Overstepping: Not Believing In God

Just when I started to lose all hope, our forgiving and merciful savior came to us in the cave. I was in a state of disbelief, for I thought we were not deserving of such an honor. God fed us, clothed us, and comforted us. Although our Lord came in peace, he also brought his word. He explained each new sin that we had committed, and made sure to assert his power and dominance in the midst of our

It ripped through my chest like a beast trying to escape its cage. I finally felt it, God was in my heart. He had released all the displeasure, grief, and hopelessness I had felt for so many years and I knew from that moment, for the rest of my living and breathing life, I needed to show others who He was and what He could do. The feeling was indescribable and incomparable to anyone else, but I could see him moving through the other students’ lives around me that night. From the first gentle touch of his love, I vowed I would follow, respect, and live a life for Him always. Since then, my journey has been the most incredible and agonizing experience that I can describe. I have faced many difficult challenges and have hit the points of break

Yet how does one have this blind faith? How does one believe in the uncertainty, the unknown, the nothingness of life? Another example is Siddhartha. When Siddhartha reached peace, he found that everything in the world had a predestined reason for being. Everything was involved in everything. Nothing was wasted. There was harmony. He found contemptment with the unknown, the blind faith. He found that blind faith was better than knowledge, for knowledge only brought him corruption. Blind faith answered his questions, gave him peace, gave him a life worth living.

McCloskey claims that it’s better to find comfort in knowing there is no God than the idea of finding comfort in a God that stands by watching the evil one is facing. However, some of the arguments in William Craig’s article, “The absurdity of life without God”, challenge this view that McCloskey has. William Craig offers a few examples of why we should take comfort knowing that there is a God. First, life is meaningless without God and Immortality. What is the point of our existence if our end result is definitively death? McCloskey argues that because God stands by as someone is stricken with disease or death then it is better to take comfort in something else since God allows this to happen. Instead, Craig offers the argument that our existence has a purpose with God and that with Him we do have immortality and this disease and death is only temporary as God provides immortality with Him. Second, is the value with God and the moral obligations we have to live our lives according to God? In this Craig shows that without the moral obligation we have no reasons to live our lives to the values that God provides. Instead, one can live a life full of wickedness or live a life full of goodness and there would be no consequence and it wouldn’t matter how morally one were to

I think that it is an over-generalization to say that the biggest mass murderers of history were atheists. (BTW, saying mass-murderers, savages, or the like implies that those people were defeated; however, people who killed millions of people and were winners of conflict often implies that they were heroes and victorious, etc. Point of reference, the genocide of Native Americans during the 1800s in the U.S., the killing of 40% of Ireland’s chiefly Catholic population by Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan conquest of Ireland in the 1600s, etc.) To say that atheists have a proclivity for destroying others would infer that atheists would have a unifying belief; by definition, this is not atheism.

Between the two opposite views of God, theist and atheists, there is a middle ground and it is called agnosticism. People who are agnostic believe that there is not enough reason to believe there is a God but there is also not enough reason to believe there isn’t one. I will argue why agnosticism is valid and must be supported. The reason we, as a society, must remain agnostic is because there is not enough evidence to support atheism or theism. So, we also must keep searching for valid evidence when it comes to the existence of God.

The individual must be aware that there needs to be truth and ethical value associated to their belief. Indeed, man is the only living being that “has spiritual concerns- cognitive, aesthetic, social, and political.” (1) Therefore, faith is an act that reflects total personality, it happens in the center of personal life and all the elements mentioned are included. Therefore, a person is free in the sense that their faith comes from within. Their faith is developed through the freedom they possess to carry out centered acts of personality. It is evident, then, that “freedom and faith are identical.” (6) Hence, having faith does not come from external forces, they come from within. Faith essentially means being ultimately concerned, therefore, even an individual who does not believe he has faith, actually does.

The question, "Can one be moral and not believe in God?" is rather dubious and divisive. Both the facets of this question have pretty strong ideas that support the consideration behind them extensively. As far as my belief and judgment is concerned, I am a strong believer of the notion that "One is better with God beside". Nevertheless, this personal belief of mine does not promote that human beings not believing in the authenticity and existence of a supreme deity are living a neglectful and self-indulgent life. However, I am still convinced with the idea that people who believe in the genuineness and subsistence of a God are more moral as they hold an unyielding assurance that there is a divine being to which they are answerable.

