There are many reasons why people do or do not believe in the existence of God. Here are some of the reasources I have used to examine the idea or concept for my understanding of God.
In our daily bible study that we are doing as a church family here at Anchorpoint Tampa we are going through a study guide put together by Through the Word. It has been a very useful tool reminding me of many of the studies I've done myself over my lifetime and expanding in many cases far beyond my own thought process about many of the bible stories I've read and studied. This week we've been going through the book of Daniel and over these last couple of days the focus has been on Daniel chapter 11 and all of the prophecies contained within that chapter of the book. What I've found the most intriguing is the discussion about the evidence of why we should pay close attention to the book itself as being an inspiring text in the Canon and where it fits into the overall story of God and how he has attempted to invite His creation, specifically us His children, to know and trust Him as we go through life.
This study reminded me of the many years I have spent believing and struggling with believing the bible, the body of believers in which I belong, my role in that process for myself and for others, and finally how to communicate what I believe to my children and as written text what my future descendants will know and believe partially based on my own acceptance of what is truth and what is discardable opinion of others.
I really like how the writer of this article describes the apparent contradictions in scripture and how we should view them. I'm quoting from this article in Spirit and Truth: http://www.spiritandtruth.org/teaching/Book_of_Daniel/commentary/htm/topics/chronology.html
It is our belief that apparent discrepancies found within the Bible are by divine design. Like Jesus (Luke 2:34) and the gospel (2Cor. 2:15-16), the Bible is designed to divide—to separate believers from unbelievers. Apparent discrepancies serve this purpose: skeptics are confirmed in their bias that divine revelation is “full of errors” while those drawn by God wrestle with the apparent contradictions for a deeper understanding of the underlying issues in the belief that all of God’s Word is inerrant: inspired by “the Spirit of Truth” (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1Jn. 4:6; 5:6).
Most of what you believe about the existence of God or a Higher Power, and what kind of personality He/She/They/Them has, is based on the way you were brought up. How much education you have and whether or not the adults who trained you were willing to debate with you vs dictate what you should believe about things, will determine how you respond to many of the issues like these that you will find in scripture and in science. Whether you believe science proves the existence of an Omniscient Higher Power or disproves that existence is largely based on your pre-conceived bias and opennes to simply having the debate. If you believe something to be true, then when you begin to study what someone else has written about that subject you will only hear what your own conscience has decided before hand that you are going to accept. So as you begin to read what I and others write you should first ask yourself this question:
Am I willing to admit and/or accept that what I currently believe about God, Science and History is actually ALL WRONG? Even if my conviction about such things will radically change the course of my future...