Topics Religion

Question My question is simply this: Does God (or a divine being) exist? Based on my own personal views, it is very difficult to believe that there is more to this life than what we have experienced so far. The Christian God ask his followers to believe in him through their faith alone. Yet, for someone who must live in this modern world, it is always difficult to believe in a "God-like-figure", even though it would seem that a question like this would simply be a test of one's faith. What are we to do when we want to believe, but want a justified reason to believe?

Accepted:
November 29, 2005

Comments

This question does have a philosophical dimension, in so far as it forces us to confront the question in what sense belief is or can be voluntary: Can you simply choose to believe something absent a decent reason to do so? Many philosophers would say that you cannot, that belief is not really voluntary in that sense.

But there are a number of other points worth making here, too, since much confusion seems to exist on this score:

I don't myself know what is supposed to be meant by "the Christian God". Presumably, one means God as understood by Christianity, but there is no such thing. Christianity is a many-faceted and incredibly diverse collection of faiths and modes of living, and there are untold conceptions of God even within Catholicism (despite the repressive efforts of the church hierarchy).
That so many people think that belief in God is somehow in conflict with the modern world is testament to the influence, especially in the United States, of one particular brand of religion, namely, reactionary fundamentalism. Many (perhaps even most) Christians, anyway, see no particular conflict.
It's testament to the influence of Catholicism and, again, certain forms of fundamentalism that so many non-religious people identify being religious with having certain kinds of beliefs. But most scholars of religion nowadays have a very different viewpoint that focuses on what is called "lived religion". And certainly my own experience is that being a person of faith has very little to do with what I believe in the relevant sense. It has much more to do with how I live my life.