Believing in God
(or not)
THEISm – THEre IS a God
(someone who believes in God is called a THEIST)
Atheism – God DOES NOT exist
(someone who doesn’t believe in God is called an
ATHEIST)
AGNOsticism – Not knowing if there is a God
(someone who isn’t sure / doesn’t know if God exists
is called an AGNOSTIC)
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Believing in God: 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
miracle something which seems to break a
law of science and makes you think only God
could have done it
moral evil actions done by humans which
cause suffering
• natural evil things which cause suffering but
have nothing to do with humans
• numinous the feeling of the presence of
something greater than you
• omni-benevolent the belief that God is allgood
• omnipotent the belief that God is allpowerful
• omniscient the belief that God knows
everything that has happened and everything
that is going to happen
• prayer an attempt to contact God, usually
through words
Religious upbringing
as a reason why people believe..
 Taken to church –
surrounded by believers
 Sunday school – taught God
exists
 Taught to pray and read
Bible at home
 Go to religious school –
Assemblies & RE lessons
 All make it natural to
assume God exists
Arguments for
 Design
 Paley said no-one would
believe a watch just go there by
chance, it’s too complex (it has
purpose and design).
 The world too is full of complex
things, like the human eye and
DNA.
 These too must have been
designed by someone i.e. God.
Another argument for
 First Cause
 Aquinas said everything that happens
(every effect) in the universe has a cause.
 This creates a cause and effect ‘domino
chain’
 If you go back to the start of the universe
something must have caused it (started it)
 That 1st cause was God
Religious Experiences
Involve a feeling of God’s presence
A feeling of AWE
and WONDER
from a religious
place
When someone
feels god has
ACTED in their
life to change
their BELIEFS
An act which
breaks the LAWS
OF NATURE and
can only be
explained by GOD
Religious Experiences
 All religious experiences convince
BELIEVERS that GOD EXISTS because
only he is POWERFUL enough to do
these amazing ACTS and cause SUCH
FEELINGS
Oooh, that pain
Lord, please
help my nan get
better.
in my back has
gone!
Reasons against believing
 Reverse the ‘for’ arguments
 Design explained by Evolution
 Design faults
 First Cause – who made God?
 Answered Prayer – Unanswered Prayer
Oooh, my back
still hurts!! I don’t
believe in God
anymore!
PRAYER
‘an attempt to contact God, usually through words’
UNANSWERED PRAYERS can lead to
atheism or agnosticism because…
 People may not feel God’s presence when
they pray.
 They may think God is not listening to them.
 They may wonder why God answers some
people’s prayers and not others.
 All this may lead a person to think that God
doesn’t exist.
HOW CHRISTIANS RESPOND TO
UNANSWERED PRAYERS
Most Christians think that God answers all prayers
but not always in the way people expect…
CHRISTIANS THINK…
 Sometimes God says ‘NO’ because it’s
not part of his plan for our lives or
because he doesn’t answer selfish
prayers.
 Sometimes he says ‘WAIT’ because
it’s not part of his timing.
 Sometimes he does say ‘YES’ but not
the way we expect. They think God
knows what is best for them.
Scientific Explanations for the World…
 The matter in the universe became so
compressed that it produced a huge
explosion (the Big Bang)
 As the matter flew away from the
explosion, it formed stars and the solar
system.
 The gases on the earth’s surface
produced primitive life forms.
 Through the process of evolution new
life forms came about.
 2.5 million yrs ago humans evolved.
EVIDENCE FOR SCIENCE…
 The evidence for the BIG
BANG is the RED SHIFT
in light from other galaxies
shows that the universe is
expanding.
 The evidence for evolution is
FOSSILS that have been
found showing new life forms
that have evolved.
SOME PEOPLE THINK THESE
EXPLANATIONS DISPROVE
GOD’S EXISTENCE.
RELIGIOUS RESPONSE TO SCIENCE

HOW DO CHRISTIANS RESPOND TO THE SCIENTIFIC
EXPLANATION FOR THE UNIVERSE?
1. Many Christians think the
scientific explanations are TRUE
and God created the universe
this way.
2. Some Christians say science is
WRONG and the world was made
just like it says in the bible because it is God’s
word.
3. Some Christians believe that BOTH the bible and
science are TRUE as one of God’s days of
creation could be billions of years!
More reasons against believing
 Evil and
Suffering
The Problem of Evil and Suffering
 Christians believe God is
omnibenevolent (all good)
 so he must want to stop
evil and suffering
 He’s omnipotent
(all powerful)
 so he must have the power
to stop it.
 The fact that he doesn’t
means he mustn’t exist.
 He’s also supposed to be Omniscient, which
means he must have known that creating the
world would result in all this evil
Christian Reponses
 Free Will – God wanted
people that would follow
him out of CHOICE, not
robots. Some people use
their FREE WILL to
disobey him and do
moral evil.
 Christ understands our
pain, because He
himself suffered on the
cross
Reponses - cont
 The world was created
perfect, but evil entered it
when Adam and EVE
chose to sin and go
against God’s rules
 Christians try to help out
by setting up charities to
relieve suffering, like
Christian Aid.
Explain how a programme about religion
could affect a person’s attitude to belief
in God.
 Programme: Bruce Almighty
 Summary: Bruce Nolan is
discontented with almost everything in life
and at the end of the worst day of his life,
Bruce angrily ridicules and rages against God and God
responds. God appears in human form and gives
Bruce all of his powers, challenges Bruce to take on
the His job to see if he can do it any better. There’s just
one rule, he can’t mess with free will.
How does the programme
encourage people NOT to
believe in God?
I’ve also had unanswered
prayers = God doesn’t exist.
If God existed he would
stop the evil & suffering.
He doesn’t so he
doesn’t exist.
I have not
witnessed a miracle like
in the film or spoken
to God so therefore God
doesn’t exist.
How does the programme
encourage people TO believe in
God?
The film explains why it
seems like God doesn’t
answer prayers. He does but
we don’t always realise it.
The film explains that God
can’t mess with free will so
evil and suffering isn’t
God’s fault.
The film says that if we want to
make difference to the world we
should ‘be the miracle’. We can see
miracles every day when God
works through humans.