BELIEF IN GOD MORE WIDESPREAD THAN THE MEDIA REVEALS

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Video footage from last Friday’s game between the Detroit Lions and the Atlanta Falcons in Atlanta shows players from both teams gathered in prayer on the field after an ambulance arrived to provide medical treatment to injured Lions cornerback Morice Norris.

While Norris did not post about his injury on his X account, he identified as a man of faith in a post published Sunday.

“God is amazing, never forget to give him praise,” the former Fresno State University standout said.

Morris provided a detailed reflection of his injury on his Instagram account on Monday. 

“God is truly amazing, starting this journey I put my complete faith in him walked the path he has already pre set for me without fear. I will forever be grateful for the trials and obstacles he places in front of me because I know I have nothing to fear,” he wrote. “I wanna thank everyone for the prayers and both organizations for how they helped me and my family as well. I’m just a kid who wants to play ball and you all will see me playing again real soon so have no fear God is with me.” 

MOST ADULTS SAY BELIEF IN GOD IS NOT NECESSARY TO HAVE MORAL VALUES

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Adults in more than a dozen countries say it’s not necessary to believe in God to lead moral lives or have good values, according to a recent study. 

The majority of respondents were based in secular Western European countries of Sweden (90%), France (77%), the United Kingdom (76%), the Netherlands (76%), Spain (74%), Belgium (69%), Italy (68%), Germany (62%) and Greece (60%). Most respondents in other countries located outside Western Europe but still considered to be part of Western civilization, including Australia (85%), Canada (73%), and the United States (65%), also maintained that a belief in God is not necessary to “be moral and have good values.” Majorities of respondents in the Eastern European nations of Poland (67%) and Hungary (63%), which have governments sympathetic to traditional values and religion, said the same.

People in Israel and Singapore were more evenly divided on the question, with 50% and 54% of those surveyed, respectively, saying that a belief in God was a prerequisite for morality and having good values. Malaysia, a Muslim country, was the only country where the overwhelming majority of participants (78%) saw belief in God as necessary for leading a moral life with good values.

In the U.S., those who believe religion is not important (92%) and the religiously unaffiliated (88%) were most likely to view a belief in God as unnecessary for living a moral life and having good values. Majorities of all subgroups based on partisan identification, education level, gender, and age group indicated that a belief in God was not necessary to live a moral life. Even among those who described religion as “important” to them, a narrow majority (51%) suggested that a moral life is possible in the absence of a belief in God.

If God does not exist then how do we know what is good or bad or right or wrong? To say that something is objective is to say that it is independent of what people say or think, e.g. the Holocaust was objectively wrong even though the Nazis thought it right. To say that there are objective moral values is to say that something is good or evil independently of whether or not any human believes it to be so.

The atheist Richard Dawkins says, “There is at bottom no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pointless indifference… we are machines for propagating DNA… It is every living object’s sole reason for being.”

Without God, there is no basis for the objective moral values that do exist.

Paul wrote about “liars whose consciences are seared” (1 Tim. 4:2 ESV). What did he mean? What is a seared conscience? For that matter, what is the conscience? Our conscience is given by God; the inner voice that inflicts us with feelings of guilt when we have sinned.

“They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.” Romans 2 :15-16

If you want proof that we are living in the prophesied last days before Jesus returns these Poll results are just one of the prophesied signs being revealed in our day.

“But understand this, that in the last days, there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.” 2 Timothy 3:1-7

“For in those days, there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now and never will be. And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days.” Mark 13:19-20

BEING OBEDIENT TO GOD

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For Christians sometimes obedience comes before understanding.

To enable us, Jesus made it possible for our Heavenly Father to send the Holy Spirit to indwell our Spirit to be our counsellor, teacher and comforter.

“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:5-8

In my own life, many times, I am confronted by the Holy spirit prompting me to do something I would not ordinarily do and when I am obedient and do it, I discover that God had orchestrated all aspects of the the event, circumstances, people and location and it invariably did one or more of the following things: helped others, proved God’s existence and brought glory to Him and His Word.

Even before Jesus made it possible for believers to be born again and receive the Holy Spirit, God was working with people like Abraham who by faith was prepared to be obedient . Think about it, Abraham could have had no understanding of why he was called to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice. This is trusting God to the uttermost.

