Belief in God

Belief in God

Religion

Different people tend to have diverse reasons for their religious beliefs.  People can either have ultimate or proximate causes of faith in God.  This difference has created a snag, thus the need for assessing the issue and coming up with a detailed conclusion on why different people have different beliefs. Five people were interviewed in the market place. They all did not mind being asked about their personal religious beliefs. This interview made it possible to inquire as much information as possible. They were all asked the same questions. However, the data was broad and different, as they all came from different religious settings. The interview responses of each interviewee were as follows.

First interviewee

1. Do you believe in God?

Response: Yes

2. What are your reasons?

Response:

• It is an obvious thing to believe in God
• Most if not everybody on earth is religious
• Having faith and trusting in God is a good thing
• There are archaeological discoveries and pieces of evidence that God exists
• God makes s/he feel useful
• It is terrible to be an atheist
• The theory of evolution is crap
• God created the universe
• There is a record of smart people who believe in God
• There is no evidence to prove the existence of God otherwise

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• People have confirmed the beauty of heaven
• People are brought together by religion
• There is an inspiration in believing in God
• Scientific discoveries do not explain everything
• God has been in existence for quite a long time

3. What is your conception of the God you do or do not believe?

Response:

I may not say that God is anthropomorphic, but the personality of an infinite being. He is supreme as he created the world.

4. what sort of data or experience (if any) might cause you to change your belief? Why?

Response:

I am convinced with adequate evidence that atheism is better than believing in God. This advice is because, with my experience as a believer, I have been deeply rooted in the belief that God is the best option as He has done remarkable things in my life.

Second interviewee

1. Do you believe in God?

Response:

Yes

1. What are your reasons?

• It is safe
• The bible proves that God is real
• Devine justice confirms the reality of God
• God answers prayers
• It is better to worship the Lord than worship the devil
• God heals the sick
• Being an atheist is the worst thing in existence
• The human body was made by God
• God sacrificed his begotten son for my sake
• I gain a lot by belief in God
• Atheism is an empty philosophy
• It does not hurt to believe in God
• I fear not believing in God
• The end is near

1. What is your conception of the God you do or do not think so?

Response:

God is an all-knowing supreme being who is transcendent and immanent in the world. He is loving.

1. What sort of data or experience (if any) might cause you to change your belief? Why?

Response:

Nothing can change my belief. The reason is that my faith in God is so strong that I cannot be convinced otherwise.

Third interviewee

1. Do you believe in God?

Response:

Yes

1. What are your reasons?

Response:

• I didn’t originate from apes as some theories put it
• I fear to go to hell for not being a believer
• Every time I pray, I feel the presence of God with me
• God provides protection
• God promised me eternal life
• God made us understand the difference between wrong and right
• With God, I think to be part of a great community
• My religion is more sensible than any other
• Lives are changed by my God
• Many people believe in God, and they all can’t be wrong
• Miracles performed are a work of my God
• It is a beautiful thing to believe in God

1. What is your conception of the God you do or do not believe?

Response:

As a Christian, I can describe God as an omniscient, omnipresent being who created the universe. He is holy and deserves to be worshipped and obeyed by humanity. I believe that God existed amongst us in the form of His son Jesus Christ. He is omnipresent, and He lives amongst us.

1. What sort of data or experience (if any) might cause you to change your belief? Why?

Response:

God has always been faithful to answer my prayers, but should there be an occurrence where He lets evil happen to me, then I may consider revising decision. We are human, and I expect God to be caring and able to provide for all my needs.

Fourth interviewee

1. Do you believe in God?

Response:

No

1. What are your reasons?

Response:

• Science explains everything
• God does not want to stop the evil
• God takes a back seat
• I believe in the theory of evolution
• Those who believe in God just want a father figure
• Believing in God is just a fear for the end time
• God cannot stop death

1. What is your conception of the God you do or do not believe?

Response:

Since I do not believe in God, I doubt his existence. I think God is just a theory, a spirit Christians believe in but do not exist. I think that everything is a result of science. Ideally, science tends to explain everything.

1. What sort of data or experience (if any) might cause you to change your belief?

Why?

Response:

First of all, science works with evidence. Therefore, if there can be different data that disqualifies the discoveries of science about the occurrences of the universe, then I will change my stand concerning religion.

Fifth interviewee

1. Do you believe in God?

Response:

Yes

2. What are your reasons?

Response:

• Lives are changed by my God
• Many people believe in God, and they all can’t be wrong
• Miracles performed are a work of my God
• It is a beautiful thing to believe in God

2. What is your conception of the God you do or do not believe?

Response:

God is all-knowing and powerful

2. What sort of data or experience (if any) might cause you to change your belief? Why?

Response:

Nothing can change my belief in God. This because I have a strong faith in God

1. This is how the responses can be cataloged according to the positions and arguments discussed the type of knowledge such as priori, posterior, epistemology, rational, empiricism, and skepticism.

