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This is an argument that believing in God is legitimate. It is an attack on the demand for evidence for the existence of God.
Firstly, there is a weakness in demanding a high level of proof for extraordinary events is that often only low level proof is available. There may be no one around with a camera rolling, the aliens might be shy and appear to small groups of people, the children could kill the alien before it has a chance to explain itself. 
Or in the case of the Bible, the events that might lead to a belief happened a long, long time ago. It is unreasonable to expect extraordinary things to happen in an environment so controlled that it is near impossible to contradict them.
Secondly, although atheists claim the burden of proof is upon Christians to prove the existence of God, denying the authority of the Bible as a legitimate authority disallows most if not all positive argument for the existence of God from the Christian perspective. The most persuasive arguments occur when you take a sympathetic reading of the Bible. Such arguments include Jesus fulfils the Old Testament prophecy for a divine messiah, and that the words and actions of Jesus are believably those of a loving incarnate God. Denying the Bible denies Christians the right to prove God from their own legitimate source. An acceptable move that ought to close the discussion, but normally doesn’t.
Thirdly, claims such as ‘it is easy to prove that other people exist’ are false. It is common and normal to assume that other people exist, but that doesn’t mean they do. There is no way for me to discern whether the universe is a giant elaborate delusion in my own mind or that it actually exists as it’s presented to my senses. The people I encounter may or may not be a delusion. Unless you can exit your own mind, you will never be able to achieve a true, real, complete, objective perspective. But I argue, for the same reasons people believe other minds exist, I believe that God exists.
I may not be able to offer a proof that God exists, yet I defy anyone to prove anything else exists. Prove that anything exists and I will happily offer reasons why I think the proof is not a proof as such, but remains fundamentally uncertain.
I just replied to quite possibly the stupidest blog I’ve ever read, therefore- I exist! Now sit back and wait for your god to reply, then you’ll know he exists too.
I’m starting to get tired of all these uncritical jerk atheists.
Mikeoz68, by that same reasoning I’m able to use the Bible as a text to prove God exists. Either you need to find another proof that you exist or you allow the Bible as a legitimate source to prove God’s existence….. Unless you are happy to be [gasp!] unreasonable.
Let me explain. Just because you think you typed something onto a computer does not prove that you exist. You could be a group of people or a robot or an imposter posing for the real Mikeoz68 for all I know. Perhaps you are a Christian friend of mine posing as an atheist to see how I react to rudeness. This text could be a figment of my imagination that only I can see. There’s no way for me to know. If it is possible for our senses to be deceived then how can I be sure that mine are not being decieved with respect to you? The bottom line is: you can’t prove you exist. Give up now, because no one can provide empirical proofs for existential claims.
I’ll put it bluntly: Why do atheists continue to demand proof for God’s existence when they can’t even provide any proof for their own?
There is a circular reasoning to the idea that you need to be sympathetic when reading the bible in that it will only ever succeed in preaching to the choir.
There is no ability to disprove that a god exists, yet are you suggesting that it is also impossible to prove the existence of god? To take your analogy of the existence of other people’s minds to task, why do people think that other people’s minds exist? Because there is evidence to suggest they do. Can this be proven? No. In light of the evidence the most likely answer is that other people’s minds exist. Does a god exist? If you look at the evidence sympathetically you are lead to the answer yes, if you look at the evidence objectively then there is no reason to think it the most likely answer. If you believe in a god you not only might merely be a manifestation of your own delusion, but that their existence might also just be a simulation of god’s design. What a world…
Hi Nina!
Thanks for dropping by. Why is there necessary circular reasoning in being sympathetic to reading the Bible?
I have been in several discussions where atheists tear apart the Bible as being non-sensical, not only devoid of any literary merit but very close to insane in illogic, contradiction and likelihood of content. I direct you to the Skeptics Annotated Bible (www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/) for a compendium of such comments.
While I find the SAB vaguely amusing, it strikes me as amazingly unsympathetic. It seems to prefer the fundamental explanatory factor when reading the texts is that the author/redactor was an idiot. Theologians however read those same texts with the opposite presumption: that not only was the author sane, but rather intelligent. They look for coherence, authorial intention, historical clues as well as clues in the narrative, and inter-Testimental clues to interpret the text.
