How to believe when reason don't want to let you believe?

[Marcie]

Science has never been an impediment to faith for me

Neither is it for me. I'm just wondering whether our reason can be trusted as an objective judge of reality. Theism appears to make more sense than naturalism/materialism, but maybe what's really true is something that's as far away from our grasp as understanding neuroscience is for an ant. Anyway, thanks again for your help. I'll definitely look it all up.

 

[Silmarien]

Neither is it for me. I'm just wondering whether our reason can be trusted as an objective judge of reality. Theism appears to make more sense than naturalism/materialism, but maybe what's really true is something that's as far away from our grasp as understanding neuroscience is for an ant. Anyway, thanks again for your help. I'll definitely look it all up.

A couple of additional thoughts:

1) Theism doesn't quite claim that reality is ultimately knowable. A lot of people in this thread have been saying that reason cannot lead you to God, and while I think that this sort of irrationalism is misguided and that reason actually can at least lead you to the gates, if you actually stop and try to conceptualize what it means to say that God exists, you really are going to start feeling like an ant trying to understand neuroscience. Theism actually is mind-breaking like that.

2) If you're looking specifically at Christianity rather than theism in general, you have to consider what it means for something to be a divine revelation. Christianity doesn't make the claim that humans can fully grasp God's nature by their own power, but rather that God chose to briefly live as a human so that he could show us what it really means to be God. This means that we can be the ant trying to understand something beyond its grasp, since what we know was given to us.

3) The idea that reality might be utterly alien and beyond our grasp does in a very real sense come from naturalism/materialism itself. We at some point kind of just decided that we lived in an unknowable, indifferent universe, in which everything was ultimately senseless. Theism, in contrast, says that reality is rationally ordered, and that our own rational minds are more than just an accident of history. Not to rehash a sort of Plantinga style Argument from Reason, but if theism is true, then it would make sense that our minds were capable of vaguely grasping at that truth, whereas if it's not true, we have much bigger problems to worry about.

If you already think that theism makes more sense than naturalism/materialism, my question would be precisely what more you need. I agree with what @2PhiloVoid said on the last page--you don't need anywhere near 100% certainty to have faith. I'm not saying to ignore whatever intellectual hurdles you might have, since I obviously didn't, but sometimes you have to keep in mind that emotional hurdles exist too. I obsessed over these questions for the longest time in part because treating God as something to be studied and considered was a lot easier than... whatever it is we're actually supposed to be doing. I still have only sort of started to figure things out, lol.

So I'm going to have to also give you some of the same sort of advice you've been getting elsewhere in this thread: have you been praying? Do you know how to? (I didn't until I was kind of compelled to.) If you specifically feel drawn towards Christianity, reading Scripture (and biblical scholarship) with an open mind can be useful also, even if you're skeptical of it. I think the intellectual path to faith is perfectly valid, but you're probably more likely to get results if you're conscious all the way through that it may well be that you're the one being studied here, rather than the reverse.

Anyway, any other questions, feel free to ask.

 

[Hawkins]

Hi, I'm a non-believer who would like to believe. Right now I just don't know if God exists and despite my desire to believe I just can't force myself to do so. I think I've heard all the logical arguments for the existence of God, and while they do make sense all they do is provide a plausible explanation that does not disprove other explanations. Has any of you by any chance been in a similar situation and managed to overcome it? If yes then I would really like to hear how it happened. Thank you in advance.

Usually due to our secular education, we are taught to doubt things which cannot be proved. However subconsciously we actually go the opposite, we accept things cannot be proved once we accept that naturally they are not provable. We take histories as what they are without proof, or we sound as if they can be proved, again due to being educated in a form.

For an example, can you prove that you ever ate eggs before the age of 10. We can't because humans basically lack the ability to get to a past occurrence especially related to individual activities. However by education we somehow got the impression that history can be proved through archaeology. Archaeology only works in rare occasions where an ancient site is conserved usually by a sheer chance. We don't have the ability to track down trails of most individual activities. In this case our education (in whatever way we are educated subconsciously) has applied a leverage, that is, by sheer chance we can prove a history through archaeology and by the same sheer chance that an event is mentioned by more than one sources of writings (say the Greeks and Jews wrote the same event but it is limited to events common to both ethnic groups, which however is rare in history), we fallaciously concluded that history can be proved (while more generally it can't).

