I want to believe in God, but it doesn't work?

[Simplelogic]

This website may be of value. It was made by a close friend of mine who asks some of the toughest questions about his own faith. Maybe you will find logic in it that you appreciate:

Yeshua/Jesus and Judaism versus Paul and Christianity

 

[outhouse]

This website may be of value. It was made by a close friend of mine who asks some of the toughest questions about his own faith. Maybe you will find logic in it that you appreciate:

Yeshua/Jesus and Judaism versus Paul and Christianity

The site is worthless, and contains anti Christian views and teachings based on severe ignorance.

 

[Simplelogic]

The site is worthless, and contains anti Christian views and teachings based on severe ignorance.

I believe SarcasticIndeed can make up his or her mind without you.

 

[Neo Deist]

Hello, I'm new and all, and I consider myself an Agnostic Atheist, but I've always wanted to be a theist.

I was born in an Orthodox Christian family, but we weren't especially religious. Still, I went to church for a period of my childhood very often, and considered myself as a Christian. However, as time passed, from my 8-10th year, or even earlier, I began to doubt things. I started asking "Does this make sense?" and "Could that really happen?" My mind always rejected religion as someting irrational.


At the time, I watched the Discovery, History and NG chanells which didn't help my theistic side to prevail over the atheistic. It talked about how everything in the bible would be explained with science, the contradictions, false beliefs etc. etc. The last one I saw said how, based on the evidence, Izrael people didn't attack the land (I forgot its name) like the bible says, but they lived there as peasants, and then probably built a new identity. They passed through a town which has a very similar name to the God in bible and probably got their belief from it. At that point, I would still answer I'm a theist when someone asked me, but deep inside, I knew it wasn't true. I guess I was just scared of hell or something.


One day, I just realized that this "hiding from the truth" cannot continue. If God exists, he knows I don't believe in him and this false Christianity makes little to no sense to me. From that point on, I considered myself an atheist.


Life of an atheist (which I added the tag of "nihilist" later) was okay. I thought everything was created in the Big Bang, evolution happened and we appeared; there is no purpose to our existence and there is no morale. I felt I was free. I immediately joined the Religion discussion on Yahoo! Answers on the side of a sarcastic atheists. And I felt good, but then again, I didn't really like it. I don't want just to "perish from existence" when I die. I want someone to be up there, this world would be better then! I don't want to rot in heaven.


In this "search" for God, I met quite a few people. None would make me believe in God. One of them was incredibly smart, and I liked what he told me, but I still didn't become an atheist.


Please help me...

Christianity is but one of three Abrahamic religions. There are other forms of religious thought that while you share the same God, you don't adhere to any particular set of beliefs. You can be religious without being a Christian, Jew or Muslim. I grew up as a Southern Baptist but identify now as a modern deist, with Christian roots.

You would be surprised how closely related religions actually are. It is the finer details such as names that change. I dare say that many Christians are actually non-classical deists and don't realize it, or have never heard the term and fully understand it.

 

[Pegg]

Hello, I'm new and all, and I consider myself an Agnostic Atheist, but I've always wanted to be a theist.


Life of an atheist (which I added the tag of "nihilist" later) was okay. I thought everything was created in the Big Bang, evolution happened and we appeared; there is no purpose to our existence and there is no morale. I felt I was free. I immediately joined the Religion discussion on Yahoo! Answers on the side of a sarcastic atheists. And I felt good, but then again, I didn't really like it. I don't want just to "perish from existence" when I die. I want someone to be up there, this world would be better then! I don't want to rot in heaven.


In this "search" for God, I met quite a few people. None would make me believe in God. One of them was incredibly smart, and I liked what he told me, but I still didn't become an atheist.


Please help me...

In the end, we believe what we want to believe. Perhaps you struggle with belief in God because you simply dont want it...but at the same time, internally you want there to be something rather then nothing.

There may be an explanation for why you have such a conflict going and if the explanation is true, then it may be an evidence that God is real and did create us.

