Keywords- Believing In God (RE) Flashcards
What is a Miracle?
Something which seems to break the laws of science and is explainable by God
What is Numinous?
A feeling of God presence, something greater than yourself
What is a prayer?
Communicating with God and a feeling of being listened to
What is agnosticism?
Not sure whether God exists
What is Atheism
Believing that God doesn’t exist
What does Theism mean?
Believing that God does exist
What is Free will
The idea that human beings are free to make their own choices
What is Moral Evil
Actions done by humans which chases suffering
What is Natural Evil
Things which aide suffering but having nothing to do with humans
What is Benevolent?
God is ALL LOVING
What is Omniscient?
God is ALL KNOWING
What is Omnipotent?
God is ALL POWERFUL
What is Omnipresent?
God is EVERYWHERE, all knowing
What is Conversion?
An experience that makes you change your life and belief in God
Religious upbringing:
Christening
Taught to pray
Taught to worship
Sudan school
Church school
Encouraged or choose to be confirmed
How religious upbringing may lead to the belief in God:
Young children believe what their parents think
God listens to their prayers
Seeing people worshipping in church could convince children to believe in God
Religious experience : the numinous
A feeling of God present
Could happen in religious building, beautiful place, looking up at the stars on a clear night, when people are gilled with an awareness of something greater than them
Religious experience: conversion
Experience of God
Regenerative experience
Religious experience: miracle
An event which is unexplainable by science
Religious experience : prayer
Communicating with God
Unanswered prayers and how Christians respond to it
Not feeling God presence
Prayers not being answered
God will not answer selfish prayers
Different plans/reasons that we don’t know/ understand
Only give what people need not want
Cannot answers prayers which conflict
The Argument from Design:
Design involves things working together according to plan to produce something that was intended
Evidence: Law of science - gravity, electricity, motion DNA Evolution The beauty of nature
The design argument lead to belief in God because:
Anything which has been designed needs a designer
Evidence that the has been designed
Only possible designer is God
Therefore God mist exist
Appearance of design may not lead to belief in God:
Ignores the lack of design in the universe
Evidence for design can be explained by science
Doesn’t refer the existences of dinosaurs
Only proves that the universe needed a designer
The Argument from Causation:
Cause and effect
Causation leads to belief in God:
Anything that happens or exist needs a cause
Any chain of cause and effect must have a beginning
Only first possible cause of the universe is God
Causation may not lead to the belief in God:
If everything needs cause, what caused God?
Mather and energy don’t end
Nothing proves the first cause is the God we refer to
The Big Bang :
Matter is eternal
15 billion years ago all the matter in the universe became compressed and produced a huge explosion
Gravity cause the formation of the planets and stars
Evidence is red shift
Evolution:
The combinations of gases produced life forms
Genetic structures
Changes which allowed a life form to survive
Over millions of years new life formed
Evidence is fossil fuels and shared DNA
Christian responses to scientific explanations: are true and prove God created the world
The Big Bang had to be exactly right
Only God can have made the laws
Life on earth could not have happens by chance
Christian responses to scientific explanations: is wrong and bible is right
CREATIONISM
Evidence of the Big Bang and evolution ca be explained by Noah’s flood and the apparent age theory
Apparent age theory states that the earth was created to look billions of years old
Christian response to scientific explanations: they are both right
One of gods days could be billions of years
God creates in Genesis (plants, trees, fish, birds, animals and humans) in the same order as the theory of evolution
Evil and suffering: what’s the two types
Moral evil and natural evil
Evil and suffering causes people not believe in God
A benevolent God wouldnt created a world with evil and suffering
An omnipotent God would be able to stop it
An omniscient God would know how to create a work without it
An omnipresent God would be aware of all the evil and suffering in the world
Christians response to evil and suffering:
God wants to help those who suffer
- be doctors, nurses, social workers
Evil and suffering isn’t gods fault
Evil and suffering are apart of gods plan
- preparation for paradise, facing evil and suffering improves people’s soul
God has reason people can’t understand for not intervening in evil and suffering