While there is admittedly the possibility for theologians to mistake genuine errors for profound theological assertions, it still seems wiser in the most commonsense way to suspect the author of intelligence and coherence! We don’t read Dickens and Homer and J. K. Rowling with extreme suspicion, nor do we accuse them of insanity just because they wrote stories that did not occur in real life. In the same way we don’t treat biographers with suspicion just because they put events that happened in the real world into artful, structured prose even though the events occurred in the unstructured messiness that is everyday life. By what reason should the Biblical authors be treated with such suspicion.
While I don’t mind that people hold the Biblical authors to be insane, I find it intellectually inferior to a position that allows the text the opportunity to speak its own message in its own coherent manner through the likely understanding of the original recipients – even if that message is not believed.
I didn’t say this clearly on my original post, but I think it’s acceptable for atheists to disallow the Bible as an authoritative source for God’s existence. I think that that is a fair intellectual move – ‘I don’t believe the Bible is authoritative’ is a legitimate intellectual move because you can’t contradict it. The only problem here is that Christians base their proofs of God’s existence upon testimonies written in it. If the Bible is disallowed as proof, then the text that Christians use to prove God’s existence is denied and they must seek alternative explanations, none of which are conclusive. I don’t buy into any of the ‘God of the philosophers’ proofs as offering conclusive evidence. So you end up with a situation like the following dialogue:
Christian: I believe in God because I believe in testimonies recorded in the Bible are true.
Atheist: Well, I don’t. I don’t believe those testimonies are true.
C: You should.
A: No, I shouldn’t.
C: Yes.
A: No.
… and so on.
the conversation should end here, because there is nothing left to talk about. Oddly, it seems to never end there even though there is nothing left to say.
Yes, you have read me correctly, I don’t think that it is possible to prove God’s existence however it distorts my argument unless you retain the further assertion that it is impossible to prove any other mind, or object or anything exists. Thus believing in God existence is as philosophically legitimate as believing in the existence of other minds. Please note that I’m not talking in terms of certainty, but terms of legitimacy. This is because I don’t believe you can provide certain evidential or logical proofs for any existential claims.
As for your taking my other people’s minds to task, I’m happy to rise to the challenge!
I don’t see any reason to think that the existence of other minds is the most likely answer in light of the evidence. I think it’s the most common answer and the most conventional, however there’s no reason to think it the most likely. Just because an idea is popular doesn’t mean it’s correct. Of course I operate from the assumption that other minds exist, and I do it with utmost faith that they do, however philosophically the existence of other minds is as uncertain as the existence of God is.
I take issue with your last sentence purely on Descartes logic in ‘I think, therefore I am.” Believing in a God doesn’t follow at all that I am myself a delusion in my entirety, Descartes teaches us that we can if fleetingly conclude our own existence with logic. (So actually this means that I am happy to allow certainty of ONE existential claim.
) However there is the possibility that the *nature* of my existence is entirely different from what I presently conceive it to be, which I’m happy to embrace.
I’m not sure what ‘their’ refers to in your last sentence.
Thanks again for the comment! And thanks for not being rude: I really liked that about your comment.
John
Hi John, thanks for your reply. In answer to your points regarding how people approach each other in this arena I agree that the failure to see from each other’s point of view hinders progress. It is, however, most likely this difference of perspective that creates the difference of opinion, so it is not an easy thing to avoid.
I am not familiar with other people’s interpretations and ridicule of the bible, only my own reading of it. I view it as being written as parable, as poetry and with the intent of being a guide in dark times. Or at least, I view half of it as such. The other half I believe is written as an instrument of control, and no doubt you yourself are familiar with the different perspectives the authors of the bible had. The base flaws of man are projected upon god- jealousy, vengefulness, insecurity etc. The transcendent heights that one chapter of the bible takes you to is skewered by the next chapter, which reminds you that it was written by man, and you are left to fall back down.
You must be familiar with the idea that if I wrote a book that asserted that god exists, and that it was itself written by god, through his inspiration, and that all in it was true based on that virtue, that this is effectively circular reasoning. God exists because he wrote a book that said he existed? If you want to exchange viewpoints with atheists then you need to try to let them understand how you come to believe such a circular argument is valid, rather than assume that they are wrong for not accepting it.
An atheist may suggest that the bible takes its humanity from man, and man’s ideals. A theist may suggest man gets his humanity from god through the bible. If there can be a discussion between the two perspectives there must be some sort of exchange of what assumptions the two sides have to support their views.
