In this booklet:
BELIEVING IN GOD………………….. revision cards and questions
BELIEVING IN GOD
MATTERS OF LIFE AND DEATH….. revision cards and questions
MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY…… revision cards and questions
COMMUNITY COHESION……………revision cards and questions
BELIEVING IN GOD 1 – Key Words
Agnosticism – not being sure whether God exists.
Atheism – believing that God does not exist.
Conversion – when your life is changed by giving yourself to God.
Free Will – The idea that human beings are free to make their own choices.
Miracles – something that seems to break a law of science and makes you think
only God could have done it.
Moral evil – actions done by humans that cause suffering.
Natural evil – things like earthquakes and floods that cause suffering and have
nothing to do with humans.
Numinous – the feeling of the presences of something much greater than you.
Omni - benevolent – the belief that God is good/loving.
Omnipotent – the belief that God is all-powerful/ can do anything.
Omniscient – the belief that God knows everything that has happened and that
is going to happen.
Prayer – an attempt to contact God, usually through words.
BELIEVING IN GOD 3 – RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE AND BELIEF
IN GOD
Religious experience means the ways in which people feel they
come into direct contact with God. This can include:
 The numinous – that feeling you get when you look up at the
stars or say your prayers and feel in the presence of something
much greater than you;
 Conversion – an experience that changes your life and makes
you more religious (e.g. Nicky Cruz or St Paul on the road to
Damascus);
 Miracles – e.g. when someone is cured from an incurable
disease after prayers have been said for them;
 Answered prayers – e.g. when someone prays for God to help
them out of a problem and the problem disappears.
Any of these experiences are almost certain to lead the person who
experiences them to believe in God.
BELIEVING IN GOD 2 – RELIGIOUS UPBRINGING AND BELIEF
IN GOD
If a child is brought up by Christian parents, then they will believe in
God from the beginning of their life.
 They will be taken to church to worship God with their parents;
 They will be taught to pray to God;
 They will be baptised or dedicated to God;
 They will be expected to thank God and celebrate religious
festivals, such as Christmas and Easter;
 They may go to a school where everyone believes in God and
so they are expected to believe in God.
All these things would encourage and support belief in God. Why
would you doubt God if you had always been brought up to believe
and everyone around you believes?
BELIEVING IN GOD 4 Design and belief in God
This argument was put forward by William Paley It says that just
as a watch has a designer, the universe ‘must also have a
designer.’
Some people think the way the world works shows that God must
exist: The universe seems to be designed because of:

The way the universe works according to scientific laws such as
gravity
 The way humans grow from a tiny blueprint of DNA
 The way complex mechanisms work such as the eye allowing
people to see
 The way the Big Bang worked with the laws of science to produce
a universe of order
This leads people to believe in God because:
 If something is designed it must have a designer
 The universe is designed
 The only possible designer of the universe is God
 Therefore people believe God must exist
BELIEVING IN GOD 9 – Reasons why unanswered prayers may
lead to agnosticism or atheism.
BELIEVING IN GOD 10 – EVIL AND SUFFERING
Evil and suffering takes two forms:
1. If people pray to God but do not feel his presence when they are
praying they may feel that no-one is listening and become either
an agnostic or an atheist.
2. If people pray to God and their prayers are not answered they will
find it very difficult to believe in God e.g. if parents prayed for their
child to be cured of cancer but the child still died then they might
think God does not exist.
What would a Christian say to this?
Most Christians believe that God answers all prayers but not always in
the way someone would expect:
 If you pray for selfish things then God will not help you.
 Your prayer may not seem to be answered because God has a
different plan for you e.g. he may want an ill person to enter
heaven
 God may answer prayers by giving people what they need not
what they want.
Moral Evil – actions done by humans which cause suffering e.g. murder.
Natural Evil – suffering that has NOT been caused by humans e.g.
Earthquakes
How evil and suffering cause people to question belief in God:
Some people do not believe in God because they think that there would
be no suffering in a world created by a good and powerful God.
Religious believers find the existence of evil and suffering a
problem because:
 If God is all good (omni-benevolent) he ought not to want evil and
suffering in the world;
 If God is all powerful (omnipotent) he should be able to get rid of evil
and suffering from the world he created;
 If God is all knowing (omniscient) he must have known that evil and
suffering would come into the Universe and should have created it
differently.
