This is a question that has been bouncing around these forums for a loooooong time, and so far, the only "answers" we get are things like "Well, why do you believe that the sun will rise?".
Because of this, I think three basic parameters need to be set for this question.

1. No answering it with another question. That doesn't add anything to the conversation

2. No tautologies. Tautological statements get the argument nowhere.

3. Don't go to the Bible, Torah, Qur'an, or any scripture of any sort as your reason. All that does is throw you in a circular argument and make you look like an idiot.

Let the games begin.

**EDIT**

4. Don't say silly things like "I feel god's presence". Say things that can act as proof to other people that don't "feel god". It wouldn't make sense that God would select some people to "feel him", because that just makes it unfair.

I can tell you for a fact that it is because they think they feel God.

(June 13, 2014 at 5:12 pm)KUSA Wrote: I can tell you for a fact that it is because they think they feel God.

And the paranoid schizophrenic thinks that he's riding a unicorn.

I should go and add a fourth parameter to eliminate arguments from insanity.

(June 13, 2014 at 5:14 pm)ChildOfReason Wrote:

(June 13, 2014 at 5:12 pm)KUSA Wrote: I can tell you for a fact that it is because they think they feel God.

And the paranoid schizophrenic thinks that he's riding a unicorn.

I should go and add a fourth parameter to eliminate arguments from insanity.

I'm not quite sure, call it gut instinct or intuition or whatever you like. I may have lost a great deal of confidence in the faith I was born into but I've never really found myself questioning the existence of a deity per say.

I feel there have been several occasions in my life where my prayers were answered, and while I'm sure that could be attributed to sheer dumb luck I personally do not make that conclusion. Perhaps that might be superstition but I can't help sometimes but feel that everything happens for a reason, even the worst things that have happened in my life have (eventually) resulted in a positive of some form.

I also personally hold a belief in an afterlife, and I feel this belief has been empowered by my studies of world religions. No matter where you go in the world, men have formed some concept, no matter how strained or abstract of some sort of divine force and afterlife. Placed side by side, many of the ideas bear surprising similarities to one another; they believe in a realm of the dead, some sort of soul/presence and the unifying power of a divinity(s) or holy spirit(s).

I don't doubt humans have made many countless mistakes in the past, but when civilizations which can't possibly have had contact with one another for several thousands of years begin formulating concepts such as the soul entirely independent of one another yet remarkably similar in concept I cannot help but wonder if there is something in it. We know today that fish contains omega-3 which is good for the brain after extensive experimentation yett the ancient Egyptians knew little of chemistry but were aware of this more than six thousand years ago. I don't know how they worked that out, but they knew somehow.

I'm sure this all sounds like the ramblings of a madman, but they're just my first thoughts on the topic.

(June 13, 2014 at 5:33 pm)Vox Wrote:

(June 13, 2014 at 5:14 pm)ChildOfReason Wrote: And the paranoid schizophrenic thinks that he's riding a unicorn.

I should go and add a fourth parameter to eliminate arguments from insanity.

I'm not quite sure, call it gut instinct or intuition or whatever you like. I may have lost a great deal of confidence in the faith I was born into but I've never really found myself questioning the existence of a deity per say.

I feel there have been several occasions in my life where my prayers were answered, and while I'm sure that could be attributed to sheer dumb luck I personally do not make that conclusion. Perhaps that might be superstition but I can't help sometimes but feel that everything happens for a reason, even the worst things that have happened in my life have (eventually) resulted in a positive of some form.

I also personally hold a belief in an afterlife, and I feel this belief has been empowered by my studies of world religions. No matter where you go in the world, men have formed some concept, no matter how strained or abstract of some sort of divine force and afterlife. Placed side by side, many of the ideas bear surprising similarities to one another; they believe in a realm of the dead, some sort of soul/presence and the unifying power of a divinity(s) or holy spirit(s).

I don't doubt humans have made many countless mistakes in the past, but when civilizations which can't possibly have had contact with one another for several thousands of years begin formulating concepts such as the soul entirely independent of one another yet remarkably similar in concept I cannot help but wonder if there is something in it. We know today that fish contains omega-3 which is good for the brain but the ancient Egyptians knew little of chemistry but were aware of this more than six thousand years ago. I don't know how they worked that out, but they knew somehow.

I'm sure this all sounds like the ramblings of a madman, but they're just my first thoughts on the topic.

