Section 1: BELIEVING IN GOD

Transcription

1 Section 1: BELIEVING IN GOD In this section you will need to make sure you know about each of the following. Tick each section off once you have learnt the information. Topic Religious upbringing Religious experience The argument from design and belief in God The argument from causation and belief in God Scientific explanations of the world and agnosticism and atheism How one religion (Christianity) responds to scientific explanations of the world How unanswered prayers may lead to agnosticism or atheism How one religion (Christianity) responds to unanswered prayers Evil and suffering How one religion (Christianity) responds to the problem of evil and suffering How two programmes about religion could affect a person s attitude to belief in God Check 1

2 Believing in God Key Words Part (a) in the exam will be a definition question. Make sure you know the meanings of these words. Key word Conversion Miracle Numinous Prayer Agnosticism Atheism Free will Moral evil Natural evil Omnibenevolent Omnipotent Omniscient Omnipresent Definition When your life is changed by giving yourself to God. Something which seems to break a law of science and makes you think only God could have done it. The feeling of the presence of something greater than you. An attempt to contact God, usually through words. Not being sure whether God exists. Believing that God does not exist. The idea that human beings are free to make their own choices. Actions done by humans that cause suffering. Things which cause suffering but have nothing to do with humans. The belief that God is all good and all loving. The belief that God is all-powerful. The belief that God knows everything that has happened and everything that is going to happen. The belief that God is always present. 2

3 Religious Upbringing Having a religious upbringing is likely to lead to belief in God because children are taught that God exists and they spend most of their time with people who believe God exists. Features of a religious upbringing Parents will teach their children to pray to God and teach them about God. Going to church on a Sunday Going to Sunday school. Going to a religious school. How it might lead to, or support, belief in God. Children often believe what their parents tell them. And if they see their parents praying, they too are likely to pray and believe in God because their parents would not waste their time praying for nothing. Going to church and seeing so many people praying to God and worshipping God is likely to make them think that God must exist. Going to Sunday School would support belief in God because children would learn why Christians believe in God and what they believe about him. If children go to a Christian school they are taught about Christianity as a fact. Just as they believe what their Science, Maths, etc teacher tells them, they will also believe what their RE teacher is telling them. Being baptised. When a child is baptized their parents make a promise to God to bring their baby up as a Christian. Therefore they would have many elements of Christian upbringing all leading to, or support, belief in God. 3

4 Religious Experience People claim to experience God in miracles, answered prayers, the numinous experience and conversion. Religious experience makes people feel that God is real. A religious experience is an event that people feel gives them direct contact with God. Often a religious experience can either lead to belief in God, or can strengthen the faith of someone who already believes. You need to know the four different types of religious experiences, examples of each and be able to explain just how they can lead to belief in God. Conversion: When your life is changed by giving yourself to God. Miracle: Something which seems to break the laws of science and makes you think only God could have done it. Numinous: The feeling of the presence of something greater than you. Prayer: An attempt to contact God, usually through words. RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE Conversion When your life is changed by giving yourself to God Miracle Something which seems to break the laws of science and makes you think only God could have done it. Numinous The feeling of the presence of something greater than you. Prayer An attempt to contact God, usually through words. EXAMPLE Saul was on his way to persecute Christians when God came down to him. This religious experience of seeing God CONVERTED Saul to believe in God and he CONVERTED to Christianity. He then went on to spread to the word of Christianity and changed his name to Paul. (Now known as St. Paul). Some Christians claim to have seen a statue of the Virgin Mary cry. Being told a person has a terminal illness and then they get better. Looking up at the stars and getting goose bumps, thinking this is so beautiful and amazing, I can feel God! Being in Church and having the feeling that God is there Praying for all ill person to become better and they do. Just praying to God and feeling God s presence and that one on one contact with God.. LEAD TO BELIEF IN GOD BECAUSE. It changes your whole outlook on life and religion and can make people so devoted to the religion they change the way they live their life. For example they might be converted and then start to attend Church etc. It is God acting on Earth, the fact that there is no other explanation but God would make people believe. They would see this as proof of Gods existence and therefore lead to belief in God. Feeling the presence of God is proof to the individual that God exists. If their prayers come true they could see it as proof of God s existence. The feeling of God being there and listening is proof to some that God exists. 4