“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.” Hebrews 11:17-19

What did God promise Abraham because of his obedience:

“By myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice” Genesis 22:16-18

Long after Abraham had died the children of Abraham knew that:

“Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.” Joshua 21:45

Jesus now calls us to do the following things, which in the natural you would not do, but by the power of the Holy Spirit you can do.

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.” Luke 6:27-31

Are you being obedient to the Holy Spirit’s leading each day of your life? Are you living eternal now?

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MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD COMPELLING EVIDENCE FOR CREATION

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Justin L. Barret’s book Born Believers reveals some extraordinary facts about the ability and the capacity for very young children to believe and have faith. His work as a noted developmental psychologist and anthropologist at Oxford University, about the value of religious faith, has found that we are all predisposed to believe in God from birth. This is consistent with Scripture.

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart… “ Ecclesiastes 3:11

Belief begins in the brain. Under the sway of powerful internal and external influences, children understand their environments by imagining at least one creative and intelligent agent, a grand creator and controller that brings order and purpose to the world. Further, these beliefs in unseen super beings help organize children’s intuitions about morality and surprising life events, making life meaningful.

Summarizing scientific experiments conducted with children across the globe, Professor Barrett illustrates the ways human beings have come to develop complex belief systems about God’s omniscience, the afterlife, and the immortality of deities. He shows how the science of childhood religiosity reveals, across humanity, a “natural religion,” the organization of those beliefs that humans gravitate to organically, and how it underlies all of the world’s major religions, uniting them under one common source.

For believers and nonbelievers alike, Barrett offers a compelling argument for the human instinct for religion, as he guides all parents in how to effectively encourage children in developing a healthy constellation of beliefs about the world around them.

Surely, this is compelling evidence for creation and that evolution is a failed theory.

“Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...” Genesis 1″26a

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Genesis 1:27

IS YOUR WORLDVIEW BASED ON A SOLID FOUNDATION?

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William Kingdon Clifford was a philosopher who lived in England more than 150 years ago. He was not very well known because his life was cut short at age 33. His recently discovered essay entitled “The Ethics of Belief” is now receiving a great deal of interest. In this essay, written in 1877, Clifford says that it is a moral obligation to believe responsibly. We must base our beliefs on sufficient evidence that we have diligently investigated. He believed this to be of such great importance because beliefs influence one’s actions. They are foundational to life.

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Dr. Dallas Willard, former professor of philosophy at the University of Southern California, found that many of the students and scholars who considered themselves to be agnostic or atheist that he encountered on campus and in the world were guilty of what he called “irresponsible disbelief.” These bright men and women would often choose to disbelieve in something without any significant commitment to an investigation of that disbelief by way of sound reasoning and careful examination of the evidence. This is one of the great flaws in our human character. We stubbornly hold on to our beliefs because they generally reflect how we want life to be rather than how life actually is. For this reason, the evidence does not seem to matter.

Before he became a Christian, Dr. Francis Collins, Director of the National Institute of Health USA and Director of the momentous ENCODE project was in this category until he was challenged by one of his patients, She was dying but because she was a Christan had no fear of death. She asked Francis about what he believed.

“Dr. Collins, you’ve been so kind as to listen to me and care for me and listen to me share with you about my faith. Tell me about your faith. Tell me what you believe.”

Collins reaction: “Nobody had ever asked me that question before, not like that, not in such a simple, sincere way. I realized I didn’t know the answer. I felt uneasy. I could feel my face flushing. I wanted to get out of there. The ice was cracking under my feet. All of a sudden, by this simple question, everything was a muddle.”

Collins had previously believed that Jesus and the stories of the Bible were nothing more than mere myths. As he studied the historical evidence, he was stunned at how well documented and how historically accurate the Bible is. He also saw a surprising fidelity of the transmission of the manuscripts that were passed down over the centuries. And, over time, Francis Collins, based on the accumulation of the evidence that he observed, concluded that God exists and that Jesus is the Son of God. He also concluded that most of the religious skeptics that he knew and that he meets today are just like he was. That is to say, they didn’t want to think about these things and never looked at any evidence, never drawing conclusions from the real evidence that was available.

If your an agnostic or atheist are you guilty of irresponsible disbelief?

Much of the above information was extracted from the excellent book Reflections on the Existence of God by Richard E Simmons 111