Why do people want to believe in God?

Answer 1

People turn to God when there are problems. When problems become unsolvable, when a near or dear one is going to die, when there is suffering, when there are difficulties, we normally turn to God. A second reason why we turn to God is to ask God to fulfill our wishes, to make our dreams come true. We pray to God to give us what we want. A few people turn to God in gratitude, to thank God for all His favours. But what is the real reason that we should turn to God? Because we are nothing, God is everything. Because God lives in the temple of our heart. We must turn to God to realize God within, to realize we are nothing, we are a manifestation of God. This is the ultimate purpose for us to turn to God.

Answer 2

Actually the supposition that people only believe in God because they were brought up to do so is a fallacy proposed by atheistic writes like Richard Dawkins. There is little real substance to this argument as it arrogantly suggests that those who believe cannot think for themselves as adults, and continue to believe what they were taught as children without questioning it.
The fact is that, where a belief in God is growing (eg in China as one example, where it is growing exponentially,) the existence of God is primarily accepted by discerning, intelligent adults.

There are two main reasons why people believe in God. Firstly they feel that only by belief in God does life really make sense. While science may answer the questions of how the mechanics of the universe work, only by a belief on God can the great questions of love, the reasons for our existence, reality and just why the universe (and hence humanity) bothers to exist in the first place, can be answered.

Secondly, those who believe in God have that relationship with God ratified by their own life experiences. These 'spiritual moments' may range from a simple feeling of overwhelming love to a profound religious experience that cannot be dismissed as 'delusion' as, usually, those people who experience a relationship with God are invariably intelligent and rational.

Answer:

People believe in God because they just do. It's their religion. (or in a Christians' case, "relationship")

Even Psalms 14:1 says The fool hath said in his heart; there is no God.

PEOPLE BELIEVE IN GOD BECAUSE THEY WERE FORCE FED THE IDEA THAT ONE THING CAN CREATE A UNIVERSE, THAT A MAN COULD WALK ON WATER, A BUSH THAT IS ON FIRE COULD TALK, A MAN CAN BE RESSURETCTED, AND THEY WERE TOLD THIS TO GIVE THEM COMFORT, SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR WHEN IT HAS BASICALLY BEEN PROVEN THAT HUMANS AND MONKEYS ARE RELATED, THE WORLD IS WHAT IT IS BECAUSE OF THE BIG BANG AND EVOLUTION IS WHY WE ARE HERE, PEOPLE BELIEVE IN GOD BECAUSE THEY ARE STUPID

People believe in God because they can't come up with an explanation for their existence.

Answer

The latter two answers are precisely the reason why religious people think all atheists are pricks. I, too, am an atheist, but I think its best not to belittle people for their opinions (regardless of how misdirected they have been by those around them). Essentially, it is human nature to question our origins. It is one of the fundamental things that separates us from non-cognitive species. With this in mind, the Theory of Evolution (and note: theory indicates a hypothesis that has been proven through scientific observation and the two are not to be confused: e.g. the Hypothesis of Intelligent Design) is relatively young compared to the entire span of human existence. So for thousands of years, religion was as good as it got in terms of understanding where we come from and what happens when we die. This is actually quite understandable. What is also understandable is that when we did realize the justifiable certainty of Evolutionary Theory, there were many who would not amend their belief system accordingly just as when the Christians adapted the Jewish belief system, the Jews would not amend theirs, nor would the Christians when the Muslims adapted the Christians'. Ultimately, it is human stubbornness that keeps people in their faith considering the overwhelming amount of proof we do have for the Theory of Evolution vs the absolute lack of proof we have for the existence of God. Parents, of course, play a fundamental role in this as, how many things did your father and mother tell you about all sorts of things that you later found out to be absolutely false when you reached adulthood.

Answer:

There are tens of proofs for God's existence. These have been recorded for centuries and are easy to look up. However, this subject is ultimately one of personal belief, since our possession of free-will mandates that it be possible to put forth arguments (fallacious or not) against every one of the proofs.

