Belief in God
Mark Wilder
Southern New Hampshire University
Faith, a seeming necessity for inner peace in humans, is found to exist for a variety of reasons. Whether it is the Pascal belief of “Are you willing to risk being wrong when you die?’; James’ claim of humans willing it, found on what we are exposed to in our lives; and the opinion of Clifford that humans choose what the best evidence presents.
The possible existence of eternal life after we cease to exist, with a God that is infinitely beyond our means to comprehend is the foundation of many faiths. Pascal writes that we cannot be sure of the existence, but if it is only possible to attain by a blind faith belief, we are better off believing in this God and strive for the eternal rewards.
If we cannot freely think, to enable ourselves to decide, without gathering sufficient information, how can we affirm our beliefs based on insufficient data, according to Clifford. Faith can be justified if we can see all available information and still choose to go with our “gut feeling” in light of data showing it to be inconclusive, then live with the consequences of our own actions and beliefs.
Our will to choose what we believe requires a certain amount of external influence. If never exposed to religion, informed about a God, we cannot comprehend what God is or why -we should believe. James points out that an Arab is more likely to worship Mahdi than persons