You are very much correct when you say that because some answers are common that they are not necessarily right, but you can’t imply that most common answers are wrong (if this is what you were doing). You say that you operate under the assumption that other minds exist, yet you prefaced it by saying you “don’t see any reason to think that the existence of other minds is the most likely answer in light of the evidence”. Why do you operate on such an assumption if you don’t think there is enough evidence to support it?
You most likely have come to your assumption not as a function of wanting other minds to exist, but as the most likely explanation for the actions of others, and that since you yourself have a mind then it is logical to presume other members of your species have a mind. You did not need to approach the question sympathetically. If you were to outline your evidence for the existence of god you would most likely have to do so with a sympathetic approach in order to find it more likely than otherwise that one exists. If, however, you state that you have no evidence for the existence of god (the god of your own definition, of course) then that can be compared to the evidence for the existence of other minds. There can not be a “proof” in science, only evidence.
My last sentence was mashed by my rewriting it, and I was unable to correct it after submitting it. It was meant to say that other people’s minds might just be your own delusion, but it might also be that god created the illusion of other people’s minds (for whatever reason a god might have for doing that). If one opens their minds to a reality that can be distorted and shaped in ways that make a farce of all they use to construct their conceptions of reality then that would be a rather disturbing existence.
Thanks again Nina for your thoughtful reply.
One of the reasons I enjoy a good discussion with atheists (I’m presuming you are atheist, even though you haven’t stated so explicity) is that they have a great nose for controversy within Christianity and they are able to name it and draw out the implications effectively. You have done this very effectively with two points:
1. That the Bible is somewhat dualistic in its presentation of God, sometimes in a supremely loving being, sometimes in an aggressive, almost cruel being.
2. The argument for the inspiration of Scripture is circular and thus invalid.
For point 1, your point is important. Christians have struggled with this for some time. Indeed the first known heretic, Marcion (1st c.) advocated for the abolition of the Old Testament because he saw a major disjunction between Jesus and God-as-presented-in-the-OT. I guess all I would say is affirm the Christian stance on all the good points you raise. I would, predictably, disagree strongly with the notion that the Bible projects man’s attitudes onto God and affirm that the anger at offence, jealousy over unfaithfulness is right and good and thus fitting characteristic for a perfect God. Evil deeds ought to be punished which is true in our society also. Offence must be met with justice or else society will fail. If there is a God and he has outlined a system of living for the benefit of his subjects and the inherent good of following the creator’s intention (by living as he intended us to live), then it is only right that his subjects submit themselves to his manner of living. Likewise love cannot exist without the possibility of jealousy. Surely jealousy in marriage is acceptable – i.e. if one partner sleeps around the other partner is right to be jealous! Incidentally, this marriage analogy is the primary interpretive category used by the Bible to describe God’s jealousy. The tensions you see in the Bible seem irreconcilable, and admittedly often they are mysterious, however they do work together to create a wholly transcendent and good God.
On that point, while I agree that the Bible has been used in history to control people, it is not intended as such and the Bible itself is clear that anyone who uses it in this way will face severe judgement.
The second GREAT point is the circularity of the argument for the inspiration of Scripture. Yep. I have heard of the circularity and I do admit it, and I commend the atheists again for putting their finger on it (again and again)
. The main reason it appears circular is because it is a second order argument. An imperfect analogy would be that multiplication seems strange if you don’t understand addition. Another important second order argument is the Holy Spirit’s place in the Trinity. The early church spent 400 years trying to work out the nature of Jesus Christ especially with respect to his connection to the Father. During this (enormous) investigation there was very little discussion of the Holy Spirit, however when they settled on the doctrine of the Trinity a Binity was never really considered because the implication of the shared nature of God was clearly true of the Holy Spirit in the same way it was true of the Son. The nature of the HS was a second order investigation.
In the same way, the nature of the Scriptures is second order also, and as a result appears circular to one that does not already accept the importance of the content of the Bible.
All I can offer is two primary arguments that can be used to enter the circle tangentially from outside. I mentioned these in the actual post that Jesus Christ is portrayed in the Bible as legitimately an incarnate God, if there were to be an incarnate God he would act and behave the way Jesus did. Secondly, the Bible is internally consistent (when read sympathetically). It is possible, and I would argue essential, to read the Bible in a manner that is highly consistent internally. The argument is that Jesus is the perfect complement to the content of the OT and the missing link that makes sense of the entire story. Neither of these arguments directly affirm inspiration, however if they are accepted a sense of the authoritative nature of the Bible is also accepted at some level, and as a result the thinker is moved into closer proximity of the circle, if not even joining it (slowly). Does that make sense?
