Top 10 reasons to believe in God

[rational-mind]

10. Although you've never really thought about it, you think that, somehow, it's possible there is a God.

9. It seems like there are millions of people who are religious and that millions of people can't all be wrong.

8. It seems OK to you to accept that your life is just a semi-important aspect of a greater plan.

7. Your family is religious, your parents are religious and, thus you were born religious and have no choice.

6. You believe that something can be created out of nothing and a mere wish can make things happen.

5. You believe that there is no connection between religion and the Dark Ages, or that the massive bloodshed of the Crusades was a necessary means to some noble end.

4. You believe that if you can't prove something, it's best just to take things on faith and not think at all.

3. You think that all that mysterious, magical stuff seems really cool since it isn't subject to the limits of reality.

2. You can call all of the mistakes you make and the disasters caused by your incompetence acts of God.

1. You place not value of the capacity and value of your mind or your life and you gave up thinking for yourself and trying to be happy long ago.

[Belladonna]

Do I detect a note of sarcasm? Some philosopher, and don't ask me who because I don't take Philosophy, gave this reason why people should believe in God: if you don't believe in God and then there is one, you'll be in trouble in the afterlife, where as if you believe in a nonexistant God, when you die that's it, and you won't even get the chance to be dissapointed. No better than the reasons you gave. But then I believe in a general sort of higher power, though not the sort endorsed by the whole JudaoChristian shtick, and my reason is that I don't care in the least if I don't have a logical explanation for everything I think.

[Thackary]

Not too sure about this, but I think that the philosopher you mentioned was Jesus.

Can anyone back me up on this?

[Chris Satterley]

Well maybe, but I think it was some early christian preacher bloke actually.
The only problem I have with his arguement is that you have to spend your whole life lying to yourself just in case god exists.

[S.P.I.G]

10. Everyone else does

9. You're told to

8. You're forced to

7. Why not?

6. You're told to again...

5. God "speaks to you"

4. You need something to believe in

3. The world makes no sense and you need to cling to the hope, no matter how remote, that there is a purpose in life

2. Boredom

1. Despair and envy

[wyrd]

The "if there isn't a god/invisible pink unicorn/giant inflatable Mrs Ross bent on destroying the union [delete as appropriate], it doesn't make a difference to you whether you belived in them when you die, but if there is and you don't believe in said deity, you're in deep shit and will burn in hell" thing is Pascal's Wager (roughly paraphrased, of course ). The guy in question was Blaise Pascal. Can't remember much else about him. I think he was French.

Unfortunately, the argument has a few problems. For one thing, it ignores the existence of many different belief systems, assuming automatically that only the christian belief system exists. However, if I died believing in a pink unicorn and discovered Mrs Ross was in fact in charge, (and you thought that was a bouncy castle in venue 1 last night!) I'd still be screwed, and instead of sitting until the small hours messing about on computers, I would have spent my life trying to believe a load of crap and getting my head around the apparently non-contradictory nature of something being both invisible and pink, for no reason whatsoever.

Even if the IPU existed I'm sure it wouldn't be all that impressed with me anyway if it was aware I'd only gone along with its evil plans for world domination out of fear of being roasted on a spit. And if it was unfriendly enough to condemn billions of reasonably good people to eternal torment just over a small mistake on their part (such as being swayed by the followers of the giant Mrs Ross handing out doubtlessly classy and well-produced flyers) then I personally wouldn't rate it too highly on the sanity and stability stakes, and wouldn't count too much on my hopes of it not going into a mood and just sending me off on a whim to join the majority of all the other people who had ever lived. (Including just about all my friends, come to think of it...)

(Thus ends the sleep deprived ramblings of an English student trying to avoid an apparent eternity of studying Hugh McDiarmid's poetry before her seminar tomorrow...)

[pilot]

1) All the evidence points to Jesus' existence, include atheist authors of the time, such as Tacitus.

2) He was fore-predicted by John the baptist.

[monkeymadness]

ah yes but the existence of Jesus does not neccesarily point to the existence of God.

David Icke is a different matter though.

[Belladonna]

There's all evidence that a historical Jesus existed, but what's that got to do with the existance of God/s? Just because someone existed doesn't mean you have to go around believing in him, if you know what I mean. I know my granny exists, but I don't take that as proof of a devine entity.

[rational-mind]

Pilot: it may be true that John the Baptist predicted Jesus' ministry, but this was during Jesus' adult lifetime. If you told me that you were going to do an English module next semester and I told everyone, would that make you God?

[Chris Satterley]

You can't prove the existance of god by arguing over it. I thought people would have realised this years ago. You have to go out and look.

[Thackary]

Ah yes... I read that somewhere.

"Seek and ye shall find"

[monkeymadness]

go out and look? why is he hiding in a bush? Surely even if you do go out and look, say believing in evidence of God through design then you still need to argue with it.

[Belladonna]

The Buddhists have a good saying about seeking God, "the Buddha you find on the mountain is the Buddha you brought to the mountain". Which more or less means that if you can find God, you can find it anywhere, because God is within you. (Any actual Buddhists can tell me off if I've put too much of a Pagan/Unitarian spin on the interpretation)

[Jordan]

Jesus did exist as a man, but he rose from the dead! No, this was no Freddy Krueger act, but proof of his divinity.
If you don't trust that little factoid, then how can you deny the countless miracles he performed in his lifetime? My granny can do no such wonders and neither could the thousands of people who witnessed him doing so.

[Frankie]

Both Christians and Buddhists believe this..."seek and ye shall find" refers to seeking within yourself.
Jesus, like Mohammed, and other religious people promoted common good values...you shall not steal...etc. It is possible to live by these values even if you do not believe in God.
Just because you don't believe in God does that give you the right to steal?...Of course not.

I believe in God, I don't need any proof or reason. In any world religion...Catholicism, Islam, etc people are asked to believe without eveidence, and without reason...their religion tests them...that's why it's called having Faith.
I don't believe just because I have no choice, or because my whole family is religious...blah blah blah. This defeats the whole idea of Faith. Faith starts within you, which is why God can be found within you. In my humble opinion, you are not truly "religious" until you wake up one day, and are able to find God within yourself.

[Belladonna]

As for Jesus's miracles, if a thousand people claiming to witness something makes it a fact, then no wonder cults do so well, lots of them have more members than that. People are dumb, and get dumber in masses. And lots of people have been said to have amazing powers.

[Thackary]

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large numbers.

The internet has a lot to answer for.
I refer to all the emails requesting people to fill in "Jedi" as their religion in the 2001 census.

[Dax]

what, was that whole jedi thing a joke!? last time i believe anything monkeymadness says.

[Jordan]

"...if a thousand people claiming to witness something makes it a fact..."
This is exactly how a fact it formed. You can't argue with tons of eye witnesses who all have the same story. And you can't argue with both ancient and contemporary authors who have picked apart Jesus' life to find there was absolutely nothing hokey about it. If you want to argue about it, I think you should take it up with Yale University. If you can point out any inconsistancy or mistake in the Bible, the book that gives all the evidence for Jesus' divinity, then they will give you $500,000.
To this date, however, nobody has been able to detect an error. Since it was composed through so many different authors it seems impossible that its texts be perfect, yet it is. Every historical date, characters and political aspects are correct. No human could conjure up such a huge lie without making one mistake.