20 Questions for Theists

[Gabriel Syme]

I believe in the existence of God.

1) Why are you a theist? Duh

That simply says "I am a theist". It doesn't answer why you are a theist, which was the question.

"Why are you a theist?" "I am a theist because I was raised one/because I have experienced a god/because I think theism best explains the universe/because I take Pascal's Wager/because etc...."

Hi Mononoke,

I don't agree I just repeated the question lol

I am a "theist" because I believe in God. If I didn't believe in God, I would be a theist.

Saying "I believe.." is just distilling down the various thoughts and considerations I have been over, the OP just asked for a simple answer not a whole justification.

Your examples of replacement answers preclude the possibility of coming to the conclusion of God, having thought about it. They only allow for a glib / unthinking religiosity, or taking a wild guess.

Without wishing to take the thread off-topic, some of the considerations I had gone over include:

- comparing my experience of life as "nothing" (identifying as neither theist or atheist) versus my latter experience as a Catholic: in terms of which was more satisfying and why?; which was more meaningful and why?' in what positive / negative ways were these experiences different? etc etc

- considering Catholic morality & viewpoints and their supporting arguments*, versus "other" morality & views and their supporting arguments (other includes secular but also other religions). In terms of: what is my gut reaction? which is more reasonable? which is most accurate? which is evidence based? What is true? which is honest and which is tainted by self-interest or other agendas? What is appealing? What is just?

(*note, a religious person can never credibly use "because it says so in my holy book" as a supporting argument, when talking with anyone other than a co-religionist.)

- comparing Catholic philosophy with other philosophy: What makes sense? which is complete? What other arguments are there, if any? Which of these are plausible, if any? If we cannot eliminate anything, what is more convincing or likely?

- comparing Catholic culture with other culture: which is beautiful? which is eternal?

- considering Catholic understanding of God: view and meaning of scripture, of tradition, of Jesus Christ: do these documents have a common thread? Is this reasonable? Is this reasonable if God exists? Is this what we would expect from a God? etc

I went through various considerations like this, to ultimately reach my conclusion, on and off, over several years.