1. Any reasons for the belief in God that is similar to either the cosmological arguments?

From the answers provided, an interviewee mentions the existence of God as a matter of faith. She or he says that faith in God dictates the belief rather than presence. This step is an ontological argument which was developed by Immanuel Kant. Secondly, still, on the ontological argument, an interviewee talks about the reality about God, that is, the existence of God in truth and not only in mind. Survival is a result of perfection, and perfection is existence as stipulated by Rene Descartes and St. Anselm.

Some of the reasons were also similar to the cosmological arguments by some scholars. For instance, in the middle ages, St. Thomas Aquinas developed the case based on the origin of the universe. He states that nothing came into existence by itself instead of by something. Similarly, an interviewee bases the reason for believing in God that He created the universe and everything in it. Therefore, since everything exists today, God must exist.

On the other hand, the teleological argument is based on the design and complexity of the universe. William Prey developed this. Ideally, the human mind can’t come up with such a plan as of the world. Therefore, God must have existed, and this forms a reason for believing in according, as stated by the interviewees who had a positive response to believing in God. In conclusion, some of the ideas were indeed similar to cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments.

1. Did anyone’s answers see similar to the pragmatic and subjective reasons for the belief that were discussed?

Yes. Pragmatic beliefs get generally based on benefits that get derived from believing in someone or something. From answers stipulated out by the interviewees, there is a mention of getting such things as protection, amongst other things as a reason for believing in God. They think that their belief in God facilitates the achievement of their goals as well as the achievement of their desires.

1. In their answers to questions 2 or 4, did anyone mention the problem of evil or underserved suffering?

Yes. First, the fourth interviewee, who is a non-believer, mentions that God cannot stop evil. Similarly, those who had positive responses about belief cited fear for sin as a reason for believing in God. Another mentions fear of going to hell, which is mostly associated with suffering and such stuff.

1. What reasons were given (if any) for not believing in God?

for the fourth interviewee who did not believe in God, he mentions the following as reasons for holding such as stand:

-Science explains everything

-God does not want to stop the evil

-God takes a back seat

-I believe in the theory of evolution

-Those who believe in God just want a father figure

– Believing in God is just a fear for the end time

-God cannot stop death

1. Were there any significant differences in the five answers to question 3?

Yes. The difference was most notable between the response of the fourth interviewee the rest of the team. This difference was so mostly because he was a non –believer. However, contrary to this, the response from the believers had no significant differences as they were all subjected to bringing out the exemplary superiority of God.

1. Evaluation of answers.

Looking at the reasons given for believing or not believing in God, some were better than others. Others can be graded as the best reasons, while others can be classified as the weakest reasons. This step gets summarised in the listing done below.

The best reasons for believing in God:

• There are archaeological discoveries and pieces of evidence that God exists
• The theory of evolution is crap
• God created the universe
• There is no evidence to prove the existence of God otherwise
• Miracles performed are a work of my God

Weakest reasons for believing in God

• People are brought together by religion
• There is an inspiration in believing in God
• I didn’t originate from apes as some theories put it
• I fear to go to hell for not being a believer
• Every time I pray, I feel the presence of God with me
• God made us understand the difference between wrong and right
• With God I think to be part of a great community

SELF-REFLECTION SECTION

1. Who is “the other” for you? (or to put another way) Which differences in people have you felt to be really unlike yourself? It may be a single dissimilarity or a combination of traits.

I do not regard my belief or ideology to be better than anybody. This trait I observed in some of the interviewees who viewed their faith to be better. Also, I do not have the habit of atheism, as noted in one of the interviewees.

1. Have you ever been “the other,” separate or dissimilar from other persons? Describe the experience, identifying its positive and negative aspects.

Yes. I have been dissimilar in some occasions. At a point, a disagreed with some people who do not believe in existence while I do. It is good to stand for what is right a positive effect, but for the negative, I was criticized and considered as ‘stupid.’

3. In making this Marketplace encounter happen (in crossing various group boundaries), how were your preconceptions or expectations affected?

I did not expect to find anyone who was a non-believer. I was surprised by this encounter.

3. What, if anything, have you learned about effectively engaging others different from yourself?

I get to learn what others think and believe.

3. What do your experiences reveal about both our commonalities and differences?

Generally, most people have a lot in common concerning belief in God since only a few percentages believe otherwise in God. However, we should accept each other despite the differences.

References

Bréchon, P. (2007). Cross-national comparisons of individual religiosity. In Beckford, J. A., Demerath, N. J. (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of the sociology of religion (pp. 463–489). London, England: SAGE.

Cox, D., Jones, R. P., Navarro-Rivera, J. (2014). I know what you did last Sunday: Measuring social desirability bias in self-reported religious behavior, belief, and identity. Public Religion Research Institute, 2, 57–58.

Mercier, Stephanie, Kramer & sheriff. (2018, July 31), belief in God; why people believe, and why they don’t think so Sage journals. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721418754491