ibelieve

i believe

The reasons for my belief.

Other pages in the about section:

Unkle E

reason and belief

This website looks at questions related to the purpose of life and the possible existence of God. Here I outline why I have chosen to believe in God.

I think both reason & belief are required to answer these questions. Without reason, we could decide to believe in almost anything, without ever knowing if it was true. But with reason alone, we can get stuck in a blind alley waiting for irrefutable proof, and refuse to form any conclusions worth living by.

In the end, I think we have this one life to make up our minds on matters that seriously affect how we live, and may affect what happens after this life. If we decide not to make a choice about God, we will have lived our life without him anyway. We each have to make our own choices, but here's my reasons for making the choice to believe.

reasons to believe God exists

does there have to be a reason for everything?

When we consider the universe, and ask "How come there's anything here at all?", there aren't all that many possible answers. The universe had a beginning at the big bang, about 14 million years ago, so it hasn't always been here. I cannot believe that it started without a cause, so I can see no logical alternative than to say something caused it. That 'something' had to be either natural (that is, something we could measure with science, such as a previous universe) or beyond nature, perhaps a god.

But then we have to explain how that universe or that god got there, and so on back to the start of everything. Eventually we have to either believe that the very first thing just appeared out of nothing (which I can't believe), or that it was always there. I think a god is more likely than a previous universe to have always been there (it's hard to believe a working physical universe could exist forever and never rundown, whereas a God could exist outside of time), but either one could be reasonable.

it looks like it was designed

In recent decades scientists have discovered that about a dozen factors had to be "just right" at the moment the big bang started for the universe to survive for very long, to form stars and planets, and to allow complex life forms to appear. Numbers such as the ratios between fundamental forces of gravity, electromagnetism and the two nuclear forces, the relative sizes and charges on protons, neutrons and electrons, the initial rate of expansion of the universe, etc. Many of these numbers had to be extremely exact (in one case, to more than a hundred decimal places), and cosmologists have calculated that the probability of this occurring by chance is so small as to be negligible.

Some scientists believe that one day we will discover a fundamental law which explains how these amazing apparent coincidences have occurred, but there is a growing view that there is no such law. The main scientific explanation is now a highly speculative one - that absolutely zillions of universes have been formed, each with different characteristics, and life of course only arose in one of the few universes fit for life.

I find it difficult to believe this idea. There is no evidence for it, and most believe there never can be. It is beyond me to believe that, not only did one universe appear without reason, but that zillions of them have done so. I find it much easier to believe the alternative, that a god created the universe (or even many universes) with the required parameters to make it suitable for human life to appear.

So I believe the universe is very suggestive of creation by God. Or, looking at it another way, if there was no God, then I'd expect there to be no universe. And if there was a universe, I'd expect it to be chaotic and random. But there is a universe and it is intricately designed, and that sits better with there being a god.

is there anybody in there?

Everyday we live our lives by making decisions. We work out logically what is the best course of action (how to vote, how to solve a problem, or how to get from A to B). We make moral judgments about right and wrong ways to behave and who to trust. We make judgments about other people's behaviour when they impinge on us, even to the extent of setting up a legal system that holds people responsible and accountable for their actions. And we especially hold people responsible for taking or abusing human life.

These things are second nature to us and we hardly even stop to think about them. But they are quite remarkable. Where did our ability to reason and make choices, our sense of right and wrong and our respect for human life, come from?

If there is no God, then these aspects of humanity are the result of natural selection. This view has a number of implications .....

  • Reason would have evolved because it had survival value. But why should conclusions based on survival value necessarily be true? We could correctly reason out practical matters like running from a sabre-toothed tiger, but why should reasoning about metaphysical matters like the existence of God have survival value and be true? (And if we say that it nevertheless does lead to truth, then we are faced with the fact that the majority of people have evolved to believe in God, so that must be the truth!??)
  • Similarly with ethics. We can see that societies which evolve an ethical code may improve their prospects of survival, but such ethics would be those that lead to survival, not ones which are "good" or "true". Evolutionery ethics could be quite arbitrary.
  • If the human brain, with its electrical and chemical processes, is the sum total of the human mind and personality, it seems impossible that we have any true freewill to decide anything different to what those processes lead to. This is the conclusion of most neuroscientists.
  • It is hard to see how our appreciation of the beauty in music and sunsets and art, and the importance of love (beyond lust and self-need) could have survival value and hence have arisen by natural selection.
  • Finally, if evolution by natural selection alone produced the human race, then we are no more than animals with greater reasoning powers. Of course we may feel people have special value, but there will be no logical reason to think this is true.

