What kind of God...

[The Hunt]

The thing I don't understand about the Christian God is that he rewards people for believing in him even though there is no evidence, belief based on blind faith. What kind of God rewards people for being unquestioning, rewards people who would reject logic and reason because they are told to in a book or by their parents or religious figures?

One way I can imagine a theist would argue against this is to say that there is evidence of God, the beauty of the planet or complexity of life or what ever it may be, and that the existance of God is logical. In which case these people have no faith. Faith in something you (apparantly) know is no faith at all.

Another answer people often give is "I just know" or "I can feel God" or other things along those lines. Then why can't I feel God? It's not because I've never allowed myself to because I'm stubborn, I've gone through phases of agnosticism, I was raised in a mainly Christian environment, but I've never felt God. One thing I have noticed is that the closest I've come to believing in God was when I was depressed and lonely. I felt like I had nobody to turn to. I think this is why some people believe, because they are comforted by the idea of a God and afterlife and reject logic for something that is easier to cope with mentally.

Just wondering what anyone elses thoughts are on this.

[Socnow]

Actually most theists I know just don't think, that believing in reason and logic is better than believing in their imagination of god. And in some way this isn't so wrong at all: There is no proof for logic itself (reason is, I think, just a consequence of logic). We just think that logic is helpful and therefore we believe in it. A theist believes in logic instead.
But I have two problems with this argumentation:
1.) It is very unlikely, that there is just one theist who denies logic absolutely. All of them do reasonable thinking sometimes in their lifes. The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard said (as I understand him) that reasonable thinking and logic are only synonyms for humanitys fear that there is no system in the world. Noone is able to abandon these fear completely. We have to do the "jump" into irrationality and faith again and again. Only this way we can experience god ... Well, I think he was just a loony. But it is consistent.
2.) In my opinion, logic is not "divisible". You believe in logic or you don't. There is no way to say that logic only works in some areas and in some others it doesn't work. But this is, what most theists I know are doing. They say: Logic and reason work for science, politics and many other things, but god is far above logicals reasoning. But this is just arbitrarness. It is not consistent. But if you say that, the answer is - in most cases - that they don't believe in logic anyway, so they don't have to be consistent.

The right way to reply to this is to speak of the pastafarians, I think: If arbitrarness is not bad, than you can say that anything is your god. Maybe it is a pen or a turtle or spaghetti. Anything will work.

... but there are other theists also. If you look into history, there were many christian philosophers which tried to combine the idea of god and logic. I don't think that it is impossible, but the idea of "god" is very different from the common way if you do so. There is no logical god that makes you feel comfortable or loved or something like that. It is just a creator. No more, no less. No love, no compassion. If you want that, you can't combine it with logical reasoning.

But one thing is important: There are intellectual christians and muslims and hindus and so on. Do not underestimate theists. Maybe you even can learn from their thoughts, even if you don't believe in god.

[Euphemia Fenrir Lewis]

I want you to know, that not all christians just jump into blind faith. in this modern society it's actually really hard to believe without question.I've questioned my own religion, and looked into other belief systems, including atheism. I still believe in God. I think that God wants us to believe because it's so hard for us. life is a test, and believing is the hardest part of it.

[The Hunt]

But why would God want that? What superior characteristic does belief in God exhibit?

[Philip Ho Zhi Yang]

I thnk that believing in a God is just a way of coping with things we can't handle..

sort of like escapism (is that right? sorry. im a lil fuzzy today)

like lets say the person we love most dies.

we can't deal with the " shes dead, gonna turn into dust and she will never come back"

so, believing in a God that will give her eternal life is sort of like a way to cushion that abyss of well, logically ( so far as we know ) truth, since we do not know for sure if people really do go to heaven, etc.

Its kind of a way of combatting the innate fear of ( i believe ) all humans of the unknown, and it is one of the easiest.

and sometimes believing that the hardships in our lives are tests of our character enable us to persevere.

and whether they really are or not is debatable and unsure, but it definetly sounds better than "lifes a bitch, then you die".

yup :D

[Euphemia Fenrir Lewis]

well God HAS given us evidence to believe in him so it's not just blind faith for one thing. The bible (if you believe it's non-fiction that is) is an account of the evidence given to us over 2000 years ago.
And think about the beggining(sp?) of time according to genesis: Adam and Eve were told NOT to eat fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but they did anyway because they believed the serpant, who said it was a good thing to eat it,more than they believed God. God could be testing us to see if we do the same thing they did and believe humans over the word of God.