5 The argument from design and belief in God The universe seems to be designed. Anything that is designed must have a designer. Therefore God must exist because only God could have designed the universe. William Paley s watch analogy If you came across a watch in an uninhibited place, you could not say it had been put there by chance. The complexity of its mechanism would make you say it had a designer. The universe is a far more complex mechanism than a watch, and so, if a watch needs a watch maker, the universe needs a universe maker. As the only being that could design the universe would be God, it follows that God must exist. The Design Argument Everything that has been designed has a designer There is plenty of evidence that the world has been designed. (Laws of science, DNA, evolution, beauties of nature) If the world has been designed, the world must have a designer The only possible designer of something as beautiful and complex as the world would be God Therefore the appearance of design in the world proves that God exists. This argument shows how the appearance of design in the world can lead to people who are not sure about God to believe that he exists; and how it will give extra reasons for believing in God to those who already believe. Weaknesses Lack of design. The argument ignores the evidence of lack of design in the universe, such as volcanoes, hurricanes and diseases. Science. The elements of design can be explained by science! Dinosaurs. They must have been part of the world, but they don t really fit into the plan? Who says the designer is God? The argument just proves there was a designer, but why is this God? Maybe it was a team of designers? Or an evil God who designed the world with problems? (E.g. Eathquakes etc). 5

6 The argument from causation and belief in God. The way everything seems to have a cause makes people think the universe must have a cause, and the only possible cause of the universe is God, so God must exist. The Causation Argument The process whereby one thing causes another. It is often known as cause effect. Example: The EFFECT is the car slowing down. What caused the car to slow down? The CAUSE of the car slowing down was the pressing the foot on the break pedal. The causation argument claims that EVERYTHING happens because it has been caused to happen. The universe is here because someone CAUSED it to be here. The Causation Argument If we look at things in the world we can see they have a cause. (E.g. Ice. It caused by water being frozen.) Anything that has been caused to exist exists because of something else. (What caused it) You cannot keep going back and back in the cause chain. There needs to be an end. The only possible first cause of the universe is God. (Even the big bang theory, what caused the Big Bang? God did!) God exists! 6

7 The Causation Argument The way everything seems to have a cause makes people think the universe must have a cause, and the only possible cause of the universe is God, So God must exist! Weaknesses Why stop at God? If everything has a cause, then who caused God? No first cause. The universe is eternal! Many argue the universe has no beginning and no end. The universe is eternal, going on forever, it has no first cause. Why God? Even if a first cause was to exist, why is it God? It could be any sort of creator! You need to know reasons why some people DO believe in God: Religious Upbringing Religious Experience The Design Argument The Causation Argument But you also need to know reasons why people DO NOT believe in God: Science The presence of evil and suffering in the world Unanswered prayers (You also need to know how Christians respond to these arguments. 7

8 Scientific explanations of the world and agnosticism and atheism. Science says that matter is eternal and that the universe began when this matter exploded. The solar system came out of the explosion, and the nature of the earth allowed life to develop through evolution. Agnosticism: Not being sure whether or not God exists Atheism: Believing that God does not exist Many people see scientific explanations of the world as reasons NOT to believe in God. Big Bang theory Matter is eternal; it can neither be created nor destroyed. About 15 million years ago, the matter became so compressed it created a huge explosion (The Big Bang) From this explosion Earth was formed, as was the sun, the solar system and everything in it. Over millions of years new life forms were produced and about 2.5 million years ago, humans evolved. This is the scientific explanation of the world NOT GOD!! This goes against the Christian theory of creation. Evolution Fossil records show evidence that the human race evolved over millions of years. This goes against the Christian belief that God created man on the 6 th day of creation. This can lead to people being agnostic or atheist because the fossil records are seen as proof and contradicts the Bible story of creation, which has no proof. Science is proof for many things and is a reliable source of information. Science can explain where the world came from and where humans came from without any reference to God. This may lead some people to be agnostic or atheists as it can be argued that God is not needed for creation and the Biblical creation story is wrong. If this story is wrong, what else in the Bible is wrong? 8