Believing in god has it's many reasons. Some of them has to do with spiritual or universal Force. People would like to have the faith that there is a purpose to this world. If the believe of god did not exist then the purpose of life seems meaningless. God gives humans a purpose of living in this harsh world. As a society we would like to have the hope that there is an ultimate power that humans cannot imagine. People like to believe that there is something that created the earth, the moon and everything that surrounds us. Coming from a strong religious family, I learned to believe that there is a purpose to life. I do not want to imagine that I am only alive so I can eat or work to survive. I like to believe that everything was created by something or someone. For example, a table was created by human, so the question of who created humans then comes to mind?. However, many people believe in god because they want something in return. They like to believe the existence of great power that hears their cries and their prayer. People believe in god because they believe in there is someone that exists that provides their humanly needs such as food and shelter. People want to have the believe that something exists that provides them even though we cannot see it with the human eyes. For example, If a mother prays for her sick son, and the invention of medicine of medicine comes through then that mother will believe that higher power heard her prayer and

One of the most common criticisms of atheism is that life can have no meaning without God-belief. I’ve always found this argument puzzling, because even if true, it does absolutely nothing to prove the existence of God. What the believer is saying is that God-belief gives him or her the feeling that life has meaning. Well, that’s great, but your feelings don’t prove anything.

As a child of God, one is governed by the standard of faith (II Corinthians 5:7), and the Bible states that Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17) Since faith comes by the word of God, where there is no word of God there can be no faith! And, without faith it is impossible for one to please God. (Hebrews 11:6)

This absence of belief generally comes about either through deliberate choice, or from an inherent inability to believe religious teachings which seem literally incredible. It is not a lack of belief born out of simple ignorance of religious teachings. Some atheists go beyond a mere absence of belief in gods: they actively believe that particular gods, or all gods, do not exist. Just lacking belief in Gods is often referred to as the ‘weak atheist’ position; whereas believing that gods do not (or cannot) exist is known as ‘strong atheism.’ Regarding people who have never been exposed to the concept of 'god': Whether they are 'atheists' or not is a matter of debate. Since you're unlikely to meet anyone who has never encountered religion, it's not a very important debate… It is important, however, to note the difference between the strong and weak atheist positions. ‘Weak atheism’ is simple skepticism; disbelief in the existence of God. ‘Strong atheism’ is an explicitly held belief that God does not exist. Please do not fall into the trap of assuming that all atheists are ‘strong atheists.’ There is a qualitative difference in the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ positions; it's not just a matter of degree. Some atheists believe in the nonexistence of all Gods; others limit their atheism to specific Gods, such as the Christian God, rather than making flat-out denials” (Internet

My belief (or disbelief) in God must be understood backwards, so I shall start from the beginning. From birth, my relationship with God was set in stone. Being raised in a moderately strong, Catholic family, and going to a Catholic pre-school and middle school, I had basically inherited my love for God from my parents, and they from theirs. I was taught in school and by my family that God should be at the center of everything. That God loves us more than us mere mortals can ever imagine, and that it is our sole duty to love him the best we can in return. This was so easy for me at a young age because my relationship with God was so unspoiled. It was not hard for me to love God when He had not thrown any real hardships my way. I had been brought up believing in a perfect God. One who was “all loving”, “all knowing”, and “ever-present”, and because of this, I believed my relationship with Him to be invincible. But I was wrong. The day my parents divorced, was the day my inherently perfect relationship with God was ruined. The first traumatic experience in my life sent me on a whirlwind that caused me to doubt all the love that God had supposedly had for me; the love that I so foolishly believed in.

Faith based on belief in the supernatural has been prevalent for the duration of mankind’s recorded history. Every culture around the world, past and present, has developed or adopted a dominant belief system. These belief systems could include the ancient traditions like Greek polytheism, Mayan ritual worship, or Hinduism as well as modern religions such as Christianity, Islam, or Judaism. By preaching goodwill and the golden rule religion has played a significant role in promoting ethics in society. Religion stimulates inner strength, confidence, and fosters a sense of purpose for many people. It is also hard to imagine a world without the incredible religious art and music. The teachings and culture can help lift up people to live a better, more fulfilling and more selfless life. Billions of people, around the world, practice a religion with the hope that they will reap the benefits of their devotion. There are many other reasons why people believe but truly the main reasons people are religious is due to the default way that they were raised, social reasons, fear, and to have an explanation of the world. Beliefs are passed down to children who are intrinsically disposed to trust their parents. This indoctrination, though, makes them vulnerable to misinformation and as a result there is a manifestation of belief systems into religion. Once religion has a hold on someone, its attribute of being against reason helps its own survival. Unfortunately, religious faith is a

An important question to both theists and atheists is whether we are able to be good without God. It centres around whether we have the ability to have objective moral standards regardless of whether God does or doesn’t exist. Theists obviously think of God as a source of moral strength and believe that he is the reason we have moral beliefs as well as being able to lead good moral lives. However, atheists can just as easily claim that they lead good moral lives, and have strong morals, even though they do not believe in God. An important thing to consider is why we should act morally if there is not a God or higher being who can tell us to follow these morals, and also why we are held responsible for our moral decisions and actions. [1]