[XOX]

Life is not a test, it is the time between birth and death that you could interact with the world.

[Charlotte Haworth]

I'm debating with myself right now on whether to join this debate. I'm thinking I will since I'm typing this but I have like 5 that I keep having to go back to now! Can I be bothered?.... YES!

It's not about being superior or perfect it's about loving and following God.

If belief was a coping mechanism it would just be triggered in bad times but it's not. People give thanks and praise God in bad and good times.

Okay okay enough already, I'm not saying you should bash other religions but can you not spread it out evenly? If you had a problem with religion in general (like many say they do) why do you concentrate on christianity? There's obviously something that draws people to it. Rebelling against something thats true and right is just silly - you're fighting a battle already lost thousands of years ago. It seems to me like you hate religion - specifically christianity not faith.

[Philip Ho Zhi Yang]

Hmm, you bring out a fair point, Christianity does seem to be taking a lot of bashing here, but maybe because it is the most well reknowned ( I can't say for sure, I can't be bothered to look up the statistics, but jsut let me slide okay? ), that we question it.

cause I know I can't question Hindu (ism?)...

cause I don't really know much about it (though a north indian friend did tell me the reason as to why some of them are blue, but I forgot..)

yep.

and that IS another good point, that people praise God in good times as well (Gosh,sometimes I'm so caught up on just what I think I don't stop to think about the other end of the debate..thank you:D )

and I don't hate religion, I just find that its hard to exercise faith..it really is very difficult..so I thought that probably if I could gather enough substantial evidence that Christianity is the true religion, that I would believe in it.

but somehow, logic and religion.. dont really fit in all the time.

thank you for reminding me about the other end of it :)

[The Hunt]

"it's about loving and following God"

So God prefers people who love him? Why? It makes some sense that God would be against people who believe in him but do not love him but why would he have a problem with people who simply do not believe he exists but are still good people?

People haved to cope with the idea of death their whole life, not just when they are close to it. I don't think it is a coping mechanism for everyone, but I do think it is for at least some based on my own experience.

"why do you concentrate on christianity?"

Well I started this discussion about the Christian God because the Christian God says "love me or go to hell" to put it simply and that is the issue I wanted to debate. I didn't want to assume that any other religion says the same about their God because I don't know if that is the case.
I don't hate all religions (I do hate some) I just think they are wrong.
I don't like faith because there is no evidence to suggest that it should be trusted. (obviously, if there was evidence it wouldn't be faith any more)

"Rebelling against something thats true and right is just silly"

I agree. If we had the same idea about what is true we wouldn't be having a debate right now.

"you're fighting a battle already lost thousands of years ago"

That is a very big statement to make. Care to expand?

[Charlotte Haworth]

God doesn't show favour to people whether they follow God or not. Sure you can enter into blessings with a willing and accepting heart but others who don't believe also recieve blessings. Theres no point in trying to make sense out of God's love for us it is inexplicable and unconditional. Gods ways are above our ways. It would be impossible for us to love others in the way God loves us.

If you go to hell it is by your own choosing. As you have pointed out you know the consequences of not loving God and people still choose not to do so - whether it's by choosing not to believe in God or not to love God.

Well God is God, you can't fight that. When Jesus came to Earth and died for us for you he won the battle. Whether you believe it or not thats up to you - the facts remain the same.

:)

[The Hunt]

How can I choose to love something I don't believe exists?
I havn't chosen to not believe in God. That implies that it is possible for me to change my mind. It isn't possible because as far as I am concerned God is as fictional as invisible pink unicorns and Harry Potter. I can't just decide Harry Potter exists because I know he doesn't and I know God doesn't either.

I still don't understand why you think faith is worth more than logic.

[Andrew]

What facts? Can you perhaps compile a list of fact based evidence.

Note: The bible doesn't count.