If you don't believe in the God of the Bible, what would it take for you to believe? [Spirituality & Religion]
61-69, M
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ArishMell · 70-79, M
It takes the personal desire to believe in a supernatural deity whose existence can be neither proven nor disproven, be it the Abrahamic "God" of the Bible, Torah and Q'ran, or that of any other religion "true" to, and only to, the follower.
If you desire not to believe, cannot believe, or have no interest in so believing in any such deity (or deities in a pantheon), then the original question is meaningless and unanswerable.
If you desire not to believe, cannot believe, or have no interest in so believing in any such deity (or deities in a pantheon), then the original question is meaningless and unanswerable.
ms20182878 · 61-69, M
@ArishMell Yes, in the responses below it was pretty clear that the minds and hearts of most people are closed to the possibility of believing. It really takes a personal encounter with God to change their mind.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@ms20182878
I think one does admit that, but his calling God "Yahweh" suggests to me he has been recruited by one of the more cultish organisations.
I do know several practicing Christians among my various circles of friends, of whom two are vicars and another was ordained as a deacon this year - I was among the invitees to the ordination service.
What of course we don't know about the more negative responses, are their backgrounds. For example, some might have rejected religion having had it rammed down their throats as children by parental bullying, others may have examined it sympathetically but found it not necessary to their own lives; others may have always rejected deities as being too incredible. A few might be from atheist or at least agnostic backgrounds and have seen no reason to change their views.
One or two try the God v. Science theme, but I think that too simple. Yes, some ways of worshipping God involve calling the natural sciences "lies"; some of the sciences make believing in God difficult or impossible for some people. Yet I think these miss a crucial difference rarely mentioned in discussions like this. It is this:
- [i]Religion[/i] believes as pure faith with no desire for evidence even for itself, that the Universe and all in it were created and are being "operated" by that faith's god, or God. It does not seek to ask "How" and "When", despite the Late Bronze-Age Hebrew tribal myth or metaphor of Genesis. Nor does it really ask "For Whom" and "Why", but as I have found, trying to answer "Why" yourself raises a rather unsettling possibility! Sadly, it can easily allow man-made imposing of blind faith in ancient, humanly-written texts, rather than open, welcoming acceptance of what its deity might actually have done.
- [i]Science [/i]seeks to understand "How and When". It does not try to ask "By Who, For Whom, and Why". And it does so by trial of evidence, test and hypothesis, accepting each explanation found may yet prove faulty or even totally incorrect as techniques and knowledge expand to discover new evidence.
Consequently, it is possible to be an astronomer or geologist and still be religious, although not so easily, and it may need a very open mind and humble acceptance of that crucial difference. In fact, if I were a believer in God, I would take the science as showing me that God's works are far greater and more beautiful than the religion's very-human founders and many of their pre-Science followers genuinely could possibly have imagined.
In the end though, it still comes back to personal calling, and though I do not believe in God I do know that very many people find great comfort is doing so.
All religions ever invented, including those long-gone or merely hinted at by archaeological finds, seem to answer two innate human yearnings.
One is to accept our place in the Scheme of Things - and far beyond the anthropocentricity of the Ancient Greeks, followed by the Church of Rome until historically fairly recently.
The other is to find "spiritual" support (however you define that) to lessen the fear of death and act as a "bereavement counsellor", for millennia before the term was invented.
I think one does admit that, but his calling God "Yahweh" suggests to me he has been recruited by one of the more cultish organisations.
I do know several practicing Christians among my various circles of friends, of whom two are vicars and another was ordained as a deacon this year - I was among the invitees to the ordination service.
What of course we don't know about the more negative responses, are their backgrounds. For example, some might have rejected religion having had it rammed down their throats as children by parental bullying, others may have examined it sympathetically but found it not necessary to their own lives; others may have always rejected deities as being too incredible. A few might be from atheist or at least agnostic backgrounds and have seen no reason to change their views.
One or two try the God v. Science theme, but I think that too simple. Yes, some ways of worshipping God involve calling the natural sciences "lies"; some of the sciences make believing in God difficult or impossible for some people. Yet I think these miss a crucial difference rarely mentioned in discussions like this. It is this:
- [i]Religion[/i] believes as pure faith with no desire for evidence even for itself, that the Universe and all in it were created and are being "operated" by that faith's god, or God. It does not seek to ask "How" and "When", despite the Late Bronze-Age Hebrew tribal myth or metaphor of Genesis. Nor does it really ask "For Whom" and "Why", but as I have found, trying to answer "Why" yourself raises a rather unsettling possibility! Sadly, it can easily allow man-made imposing of blind faith in ancient, humanly-written texts, rather than open, welcoming acceptance of what its deity might actually have done.
- [i]Science [/i]seeks to understand "How and When". It does not try to ask "By Who, For Whom, and Why". And it does so by trial of evidence, test and hypothesis, accepting each explanation found may yet prove faulty or even totally incorrect as techniques and knowledge expand to discover new evidence.
Consequently, it is possible to be an astronomer or geologist and still be religious, although not so easily, and it may need a very open mind and humble acceptance of that crucial difference. In fact, if I were a believer in God, I would take the science as showing me that God's works are far greater and more beautiful than the religion's very-human founders and many of their pre-Science followers genuinely could possibly have imagined.
In the end though, it still comes back to personal calling, and though I do not believe in God I do know that very many people find great comfort is doing so.
All religions ever invented, including those long-gone or merely hinted at by archaeological finds, seem to answer two innate human yearnings.
One is to accept our place in the Scheme of Things - and far beyond the anthropocentricity of the Ancient Greeks, followed by the Church of Rome until historically fairly recently.
The other is to find "spiritual" support (however you define that) to lessen the fear of death and act as a "bereavement counsellor", for millennia before the term was invented.