Justify your belief in your particular God

There is a ridiculous amount of Gods appearing in literature throughout history. It is my belief that people will believe whatever God/s their parents force upon them as children. But why then, as adults don't people ask themselves why they believe in their particular God/s?

This is why I've created this thread. I want everyone who is religious and is now an adult to list a few reasons why they have stuck with their parents God/s and why they disregard all other Gods. I don't want to debate the existence of Gods, I just want to find out why people believe so passionately in one God but won't hesitate to disregard all others.

I was brought up Methodist and didn't go to church that often and when in high school I thought about religion and concluded that it must be all bogus. To me it is just a form of controlling people, "God is watching you young man!" I've been an atheist ever since and refuse to believe in anything without first seeing the proof. That to me is the most logical choice but to you it might not be so please do enlighten me.

[edit on 8-6-2009 by DraconianKing]

Part of your assumption is false. Many people convert to different beliefs in adolescence and adulthood. I have met Jews and pagans from Christian households, and Christians that come from Islamic households. However you choose to explain it, people have experiences that they attribute to a particular God. It can vary from a feeling when reading a particular doctrine, to things that they perceive as magic or miracles.

I try not to discount things that I cannot understand, nor do I believe that mankind has unlocked all the mysteries of the universe. As for me I am an evangelical Christian. I am more than open to the idea that I could be wrong about a great many things concerning God, and I am in no way orthodox. That said, I have yet to see any proof that there is not an intelligent designer. On the contrary; I am a science major now, and every semester I learn new things that I see as proof of the existence of some sort of intelligent designer.

Now that being or Beings may be vastly misunderstood by mankind, It may be a mystical being like most religions see, or a natural intelligent energy force that is yet to be discovered by science, or even beings that inhabit a higher form of existence but no less real than us. I find the concept of the last two very interesting, as it would mean that eventual contact with that being(s) may be possible with future scientific discoveries.

So in short, due to personal experiences (which I do not feel comfortable discussing here) combined with scientific evidence, I am confident in the existence of some kind of Intelligent designer, whatever it/they may be.
But I do not feel we will understand it/them anytime soon.

I feel I should also mention the somewhat obvious fact that your post is a loaded question.

The belief in any particular God or religious belief cannot be justified. It is a matter of faith. If there was proof for people to justify their faith with it would not be faith but fact.

I do hope your intent was an actual philosophical discussion, and not just trying to lure people in here to scoff at. There is quite enough of that kind of post on ATS already.


[edit on 8-6-2009 by NRA4ever333]

A brief explaination of the existence of god through evidence:

-Note: God is not a "being" without thoughts like our own, and because of this, we cannot comprehend god.. why..? You'll get to that, if you read.

Part A: Existence. Although man may be able to trace back the origin of all matter to a single point, there still lies a lack of explaination on how matter came into existence in the first place. Because unexplainable without the term "a greater power" or something similar, we should assume something beyond out comprehension created all that we know. Most likely the culprit is a concept known as "god" If you really cared to get into it, I could go further and tell you how god literally IS the component to all space, mass, etc, but another time, another post.

Part B: The human mind. We, as humans, are limited in imagination based upon what we already know.

Example: A Gryphon. This beast obviously does not exist, but it is composed of parts of things that do exist. The human mind is incapable of creating concept completely foreign to it's understanding, and since all people can grasp the concept of "god," it most, in some form, exist.

If asked, ill post more later.

Before continuing further I would like to state in as much of a non-hostile manner as possible that I believe all mainstream religions are far off from any truth, and most were put in place and/or altered later on for the purpose of authoritative control.

All religions are hypocritical in what they do, and often times answered oftened by leaders of the religions are barnum statements, serving no real purpose other than giving a trite and cryptic answer to life's many questions.

reply to post by DraconianKing

I am a Cargo Cultist. I believe in the Ropen, the roaring Bird Gods who come from the sky bearing blessings and gifts that men call Cargo; and I believe in the white shamans who call the gods and send them away, sometimes riding with them into the sky. My grandfather was a servant of the white shamans, who gave him much cargo for love of him and his family: if you come back with me to my hut I will show it to you. Some of my cousins have blue eyes; it is their reward from the Ropen for the service my grandfather's daughters did the white shamans.