I respect that you're being civil, but you're violating parameter four. You're not really saying anything that would make sense to anyone else. I have a request for you, and that request is that when you're in the shower or on the toilet or can't go to sleep, sit down, and force yourself to question these things. Just think about how science has taught us so many things, and opened our eyes up to how our universe was formed over so many years, without any evidence of some consciousness driving it. I find it so hard in this age of information, to look up at the stars, know how stars are formed naturally, as weak interaction takes place between atoms and create fusion, creating more elements, elements which then spewed out into the rest of our universe and formed planets and other stars in this massive chain, and still say that god did it.

(June 13, 2014 at 5:14 pm)ChildOfReason Wrote:

(June 13, 2014 at 5:12 pm)KUSA Wrote: I can tell you for a fact that it is because they think they feel God.

And the paranoid schizophrenic thinks that he's riding a unicorn.

I should go and add a fourth parameter to eliminate arguments from insanity.

It's not insanity. For some reason the human brain evolved this trait.

(June 13, 2014 at 5:14 pm)ChildOfReason Wrote: And the paranoid schizophrenic thinks that he's riding a unicorn.

Unicorns don't believe that paranoid schizophrenics exist.

I'm a Muslim and I don't believe in God, because Allah is not God. . but I do believe there is a Creator and I have no idea what it is all about. My brain is quite small to understand the Creator. However, basically because. . .

1. Because no one can prove the Creator doesn't exists when there is abundance of evidence relating to the existence of supernatural higher intelligence.

2. Because no one can prove at least one thing from the whole universe existed out of nothing, and when everything is subjected to the laws of cause and effect.

3. Because no one can prove that they exists (quatum physics), so maybe we are the one who is not really existed.

4. Because I have nothing to lose. If there is no God, then it is fine. I died and there is no issue. But if there is God, I have followed the rules. Besides, the rules is not so bad.

5. Because it is fun, and God don't ask me to believe in Him, hell, paradise, sin, reward etc. This is the minimum requirement to be a Muslim. He just ask me to be concerned with the practical aspect of life.

It is just my opinion.

(June 13, 2014 at 5:33 pm)Vox Wrote: I also personally hold a belief in an afterlife, and I feel this belief has been empowered by my studies of world religions. No matter where you go in the world, men have formed some concept, no matter how strained or abstract of some sort of divine force and afterlife. Placed side by side, many of the ideas bear surprising similarities to one another; they believe in a realm of the dead, some sort of soul/presence and the unifying power of a divinity(s) or holy spirit(s).

This is because people are irrational and emotional, not logical. We have always been confronted by death wherever we go and wherever we look. The possibility of, and fear of, dying and perishing has haunted man from the day he comprehended it was his end.

We observed other living things reaching the end of their existences, rotting and decaying away to nothing. It filled us with dread.

People however, are hardwired to find something positive even when there is demonstrably nothing to be positive about. We're biologically programmed not to maintain negative thoughts, even when these are consistent with reality.

These are the origins of after-death-life beliefs.

When we study death, and being reunited with oblivion, we learn that its not a bad thing at all. Its release. Its ultimate freedom, from everything. The burden of your identity, your shackles of your shortcomings all fall away.

Only gluttonously evil people who love their wealth and power on this earth still fear death after realizing this revelation.

(June 13, 2014 at 5:51 pm)muslimatheism Wrote: I'm a Muslim and I don't believe in God, because Allah is not God. . but I do believe there is a Creator and I have no idea what it is all about. My brain is quite small to understand the Creator. However, basically because. . .

1. Because no one can prove the Creator doesn't exists when there is abundance of evidence relating to the existence of supernatural higher intelligence.

2. Because no one can prove at least one thing from the whole universe existed out of nothing, and when everything is subjected to the laws of cause and effect.

3. Because no one can prove that they exists (quatum physics), so maybe we are the one who is not really existed.

4. Because I have nothing to lose. If there is no God, then it is fine. I died and there is no issue. But if there is God, I have followed the rules. Besides, the rules is not so bad.

5. Because it is fun, and God don't ask me to believe in Him, hell, paradise, sin, reward etc. This is the minimum requirement to be a Muslim. He just ask me to be concerned with the practical aspect of life.

It is just my opinion.

1. A lack of reason to not believe isn't really a reason to believe.

2. We don't really have an answer yet, but that doesn't mean there isn't a more practical one than a god.

3. You're addressing a philosophy called solipsism, not quantum physics, which doesn't really prove anything.

4. I find some of the rules to be quite silly for most religions.

5. I don't really see what's fun about it.