured in the knowledge and love of Him. Theologians call it “infused knowledge.” But I’d been reading about religion purely as an academic interest for years. I guess I got too close to the flame.

Several years later I saw the sun dance and spin in the sky and the sky filled with all the colors of the rainbow, huge splashes of vivid color, as if God had thrown out buckets of thick paint into the sky; it was similar, I think, to the Miracle of the Sun at Fatima. And I cried, “O God, forgive me. How could I ever have been an atheist?” The memory of it still makes me tremble and weep.

I LOVE THIS CHURCH!

Praise Him in His angels and in His saints.

Katholikos
 
Anyone can objectively find evidence of the miraculous. It is readily available in many locations around the world. There have been at least a half dozen “Eucharistic miracles”. There are the incorrupt bodies of various saints, St Bernadette of Loudes, St John Vianny and St. Catherine of Sienna, and St Rita.

The thing is the usual atheist will simply ignore or discard these as fakes or props because to accept the fact that something supernatural exist is out of the realm of acceptable reality.

The fact that the cloak of St Juan Diego exists is a freak of nature. Scientific examination of it shows that the material is over 400 years old, but the pigments have properties that did not exist back them. Extreme magnifcation of Our Lady’s eye in the picture reveals a incredibly small reflected image of Juan Diego. The technology to produce such an image did not exist until recent times. BUT the image was created by Our Lady herself and not by some painter or some machine.

But discard the images and miracles and you still have the testimony of hundreds if not thousands who experienced miracle healings or experienced encounters with saints. St. Padre Pio who lived just 40 years ago, experienced teh stigmata of Christ for almost 50 years, and yet the day after he died it mystriously disappeared from his hands. Doctors examined the wounds many times during his lifetime. They were real, and not self inflicted, and even if they were, how could they suddenly vanish overnight ?

It all comes back to the truism, for believers, no proof is necessary, for non believers, no amount of proof is ever enough. You may even experience a miracle first hand to yourself or to a loved one, but odds are you would just chalk that up to coincidence or a natural phenomena.
 
On the flip side, someone like myself, when some strange coincidence happens, we chalk it up to something else.

For instance about 3 weeks ago, I was in Burbank California, about 3600 miles away from home. Sunday moring I drove out to go to mass. I foolishly went out without asking for directions figuring I would run into a Catholic Church fairly easily.

Unfortunately whereever I drove there were no Catholic churches at least not on the streets were I went. After about 35 minutes, I was about to give up and turn back, but just then I came up on my first Catholic church in the area. It was named St. Jane Frances De Chantal, the SAME name as my home parish 3600 miles away !

Now anyone would say that was really a quaint coincidence. I know better. There are 12 Catholic churches in Burbank, this one was about 4 or 5 miles away from where I was staying. The odds of coming across this particular church with the same name as my home parish are probably fairly slim.

It is not a common name even for a Catholic Church. IF it were saint Peters or St Pauls or St Mary’s it might have been different, there is probably one in every city or town, but St Jane Frances De Chantal is fairly rare. It may not be miraculous, but to me it sure came pretty darn close. BTW I did say a couple of prayers along the way, my guess is that my guardian angel finally woke up and led me there.
 
Mimi said:
Would you please tell us about your Lourdes experience?
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Hello Mimi, yes I’d be glad to.

Just to go back before my visit to Lourdes, I led a very sinful life,
went to mass very infrequently and hadn’t been to confession in about 15 years. I had bought into a lot of new-age nonsense such as chakras, auras, crystals etc. I completely fell for the lie that is yoga and believed in re-incarnation and karma etc. I thought meditation was the way to find God. I regret the day I picked up a copy of “Autobiography of a yogi” by paramahansa bleedin’ yogananda (and several of his books there after). I then joined the self-realization foundation. What a fool I was!

Then came my trip to Lourdes in 2001. It was by far the happiest week of my life. The atmosphere there was just wonderful, everyone was there to help the sick and there was great good-will. I was amazed by the faith people had and it had a profound effect on me. The night before I left, I paid a late-night visit to the grotto and got down on my kness to pray for the gift of faith. And I am glad to report that my prayer was answered big time! I am quite certain beyond any doubt that God granted me the grace of conversion. Praised be His holy name!

As soon as I came home, I had a great urge to learn more about my Catholic faith. I went to my local priest and asked for his advice. I setup a Rosary group (had to learn how to pray the Rosary first!) I bought Catholic books and devoured them. In fact I haven’t read much else since then. My eyes were really and truly opened! I realized just how much I had been seduced by the lies of the evil one! Discovering the various facets of the faith was like discovering a treasure chest of great riches! Faith is such a great gift.

Since then, I’m glad to say that I pray every day and go to Mass as often as I can. I go to confession every week and try to live as much as possible according to God’s will. My perspective on life has changed totally. I now see how the things of this world are insignificant or despicable and the things are heaven are to be sought. I see that the purpose of life is to know, love and serve God. Christian life is a struggle but it’s a battle well worth fighting!

On the downside, it saddens me to see so many people who have abandoned their religion and have turned instead to the gods of materialism or paganism etc. There are so many cynical and arrogant people who don’t BELIEVE in almighty GOD!

That’s my story in a nut-shell 🙂

God bless,
Noel.
 
ribozyme said:
Well, personal testimonies go both ways, why does one have to be exposed only to the testimony of Catholics. For balance, it is best for one to read the testimony of apostates; for example, A Salvation story.

I still have my reasons to retain skepticism though. I do not have the information I need.
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Here’s some food for thought for you, Ribozyme:

I believe I was on the receiving end of another signal grace. Just after signing off the CA forum Wed. night, I turned on the TV; EWTN was the channel already tuned. It just “happened” to be about the I.Q. of the Universe and Dr. Flew’s conversion from atheist to deist. I caught the last 30 minutes. Apparently this was a British production. It was about former atheist (scientist) Anthony Flew. He is now a Deist (not follower of any religion), but basically that he could not ignore the “enormous complexity of the universe”. Read more at www.biola.edu/antonyflew/index.cfm
This is the text of an argument between Flew and another scientist.

