Theism

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Seeing as there is a thread asking atheists, here is a thread asking theists!

What are your reasons for being a theist?

Please, let's not have everybody replying all at once ...

Many reasons but to begin with both personal experience and the events of history make more sense in the light of God's existence.

Could you please elaborate on this? I am genuinely interested to hear about this.

Why is your particular "God" any more true than any other?

Although it has not always been true, monotheists these days typically believe in a god whose definition excludes the existence of other gods.

For example: a monotheist would claim that Zeus can't exist, or if he does exist - is not a god, because the definition of the modern monotheist's god includes ideas of perfection, omnipotence, all-powerfulness etc. and Zeus (like most polytheistic gods) is imperfect; he has human characteristics and flaws.
If someone else has a god that contains all the qualities a monotheist requires, such as perfection, omnipotence and infallibility, then the monotheist points out that no two entities can have all these propitiates simultaneously unless they are, infarct, the same entity. The idea that there are two all-powerful gods does not make sense unless they are one and the same.

A more challenging question might be "Why is your particular doctrine any more true than any other?".

I have written at length on the history side of this in some other threads, but in summary, it appears to me, though I will conceed my perception may have been biased by my immersion in a faith community, that much of history appears to show evidence of Earth being the site of conflict between God and the Enemy, with humans adding a certain degree of unpredictability, throwing everything into glorious chaos.

I have actually been influenced by a number of faiths in my development, though nowadays I am simply a fairly orthodox Christian; still, the debt remains. I am interested in the origins of other faiths.

At least some truth-claims of other faiths hold true.

Historically, most of the Churches have erred one way or another; personally I have changed my opinion sufficiently that whoever is right, I have been wrong several times and so cannot afford to be too arrogant.

I've always seen religion as another way of primitive man getting to terms with itself, but I'm interested as to how you could come to that conclusion.

The concept of "conflict" between God and Enemy seems very anthropomorphic (did I spell that right?) in my view, and according to Occam's Razor I think it is safe to assume that there isn't any God or anything like that, except in our minds.

We don't know what started it all, but that's no reason to believe in a God of the Gaps.

There is no doubt that religious organizations are a powerful method for bringing people together for very useful and pleasurable social activity and it gives participants a sense of community. This and a feeling that the universe is kind to people with these communal beliefs makes it almost impossible to attempt to apply logic to the declaration of belief of a beneficent superpower. The logic behind a theistic concept of the universe is extremely fragile but the communal benefits for religious organizations outrank any attempt to examine the foundations of religions with any neutrality.

From the atheism thread, but also quite fitting here.

Occam's Razor can't be regarded so simply as against theism. There are many questions that don't get decent answers in the absence of a God, notably the cosmological argument.

You have not quoted me in full, making the quote misleading as to it's meaning.
That is a little annoying.

Well, many theists consider God to be a logical necessity, thus the leap from theist to atheism isn't just a reduction of a single entity, but rather a fundamental cosmological/metaphysical change.

Sorry, it was not my intention to mislead or annoy. Obviously the rest of the sentence would not apply to theist. Atheist might claim we are born atheist, and theist might claim God is in all of us. I am neither, but would still claim there is no reason necessary for me either. Again...sorry if I upset you.

That is quite alright; I am not at all angry or upset.

If there is the notion of god in us all, then is that not a reason to be a theist, rather than an absence of reason?

I believe in a god because I'm too simpleminded and immature to believe that there isn't some big dude in the clouds watching over me. As for god's followers who get unfairly hurt or killed, they are just now in HIS hands now. LOL