Here are a few:

1) Teleological Argument: The universe has definite design, order, and arrangement which cannot be sufficiently explained outside a theistic worldview. From the complexities of the human eye to the order and arrangement of cosmology, the voice of God is heard. God's existence is the best explanation for such design. God is the designer.

2) Anthropic Principle: The laws of the universe seem to have been set in such a way that stars, planets and life can exist. Many constants of nature appear to be finely tuned for this, and the odds against this happening by chance are astronomical.

3) Sensus divinitatus: The innate sense of the divine exists within all people. People and cultures of all time have, by nature, sensed a need to worship something greater than themselves. No ancient society ever existed that did not believe in a supernatural power.

4) Tradition: There are events in human history which cannot be explained without God. Many people have their subjective stories that bend them in the direction of theism, but there are also historical events such as the Giving of the Torah, which are underpinnings for the belief in God.

5) Pascal's Wager: Belief in God is the most rational choice due to the consequences of being wrong. If one were to believe in God and be wrong, there would be no consequences. However, if one were to deny God and be wrong, the consequences are eternally tragic. Therefore, the most rational choice is not agnosticism or Atheism, but belief in God.

6) Why is there reality rather than nothing? Aside from God's creating it, there are only five options:

a) The universe is eternal and everything has always existed.

- Even atheists have abandoned this possibility, especially because it would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

b) Nothing exists and all is an illusion. There is no reality. There is only nothing.

- This possibility, it should be obvious, is completely self-defeating. In order to even make such a proposition, the subject has to exist in some sense. If all is an illusion, where did the illusion come from? Even the solipsist, who does not believe in the existence of other minds, has to explain the genesis of his own mind.

c). The universe created itself. This is the idea that the universe and all that is in it did not have its origin in something outside itself, but from within.

- Like with the previous two, this makes a logical absurdity. It would be like creating a square triangle. It's impossible. A triangle by definition cannot be square. So creation cannot create itself as it would have to pre-date itself to create. The pre-dated form would then need a sufficient explanatory cause, ad infinitum.

d) Chance created the universe. The odds of winning the lottery are not very good; but given enough time, everyone will win. While the odds of the universe coming into existence are not very good, given enough time, it could happen.

- This option is a sleight of hand that, like "survival of the fittest," amounts to nothing, because it implies that "chance" itself has quantitative causal power.

The word "chance" is used to describe possibilities. It does not have the power to cause those possibilities. It is nonsense to speak of chance being the agent of creation of anything, since chance is not an agent. What are the real chances of the universe created by chance? Not a chance. Chance is incapable of creating a single molecule, let alone an entire universe. Why not? Chance is no thing. It is not an entity. It has no being, no power, no force. It can effect nothing because it has no causal power within it. It is a word which describes mathematical possibilities which, by the curious flip of the fallacy of ambiguity, slips into the discussion as if it were a real entity with real power, the power of creativity." (R.C. Sproul, Not a Chance. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999.)

e) The universe is created by nothing. Simply put, nothing created the universe.

- The problem here is that it is either a restating of option #1 (the universe is eternal) or fails due to the irrationality of #4. In our current universe, the law of cause and effect cannot be denied by sane people. While we often don't know what the cause of some effect is, this does not mean that there was no cause. When we go to the doctor looking for an explanation for the cause of our neck pain, we don't accept the answer "There is no cause. It came from nothing."

Answer 3

• Somebody created all this. The world is so amazing and complex that people tend to assume a mastermind, or masterminds, must have designed it. People then figure that maybe, if they ask the God, or Gods for help or favors, they may get them.

• The need to search for and to be like God is imbedded in each superconscious mind along with the plan for completing that goal. Most people at this point in our progression do not know where the desire comes from but always feel it. For those who must know what this is and why, these begin their search in earnest and will not be satisfied with what religion or school has to say about it. For me, I knew there was more, no doubt, but I had to find the means to understand it which I did.

• This question is actually two questions. Q1: Why are humans driven to believe in [an abstract] God? A: God as a notion emerges from the questions that arose from humans since the dawn of sapience: Who am I? From whence did I come? What is the purpose behind my existence? Notional God can be defined as the first cause from which the universe spawned, on the presumption that the past is finite.