BUT, there is evil and suffering in the world and so either God is not all
good, all powerful or all knowing, or God does not exist
BELIEVING IN GOD 11 – Christian responses to evil and suffering
Response One
Christians should follow the example of Jesus by helping those who
suffer through:
 PRAYER – asking God to help those who suffer (intercession);
 SERVICE (actively helping those who suffer) – many organise food
and clothing for the homeless, raise money for those in less
developed countries, help in hospitals, etc.
Response Two
Some Christians think that by giving humans free will God created a
world in which evil and suffering can happen. Evil and suffering are
caused by humans not God.
Response Three
Other Christians think that life is a sort of test in which people prepare
their souls for heaven. Evil and suffering need to be faced for people to
become good, kind and loving. God will reward them in heaven.
Response Four
Other Christians think that God has a reason in allowing suffering to
happen but humans cannot understand it.
BELIEVING IN GOD 12 – How can Songs of Praise affect a
person’s attitude to God?
Songs of Praise
Some people might have their belief in God strengthened by watching
Songs of Praise because:
 They were convinced by the way religious believers eg Rhydian,
talk about experiencing God.
 Listening and singing along to the hymns and prayers could make
people feel closer to God in their homes and more likely to believe
in God.
 The programme made religion look real and interesting and
showed how it affected people’s daily lives.
Some people might not agree and think that Songs of Praise would not
make someone believe in God because:
 Religious programmes are boring and not enough people watch
them.
 It is just talking about religion and not about God’s existence.
BELIEVING IN GOD 5: How the appearance of design may not
lead to belief in God
Many people think the design argument does not lead to belief in
God because:
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
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There is evidence in the Universe that it has not been
designed e.g. volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes, diseases
Science can explain why the earth appears designed without
God
What about dinosaurs? No one thinks they could have been
part of the design plan
The design argument only proves that the universe has a
designer – not that the designer is God. The designer could
be many Gods or an evil God.
BELIEVING IN GOD 6: The Causation Argument and Belief in
God
This argument was put forward by Thomas Aquinas.
Causation is the idea that if something happens something must
have caused it to happen. This can lead people to believe in God
because:
 If we look at things in the world we can see they have a
cause
 Anything caused to exist must be caused by something else
 Therefore the universe itself must have a cause
 Only God could be the cause of the universe
 Therefore god must exist
BUT some people disagree with this argument because:
 If everything must need a cause then God must need a
cause as well.
 Matter is eternal and cannot be changed or created so there
is no first cause.
 Even if there is a first cause it doesn’t mean that the first
cause is God, it could be any sort of creator.
BELIEVING IN GOD 7: Scientific Explanations of the world
Science explains the world this way:
 Matter is eternal and cannot be created or destroyed.
 The universe began about 15 billion years ago when this
matter exploded.
 The solar system formed from this matter about 5 billion
years ago.
 Primitive life forms formed and began to develop through
evolution.
 Then about 2.5 million years ago humans evolved.
This scientific explanation may lead to agnosticism or atheism
because:
 Science can explain where the world came from without
any reference to God.
 This can lead some people to be unsure whether God
exists (agnostics) or to be sure that there is no God
(atheists)
BELIEVING IN GOD 8: How Christianity Responds to the
Scientific Argument
Response 1
Many Christians accept the scientific explanations are true and
prove that God created the universe because:
 Only God could have made the Big Bang at exactly the right
microsecond
 Only God could have made laws like Gravity
 Only God could have made gases become life
Response 2 (Creationists)
Some Christians believe that all the scientific evidence is wrong, the
Biblical story of creation is absolute fact, they believe in:
 The effects of Noah’s flood – this caused so much damage that it
aged the world
 The Apparent Age Theory – the idea that God made the world to
look older than it is
Response 3
Some Christians believe both science and the Bible are true because:
 One of God’s days could be billions of years
 When God said ‘Let there be light’ ,it was a direct reference to the
big bang.
BELIEVING IN GOD 13 – How can The Miracle of Peckham
affect a person’s attitude to God?
Miracle of Peckham
Some people might have their belief in God strengthened by watching
Miracle of Peckham because:
 They are convinced that the miracle that happened in the Church could
really happen.
 It makes them more likely to believe in miracles.
 The character of the vicar shows them how a good Christian would act.
 The programme made religion look interesting and fun and showed
how it can affect people’s daily lives.
Some people might not agree and think that The Miracle of Peckham
would make someone not believe in God because:
 The miracle was faked and the programme shows that miracles don’t
really happen.
 Delboy and Rodney were not really interested in religion, they just
wanted to make money so are not a good example.
 The programme just encouraged people to not believe in God, as it
made a joke out of religion.