I believe it was Tilk (CARM boad) on the thread about the OA, but it could have been any number of atheists who said "I don't see God runnning the universe." In other words, the only reason he can concieve of for belief in God is an explaintion as to how things work. This is the case with so many. They keep their sights lowered and only think of little reasons. I'm not putting down Tilk or saying that he isn't a fine thinker, or that he doesnt' think big in other ways, but I think this is very narrow kind of thinking in religious terms.
Religion has gown up with modernity and postmoderity. It has developed very sophisitcated theological ramifcations. The reasons for beling are as old as the hills, but they can be put into sophisticated postmodern terms. The reason for belief in God never was to expalin the way the uninverse works. It never was to compete with scinece as a means of understanding how things can come into being.
The reason to believe in God is to understand the human problematic,that is the problem at the heart of being human. That problematic turns upon the nature of the numinous wich we sense in so many thigns; in the sublime, in the mysterious, in the incomprehensable, in the asthetic. Taht sense of the sublime is a hint abotu that aspect of being we call "the numinous" and how it offers the answer to the human prolematic.
All religions seeks to identify some aspect of being human that creates the whole system of trouble that confonts us in life; some call it "sin," Others see it as imbalance with nature, or whatever. We resolve it through Ultimate Trnasformative Experice (communicated by the sense of the numionous). It is the task of a religoius tradition to mediate that sense of tranformative power and resolve the problematic.
These are the only real reaons, the only valid reasons for belief, and what they really spell out is a world view. One believes in God because one comes to understand God as the center peice of a world view.
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