The existence of God is clearly a delicate subject; does he exist or does he not? Either way, how can we be certain? Where do people’s beliefs come from anyway?     
            Some may say what we believe depends on what kind of family we are born into. If our parents believe, we believe. If our parents never bring up the subject of God, by default, we do not believe.

            “I am sure that there is a God because of experiences in my life that have no other explanation,” says18 year old Michael Yates. “I believe in God not only because I was raised to believe so but because the Bible and history match up so well.”

            Of course, not everyone agrees. Max Robertson, 18, believes religious texts match so well with history because they follow real events that occurred and real people.

            “I fully believe that Jesus was a living, breathing person,” says Robertson. “However, I think that the stories have been given a religious and ‘miraculous’ connotation that was pure fabrication, and since then, they have grown even more in grandeur and scale, as is usually the case with stories passed down. I think that they are rooted in fact, but at this point have become completely over the top and irrelevant.”

            On the contrary, Yates believes the Bible’s prophesies are fulfilling themselves today.

“Things in the Old Testament that were spoken of are happening now, like Israel being left with one ally and rumors of that ally isolating Israel.”

            As for the argument that people believe what their parents believe, according to Robertson, his mother does believe in God. The age may be different for different people, but there comes a point in everyone’s life where they stop conforming to their parents and think for themselves; believe or not believe, independent of anyone else’s thoughts.

            Unlike her parents, Kelsey Dumba, 18, believes “in the science of life,” she says. “If we had someone there for us who created such a beautiful world and society there would be concrete evidence, which there isn’t.”

            Dumba’s point of view begs the question; can we believe what can not be proven? According to Yates, the answer is yes.

            “I refuse to believe that science is the answer to everything. In other words, there has to be a higher power, which I believe to be God,” says Yates.

            When asked why he thinks people do believe in God, Robertson responded that people believe in any higher power as a sort of way to comfort themselves when they can not find an answer to why certain unfortunate things occur.

            “The world is a scary, complicated, and often unforgiving place,” says Robertson. “They need to place faith in something to convince themselves that there’s an overall point to all of it, and they aren’t as lost as they can often seem.”

            Does this mean that for everyone, once tragedy occurs in their life, they immediately lose fatih? Not necessarily; many people do not need to live through any devastation lack faith.

            “For as long as I can remember back, I have thought the whole religious concept was a load of silliness. However, I don’t mind, since I think it’s important that people believe in something, for me, it’s just more about being practical and reasonable.”

            Different people believe or don’t believe for different reasons. Aside from historical relevance to religious texts and the way he was raised, Yates has also taken into account God’s prevalence in various religions.

            “God appears in different forms in several of the worlds most "popular" religions: Christianity and Judaism as God and Islam as Allah,” Yates said. “I just chose to believe in God the way Christians do.”