9 How one religion (Christianity) responds to scientific explanations of the world. Many Christians accept the scientific explanations but believe they show that God created the Universe through the Big Bang. Some Christians say the scientific explanations are wrong and the biblical story of creation is fact because it is the word of God. Some Christians believe that both science and the Bible are true because one of God s days could be billions of years. Response Two: Science is wrong and the Bible is right!! Big bang and the evolution are explained through Noah s flood! Apparent age theory explains how the world looks so old: God created the world to look old, so the Grand Canyon would have looked millions of years old when it was only a second old! Response One: Yes, the science explanations of the word are true! BUT that God is behind the science! The Big Bang was started by God! Response Three: Both scientific explanations and the Bible are correct. But the Bible does not mean 7 literal 24 hour days in the story of creation, but instead the world was made in 7 stages, each stage could last millions of years. The stages of creation are seen through evolution. 9

10 How unanswered prayers may lead to agnosticism or atheism If people do not feel God s presence when they pray, or if people pray for good things, but their prayers aren t answered, this might make people doubt God s existence. If God does not answer prayer, how do you know he exists? As we know from religious experience, one reason for people believing in God is that when they pray they feel the presence of God and/or their prayers have been answered by God. However, prayers can also lead people to become atheists or agnostic because: 1) Not feeling God s presence when praying. Prayer is defined as an attempt to contact God, usually through words. So, when people pray if they cannot feel this presence of God it may lead them to think What s the point! They might feel like noone is listening and despite all their efforts, if they still cannot feel the presence of God, people might just decide to give up, thinking that no-one is there listening. This one reason how prayer can lead to agnosticism or atheism. 2) Prayer not being answered. Even more likely to make people reject belief in God is unanswered prayers. If they have been good Christians and are asking for an unselfish prayer, why is God not answering? For example, a couple who have a baby ill with leukemia might pray for their child to get better. If their child dies it may make them question why God wouldn t answer their prayer, which in turn might make them not believe in God. If God is omnipotent and omnibenevolent, why is he not answering this prayer? 10

11 How one religion (Christianity) responds to unanswered prayers Christians believe that God cannot answer selfish prayers. But he answers all other prayers, though not always in the way we would expect, because his answers have to fit in with his overall plan. Most Christians believe that God answers all prayers and that what seems to be unanswered prayers can be explained in many different ways: GOD IS ANSWERING YOUR PRAYER. BUT IN A DIFFERENT WAY For example, if you prayed to get an A* in your RE exam, God would not magic an A* on your GCSE certificate, but would instead give you the ability to work hard and encourage you to revise. NOT IN GOD S PLAN For example if you pray for your Grandad to be cured of cancer and he dies, it may be because God has different plans and may be wanting your Grandad to enter heaven. MIGHT NOT BE FOR THE BEST When we pray we might think that our pray to be answered would be the best solution, but we are just human! God is omniscient and maybe our prayer being answered in certain circumstances might not work out for the best. CHAOS IF ALL PRAYERS WERE ANSWERED If everyone could get exactly what they wanted just by praying the world would become chaos. (Think of the case of Bruce Almighty when he answers YES to all prayers, the society he lives in starts to break down!) JESUS SAID HAVE FAITH Our prayers might not be answered immediately, but in the long term they might be. WE WILL FIND OUT WHY THEY ARE NOT ANSWERED IN HEAVEN If a Christian s prayers are not answered, despite them being good prayers and them living a good honest Christian life, it is not because God doesn t exist, or that God doesn t care, but we will be able to find out why the prayer was not answered when we get to heaven and we get to ask God ourselves. Everything happens for a reason and everything God does/ doesn t do, is because he loves us. 11