The reality is, in the case where a history cannot be proved we can accept it as factual as 1) we don't have a choice, 2) the author (the historian) or the source is deemed credible, this is however yet another fallacious impression by another leverage. We can't possibly examine the credibility of a person lived long ago, we take that the historian is credible by assuming the he's deemed credible by people back in his days. Say we can't actually examine how reliable Josephus is when he's writing history about the Jews. We have to assume so with no choice or else we have to scrape his works, then we have no other better source to get to know what could possibly happen to the Jews in 1st century (even when we have another source, it is in the similar situation as Josephus and his works).

Subconsciously we know that we cannot prove anything but have to accept something like Josephus' works as factual in history, to an extent that we are educated not even to doubt that or question that. We only choose to criticize possibly the part which contradicts other sources such as from the Romans in 1st century.

The only way we can get to what you ate as a child perhaps from your mom as she is a valid eyewitness. Like history mentioned above, we don't have an alternative as a choice, and we can't even examine whether your mom has a private motive to lie (can't actually examine the credibility but have to assume). So if your mom told us that you ever swallowed a bullet, shall we believe. We usually do by assuming that she has no motive to lie, while we don't have a second source deemed more credible.

The next fallacious line of reasoning is that something incredible cannot be conveyed by the same means mentioned above. If you have met an alien, then how can this fact (let's assume that you actually met with an alien for the sake of argument) be conveyed from you to another human? The only thing you can do perhaps is just to tell people frankly. They believe then they have the fact, they reject then they won't have the fact. It's an incredible event, however humans don't have an alternative way to convey such a fact. We don't have a better way than human testimonies for such a truth to convey.

God is portrayed by His chosen eyewitnesses. He showed to them that He's God by doing basically two things which humans cannot do, 1) to tell a future and 2) to break our physics laws. God speaks prophecies through the mouth of His chosen eyewitness for the purpose of showing them that He's God and authenticates them to be the prophets (i.e., by giving them the ability to foretell that other humans cannot do).

We thus know God and His Bible by those who witnessed His deeds and words. Revelation is primarily to these first hand eyewitnesses. You can doubt the revelation the same way as we can double about how your mom told about you swallowed a bullet, but we don't have a better source other than the prophets to prove anything as it is out of human capability to do so. We can't prove that you ever swallowed a bullet even when it's truth, your mom remains possibly the only way for humans to get to this fact. This is what our reality is, if you are willing to penetrate the fallacious and leveraged line of reasoning we gained from being educated as mentioned above.

In a nutshell, we are educated to have a sense of doubting, but on the very contrary we accept facts from testimonies subconsciously in order to deal with this reality. In reality we acquire facts from testimonies without evidence or proof actually displayed to us. We acquire facts from testimonies in the form of histories (past event), our daily news (current event) and even our science (as testimonies of a few scientists as only our scientists have the privilege to use expensive equipment to get to direct evidence).

 

[Marcie]

If you already think that theism makes more sense than naturalism/materialism, my question would be precisely what more you need.

A conviction that theism (rather than something else which we haven't thought of yet or maybe can't possibly ever think of because of our limitations) is the right answer. Maybe us concluding that theism is right just because it is a better explanation than naturalism is like some ancient people concluding that earthquakes were caused by angry gods because it was better than other explanations they had available.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

Hi, I'm a non-believer who would like to believe. Right now I just don't know if God exists and despite my desire to believe I just can't force myself to do so. I think I've heard all the logical arguments for the existence of God, and while they do make sense all they do is provide a plausible explanation that does not disprove other explanations. Has any of you by any chance been in a similar situation and managed to overcome it? If yes then I would really like to hear how it happened. Thank you in advance.

I am at a place where I think a great deal of Christianity requires imagination.. It is quite an elaborate system based on interpretation of scripture. i guess I am a practical guy. Heaven, Hell, devils and some kind of sacrificial substitutional punishment for being human doesn't make much sense to me. And any kind of literal approach to Genesis is out of the question.

Once I clear all that out I can begin to talk about a God I can believe in. Maybe that is something different for all of us.

 

[Caliban]

Which demonstrates unbelief.

Can you elaborate on what your comment means? What about unbelief?

 

[childeye 2]

Hi, I'm a non-believer who would like to believe. Right now I just don't know if God exists and despite my desire to believe I just can't force myself to do so. I think I've heard all the logical arguments for the existence of God, and while they do make sense all they do is provide a plausible explanation that does not disprove other explanations. Has any of you by any chance been in a similar situation and managed to overcome it? If yes then I would really like to hear how it happened. Thank you in advance.

