List of reasons to believe God exists?

[Jehanne]

We know the Big Bang caused the birth of the universe when a small singularity expanded into the cosmos as we know them today. But what was the origin of this "small singularity" to begin with? Possibly another sort of explosion... Maybe there are multiple universes out there and it came from them somehow? It is a fair possibility. But if we go back far enough the question still stands: what caused the very first physical thing to exist? It couldn't possibly have materialized itself from nothingness. We know the laws of the natural, physical world calls for physical things to have been the cause of something else... they don't make themselves. So has this physical thing simply always existed and at some point, for some reason, began to form into something else, and then something else, and eventually we have this universe we live in? Well, just as we know the laws of the natural, physical world are contrary to things materializing themselves from nothing, we also know they are contrary to physical things having always existed. Just as physical things are always the cause of something else, they also have a beginning and an end. The 2 kind of go together. 

Maybe it was a "special type" of physical thing that isn't bound by the laws of physics and could have materialized itself or always have existed? I suppose... though I find that highly unlikely because for a physical thing to be able to be like that would be contradictory to what we have actually observed about the physical world and its laws. In other words, there is proof against it lol.  Which leads us to another proposition: Maybe the very first physical thing to ever have existed was actually put in place by a different type of force altogether - one that isn't physical. One that isn't bound by the laws of this natural, physical world, but that is actually beyond it/above it. Not being bound by these laws means this force could be eternal and could always have existed, it didn't need anything else to have caused its existance, it is non physical and not of this physical world. 

When I look at everything and explore other possibilities, this^ is what makes the most logical sense to me. And I honestly don't understand why this proposition is so unlikely in some people's eyes. Or why it is seen as so much more likely that any physical thing could either be eternal, or have materialized itself. What are the other options? We don't have proof of any of these propositions, or of any other anyone else can come up with. 

Of course, the notion of a supreme force out there only says something about Deism, not the Christian God specifically. But for the reason above, I would be a deist long before I would be an atheist. 

I feel there is more evidence (evidence, NOT proof), of the existance of the Christian God more than any other. So to get back to your list:

2. The life and death of Jesus. (There is plenty of evidence that Jesus existed as a Jewish man from the Middle East when the Romans were in rule, and that He was crucified by one of the Roman leaders of the time - Punctious Pilot.)

3. The rapid fire spread of early Christianity during a time when there was no easy transportation or communication technologies. I feel some extraordinary things must have happened for so many people to be so convinced so quickly.

4. Jesus' close friends who actually lived with him were SO convinced that He was the real deal and not some fraud, that they ALL voluntarily died horrible painful deaths for Him... when they could have just denounced Him and went on with their lives.  

5. Morality. With that, I will quote points 1-4 from KingPin back when he was still active here: 

1. Nearly universally across human cultures, arguably, there exists the same basic standards of morality. In addition, there exists in all cultures truly altruistic acts which lead to no genetic benefit.
   
2. The majority of people who explicitly deny the existence of objective morality still act as if objective morality exists.
   
3. There exists a nearly universal human intuition that certain things are objectively right or wrong.
   
4. The majority of philosophers recognize the existence of objective moral facts.
   

...To me, the notion of objective moral laws means there has to be a law giver. I know this doesn't particularly point to the Christian God, but at least it points to one who cares/is involved, which helps support why I believe in more than just Deism.    

6. There have been multiple things that have happened which I think cannot be explained by science. To me, the most convincing is the miracle of the sun in Fatima. 

7. Finally, and most convincing for me personally is that I myself was witness to one of these inexplicable things. I've made it clear before that I don't want to tell the story here because it is sacred to me and I don't want to open it up to ridicule. But something happened in my childhood house in 2006 (I was 20) that both myself and my mother were present for. And because of what it was and what was involved, I can tell you that it was directly related to Christianity.

...And that concludes my "list". The important thing to remember is that it wasn't any one of these things that convinces me. It's all of them together. When I put these all together, it makes logical sense to me that the Christian God is real. And while I know that none of this is "proof", all of these things compiled together serves as sufficient evidence for me to believe that it is more likely that He exists than to believe that He doesn't.

#1.  The Big Bang did not "cause" anything.  I'll let Professor Sean Carroll address this one with WLC:






This theorem from David Griffiths certainly suggests such:




As you can see, the Schrodinger equation clearly implies that the Universe is eternal, both beginningless and endless.

#2.  Yes, Jesus existed, but then again, so did lots of other people.  As everyone knows, miracle workers were a dime-a-dozen in 1st century Palestine.  Jesus was not alone on that count.

#3.  Your statement is just false.  Early Christianities (note the plural) did not spread rapidly, and there was constant infighting over who Jesus was (e.g., "human versus divine" being), as well as wholesale apostasy and deconversion back to Judaism.  If people were so convinced of its claims, why did thousands deconvert back to Judaism???

#4.  Your statement is false; no serious scholar believes that there was widespread martyrdom of Christians within the Empire, and as for Jesus' followers, name your sources, please, as to their ultimate fate?  Again, you're overlooking the fact that thousands recanted rather than face death at the hands of the Romans.

#5.  Morality evolves.  To say that it is "universal", and hence, requires a moral lawgiver is like saying that because mathematics is universal that such requires a "math giver".  Such are meaningless notions that are impossible to falsify, and like the proverbial fairies at the bottom of wells, we can dispense with them, as they offer us no utility of any kind.  After all, humans have done just fine on our own in our increasing understanding of mathematics.  Ditto for morality.

#6.  The "miracle of the Sun" is a fraud.  We've been through this before.  It was getting late in the afternoon (1:30 PM standard time, and the "miracle" was supposed to occur at noon)...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_s...by_country

....and it had been raining all that morning.  When the Sun began to break-through the clouds, Lucia started screaming, "Look at the sun, look at the sun!!!"  The crowd turning and saw what they wanted to see in a multitude of conflicting and contradictory results.  Remember, some witnesses would later testify that they saw nothing.  Explain that!

#7.  People "see" things all the time.  Travis Walton disappeared without a trace for 5 days, and claims to have been abducted by aliens, taken up into their spaceship (which his fellow loggers claim that they saw), etc.  Why should we believe you over him?