Believing in God (You only need Christian knowledge in this unit) Revise key aspects of the unit Create set of revision notes

Reasons to believe in God Atheist Theist Agnostic

Religious Upbringing  Baptised  Taught to pray  Taken to Church  Go to Sunday school  Church School  If brought up like this = natural to believe in God, no reason not to, surrounded by people you look up to who believe in God, completely normal.

Religious Experience  Ways in which people come into direct contact with God  Numinous – feeling of presence of God, awe and wonder – looking up at stars, beauty of nature, Toronto Blessing.  Conversion – definite feeling of God’s presence, leads to change in life. Eg vision, dream, miracle  Miracle – event which seems to break the laws of science and only explanation is God eg Jesus raising Lazarus (Bible), surviving incurable disease (Lourdes).  Answered prayers – pray to God for something and it happens – believe God made it happen eg pray for relative to recover and they do. Can ask for strength to get through something, they feel less afraid and ready to cope with the situation they are facing.  Can lead people to believe in God or support their belief (make it stronger)

Design Argument  Paleys watch  Evidence that universe is designed eg laws of science, DNA, complexity of eye, beauty of nature  Anything designed needs a designer  Only designer of something as complex as Universe is God  So God exists

Causation Argument  Science says everything must have a cause  Universe itself must have a cause  Big Bang? What caused that?  Can’t keep going back – must be a first cause, something which started it all off and wasn’t caused itself  = God

 Search for Meaning and Purpose  People not here by chance  Life must have a meaning and purpose  God and life after death give life meaning  So believe in God  Existence of religion  Religions share similar beliefs about God  Share common features – moral rules, worship – so must be force behind them all leading to these similarities  Billions of people belong to religion and believe in God – can’t all be wrong

Reasons to NOT believe in God Atheist Agnostic

Non-religious explanations of the world  Science can explain the Universe without God  Big Bang  Evolution

Problems with miracles  Depend on eye witnesses – could be lying/fake.  Recorded in holy books – why should they be believed?  Scientific explanations for them all.  Why miracles for some people and not others?

Choose one religion and explain how its followers respond to unanswered prayers. (8 marks)  Try to answer this question.  Now try to answer this question;  Explain why unanswered prayers may lead some people to become atheists.

Unanswered prayers  Prayer is an attempt to contact God, many feel a sense of numinous when they pray. If they do not sense the presence of God and feel he is not listening then they may lose their faith.  If their prayers are not being heard and if they feel that prayers are not answered they will question the existence of God.  Give an example of an unanswered prayer – a child dies from a disease rather than being cured. The missionary couple who asked the members of their church to pray for them when they were sent to Nepal. The plane crashed and they and their children died.  Experiment – prayers had not effect on patients undergoing heart surgery. Some patients were prayed for by a multi- faith team and some were not. There was no difference in the outcomes for those who were prayed for and those who weren’t.

Evil and suffering  Moral evil – suffering caused by humans eg war, rape, murder, theft  Natural evil – suffering not been caused by humans eg hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanoes  Some can be both – cancer, floods

Problem of evil and suffering  If God is benevolent – all loving, good – then God ought to want to stop evil and suffering in the world.  If God is omnipotent – all powerful – he should be able to stop evil and suffering  However, evil and suffering still exist, so either God is not good or God is not all powerful or God doesn’t exist.

Christian responses to the problem of evil and suffering  Practical – prayer, charity, work – Jesus set example to help those who are suffering.  Free will – God gave humans free will. Evil and suffering is down to humans misusing their free will – humans fault not God’s.  Life is a test to prepare you for heaven. Need to show you are a good person by helping those that suffer/dealing with suffering – then get to heaven