12 Evil and Suffering Some people do not believe in God because they think there would be no evil and suffering in a world created by a good and powerful God. A good God should not want such things to happen, and a powerful God ought to be able to get rid of evil and suffering but he does not. Omni-benevolent: The belief that God is all good, all loving. Omnipotent: The belief that God is all powerful. Omniscient: The belief that God is all knowing. Omnipresent: The belief that God is all around. Free will: The idea that human beings are free to make their own choices. The presence of evil and suffering in the world raises lots of questions: Why did this happen? Who s fault is is it? Could it have been prevented? 12

13 Evil and Suffering Moral Evil This is evil caused by humans misusing their FREE WILL. It always possible for humans to choose to do something good or something evil and humans choosing to do something evil makes a MORAL EVIL. Examples of moral evil: War Rape Murder Christians often call acts of moral evil sins because they are against what God wants humans to do. (As revealed to them in the 10 commandments, e.g. Do not kill). Natural Evil Natural evil is suffering that has not been caused by humans. It causes suffering but there seems to be no direct link to human actions. Examples of natural evil: Earthquakes Floods Cancer Tsunamis How evil and suffering can cause people to become agnostic or atheist: Why would a good, loving, omnibenevolent God create a world with natural evils in it? If God is omniscient (all-knowing) then he must have known what Hitler would do. If he is omnipotent (all-powerful) then he must have had the power to stop him, and if he is omnibenevolent (allloving) then he must have wanted to stop him! It doesn t make sense that a good God who is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipresent would create a world with natural and moral evil in it.. Therefore it follows that either: i) God is NOT all these good characteristics many believe he is, OR ii) God simply does not exist! 13

14 How one religion (Christianity) responds to the problem of evil and suffering Christians respond to the problem of evil and suffering by: Praying for those who suffer Helping those who suffer Claiming that evil and suffering are the fault if humans misusing their free will Claiming that evil and suffering are part of a test to prepare people for heaven. The Freewill defence When God made humans he did not want us to be like puppets on strings, only doing what he wanted. So instead he made humans to have a choice; to chose how we want to behave. Basically he wanted us to have the FREEDOM to be Good or Bad. Unfortunately humans often choose to behave badly, And this, Christians say, is why there is so much pain in the world. Therefore pain is our fault for misusing our FREE WILL. Therefore, evil exists in the world due to humans misusing their free will; IT IS NOT GOD S FAULT! 14

15 How one religion (Christianity) responds to the problem of evil and suffering As well as the FREE-WILL DEFENCE, there are other responses from Christians to the problem of evil. Response One: Christians believe that God wants them to help those who suffer. The New Testament teaches that Jesus regarded evil and suffering as something to be fought against. Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry and challenged those who were evil. Many Christians believe that Gods reason for allowing evil is beyond human comprehension but that as Christians they should respond to evil by helping those who are suffering, following the example of Jesus. (WWJD) Response Two: Some Christians believe that evil and suffering in this life is part of God s plan and that people will be rewarded in heaven by how well they dealt with the evil in the world. (Did they help those in need etc). Many Christians believe this world is preparation for paradise and evil and suffering exist to help best prepare us. Also, we need bad to understand what good is! Without bad there can be no good, how would we know and appreciate paradise and heaven if we had no knowledge of evil and suffering. Response Three: Stop trying to understand the reasons why! God is divine, we are mortal. We cannot even begin to understand the why, all we can do is have faith and trust in God that everything he does he does for a reason. God is omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipresent and we will be able to ask God questions on why when we get to heaven. Until then, instead of focusing on why evil is here, we should focus on being a good Christian and try to help those in need. 15