A point of beginning has made some sense since science took to the Big Bang theory, solidified by Georges Lemaître, a Roman Catholic priest. The universe is expanding, hence it was once smaller, perhaps infinitely so. His full concept was a "primeval atom" from which the universe spawned. A big bang at the beginning of the universe implies a start. The start of the universe implies a first cause, ergo: God.

Furthermore, we are social creatures, and are hence driven to seek a niche that defines how we participate in society, and this instinct translates easily to existence at large: what is my role in nature? What is my ultimate purpose? Our inherent desire to be part of a greater whole (civilization) has the side effect of creating a desire for absolute inclusion (divine purpose).

This philosophical belief, called teleology, is a very attractive proposition; we would rather imagine we are princes of the universe than incidental to its nature, and this drives us to make presumptions about God that are not evidenced by observations of nature, such as:

• God is sentient and aware.
• God is all powerful.
• We are God's intentional creations.
• We are modeled after God.
• God has a specific plan for each of us, and for humankind.
• God is benevolent, and wishes us health and happiness.
• God watches each of us, and intervenes on our behalf, especially when we find ourselves in dire straits.

And thus, we have the foundations of the archetypal human concepts of God.

Q2: Why do humans believe in [a given] God (In this case, specifically Jesus or Yahweh?)

A: The most common reason people believe in the Biblical god is because they were dictated Him in their childhood. As Homo Sapiens is extremely adaptable to clime and circumstance, one of the mechanisms that improves our survival is the open-architecture nature of our minds. We are born with very few instincts, and hence must be taught much by our nurturers (usually, our parents) about how to survive in the specific environment in which we live.

Much of Christian dogma is framed in the context of survival: those who toe the line of the Christian faith gain immortality and salvation, where those who do not face the eternal wrath of a vengeful deity. So hereditary religious faith can be explained as a side effect of one of our principal survival mechanisms: our inclination to learn non-critically when we are children. (But note the afterthought, below.)

Humans are also inclined to stay faithful to the religion of their upbringing. In psychology, this is due to a psychological phenomenon called attitude polarization, by which, once humans establish for themselves a specific belief, they seek out and regard strongly new data that confirms this belief, and avoid and disregard new data that is contrary to it. We actually get a mild endorphin rush from hearing someone agree with us, or express an opinion that supports what we already believe. We can see the consequences of this in the wedge partisanship that runs rampant in US politics.

There's a Jesuit saying (either from St. Ignatius of Loyola or St. Francis Xavier) "Give me a child for for his first seven years and I'll give you the man." It usually takes a significant amount of effort and thought or an identity crisis (such as one's sexual orientation being condemned by one's ministry, or a personal betrayal that is not acknowledged by the religious community) to propel a human to change their hereditary belief system at a root level. This is why missionary efforts even to this day seek out children, the downtrodden and the desperate to mine for new converts.

• As a young adult, I was trapped by the logical fallacy of a false dilemma, caught between the cold hard oblivion of Atheism and the the contradictory, wrathful and counternatural scriptures of Christianity. I had an epiphany, possibly even from on high, that no matter the number of conceptions of God (and Her nature) that humankind has forged, there are a vastly greater number of possibilities that remain unimagined. It is significantly more likely the truth of God is in the latter category than the former.

• There is a higher purpose in life. I don't know what that purpose is...But many things we know and experience indicate that something of "higher essence" is part of our existence - that we are partly made of something more than dust...Science may never understand why we come to tears when we listen to an old favorite song, why we laugh, why we may love someone so much that we may give our life to save theirs.

• Lets make a distinction here between God and a creator. There is an entity referred to in The Bible as God. This is simply a fictitious character to whom all things great and wonderful are ascribed. This God in the Bible can walk on water and part seas. This fable God never did anything except fire up the imaginations of gullible people. While there is, in my opinion, a creator, this does, in no way, resemble the man made fairy tale in the Bible

• God is real because He is and always has been! That's hard for us to comprehend in our limited minds, but He is real and made everything, including us! The only way to overcome that is to choose to believe that God is God and that He loves us and sent His son, Jesus, to come and die on a cross a long time ago to take away the bad things we as humans chose (our sin)! If we accept Jesus and believe in Him we can be right with God and He can help us be good. Someday when our bodies die we get to be in perfect heaven with Him!

