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This blog records my transition from the Churches of Christ to Eastern Orthodoxy.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Why Do You Believe?

Why do you believe in God? Is your belief in God really rooted on one of the traditional arguments? Do you really believe in God because you find the cosmological argument to be compelling? Or the ontological argument or which ever? In other words, is your belief in God such that if you found out these arguments didn't work, you'd stop believing in God?

i can answer for myself and say a big, fat "no." If i discovered tomorrow that the cosmological argument just fell flat, or the teleological argument was just flawed through and through, or whichever argument--i wouldn't stop believing in God. Obviously then, such arguments are not the basis nor motivation for my personal belief in God. And i'm guessing that if i stood up on a Sunday morning and explained to a congregation of 300 people why these arguments failed, most of them wouldn't stop believing in God either.

i find it interesting to identify that such arguments are not that basis or motivation. If that is the case, then i have a couple questions:

1. If such arguments do not form the basis nor motivation for our own religious beliefs, why do we use such argumentation as a tool for forming religious beliefs in others? In other words, if we don't believe in God because of the ontological argument, why do we think that an atheist will?

2. What is the basis and motivation of religious belief? Why do people form religious beliefs?

1 comment:

Matthew said...

Experience. I am really beyond all the arguments.

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