16 How two programmes about religion could affect a person s attitude to belief in God You need to study two programmes about religion. For each one you will need to know: An outline of its contents How it might have encouraged some people to believe in God How it might have encouraged some people not to believe in God Whether it affected your belief in God You have to study two programmes about religion in depth and assess how they could affect a person s attitude to belief in God. The programmes do not need to be factual programmes, nor does it have to be on television, it could be a radio programme or a film. Read the summary above make notes on each bullet point relating to your chosen programme. It is UP TO YOU what programme you chose, but to help you I have made notes on the film Bruce Almighty and an episode on the television programme Only Fools and Horses The miracle of Peckham. And also THE NEWS! 16

17 Bruce Almighty Outline of the contents: In Bruce Almighty, Bruce feels down on his luck. He starts to get fed up with God and thinks Why isn t God helping me! He even starts to think that he could do a better job than God and helping people and being in control of the world. God challenges Bruce. He gives Bruce all his powers for one week to see if he can do any better! (There are lots of things you could focus on from this film, but here I am going to focus on the issue of prayer.) Bruce starts to hear peoples prayers There are too many for him to cope with He sets up a prayer- system and replies to all YES. Everyone gets their prayers answered. Good, right? Wrong! The world soon turns to chaos with everyone getting just what they want. How might this encourage some people to believe in God? Maybe someone was starting to doubt the existence of God because their prayers were not being answered. From watching this film they might start to realise reasons why their prayers are not answered and this doubt they may have had might go away, leading to the film affecting their belief in God. How might the film encourage some people NOT to believe in God? It s a comedy, made purely for entertainment reasons. Not true, not based on evidence and is no more realistic then films based on Santa. They might feel the Hollywood element cheapens the film and issues relating to religion. And would God really ever give a human his powers? No. Therefore it is all made up, unrealistic and makes the religion seem nothing more than a made up Hollywood concept to make money in a comedy film! Has the film affected your belief in God? What do you think? This part is YOUR opinion. (I can t help you here!) There are LOTS of other issues from Bruce Almighty you could focus on: God being portrayed as a human God being played by a black man The issue of Free Will (and how God cannot interfere) To get A*s you would need to focus on more than one issue! 17

18 Only Fools and Horses The miracle of Peckham Outline of the contents: In this sitcom the nature of miracles is investigated in a very amusing way. It begins with Del Boy going to Church to confess his sin of handling stolen goods. In the episode the priest starts to voice his doubts on the existence of God as the Church is likely to be closed down as it does not have enough money to keep going. Whilst they are there, the statue of the Virgin Mary begins to cry.it s a miracle! Del Boy sells the newspaper and television rights and donates the money to the Church. But we learn that the stolen goods Del Boy was confessing at the start of the programme were the stolen led from the Church roof this lead to a leak in the roof, and the rain drops fell on the statue of Mary. So not such a miracle after all! How might this encourage some people to believe in God? Del Boy confessed his sins, was sorry for what he did and was able to put it right by donating the money he raised to go to the Church. Therefore strengthening peoples belief in God that even if people have done wrong, if they are truly sorry then with the power of the Holy Spirit God will give them a second chance to put their actions right again. How might the film encourage some people NOT to believe in God? Many people do not believe in miracles because they think there must be a logical explanation for it somewhere! This can be seen in the Miracle of Peckham, as we learn that actually, there was no miracle, no miraculous act of God has taken place. This might encourage some people not to believe in God as they might think that ALL miracles are false and have explanations to them, even ounces that have newspapers and televisions programmes reporting on them, still have logical explanations. Has the film affected your belief in God? What do you think? This part is YOUR opinion. (I can t help you here!) 18

19 THE NEWS Outline of the contents: Varied news from around the world. How might this encourage some people to believe in God? Some stories on the news are inspirational. Could be news coverage on what the Pope has been doing People might choose to convert! How might the film encourage some people NOT to believe in God? The news often has cases of evil. NATURAL EVIL and MORAL EVIL. E.g. Earthquakes, Tsunamis (Natural Evil) Murders (Moral Evil). How could this omnibenevolent God allow such evil? How could this omnipresent God allow such evil? How could this omniscient God allow such evil? How could this omnipotent God allow such evil? Has the news affected your belief in God? What do you think? This part is YOUR opinion. (I can t help you here!) 19