RS Edexcel GCSE Christianity Religion and Life notes

Believing in God
Key words
Agnosticism not being sure whether God exists
Atheism believing that God does not exist
Conversion when your life is changed by giving yourself to God
Free will the idea that human beings are free to make their own choices
Miracle something which seems to break…

St Thomas Aquinas and the first cause `something that is unchanging... this is God!'
Causation: `The argument that everything must have been started off (caused) by
something else.' St Thomas Aquinas

The main features of a Christian upbringing and how it may lead to belief in
God.
Features of a…

designer. This designer could only
be God leading to belief in God.
The world is so interdependent Why does the "Being" have to be
that someone must have designed God?
it. For example we rely on plants
which rely on bees. Therefore
someone must have designed it
and God was…

God caused the big bang science equals how religion equals why
Roman Catholics believe (Scientific) `discoveries invite us to even greater
admiration for the greatness of the Creator'
Why unanswered prayers may lead some people not to believe in God.
How Christians respond to the problem of unanswered prayers.
How…

do what is right, or not they can
choose to help people, or not.
4. Evil and suffering exist. Christians believe that evil is not a
5. Therefore, God cannot exist. result of God, but of choices
humanity makes. For God to
intervene and stop evil it would
mean taking…

This programme generated dozens of complaints. Many people felt the BBC
should not be using a television programme targeted at children and young
people to allow Dawkins to put his antireligious beliefs across as fact.
People watching this programme felt that the mixture of an Oxford
University scientist, the reputation…

Matters of life and death
Key words
Abortion the removal of a foetus from the womb before it can
survive
Assisted suicide providing a seriously ill person with the means to commit
suicide
Euthanasia the painless killing of someone dying from a painful
disease
Immortality of the soul the idea…

The Bible also says, `The Lord God formed man and breathed life into him.' Genesis
2:7
`Humans are made like God, so whoever sheds the blood of a man, by man will his blood
be shed.' Genesis 9:6
`You created every part of me, you knit me together in my…

raised from the dead
in mark 16.
In the Nicene creed it They believe they will be Catholics believe in
says that `Jesus is judged by God after both the resurrection
seated at the right hand they die and so they try of the body and the
of the father…

They may have experienced a neardeath experience whereby they have
come out of their body and may have seen a bright light or be spoken to by
deceased relatives or friends
Telekinetic experiences may also lead someone to believe in life after death
Why some people do not believe in…