• Everywhere you look you see God's handiwork. God created everything in the universe. Man is not his own god. Nor does he actually control things that are beyond his own comprehension. Real isn't just want you see it's also what you know. Even common sense tells you that something or someone created the universe with a grand design. You cannot prove feelings exist because feelings are not tangible. Feelings come from the human soul. Unlike your body, your soul is hidden from view, but it is just as real. It is the effects of God we see as real. Everything that has life in it comes from a life giving God. Can you create a human being from the dirt of the ground and breathe life into it and call it a living soul? You are the greatest proof that God exists. Study the human body and then come and tell me that it all just "happened" in the most perfect and complicated way without intelligent design.

• Considering the sheer size of our universe, we represent within it a smaller factor than what would be to the Earth, a specific patch of Spanish moss under the bark of a given Sequoia just northeast of Bodega Bay, California. It would be extremely anthropocentric to imagine the human race, or even the planet Earth is significant to a grand purpose of the universe, let alone to assign relevance to each of the six-billion-plus individuals that reside here. Richard Dawkins (father of the meme) borrowed the term "Tooth Fairy Agnostic" or "Teapot Agnostic" (from Bertrand Russel's Teapot thought experiment) to better recognize those of us who cannot rule out the Christian god, but comprehend the severe improbability of His existence.

• I think God is real because [many of those who, in dire times, call to God for aid, receive it. Cancers go into remission. Lost children are found. Natural disasters are survived.] When I was bitten by a dog I called to God [and escaped peril]. When I have nightmares [God comforts me.] This why I believe God watches over us all.

• Why do people believe that God is real? Loneliness, a need to make sense out of what we cannot explain or understand, and a fear of death, I personally believe that the idea of God was created by powerful people to keep people under control and obedient, to strike fear into them to establish order and social control.

• People need to believe in something, or we go crazy from the horrors of modern life.But he doesn't exist, at least not as a conscious entity that controls the cosmos.

• All big philosophical questions cannot be answered via science, in the context of physical laws affecting matter. Great philosophers have tried to answer them but with no success. There are many logical arguments in favor of the existence of God (e.g. the teleological argument, the First Cause argument etc - see other related questions in WikiAnswers for arguments for/against God's existence), as well as against the existence of God. The bottom line is that we cannot prove or disprove God only with the scientific tools we have today. That is why a leap of faith is finally required to believe in the existence of God, or to believe in the non-existence of God!

• It amazes me the degree to which some of us extrapolate recklessly from a given indication that God exists. Sophisticated eye? Yahweh. Finely tuned universe? Yahweh. The standard model requires a theoretical boson that remains undetected? Yahweh. [We should] apply the principle of Occam's Razor: if there was a watchmaker, if we are designed by intelligence, would it not make more sense that the designer was a natural thing, rather than supernatural? If we were engineered, would it not be more prudent to seek out our engineer within the universe we live than without? We are far more likely to have been designed by three-legged invertebrate alien vampires who traverse space-time in spinning flying saucers than an omnipotent being that exists beyond the eleventh dimension. And this is still on the dubious presumption that we were designed.

• The world is so amazing and complex that people tend to assume a mastermind, or masterminds, must have designed it. People then figure that maybe, if they ask the God, or Gods for help or favors, they may get them.

• The need to search for and to be like God is imbedded in each superconscious mind along with the plan for completing that goal. Most people at this point in our progression do not know where the desire comes from but always feel it. For those who must know what this is and why, these begin their search in earnest and will not be satisfied with what religion or school has to say about it. For me, I knew there was more, no doubt, but I had to find the means to understand it which I did.

Answer 4

Because God requires worship, read: 23Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."

Answer 5

People are told to believe god. They are told at a very early age. Pretty soon, they simply believe what they're told. This is the purpose of religion -- to find comfort in doing and believing what others say is true.

