Believing in God Flashcards
What are the main features of a Catholic upbringing?
- Have babies and bring them up as catholics with christenings…..
- Teach your children to believe in god
- Teach children how to pray to God
- Take children to mass
- Send children to a catholic school
How does a catholic upbringing lead to a belief in God?
- Their parents will teach them about god and they will believe their parents
- Seeing so many people in mass they will believe god exists
- In school their teachers and friends all will believe god exists so they will to
- Seeing all family and friends praying show that they must be praying to someone so will believe in god.
How do religious experiences lead to a belief in God?
Numinous - belief that there is something else there or a power greater than us - which must be god
Conversion - people want to change their life because they have been changed and then give their lives to god
Miracle - If nothing else can explain certain events then it will make you believe in god
Prayer - believe that someone is listening to them - especially if prayers are answered which means there must be a god.
Arguments for design AND the belief in god
- Anything that has been designed needs a designer
- Plenty of evidence to show the world was designed (laws of gravity, DNA,,,,)
- The only possible explanation for a design so wonderful and complex is god
- How could such a complex design have happened by chance
Arguments for causation and the belief in God
- Cause and effect seems to be a basic feature of the world - whatever people do it has an effect and a cause is always needed. So clearly a plausible idea
- The universe must have had a cause - just came from nowhere
- God is the only logical cause - the only one we know of
- SO god must exist
What is causation?
the process of one thing causing another e.g driver pressing the brakes causes a car to slow down
What is sciences explanation of the world
- matter is eternal
- 15 million years ago the matter of the universe exploded and caused the big bang which caused the red shift (still expanding)
- This is how stars, solar systems were formed
- Gases on the earth formed first signs of life
- This lead to more evolution until we were created
How does the science view lead to a belief in atheism?
- No need for god as creator - better explanation
- Proof through experiments
- Gives logical thoughts and reasonings
- researched by intelligent people
How do catholics respond to the scientific explanation of the world?
- it was god who created the big bang
- The two are very similar so maybe god started it all off
- Genesis is the why and science is the how
- Catholics believe the creation story is a metaphor as at the time people didn’t have the facts to prove the actual creation story
How are the bible and scientific accounts of creation compatible?
- how and why
- Very similar accounts - same order and pattern
- Both fit causation - big bang and god are both causes
- Supported by goldielocks theory - both just right in the end
Why unanswered prayers lead to atheism
- Never feel gods presence - nobody listening
- God doesn’t exist if there is no answer
- Why does god not answer the prayers that are genuinely good - ending world poverty
- Pray to save relatives and they die - does god not like them/you
- If god is omnibenevolent / omniscient then is he ignoring people
Christians response to unanswered prayers
- selfish prayers - e.g if you pray to pass your exams and have done no revision - it would not be fair for god to answer it
- Personal prayers - if you asked for your granddad to be cured it might be answered in a different way which is better for them
- God knows best - god loves us and knows us better than anyone - if he docent answer prayers then there is a reason
- Faith - Jesus said for prayers to be answered we must have faith - those without faith won’t be answered.
How does evil make people question their belief in god?
- If god was omnipotent he could remove all suffering
- If god was omnibenevolent then he would remove all suffering
- If god did exist then there would be no suffering so he docent exist
- As there is suffering maybe god doesn’t love us or isn’t all powerful - something more powerful
- if god made the world - he would have done it in a way to stop evil
Catholic response to the problem of evil
- Augustinian theodicy - god did create the world without evil - but then lucifer fell from heaven and tempted eve and created evil. We are now all born with sin and this is not gods fault - thats why he sent Jesus to save us
- Life is a test - irenaean theodicy - God created us imperfect so we could overcome things like evil and suffering to test and develop our souls and be worthy of heaven which is perfect
- Bigger picture - God can see the bigger picture - he knows why there is a need for evil but we just cannot see it as were only humans
- Helping others - without evil we would not know happiness and help. With suffering we can use this to do good and live out gods teachings.
Do you think the media can effect your belief in God? (2 examples)
Root of all evil - Da Vinci Code
Yes - Uses real facts and info to make it seem real - twist the truth
Makes people believe that religious groups have been lying and this is the truth.
Use extremist points of view
Shows what they want to be seen not the whole story - Dawkins tries to make out catholics don’t believe in evolution when they do.
