5 reasons why there probably is a God

According to the BBC, some buses in London will carry the slogan "There is probably no God.  Now stop worrying and get on with your life" at some point next year.  I know this isn't new news, because I read about the buses first on Tuesday, but I thought it gave me an ideal excuse to list a few reasons why I believe that there is a God.  I don't present them to you as a water tight argument, because I've got passed the stage of worrying about God's existence and on to the stage of worrying about what he would have me do.

1)  Creation.  Although some people believe the world came into being from nothing, that is not very logical.  Logic dictates that if you take nothing, and leave nothing alone for a long time, after the time has passed you will still have nothing.  That does make God into something of a problem—if God caused everything, then what caused God?  And I would say to you that, given the other evidences for a God, it makes more sense to believe in a creator God than it does to believe in something coming from nothing.

2)  Moral absolutes.  Can one know the difference between right and wrong?  Undoubtably.  Are the basic principles of right and wrong the same for everyone?  Certainly.  Is there a God given standard of right and wrong?  No, for there is no God.  If there is no God given standard of right and wrong, how can we know the difference between right and wrong?  Right and wrong is something arbitrarily decided by government, parents, and others in authority.  However, different people are in authority all over the globe, and therefore the basic principles of right and wrong are different for everyone—in direct contradiction to our second premise that the basic principles of right and wrong are the same for everyone.  Therefore, there must be a God given standard of right and wrong, and for there to be a God given standard of right and wrong there has to be a God.

3)  The Bible.  No, I am not joking with you. 

The Old Testament has been carefully kept by the Jews, and the New Testament has more documentary evidence in its favour than any other book of its time.  There is no real reason to doubt the authenticity of either.  When the Bible is compared with other sources of history, it is reliable: so why doubt the Bible’s testimony on things which aren’t as easy to check up on?

It’s also noticeable that when society runs on the Bible’s principles, it works very well, and it’s only when society departs from Biblical principles that problems begin.  The Bible’s portrayal of man is accurate and very real, so why doubt its portrayal of God?

4)  Widespread tradition.  It’s noticeable that throughout history, most humans have believed in some kind of God.  It is the way that it always has been.  And that suggests that God actually exists, and that at one point all men knew him. 

The Biblical story of Adam and Eve fits this perfectly, for if all descended from ancestors who worshipped a God that they had seen and knew only too well it would not be surprising for them to continue worshipping some kind of god, even if they forgot exactly what their god was like.  It’s also noticeable that most people worshipped a pretty angry god who they would pacify with offerings—and that would fit with Adam and Eve being thrown out of the garden.

5) The lack of any compulsive arguments against Christianity.  As a Christian, I cannot believe there is no God: it is the Christian God, the one true God, in whom I believe.  And I have never read or heard any thing against Christianity that holds any water when looked into properly. 

Related to this, the early Christians.  They gave their lives.  They lived so close to the time of Christ that they would have known had it all been an elaborate hoax.  But instead of giving up their faith when challenged, they gave their lives.

Finally, I should note that it does no one any good to be convinced of God’s existence; one has to actually have their lives transformed by a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ before their knowledge of God is any good at all.  And so my purpose in sharing these feeble reasons is not to start an argument (and indeed, I’m not convinced that’s possible to do with about two readers) but to try and explain why I disagree with Dawkins and all his atheist friends.