I entirely agree with you that the revelation of assumptions is the only way forward in atheist-Christian discussions. It’s not my intention to force you to believe anything of what I say, but only to explain what I think clearly so that you know and also in the hope of learning about what you think also, which I deeply value as mentioned earlier.
My point about sympathy is for the evaluation of evidence. In order to be intellectually virtuous we have to respect evidence and allow it to speak for itself. Perhaps it is only suggestive, perhaps it gives great weight to a particular theory, whatever the evidence is must be respected. If someone were to come to me saying they had an encounter with aliens, I think it would be disingenuous to dismiss their experience as simply unlikely. Truly evaluating what they say would require listening carefully and sympathetically (not assuming they are insane ipso facto which is the common response). Then a conclusion can be made which will either be belief or uncertainty. Aliens might exist but the evidence might be inadequate to prove them…. it might be adequate, I don’t know. My point is that evidence must be respected and allowed room to speak for itself even if positive or negative conclusions are not reached as a result of the evidence.
Also, I was not implying that most common answers are wrong, merely that they are without certain foundation and thus inconclusive. I operate on the assumption that other minds exist despite my inability to conclude whether they are a complex figment of my own imagining or not. My point is not to seriously question whether they do exist, but merely to say that there is no philosophical or evidential reasoning that can conclude their certainty. This is particularly important because atheists use this same reasoning to assert the uncertainty of God’s existence. Which is why I think you are inconsistent in your second last paragraph:
I would argue that it is just as impossible to prove other minds as it is to prove God, in spite of the fact that it SEEMS infinitely easier. You haven’t given a reason why other minds exist, indeed you acknowledge that it is plausible that they don’t exist in your last paragraph. However you operate on the assumption that they do (which is a normal and sane), but the error is one of methodological inconsistency. How can you justify applying existential skepticism to one being and not another? Why should it be a given that other minds DO exist and also given that God doesn’t? More accurately, how is it reasonable that evidence for God demands a subjective starting point while evidence for other minds does not? It’s not reasonable to be inconsistent like this. I believe your argument contains such inconsistency, correct me if I’m wrong.
Thus, I would conclude that evidence for both is ultimately subjective. I reckon other minds exist, but I can’t say for sure. It is just as philosophically and evidentially sound to believe in God as it is to believe in any ‘other mind’. Thus my post ‘why it’s ok to believe in God’. It’s a legitimate intellectual position and theists ought not to be made to feel inferior for assuming it.
John, I appreciate your thoughtful replies. Mine come not as criticisms but rather as points that lean against yours so as to perhaps build a scaffolding of understand from the two perspectives, a goal I sense you have also.
The circularity of saying that the messiah as described in the OT appears fully manifested in the NT is not something easily reconciled when you have studied the writing and editing of the bible. The assumption that the OT has not been amended to better gel with the NT, and that the NT has not been shaped to adhere to the forecasts of the OT can’t be supported unless you purposely choose to deny the likelihood that this occurred. If one allows sympathy to direct your mind away from this question then you might want to ask in which direction your sympathies are taking you in terms of intellectual vigour. I don’t mean to use such words in a negative way, I just mean to suggest that behind some intellectual questions there is a lot of emotional energy invested in avoiding such enquiries.
In answer to your question about why it should be given that other minds do exist while god does not, both questions should be answered based on evidence, but also the questions should be asked the right way. Neither should be accepted as “given”, but rather it should be asked “what is the evidence for the existence of the minds of others, and what is the evidence for the existence of god?”
As I said, it is not within the realm of possibility to prove that other minds exist, in much the same way it can not be proved that god exists for the same reasons. This inevitably boils down to the idea that there is no possibility of actually “knowing” anything. Thus, all opinions and beliefs rest upon an imperfect understanding of the world. If, however, we are given the opportunity to explain to others (and perhaps ourselves) why we believe what we believe then we must at least attempt to explain the evidence upon which we base our assumptions. This is where equivocating the inability to prove other minds or a god exists with being able to provide your evidence for why you believe in god sounds somewhat like a red herring.
