This simple question: “Do you believe in God?” opens, and far too often concludes, many a stilted discussion about religious belief.
It seems like a fair question. It seems like a good question! It is neither.
Mind you, it is not a stupid question. But it is a question that fails to do what we want it to do. The question fails to affirm, with any real accuracy, what we ourselves believe. It fails also to illuminate what others believe when we ask them if they believe in God.
For starters, and this much should be obvious, it is a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ question. Is it not stunning that anyone would find a mere ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ answer satisfactory on this particular topic? It appears as if many people do find it satisfactory!
Many people appear to be satisfied if the answer is ‘Yes’. ‘Believers’, seem to be satisfied when someone says that they too believe in God. Yet ‘non-believers’, seem to be quite satisfied when someone tells them that they do not believe in God.
But why should this be satisfactory, in either case?
It Is a Bad Question
“Do you believe in God?” is a bad question, God-awful, in fact. We use this question as a shortcut to understanding another person’s world view – in total. It is the ultimate litmus test, if you will, for determining whether others believe as we do. Yet you cannot, with assurance, gather anything from the answer that you might want to hang your hat on!
There are some exceptions. You won’t find any non-believers that stand behind an ‘intelligent design’ agenda. You can, however, find believers that subscribe to the theory of evolution. But these terms are only sign posts on our way to understanding how other people view the world.
The problem is that we try to rely on the loose correlations between such terms and our actual beliefs. – In practice, these don’t hold up to scrutiny.
The labels ‘believer’ and ‘non-believer’ are not helpful. They do not tell you what an individual does for a living or who he will vote for. You won’t know if he is abusive or dishonest. They give no indication of a person’s attitude about gender, race, and poverty. But we tend to assume all this – from a ‘Yes’ or a ‘No’ answer to the question!
Imagine driving up through Louisiana and seeing a sign for “Chicago.” You know you can’t take that exit and stop paying attention from then on. You have to continue navigating and following more signs as you go. You will otherwise end up somewhere very different than you intended!
Asking people if they believe in God is like relying on the first sign you see. It isn’t enough. It’s not even a solid start.
A Better Question
“Do you believe in God?” is a bad question because it doesn’t give you enough information to work with. – If you must go there, a better question might be “What does the idea of ‘God’ mean to you?”
You’ll learn more about how someone thinks about the world that way.
Don’t the big, important questions of our day deserve more open-ended inquiry? Don’t they demand some real discussion?
What do you think? Let us know!
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