C.A. sent me a link to a story about the American Humanist Association spending $40,000 on an ad campaign asking: “Why believe in a god?” I was especially intrigued by this because our Gospel Conversations class is paying a lot of attention to the sort of questions people ask, and here’s a big one gift-wrapped and served up on a plate.

Rather than serve up some pat answers here, I’d rather hear from you, Grace Fellowship (especially you Gospel Conversationalists out there)… Why believe in a god?

(P.S. Please do a better job than the American Family Association’s representative, who said, “It’s a stupid ad.” He said some other things after that, but by then I wasn’t paying attention anymore…)

11 Comments

1. guiroo : November 12th, 2008 at 2:33 pm

   Here’s the link to the campaign itself:

   http://www.whybelieveinagod.org

2. CAN : November 12th, 2008 at 2:43 pm

   Hey Hugh!

   You work fast my friend. Thanks for posting this!

   I saw that Dave referenced their site directly and believe this is the site on the ads themself.

   This site I found should be the “counter” to these atheists but is a fairly generic Gospel, but better than nothing I guess.

   http://www.believeingod.com

   Be looking for an all out attack on Christmas (and Christians) this year more than ever.

   So timley with Dan’s series on some cults/sects, and knowing how to approach these people with the Gospel or is this case God.

   Hey Dan……are you doing one Sunday about atheists/humanists? Their belief in “no belief” is a religion/cult too right?

3. Dan Miller : November 12th, 2008 at 8:11 pm

   C.A. The “Jesus is…” series will address Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses, Islam and Hinduism. You may find the God Questions series we did helpful.

4. Steven Salazar : November 13th, 2008 at 7:41 am

   I think the question is vague in a very interesting way. For one thing, it’s not really a complete sentence, is it? It seems to me this could be either of two different questions:

   Why _do_you_ believe in God?
   or
   Why _should_I_ believe in God?

   I could tell you why I believe in God, but I think that all the evidence I could provide to someone who doesn’t believe in God would be in vain if there was something preventing them from believing in God. If I was talking with someone who asked me, “Why should I believe in God,” I think the first thing I would want to know would be, “Why do you _not_ believe in God?” Then we could get to the heart of the issue.

5. Hugh Williams : November 13th, 2008 at 11:06 am

   Yeah, it’s tough trying to give a one-size-fits-all answer to that question. Even if they did give you an answer to why they don’t believe in God, you could still go a lot of different ways.

   Instead of looking for the “perfect” answer, what are some good answers?

6. Vicki Miller : November 13th, 2008 at 7:05 pm

   Actually, I’m pretty shocked the next lines aren’t…Believe in you! You’re just so perfect!
   While reading the article this caught my eye,
   “Last month, the British Humanist Association caused a ruckus announcing a similar campaign on London buses with the message: “There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”
   I can’t imagine my life having more meaning without the presence of God in it.
   There is purpose, forgiveness, joy in moments of complete sadness-not thought up-just given! There is peace, provision, and a deep sense of completeness through communion with my perfect creator and sustainer. Yeah, at times we can feel the weight of the world on our shoulders-Christ did too. But I’d never want to feel that weight without the strong arms of a loving father helping me by lifting it and taking it from me. “Stop worrying and enjoy your life?” That is totally something a person who has never tasted of the goodness of God would say. It saddens my heart to think that they would picture God-believers as people that worry about God seeing them all the time. In fact, knowing that God sees everyone and everything, is the biggest encouragement to me ever!

7. Dan Miller : November 13th, 2008 at 7:59 pm

   One response could be that it is easier to believe in God. While it could be considered naive, it would seem to be the best explanation for the incredible diversity working in harmony that we view in everyday life.

   To dismiss God would be to invite unimaginable complexity and no real answer for it.

8. Jeffrey J. Stables : November 13th, 2008 at 11:22 pm

   A formal statement of Dan’s point above would be some paraphrase of Occam’s razor.

9. Hugh Williams : November 14th, 2008 at 5:55 am

   That’s a good one — Ockham said something to the effect that “the simplest explanation tends to be the right one.” If you have one explanation that takes care of all the questions you have, that’s more likely to be right than a different explanation for each question.

   In this case, the existence of God takes care of all the big questions: where did life, the universe, and everything come from? How do you explain right and wrong? How come we’re still talking about a Jewish carpenter who got himself crucified 2,000 years ago? And so on…

10. Steven Salazar : November 14th, 2008 at 7:57 am

    Hugh, I’m not sure what the question is exactly, but I’ve been told the answer is 42.

11. Jeffrey J. Stables : November 14th, 2008 at 8:29 am

    The news photo at the beginning of the linked article provides the perfect place to start a conversation: “Just be good for goodness’ sake.” (I.e., why not just be good without a higher power having to force you or guilt-trip you into it?)

    I would respond with a series of simple questions:
    “What do you mean by good?”
    “How did you come to that conclusion?”
    “Do you really think we can be ‘good’ without God?”