Firstly, the bible tell us that we were created in Gods image...and this would imply, and explain, why our level of consciousness and intelligence is different to all other animals on this planet. We are able to see things which have not been thought of yet, we are able to imagine things and bring them into existence.... just like God. And if we are created in his image, then this is certainly explains where we get such ability from.

Secondly, the bible also tells us that when God created us, he put 'eternity' into our hearts.

Ecclesiastes 3:11“Even time indefinite he has putin their heart, that mankind may never find out the work that the true God has made from the start to the finish.”​

So when we talk about 'forever' its because we were not created to only live a short time. Within our conscience is the idea that 'forever' is normal to us. 'forever' is a natural desire for us...and when death comes along, it destroys every inclination of our heart and we cant fathom that someone close to us actually died because its so foreign to all our inclinations.
Now, if we are merely a product of the universe and there is no purpose of reason, then these two traits alone are enough to believe in God because they are completely illogical and make no sense as to why we have such a level of consciousness.

 

[natpath]

Hello, I'm new and all, and I consider myself an Agnostic Atheist, but I've always wanted to be a theist.

I was born in an Orthodox Christian family, but we weren't especially religious. Still, I went to church for a period of my childhood very often, and considered myself as a Christian. However, as time passed, from my 8-10th year, or even earlier, I began to doubt things. I started asking "Does this make sense?" and "Could that really happen?" My mind always rejected religion as someting irrational.


At the time, I watched the Discovery, History and NG chanells which didn't help my theistic side to prevail over the atheistic. It talked about how everything in the bible would be explained with science, the contradictions, false beliefs etc. etc. The last one I saw said how, based on the evidence, Izrael people didn't attack the land (I forgot its name) like the bible says, but they lived there as peasants, and then probably built a new identity. They passed through a town which has a very similar name to the God in bible and probably got their belief from it. At that point, I would still answer I'm a theist when someone asked me, but deep inside, I knew it wasn't true. I guess I was just scared of hell or something.


One day, I just realized that this "hiding from the truth" cannot continue. If God exists, he knows I don't believe in him and this false Christianity makes little to no sense to me. From that point on, I considered myself an atheist.


Life of an atheist (which I added the tag of "nihilist" later) was okay. I thought everything was created in the Big Bang, evolution happened and we appeared; there is no purpose to our existence and there is no morale. I felt I was free. I immediately joined the Religion discussion on Yahoo! Answers on the side of a sarcastic atheists. And I felt good, but then again, I didn't really like it. I don't want just to "perish from existence" when I die. I want someone to be up there, this world would be better then! I don't want to rot in heaven.


In this "search" for God, I met quite a few people. None would make me believe in God. One of them was incredibly smart, and I liked what he told me, but I still didn't become an atheist.


Please help me...

Since this was written in December 2011, I would really like to know where you are now and if Jesus has revealed himself to you.

 

[InGodWeTrust]

Religion, in the past, and what we see today as a legacy, was a state thing, meaning states had official religions which had things like compulsory attendance and at least a nominal adherence to the ideology. What this did was to make "fear of God" a very real and immediate thing, and a way of bringing hell on earth to those who do not go along with the sanctioned religion.
In the absence of an artificially enforced belief, it would be natural for a lot of people to fall away from whatever that religion was because there was no reason for that belief system to actually make sense to the average person's thinking, since they really had no say-so in that framework.
What this (freedom) does is to force people to find their own belief system, which to a lot of people may seem to be a daunting task. And it may not be so simple as just shopping around for a particular denomination that better suites you. It could be that you have to formulate your own framework of belief, and I think this is the same sort of thing as you see being described in the gospels, where the established religion was not really filling the needs of the people, so that there had to be a restructuring of the whole scene but on a fairly individual level, where people were now responsible for coming up with these things on their own. My personal opinion is that the New Testament is well made to deal with this situation, the same sort of situation that we are confronted with today, so read that, and try to come up with as unbiased an interpretation of it as you can, and of course in an attitude of prayer for that spiritual enlightenment that can only come from God.