God is spirit, though how you define that exactly, I don't know.
Don't you think that you ought to be able to define something before you purport to believe in that something? Otherwise what is it that you claim to believe in and how do you know?
Should I need to be able to define "what constitutes the form of God"? If so, why? God is not flesh and blood, atoms and molecules like us, but I don't have to be able to describe his "form". It would be great to be able to do so, but there is the fact that if I, of finite human mind, were able to fully describe him, he would not be truly God.
So your belief in God is based on a book and your 'infallible' logic?
No.
The 'no' answer requires a clarification of why you do believe. Pretty please
That's getting rather off topic, but here you go.
Why should I believe in God?
It is often assumed, by Christians as well as non-Christians, that there are no concrete reasons for believing that God exists. Christianity has suffered from a reliance on feelings or “just having faith” for about a century. However, there are good reasons to believe in God’s existence.
Notes:
1) Believing in God is more than just believing he exists; it is trusting him, though to do that you need to believe he exists. Do you believe in Ed Milliband? Nick Clegg? David Cameron?
2) Such believing in God requires more than an intellectual assent, something more than just accepting evidence. Whether we put our trust in him is very much bound up with our response to him telling us we are sinners. Do we respond to that by accepting it or rejecting it?
3) None of the items below are an argument against biological evolution.
Six Reasons to Believe in God (for a Christian) and Five Reasons to Believe in God (for an atheist):
1) Argument from contingency (Leibnitz’s argument).
2) Kalam cosmological argument.
3) Argument from design.
4) Argument from objective morals.
5) The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
6) The internal witness of the Holy Spirit (Christians only).
These arguments are based on those put forward by Dr. William Lane Craig who has a really good website at www.reasonablefaith.org.
Please note that some of this may well be over your head. If so, please stick with it. Even if it does not all sink it, it may show you that there are some carefully thought out arguments that exist which some people understand and which they believe to give good reasons to believe God exists.
Stuff in grey boxes is heavy stuff
1) Argument from contingency (Leibnitz’s argument)
This is the most complicated argument we will be looking ........and everything else that followed
Alan the Alien
Thank you for that but I expected something more personal to your life and circumstances but not necessarily intrinsically over revealing.
1] What, something different from Christians being aware through the Holy Spirit that they are sons and daughters of God? See #6. If you are wondering more about how I came to be a Christian then, very, very briefly it came about through a discussion group at university (Trinity College, Cambridge) where another non-Christian and I met up with a couple of Christians for a number of Wednesday(?) evenings for several weeks. I got to the point where it too more "faith" to believe the Christian God didn't exist than it did to believe he did exist. I got to the point where I had to do something about it even though I was not 100% certain about it all. As I've looked at stuff over the 37 years or so since then I have become ever more convinced intellectually. There is also the personal experience side.
The problem with the philosophical stuff, which I understand, is that it only points to "Something" and not to God, let alone to your Christian God. This "Something" is just some nebulous unknown, no characteristics or predicates can be assigned to it. It is a total unknown. So all these argument are of no use to you for your specific situation as a Christian.
2] Apart from #5 which is about Jesus Christ? If he was raised from the dead then it points clearly to his claims about himself being true.
So your formal logical statement about God and the existence of the universe needs a clarification and definition of your use of the word God.
3] Just go with "God" as people generally use that term here in the UK. If you want finer detail, go with what Jesus claimed and what the NT says. And just to point the flaw in it the claim that science says there's no explanation for the universe isn't true,
4] Where did I claim "that science says there's no explanation for the universe"? I've looked back through my post and can't find it there.scientists says they don't know. And they wouldn't link any statement to this with the concept or word God.
5] That would be because, if they are standing in the role of scientists, then I agree they wouldn't say that. Science is methodologically naturalistic. It is not equipped to make statements about God.
The Jesus stuff I have argued against before. Something so flimsy i.e. not being a personal eye witness to this makes it invalid.
6] Would you please explain that claim a bit further. Ta. There could thousands of reason why this came to be written down,
7] So what. If one reason has, say a 12.5% chance of being correct, and another a 6.25% chance and another a 3.125% chance and so on, you can have an infinite number of reasons and still 75% confident that the accounts are true. reason we can not even imagine - unknown unknowns and so forth.
8] That applies to absolutely everything. You might not be real, but instead an emanation from the plant Org. Possibilities come cheap. What we need is probabilities.
6. is about emotions. I don't mean this to be derogatory or dismissive as emotions provide use with value-judgements for us to live by and so on. But all this is about our psychology and being social animals.
9] Thanks. I accept it as meant the way you say. However, why do you think it is about emotions? I've not mentioned emotions and didn't intend to imply anything emotional, so would you explain why you think it is an emotional thing. Ta.
I'll look at the numbers thing, at the end, later.
Many thanks, Jack.
10] That's fine. I'd better look at them again myself!
1] You can ignore this as we have covered this else where.
2] For me that's a big if. The Jesus bit you have included in the list of your 6 and the witness of the HS are not philosophy and should not be grouped with the philosophical arguments. So my "Something" still applies as the philosophical arguments do not lead to anything remotely that could be called God, as these Gods relate to concepts/definitions set out by the various religions.
3] That doesn't help. Any religion could say that about their God and outlook - "just go with our definition". You go from the general (in the philosophical arguments) to the specific (that is your Christian God definition). This is disingenuous and deceitful. It is moving the goal posts to suit your ends.
4] Actually it is what you claim atheists say or put forward - "This is logically equivalent to an argument often put forward by atheists that if (since) God does not exist, the universe has no explanation."
Who says this? It's rubbish as it makes no sense.
5] OK
6] I wasn't there to see it, is what I'm saying and I have had nothing to indicate to me from experience to show anything of the Christian God and the actuality of Jesus even in what they call spiritual form.
7] I don't follow this. Looks more like sophistry and playing with words than anything else. By the way my position on probability is that it doesn't exist. Something will happen or it will not i.e. probability of 1 or zero.
8] Where or what I am is of no consequence for me as I did not choose to come into this existence. All I know is that I appear to myself to be of such and such constitution, and that is that.
What I'm saying is we can not know what caused the people to write the manuscripts or to perceive the events it claims to account for in the way they did. There are numerous unknown way in which this could have happened.
9] and 10] are on 158. I hope this makes things a little clearer.