Answer 6

Answer: People pray to God because we want to praise and thank him for everything he has done for us.

Answer:

Or not! People pray to God because they are uneducated, insecure and they want to believe that they are protected by this "holy spirit"... they don't want to think about anything so they just say "it's God's wish"

Answer:

Those who pray to a deity believe that the deity in question may intercede on their or another's behalf, usually in the physical real world but also in any afterlife that person believes in.

Answer 7

People turn to God because there is a void that only God can fill. Man is more than just flesh and body, he has a spirit, and it is that spirit that is seeking. God made man and only God can fill that need in man, otherwise man looks for other things to satisfy that void.

Answer 8

Evolution. We, like all animals require a leader, an Alpha, to set the rules by which we interact with others. We have evolved huge brains and with them the ability to become self-aware and see ever larger mysteries of our world. We looked to our human Alpha's to explain these things and when they couldn't they invoked an "Ultimate Alpha" that knew and controlled everything. This put a stop to the dissolution of the groups and "Alpha" infighting. The "Ultimate Alpha" took on many forms in many cultures but is commonly referred to in the Abrahamic religions as "God". "God" handed down laws, order and explanations which stabilized societies and helped them prosper. Only when competing "Ultimate Alpha's" were encountered would wars erupt (because there was no higher authority to overrule the two "ultimate's". Eventually reason will replace the current "Ultimate Alpha" and god will no longer be valued.

Answer 9

Because those that do praise GOD know that he is worthy and deserving of their praise. He did; after all, create them and offer them a way of atonement for their transgressions, as well as the promise of sharing eternity with HIM in Heaven.

You absolutely must ask yourself a simple question. What happens to me when I die? The answer to that is found in GOD's teachings. Most of which are found in the Bible. Remember; even the devils believed in GOD. And just believing in HIM is not sufficient to be able to receive HIS grace's and promises. I'll leave it up to you how to go about finding the answers. Start by looking at the sorry state of affairs that your life has become.

Answer 10

Most people who believe in god do so because that's the wayraised. Their parents also believed and, so, they raised their child to believe as they do. This is not true for everyone, though. Some people turn to religion when faced with a personal tragedy and, in their desire for answers, begin believing in god.

For those who believe, "god" fills in the answers to the unexplainable. If they don't understand how the Earth was created, or why there is such diversity among living things, they simply attribute it to a supernatural being, rather than learn the true answers through science.

With science and knowledge becoming more accessible to everyone, more and more people are recognizing that gods are not real. They served their purpose in our early history, but today, churches are still telling ancient stories and collecting money from people who still want to believe in these superstitions.

A:2

All I know is that the crucial differences are 3 : Conviction that you have not lived up to your duty to others, Desire to press the search until you get an answer even if you die in the process, and a personal stake in it all.

A:3

Some people believe in God because they have no definite or conclusive data that proves beyond a doubt that everything which exists came from nothing.

Those people believe in God because some entity gives a body life and the absence of that entity (soul) results in death. They believe that the entity which gives life must have originated from a powerful source and they assigned various names to that source, God being one of the many different names.

First hand experience mainly.

A:4

I've heard it said that they believe in God because they've seen the evidence, like in some kind of court of the universe, and believe that it is logical to assume that it has a creator. Some people may not agree, and they are entitled to their opinions.

A different view:

As one who does believe in God, I can honestly say none of the above answers are why I believe in God, just as I know they are not why most people who believe in God do so. But as for why I do believe, I will only speak for myself. I believe in God, not because I was raised to do so, nor because of any "definite or conclusive data....", but because of a deep, inner faith in knowing He does exist.

He has proven His existence to me many times, in many ways, and not from some need for "answers" or from any "superstitious" beliefs. I believe it takes a lot more faith to believe the earth, the universe, and all that's in it began on its own from some 'big bang' that it does to believe in God, who is the creator of all.

Also, science has in no way, even remotely, proven that God does not exist, nor can it, or will it, ever do so.

I won't try to convince non believers in the existence of God, but I will say for those of us who do believe, no proof is necessary, and for those who don't, no proof is enough.