This leads me to answer your criticism of the flow of my reasoning, which provides a good opportunity to explain it further. You are right that I agree that it is plausible that other minds do not exist. I understand that there are many many different possible answers to questions, and it is inappropriate to dismiss them without appraising the questions in different ways, as well as appraising my own perceptions and logical assumptions before making judgements. This process is the way in which we make sense of the world. We give weighting to certain answers based on likelihood, given the evidence we have for them.
In this way, we make judgements about whether we assume other minds to exist or not. We obviously can’t know, but we act as if it is true.
This is the same approach I take to the existence of god. I find it more likely that god is a creation of man, given the multitude of reasons why such a belief would serve mankind and an individual’s mind. This is separate from the bible, though, and I don’t need to use this conclusion in order to form similar ones from reading the bible. It is true many people do approach the bible from that position, and so they already assume it to be a work of man only.
I was given the opportunity to have read the bible before I had any form of lack of belief.
I understand your reasoning behind the title indicating that it is intellectually legitimate to believe in god, though I think that reasoning is not wholly balanced. It is going to sound trite, but for exactly the same reasons that you have proposed you could have titled it “why it is okay to believe in Aries.”
In the end you have to make a justification of a belief which rests on evidence rather than just the statement that if it is impossible to prove that a commonly held assumption is true then belief in anything is justified. For the same reason I might argue that belief in nothing is justified. Is such a statement useful?
When you say that common answers are without certain foundation, I assume you mean they are not founded in truth? They are, however, founded upon evidence mostly. The common answers lacking in evidence are described as faiths, mostly. In effect faith is all we can have in our comprehension of reality, being unable to “know” anything. For this reason I think we should only use the word “true” to refer to questions of logic.
Hi Nina,
For me, it would require proof that the church was able to infiltrate the Jewish communities with whom there was both early controversy concerning specifically Chrsitian interpretations and acknowledged common ground i.e. respect of the Scriptures as the Word of God (in other words, doctoring = bad!). In support of your position I remember early Christians championed ‘the virgin will be with child who will be called Emmanuel’ (Is 7:14) which is the LXX version supporting the Virgin Birth. This pushed the Jews to discard the Greek in preference to the MT as the only word of God because it used the more ambiguous term ‘the young woman will be with child’, but that would support the view that the MT has not been altered by the Christian church. In addition, Jewish communities intent on the preservation of the OT scriptures appear to date back to the 4th c. The common practice we are taught in theological college is to firstly read texts as culturally Jewish in their OT Jewish context as well as reading them in the context of the book as a whole and then to connect conclusions based on such readings into Christian theology and thinking.
Very insightful comments again. Thank you.
With regards to the interaction between the OT and NT, I’m familiar with the construction of the Biblical text, however I still think there is reason to believe that the consolidated text we agree upon today (NA27, BHS, Rahlf’s LXX, & supporting documents) are scholarly and reliable because of the intensity of the work that has been done upon them – and is still being done. I guess my point here is that Christian scholars do not shy away from questions regarding the origin and transmission of the text, and ministers are not kept in the dark concerning these issues (here I can only speak from experience of my own training at Moore Theological College). I would hope that interested pewsitters in my congregation are not fed an entirely triumphalist story when enquiring about issues concerning textual criticism, nor ought they be fed an unnecessarily pessimistic argument.
I’m not sure the OT has been significantly reshaped to complement the NT, I think it would be a difficult position to defend. Maybe I’m being close-minded as you say!
With that out of the way, I strongly agree with you that the NT was largely written with the OT in mind.
As I read your defence against my criticism, I’m going ‘tick… tick…. tick….’ all the way to the end
. Yes, you are correct. I had anticipated the Aries argument before and give you the double thumbs up for articulating it! I am truly concerned to maintain a balanced view on epistemological questions.
Perhaps it is a weakness in my argument, or perhaps it is a weakness for the traditional articulation of Christian doctrine of God – particularly that there is only one true God. And however much I do actually subscribe to this doctrine, I can’t avoid the fact that I am not someone else, and if someone believes in Aries… who am I to critique their reasons for doing so? They may have as legitimate reasons for thinking Aries exists! As an evangelical Christian, I think the appropriate response is to listen to their reasons, ask questions and if asked articulate the reasons I believe in Yahweh as the one true God. So if someone were to come to me claiming to believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I would have no choice but to give them freedom to believe it. I believe in the Trinity for crying out loud, who am I to dismiss someone who claims belief in the FSM?!
