[net.religion] Why people believe in God - rlr part

andree@uokvax.UUCP (11/24/83)

#R:bunkerb:-25900:uokvax:8300018:000:1762
uokvax!andree    Nov 23 00:01:00 1983

I've been watching the garys/rlr discussion on god/~god with some
interest (and amusement). I appreciate the posting of summaries
in this type of discussion: given the nature of usenet, it is
VERY easy to miss articles entirely. For instance, I seem to have
missed the article in which garys stated reasons for believing in
(one or more) god(s).

If I had seen that article, I would have stated that he missed
at least one such reaseon. Namely, a belief that people are
basically good.

My experience has been that the majority of the people I've run
into are reasonable people; people who respect the rights of
others;	basically good people. I can not find *ANY* way that a
world composed mostly of such people could have gotten us into
the current state of affairs: Mutual Assured Destruction;
overcrowded prisons; superpowers fighting over the world; etc. I
have to conclude that some power outside of the human race is
changing things - or people (I find it incredibly difficult to
believe that either Hitler or Torquemada were actually human).
Said power must be either aliens or a god.

Having malicous aliens suffers (as far as I'm concerned) from the
same problems the truly malicous humans suffer from. Hence said
malicous power must be a god. This also explains where the
universe came from by giving us a supreme being to have created
it.

I'd also like to mention that garys logical need for a god to
have created the universe doesn't satisfy me: who created god?
I can't concieve of something that has always existed. Maybe
something that exists outside of time; but that just moves the
problem up a level. The only solution I can find is that god
must have created himself.

Unusual, maybe, but at least it doesn't leave me wondering `why?'

	<mike