Believing in God Flashcards
(35 cards)
Who is someone who believes in God?
Theist
Who is someone who does not believe in God?
Atheist
Who is someone who doesn’t know what they believe?
Agnostic
Reasons to be theist (4)
- Brought up to believe in God
- Experienced god is some way (miracle,prayer)
- The Design argument
- The Causation argument
Reasons to be atheist (3)
- No evidence that God exists
- Science explains how the world began without God
- Evil and suffering
Reasons to be agnostic
-No reliable evidence either way
Christian beliefs in God (4)
- God created the world
- Relationship with God
- God answers prayers and can perform miracles
- God gives meaning to life and helps to answer difficult questions
How would Christians describe God?
- Omnipotent (all powerful)
- Omniscient (all knowing)
- Omni-benevolent (all loving)
How might baptising a child lead to a belief in God? (3)
- From the beginning of their life they will be brought up with Christian beliefs.
- Parents will act as role models and seem natural to believe in God
- Child is likely to respect their parents and accept what they believe
How might parents teaching their child to be Christian lead to a belief in God?
Believe their parents
Parents will teach their children to pray to God. How might parents teaching their child to pray lead to a belief in God?
Believe that God exists because their parents would not waste their time praying to nothing
How might parents taking their children to worship in a church lead to a belief in God?
Seeing so many people worshipping God will make them believe that God exists
How might parents sending their children to a Church school lead to a belief in God?
Be taught that God exists when they go to Sunday school, or Church school, and will believe it because their teachers tell them it is true
Arguments for children being brought up in a religious family (4)
- Give comfort and help them through difficulties and give them a secure basis for adulthood
- Could change their beliefs as they get older
- Parents should be allowed to raise their children how they choose
- Bringing up a child in a non religious family is still deciding their beliefs for them
Arguments against children being brought up in a religious family (4)
- Children should have a choice about whether they want to be a part of a religion
- Lead to conflict in the family
- Seen as brainwashing
4 examples of a religious experience
- Numinous
- Miracle
- Prayer
- Conversion
What could lead someone to believe in God?
A religious experience because they feel like they have experienced God and is enough evidence for them that he exists
Arguments for miracles (4)
- Lots of reports of miracles happening
- Some reported miracles that science can’t explain
- Miracles happened in the Bible
- God is omnipotent so he is capable of performing miracles
Arguments against miracles (4)
- Makes God look cruel for only helping some people and not everyone
- Many reports of miracles have been proven to be fake
- Scientific explanations for a lot of reported miracles
- Most reports come from religious people. They might just want to see a miracle and be mistaken
What is the Design argument?
World and universe were designed and made by God due to it appearing well ordered (law of gravity) and the world being beautiful. Also things in the world appear to have a purpose for which they were designed.
Who made an analogy between the watch and the world?
William Paley
Who was convinced of the existence of a designer by looking at his thumbprint?
Isaac Newton
Reasons against the Design argument (3)
- Not everything in the world is beautiful and orderly (wars, people who are blind) Why would an omni-benevolent God design and create this?
- Theory of evolution can explain why things fulfil a purpose.
- There is no evidence to say that things were definitely designed. The world could have been made by random chance (The Big Bang)
What is the Causation argument?
Everything that happens has a cause
