To believe in God or not, what's the big deal?

[Stan]

TO me, to believe that God believe in you is the big deal.

[abelisle]

I'm not sure I'm even sure of what I'm going to say next but I think the big deal for me is that I don't know where to go to explain the varied mysteries of life if I didn't believe in God. Now, let's not get what I just said confused. I'm referring to a Biblical God. There very well might be a God who is the "ground of all being" free of all constraints put upon the way the Bible tells us how to think about him. The I AM THAT I AM who I interpret as the foundation of ontological thought.

By that I mean the thing that gives meaning to everything, answers all questions and provides logical explanations. So, believing for me is really a matter of understanding and making sense out of everything.

Does this make sense?

Alex (maybe this is getting a touch too much anthropomorphic?)

[Stan]

Everywhere, people are born with the desire to worship. Every society, some kill that.

My point comes back to this.

Does God believe and have a personal interest in you.

[Stan]

It is not

Does God exist to us?

it is

Do we exist to God?

[Woody]

We exist to God because He created us so that we might honor and glorify Himself.

[phkrause]

Yes woody, and also why than would God have allowed his son to die for us if we were not a big deal to him?

pk

[Stan]

it is easy to believe in God, but the question is, and it is not a corporate question, does he believe in you as an individual.

Lots of people say "Yes, I believe in God", but the issue is believing the other way.

[abelisle]

Stan,

I think your questions are beyond our ken. Their anthropomorphic implications supercede our ability to even formulate a thought process that is workable and/or usable? If God was like us, maybe we could attempt an answer but God is noetic and ineffable in the same package.

I would like to refer to William James, Varieties of Religious Experience but I would be breaking the rules for this forum and I want Tom to be my friend.

Alex (this original thinking stuff is very cool!)

[Woody]

Obviously He believes in me because He created me. I have to assume He knows me since He made me. However we could look at this from another angle. And that is that No He does not believe in me. For I am nothing in my own power. Anything that is good in me ... has to come from Him not me.

[phkrause]

That's why Stan I mentioned that he sent his Son to dies for us. That alone tells me that he loves me or like the title of the thread says "Believes" in me or all us to broaden the picture.

pk

[Tom Wetmore]

Another way of addressing this is to ask what God deems more important, His law or people. My conclusion is that God considered people of such value that He developed an end-run around the letter of the law, forgiving violators of His law in order to save them. You save what you value most.

[Tom Wetmore]

You may of course refer to outside sources and state in your own words concepts which may be from those sources. Just no unthinking parroting allowed. But I most want to see value added to those concepts in the form of your original thoughts about them.

Go ahead and give us some positive and healthy minded perspective on William James. You may also consider a pragmatic application of his thoughts on the religious experience of the symbolic and the scientific blind spots.

[Dr. Rich]

Hey pk, really? God sent His Son to die for us? All this time I thought Jesus said that God sent His Son to this World to testify to the truth so that those who believe and abide in His words will be set free from sin.

Shoot, if God sent His Son to die for us, then how come God didn't allow Jesus to be killed when He was a child? John 3:16 does not say anything about God sending His Son to die for our sins!

Even Satan and the demons believe in God. What good will that do them? It is not the belief in God that counts, it is what you do with what Jesus testified about and given to us by His eyewitnesses that counts.

Yes, I agree with Tom, what the big deal about simply believing in God?

[cardw]

The problem with the approach that has god going around the law is that the law becomes greater than god. This basically creates a new god of law or nature.

Plus the idea of the 10 commandments being this advance moral insight really ignores the complex ethical problems we have to face today. Law is simple a concept made up by men to establish empires and nations. If you want to look at the failure of law, simply look at our complex justice system and its failure to provide justice for everyone.

This idea that there is some universal law that solves everything is just as mythical as the idea of god.

And to suggest that the death of Jesus, which really wasn't a death, but a period of torture since he raised from the dead, doesn't really cover anything other than some technicality in the law. This is still iron age ethical thinking.

It is amazing to me that with all the technical advances we have as a human race, Christians don't consider the advances in ethics and philosophy as legitimate progress.

We know that the most atheists are highly educated, tend to be more moral than their Christian counterparts, and are more generous in their giving as a group. Obviously there are exceptions in each group. There are generous Christians and immoral atheists.

I think it is important to ask the question, "Why do the most intelligent people on the planet tend to be atheists or agnostics?" They all can't be evil plotters and possessed by the devil. I have had the opportunity to gather with large groups of unbelievers and it is alive with creativity, laughter, and hope. It is not the sad state of affairs that is often paraded out during sermons and evangelistic meetings.

It's not that I think Christians lack intelligence, but I think they tend to hide their heads in the sand and often lack a real understanding of the problems with a belief in god because they are afraid that life will have no meaning without a belief in god.

I don't believe in the god of the Bible, but I still look for other possibilities and moments of transcendence. And I still have those moments on a fairly regular basis, but it doesn't mean that the god of the Bible is providing these. My reason informs me that the most honest answer I can give is that I don't know. Meaning can come from many different approaches, including Christianity.

The main difficulty that I observe with Christianity is its insistence that it is the only way. It's difficult to believe since, in the real world, there tends to be multiple solutions to most complex problems.