I found your conclusion most stimulating and agreeable. Philosophically everything we conclude concerning reality will boil down to commitments, opinions, reckonings, and faiths. Perhaps there may even be room to come to the (cheeky) conclusion that ‘lack of belief in God’ as a settled outlook on reality may be categorised as a kind of ‘faith’ after all.
That would be a cheeky conclusion indeed, since it seems to me that a lack of belief is the absence of a faith, rather than a faith that there is a lack of a god. Consider an ape climbing a tree to avoid a predator. The predator grows near, so the ape looks to move further up, and must choose which branches to grip along his way. He sees a branch that appears will not support his weight, and so declines to use it in his escape. He doesn’t have faith that the branch will break, but rather he lacks faith that it will hold him.
I think ironically there would be less people who define themselves as atheists if Jesus’ teachings were depicted as philosophy rather than religion. It is the control over the use of his words that is the most distasteful to me. To define oneself as spiritual under the guiding example of Jesus is not contrary to a lack of faith in god. In essence, the morality that Jesus espoused is in my opinion hijacked by religion. He did seem to approach religion with the same caution he had when he approached the question of whether to pay taxes: he knew the context within which he operated.
Thanks for the pleasant exchange, Nina.
I dunno about your analogy, I think that ultimately the branch breaking is on the agenda and there is little practical distinction between thinking the branch will break and thinking that it won’t support his weight. Whether it’s at the front of his mind or the back, it’s still there. I get it what you are trying to say though and I do understand the atheist position, in particular the concern to avoid the arrogant claim that God doesn’t exist. We are both in agreement over the need for epistemic humility even if we arrive at (or is it start from?) entirely different conclusions.
Interestingly, most committed Christians find the category ‘religion’ distasteful also. And although many would object to ‘philosophy’ because it implies a primarily intellectual adherence, ‘lifestyle’ is often chosen as a substitute for ‘religion’.
However, I do admit that even people who prefer the term ‘lifestyle’ would often claim a little too much exclusive ownership over his words for your comfort.
For myself… hmm… on one hand I can relate to the sense of entitlement that my fellow Christians feel after having immersed themselves in his teachings: after earnestly, carefully trying to work out what he meant, they feel frustrated when people distort his words which are so precious to them; I can relate to people who are so concerned that his words are not twisted that they speak out about it. (Of course, I cringe deeply whenever Christians do this with rudeness and arrogance.)
But I guess on the other hand, I am delighted whenever anyone looks to Jesus for guidance and wisdom, and I think that Jesus belongs to everyone. I like to promote Jesus and his teachings in any way I can, even and especially to people who lack a belief in God.
If ever you are in Randwick and would like to meet a minister who is happy to support and embrace your desire to understand Jesus despite your lack-of-belief please visit me at St Jude’s.
Sure, thanks for the invitation. If I am in the area I’ll swing by.
I believe the question is: Is it okay to believe in God? Yet, the comments were all on whether we have to prove a god or not. So, my question is: Whether god exists or not, is it okay to believe? doesn’t that ask if it is good or bad to believe in god whether or not he/she/it exists?
Thanks for dropping in Len! Interesting take on the question. You are rightly pulling out one of the slippery aspects of language. The word ‘ok’ can be taken in a moral sense or in a sense of general legitimacy. The first line of my post indicated that this was a defense of the intellectual legitimacy of belief in God. I.e. it’s ok, intellectually.
Where would you take the argument if it went down the moral path?
Here’s where I’d go:
Wouldn’t the answer to that question depend on the nature of the God in question? Firstly, it would be important to determine whether the God was sovereign or not. If the God was in control and wanted the universe to exist in a manner according to his/her/it’s will, then it would be a matter of moral investigation because morality would presumably be defined by God. However if the God in question was not sovereign and in control, then that God’s desires would be questionable and likely, discardable.
If the God happened to be sovereign (as above) and did not want humans to believe in him/her/it, then it would be morally wrong to believe in him/her/it, despite his/her/it’s existence.
There is also the possibility that there is a sovereign God, who requires belief BUT that belief is part of a complex of requirements he makes from people. If this is the case and if all these requirements need to be met in order to satisfy him, then belief on it’s own would be insufficient. I have heard someone argue that it would be immoral, but that would depend on the people’s knowledge of, and ability to perform, what God requires.
FWIW, (and to be a boring fundamentalist Christian), the God of the Bible is sovereign, and requires both belief and action in accordance with that belief as a moral obligation of humans.