When you ask me to justify my belief in the Ropen, it puzzles me. Shall a man not believe what he has seen with his eyes and touched with his fingers? Shall he discount as lies the words of his kith and kin, that he hears with his own ears? Did my father and my father's father not eat of K-Ration and Hershey and Heinz, brought by the Ropen? Have I not seen the empty boxes and cans and wrappers of this cargo, the heirlooms of our tribe?

And do we not, at times, hear the Ropen calling in the sky and, looking up, see their mighty wings made tiny with distance above us?

Yes, it is true that the Ropen have not come to land for more than two generations. Where once the white shamans taught us and brough us gifts, now the white and red and yellow men of the coastal towns rob us of our labour in exchange for little cargo, and call us savages for not covering our bodies as they do. We do not have ugly bodies like theirs, so we need not hide them - yet surely we have sinned, that the Ropen come no more. Faithfully each spring we clear the landing-place on the bluffs above the sea and construct a great female Ropen of palm-fronds and banana leaves to lure the Bird Gods down. And there is feasting, and at night we light fires in two line along the landing-place as the white shamans did, to guide the Ropen to us from afar. But still no Ropen come.

Yet they will come again, I know. All in my tribe believe this. If not in this generation, then in the next, or in the one to follow, the Ropen and their white shamans will come. Then again there will be cargo for all! Men shall no longer need to hunt and till the soil or labour in the factories and docks of the coastal towns. Life will be again as it was in the days of my grandfather, when the tribe lived on cargo and served the white shamans, filling our bellies with their bounty as they filled the bellies of our women.

You ask me to justify my faith? What need have I of it? I have proofs. They lie about me wherever I turn my eyes. The Ropen are real. The cargo is real. My cousins' blue eyes are real, too.

I have no need of faith. I know.

Get far far away from the city, then look at the stars at night and tell what you think of God!

In the end, there is only 1 father and he is within. He is you, me and all the people. Much greater than any 1 person, even though he is within all.

Why are you asking people to justify anything? Are you just looking to accept what someone says? Why not find out for yourself? If the father is within, then why look out there?

How can you expect to know the father if you do not even know yourself?

Other religions is so much casting of spells.
Invoking gods outside or inside ourselves.
Conjuring and magic.
What I believe in is the propitiation, which is a shelter from harm.
It exists of itself and does not come from my calling it to me.

Originally posted by ahnggk
Get far far away from the city, then look at the stars at night and tell what you think of God!

A woman I know once lay on her back, looked up at the most brilliant starry night sky you ever saw, and said 'What a mess! Give me a broom.'

I look up into the night sky and I wonder how anybody can imagine that one entity, working by itself, could possibly have created something so vast and complex. A million times easier to believe it all evolved on its own.

Then again, the Ropen are very powerful.

* * *

Originally posted by jmdewey60
What I believe in is the propitiation, which is a shelter from harm.

It is good to find another believer in the old ways. Cargo Cultists, too, believe in the importance of propitiation. Every year at the Landing Festival we sacrifice a virgin to the Ropen.

Is that windswept-looking fellow with the bad hair transplant in your avatar a virgin? Give him to us. We shall sacrifice him together.

reply to post by Astyanax

I look up into the night sky and I wonder how anybody can imagine that one entity, working by itself, could possibly have created something so vast and complex.

The complexity of something depends on your view of it, or where you view of it is from.

Is that windswept-looking fellow with the bad hair transplant in your avatar a virgin? Give him to us. We shall sacrifice him together.

Now that comment is just mean, and tasteless.

But you bring up a good point with the cargo cultists. They believe that the U.S. airmen were gods, we of course know that they are not. But we do know that they exist, and that their belief is founded in fact.

Fast forward a thousand years. Most, if not all the evidence of the airmens existence would be gone. But their ancestors will probably still believe. So who is to say that many of the gods of the ancient religions are not based on fact?

Perhaps they knew things, and saw things that there is no evidence left for in modern times. Perhaps there is a creator, but he/she/it/they, are not what we think. But our misunderstanding would make it/them no less real.



[edit on 15-6-2009 by NRA4ever333]