SHHS Unit 3 Belief in God Cards Flashcards
1.1 What are the main features of a Catholic upbringing?
- Parents get their children Baptised.. Baptism is ‘the basis of the whole Christians life’(CCC1213).
- Parents teach their children prayers and also teach them about the saints and the Church.
- Parents take their children to church – this may include children’s liturgy.
- Parents may send their child to a Catholic school where they are taught RE and are nurtured in a Catholic environment.
1.1 How might a Catholic upbringing lead to or support belief in God?
- Parents will have told their children about God as part of their baptismal promises to bring them up as a Catholic.
- Going to children’s liturgy at mass.
- Going to Church and seeing other people praying and worshipping..
- Going to a Catholic school makes God and Christiansity a normal central part of life. .
1.2 What are the four types of religious experience?
- Numinous
- Conversion
- Miracles
- Prayer
1.2 What is a numinous experience? Can you give an example? Why would this lead to belief in God?
Numinous The numinous is a feeling of the presence of God.
An example could be when people are in a religious building, in a beautiful place or looking at the stars on a clear night.
If you become aware of a presence greater than you, you are likely to believe that that presence is God.
1.2 What is a conversion experience? Can you give an example? Why would this lead to belief in God?
Conversion is the word used to describe an experience of God which is so great the person experiencing it changes their life and commits themselves to God in a special way.
E.G St Paul on the road to Damascus – Jesus spoke to him form a bright light in the sky telling him to become a Christians. The experience was so powerful he converted.
1.2 What is a miracle? Can you give an example? Why would this lead to belief in God?
A miracle is an event which seems to break a law of science and the only explanation for this seems to be God.
An example of a miracle can be found at Lourdes in France. Many healing miracles have taken place here which have been verified by an independent bureau of scientists and doctors.
1.2 What is a prayer? Can you give an example? Why would this lead to belief in God?
All Catholics believe they can communicate with God through prayer.
If a person praying to God feels that God is listening to their prayer then they have a religious experience through prayer and are sure God exists.
1.3 What is the argument from design?
- Anything that has been designed needs a designer.
- There is plenty of evidence that the world is designed.
- If the world has been designed it needs a designer.
- The only possible designer of something as beautiful and complex as the world would be God
- Therefore the appearance of design in the world proves that God exists.
1.3 What evidence is there of design in the world?
- Laws of science
- DNA
- Evolution
- Beauty of Nature
1.3 How might the argument from design NOT lead to belief in God?
- The argument ignores the evidence of lack of design in the universe – e.g volcanoes, earthquakes, hurricanes and disease.
- All the evidence for design can be explained by science without God.
- The argument does not refer to the existence of dinosaurs, which must have been a part of design.
- The argument only proves that the world has a designer, not that the designer is God.
1.4 What is the argument from causation?
- If we look at things in the world they have a cause. E.G ice is caused by temperature falling and water becoming solid below 0 degrees
- Anything caused to exist must be caused to exist by something else.
- A chain of cause and effect must have a beginning E.G You need water to produce ice.
- If the universe had no first cause, there would be no universe. The universe exists therefore there must be a first cause.
- The only possible first cause of the universe is God, therefore God must exist.
1.4 Why do some people disagree with the argument from causation?
- Why should the causes stop at God? If everything needs a cause then God must need a cause.
- A better explanation is that the matter of the universe itself is eternal and so the process of causes goes on forever.
- Even if the first cause were to exist it would not have to be God, it could be any sort of creator.
1.5 What do scientists think about how the world was created?
- Matter is eternal, it can neither be created or destroyed – only changed.
- About 15 billion years ago, the matter of the universe becamse so compressed that it produced a huge explosion (Big Bang)
- As the matter flew away from the explosion the forces of gravity and other laws joined some of the matter into stars and about 5 billion years ago the solar system was formed.
- The combination of gases on the earths surface produced primitive life forms like amoeba.
- The genetic structure of these life forms produces changes (mutations)
- Any change that is better suited to living in the environment will survive and reproduce
- Over millions of years new life forms were produced leading to vegetation invertebrate animals vertebrates and finally about 2.5 billion years ago, humans evolved.
1.5 What evidence is there to support the Big Bang Theory?
Evidence for the Big Bang
The main evidence is called the Red shift effect, where the red shift in light from other galaxies is evidence that the universe is expanding.
1.5 What evidence is there to support the theory of evolution?
Evidence for evolution
The evidence for evolution is the fossil record (life developing from simple to complex) and similarities between life forms being discovered through genetic research (about 50% of human DNA is the same as that of a cabbage)
