if you believe in God...then please post why?

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Nah, for me its slavery - like joining the ranks of those who've intellectually died and just haven't caught on (which I'll be fair, its huge swaths if not most of society).

When asked, "Who are you?" the Buddha responded, "I am one who is awake." Most people sleepwalk through our entire lives without recognizing that what they believe is a dream.

"Observe the lillies. Some never reach the surface and never know of the existance of the world above. Some reach the surface and become aware of the world above, but never bloom. Some rise above the surface and bloom spectacularly. So it is with men." (badly paraphrased)

I think something can be said of people's propensity to see things in layers though, live their lives without being completely lost to the bottom line truth - the conscious mind only does have so many resources to devote at a time but long term subconscious knowledge and awareness don't have to evaporate constantly in the wake of that. I don't mind the idea of humility and realizing there's a lot to know as well as the fact that the human mind only has so much storage space for information.

Still though, I'd imagine that if someone has good enough analytical skills and can keep the salient points that hold water they can find out what they've wanted to know or at least get to where a leap of faith in some direction doesn't seem so much like a leap but rather a result of a logical progression.

The world just seems to work so logically in so many ways, like it was designed.
It gets complicated, but ultimately it comes down to this. I want to believe in god. If I die and it turns out there is no greater purpose, I'll be too dead to care!

For me its the human condition, the rigidity of it, the seeming senselessness of it; it lends me to have atypical spiritual views but it makes it very difficult for me to really believe that we are as basic as what our genes confine us to (or, ultimately, only as good and as valuable as the roll of the dice luck we have on our genes and what the world lets us be).

What if you die, and are in
the same kind of situation
as you are now? Unknowing,
and unable to.

Ok, lets hope my comment stays in this thread:

I think I'd just about prefer a biblical hell to that, being permanently stuck on this squat rock and in ignorance would be easily as bad and that would take a creator, one who I'd probably wanna shank in the neck with a rusty screwdriver given the chance.

Thoroughly agreed.

A very large proportion of comments indicate that the writers confess that they believe what they prefer to believe rather than looking around objectively and trying to figure out what they know, what they might find out by unbiased looking and then accepting that much is still unknown and much is probably unknowable.

The real problem I have with the concept of God is the idea of one unified entity.

It is not a particularly useful concept, nor particularly accurate in explaining the surrounding world or various religions.

Include EVERYTHING in it, and it becomes
so.

Nothing is permanent. The before-life was not permanent, the now-life is not permanent. It seems reasonable to conclude that the after-life will not be permanent.

Right, there is a distinct possibility that we live many lives, also though I've heard theories on this from all kinds of people and the general idea that I tend to get is that after we've wracked up enough different 'experiences' (you really never live the same way twice but rather try on different facets) - after a time going back at all is more and more voluntary because your soul is maturing and gaining what it needed to. In that general school of thought you're learning about negativity, hardened and strengthened by it, and negativity isn't something you can find in 'heaven'. If you make some beings who make some beings who make some beings, and a third of their creations fall right off from rebelling and go to the darkside - you probably want to teach future creations why not to do that and why certain impulses are best ignored in the long term.

I do not think of God as having created the universe - rather that the Universe is itself a living organism & God is its soul.

Thus all the planets, stars, galaxies etc are to God as the organs, cells etc are in our body, and we are like the bacteria, or something like that.

The solar system is an atom.

I believe in God from observation.
I started with the hypothesis "there is no God," and observed life to see if anything refuted that hypothesis. Within less than twenty years (time well spent, I think, on such an important issue) of impartial scientific observation I was absolutely certain God was there:
1)People's life events are way too structured and meaningful. If it was all random and arbitrary hardly anything useful would ever happen. You'd never meet just the friend you needed when you needed them. You'd never have just the right information to save the day, learn what you wanted to know, etc, because on average, out of all the hundreds of useless things that could happen, there'd be only one event that would work. Then that's the one that happens on time? I don't think so. So lives' structure means intelligence and power beyond comprehension.
2)Organisms are just too complex and interdependent and finely balanced to have evolved by chance bit by bit. They could only have been created whole that way: that means a creator, again too powerful and intelligent to comprehend: God.
3)Finally; practical experience. If you speak to The Creator or The One In Control, respectfully and sincerely (and not to ask for more "stuff"!) with good intent, (especially if you ask for the truth, meaning or wisdom etc); you'll get what you ask for.