So disbelieving in God would leave me in a dilemma. My disbelief would lead to conclusions which I cannot actually believe, which do not agree with my experience of being a human, and which I could not live by. I really believe that reasoning can lead to truth (otherwise why write all this stuff?). I believe some things really are right and wrong, and that society is right to hold people responsible for their actions. I believe we really do have freewill (otherwise everything we do is inevitable, even the things we believe). I believe beauty and love are real and important. It is all these things that make us human, and I believe people are more than intelligent animals. What's more, I find most people think much the same.

There seems to be no way around it. If God created us, then he can give us reasoning minds, ethical values, freewill, appreciation of love and beauty, value and dignity. But without God, we have no basis for many of these things that make us human and that we all believe in without thinking. So I conclude that our day-to-day lives demonstrate that we are more than the results of natural selection, and the best way to explain this is that a reasoning, ethical God has invested us with freedom and dignity. Disbelief cannot explain it all.

hints of another dimension

People all over the world report experiences of God - miraculous interventions, healings, guidance, a sense of God's presence. We would be foolish to think all these stories are true - it is easy for people to be mistaken, or to exaggerate, or to lie - but it seems equally foolish to dismiss them all out of hand. And every now and again, I hear a story that comes from a trustworthy source and that provides evidence that cannot be easily dismissed if I want to keep an open mind. And just a few times in my life, things have happened to me which I find difficult to explain except that God has acted.

I don't place a lot of weight on all this, but I conclude that the few well-attested stories and my own experiences point to the possibility, even probability, of God really being there.

but which god?

Granted these conclusions, I believe I have strong grounds to believe that God may, and probably does, exist. And not just any god, but a god having the characteristics indicated by the evidence I've discussed. That is:

  • powerful enough to create the universe
  • clever enough to design such a "fine-tuned" universe
  • personal enough to want to create a universe where people can live
  • rational and ethical, so he creates people who are rational and ethical
  • willing to give us the dignity of freewill

All this suggests God created us to believe in him and know him. And when I consider all the religions in the world and all the ideas about God, I find that very few present a God that has all those characteristics. The pagan and polytheistic religions do not. The eastern religions do not. The main candidates are clearly the great monothestic religions of Judaism, Christianity, Islam and Baha'i. I could consider belief that one of those Gods created the universe and the human race, but I can't think of any other religions I could believe in.

why I believe in Jesus

I have decided that I believe in Jesus, above the other religions, for the following reasons:

  • I have read a swag of books by some of the worlds most eminent historians, which indicate to me that there is ample evidence that Jesus lived, and that he did and said many of things recorded about him. Of course some historians believe we can establish more than this, and some are more sceptical, but that is a reasonable consensus. And of course historians cannot pass expert judgment on whether we should believe what he said. But their conclusions are enough to provide a solid historical basis for drawing further conclusions.
  • Many of the early christians, including those who saw Jesus and those who wrote about him, suffered significantly for their faith - some were socially ostracised, some persecuted, some killed. None of them gained materially from their belief. Yet they tenaciously kept on believing even under pressure. This, added to the conclusions of the historians, leads me to conclude that the stories about Jesus recorded for us are substantially trustworthy. I trust the writers and the communities of faith they represented.
  • I am then faced with a man who broke all of the rules. He talked and acted as if he was God in human form, he healed people, he gave teachings that have lasted to this day, yet he polarised his hearers - he attracted devoted followers but also angered people. When they killed him, God raised him to life - incredible, but former atheist philospher Antony Flew called it the best-attested miracle-claim in history. No other religion makes such claims about their founder, and few others provide as much historical evidence.
  • I find that I am driven to two conclusions about Jesus. First, I find the evidence compelling that he told the truth, and that he was who he said he was. And second, I am attracted to him as someone to follow, to give my ultimate loyalty to. Those conclusions are based on all the above evidence, but I have to admit there is something more in it too - I guess I can say he inspires faith.

life with Jesus

I have lived with and explored this belief for 45 years. I have sometimes struggled with it, sometimes been disappointed. It has often been hard work. It has certainly not always been pleasant finding out how far my actions often fall short of my beliefs, and knowing that requires me to do something about it.

But above and beyond all that, I have found my life with Jesus to be immensely satisfying. I have subjected my original belief to scrutiny, and it has become stronger, not weaker. It works and it feels true. I have no complaints. I still trust Jesus, I still want to follow him.

So that's why I still believe. I have set up reason and belief because I want to offer a resource to others on the same journey of life, reason and belief.

read more .....

Everything in this statement of faith is discussed in more detail on the various pages of reason and belief. You can check out both sides of the questions:

what about you?

I'd love to hear what you think. Why not send me an email or leave a comment on the forum?