A book mentioned was The Wonder of the World by Roy Varghese. There are 3 DVD’s available also from the Institute for Metascience Research. One title: Has Science Discovered God?
www.getyourvideo.com. You have to enter the title in the search engine AFTER clicking on a link at the site which will take you to a publishing site.

Fascinating stuff! I hope it re-airs.

God Bless,
Mimi
 
Mimi said:
Here’s some food for thought for you, Ribozyme:

I believe I was on the receiving end of another signal grace. Just after signing off the CA forum Wed. night, I turned on the TV; EWTN was the channel already tuned. It just “happened” to be about the I.Q. of the Universe and Dr. Flew’s conversion from atheist to deist. I caught the last 30 minutes. Apparently this was a British production. It was about former atheist (scientist) Anthony Flew. He is now a Deist (not follower of any religion), but basically that he could not ignore the “enormous complexity of the universe”. Read more at www.biola.edu/antonyflew/index.cfm
This is the text of an argument between Flew and another scientist.

A book mentioned was The Wonder of the World by Roy Varghese. There are 3 DVD’s available also from the Institute for Metascience Research. One title: Has Science Discovered God?
www.getyourvideo.com. You have to enter the title in the search engine AFTER clicking on a link at the site which will take you to a publishing site.

Fascinating stuff! I hope it re-airs.

God Bless,
Mimi
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The Journey Home with Marcus Grodi
ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/seriessearchprog.asp?seriesID=-6892289&T1=
 
dosdog wrote:
The Journey Home with Marcus Grodi
ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/…D=-6892289&T1=
Which interview are you referring to? The most recent one? I saw the Michael Cumbie interview and thought it was v v good. He was already a Christian pastor. Caught part of the Diriev one, too; it’s a little tedious to listen to as Diriev English delivery isn’t real smooth; he’s probably translating in his head during the m-m-m’s and ah-h-h’s. This is one of the best shows on EWTN!

There are interviews with ex-atheists also.

Mimi
 
Mimi said:
Here’s some food for thought for you, Ribozyme:

I believe I was on the receiving end of another signal grace. Just after signing off the CA forum Wed. night, I turned on the TV; EWTN was the channel already tuned. It just “happened” to be about the I.Q. of the Universe and Dr. Flew’s conversion from atheist to deist. I caught the last 30 minutes. Apparently this was a British production. It was about former atheist (scientist) Anthony Flew. He is now a Deist (not follower of any religion), but basically that he could not ignore the “enormous complexity of the universe”. Read more at www.biola.edu/antonyflew/index.cfm
This is the text of an argument between Flew and another scientist.

God Bless,
Mimi
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Anthony Flew isn’t a scientist; he is a highly respected philosopher. Fine, deism might be possible, it can’t be tested, but I see absolutely no reason to believe in a benevolent God.
 
ribozyme said:
Anthony Flew isn’t a scientist; he is a highly respected philosopher. Fine, deism might be possible, it can’t be tested, but I see absolutely no reason to believe in a benevolent God.
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IF you accept the possibility of deism, does it not make you wonder what will happen the moments after your death, how you will confront your Creator ???

You do not accept God in life, can you really expect that He will accept you in death ?

Discarding the secular relativism and those who believe that just about any faith will do, the Bible tells us that those who reject Jesus are condemned by their very rejection of the Son of God.

It may be that your actions in life do not merit eternal damnation, but at the very least, you could have avoided some extensive time in Purgatory by doing some penance and mitigating actions during your time on earth. It doesn’t take much to build a few indulgences, but it can save you a world of pain and suffering in the hereafter, and there is a hereafter.

From our viewpoint we have seen a boatload of evidence to believe as we do, saints, miracles, personal experiences, gut feeling etc. While you ignore everyone elses beliefs and experiences, your admission of the possibility of hereafter should lead you to examine if there are indeed any benefits to such a belief and weigh these against any downside risks to non-belief.

It appears to us the downside to non-belief is very considerable (if not infinitely bad -ie eternal damnation), while the downside to belief is very minimal (we may be wasting our time and energy). While the upside to belief is quite considerable (with an infinitely good upside - ie Heaven), I really see zero upside to non-belief, but you are welcome to point that out to us.

In a cost benefit analysis, I think non-believers really come out way out on the short end of the stick, while believers have a huge up side gain versus minimal downside loss. I wish I had these types of odds and risk vs rewards in AC or Las Vegas. In the lottery of life being a believer has a huge payoff but much better odds. We think its a whole lot better than 50-50 that we’re right.
 
ribozyme said:
Anthony Flew isn’t a scientist; he is a highly respected philosopher. Fine, deism might be possible, it can’t be tested, but I see absolutely no reason to believe in a benevolent God.
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But, as by this theory innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth? It will be much more convenient to discuss this question in the chapter on the Imperfection of the geological record; and I will here only state that I believe the answer mainly lies in the record being incomparably less perfect than is generally supposed; the imperfection of the record being chiefly due to organic beings not inhabiting profound depths of the sea
Origin of the Species

Darwins Diary 1832.

“I was led by feelings … to the firm conviction of the existence of God, and of the immortality of the soul … [W]hilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, it is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind. I well remember by conviction that there is more in man than the mere breath of his body.”
 
b_justb said:
One day I seriously asked God if He was there. He said, “Yes.” I now believe.
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Same here. Its weird that when I didn’t believe I couldn’t see Him anywhere now that I do believe I see Him everywhere.
 
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