I just happened upon this thread and I don't know if someone else has already said this. The term God, in scripture, is an axiom meant to denote the source of the energy that created all things. It's an axiom because we're here physically, therefore we got here somehow. So God exists or else we don't. There are many various images of God/god, but everyone has one, whether they realize it or not.

 

[mnorian]

Admin hat on

This thread has gone thru a cleanup of posts that were in violation of the SOP; especially the part about only one non-Christian may ask a question; which I high-lighted in red; below:

Exploring Christianity Forum Statement of Purpose

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We recognize that sincere non-Christian seekers are looking for real answers, and the first reply given may be insufficient to achieve this. It is acceptable for the Original Poster (OP) to probe the answers given, and to continue the discussion on lines which help to clarify their understanding of the Christian faith. If another non-Christian seeker wishes to ask questions about the Christian faith, they may start their own thread. No more than one non-Christian Seeker (the OP) may post in a thread.

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Hat off.​

 

[Eva Quispe]

Hi, Natalie Welcome to Christian Forums I am Bill, pleased to meet you God bless you however He pleases

I am now thinking that God is so more and better and different than the "god" which people are trying to prove or disprove.

You can read the Bible and discover all this says about God. And very possibly it will be clear we can not use just logic to prove all we have in God's word about Him.

But in us God proves Himself to us, doing with us all His word says we need to do . . . which is meant to be in personal sharing with Him.

I can't prove that God is our Father and Jesus and the Holy Spirit > all how "God is love" (please see 1 John 8:&16). But I can see there is logical stuff you can conclude from this > how God is about family caring and sharing love, and He is personal with His children. So, if we try to handle God in a theoretical and logical way, this can keep us away . . . not discovering Him in personal sharing in His own love >

"Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." (Romans 5:5)

So, God is this personal with us who are His children.

And I think we can get some help about how to be with God and so personally share with Him and submit to how He guides us >

"rather let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God." (1 Peter 3:4)

If this scripture means God's love is gentle and quiet . . . you can see why people are not experiencing God. Because we in our human ways can be living in our own mental and emotional and intellectual chaos which keeps us noisy so we miss God who is quiet and gentle and humble in how He shares with His children.

I have offered what anyone can read in the Bible, haven't I? But ones arguing and denying can have a way of not bringing your attention to this, right? Now, why would that be? If people are honest and trustworthy and competent readers, I would think they would know these scriptures and include them in their discussion of God.

You might evaluate why they haven't. I mean, if God is quiet and gentle and humble and all-loving, why are people not experiencing Him to be like this?? Jesus suffered and died for each and every person, with hope for even any evil person, at all. So, any of us can share with Jesus, by personally caring about each and every person, with hope for any person, at all > because God's love "hopes all things" (in 1 Corinthians 13:7). And this is how we know Him > by being pleasing to our Father in His love's "incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God", while personally caring for any and all people in sharing with Jesus.

While we share with God in His all-loving love, we also discover how, with Jesus, we have His almighty power to keep us free from that chaos which keeps people elsewhere > "the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." (in Philippians 4:4-7)

We understand how God is almighty, right? Well, then, this peace of God is almighty to easily guard our "hearts and minds" < clearly said, right in God's word. This is logical, though we can not prove this with only intellectual discussion; we need how God proves this, in us.

Hi Bill, I struggle with the same thing as Natalie. I don’t believe in the miracles of Jesus, nor do I connect Christianity. This was the first time I’ve read scripture and connected to it spiritually. I have a long way to go but this was a start. Thank you.
What denomination are you?

 

[ldonjohn]

Hi, I'm a non-believer who would like to believe. Right now I just don't know if God exists and despite my desire to believe I just can't force myself to do so. I think I've heard all the logical arguments for the existence of God, and while they do make sense all they do is provide a plausible explanation that does not disprove other explanations. Has any of you by any chance been in a similar situation and managed to overcome it? If yes then I would really like to hear how it happened. Thank you in advance.

Hi Marcie,

Hey, I can identify with your struggle to believe; many years I went through a similar struggle. I was raised in a Baptist church & was "saved" at age 13.
By the time I was 18-19 years old I wasn't sure God was real or that the bible was true. Several years later I decided that if I was wrong in my unbelief and if the bible IS true then I was looking at a fearful future.
I won't get into my testimony here, but I will just say that I lived in fear & misery for several years as I searched for anything I could find that would convince me that God was real and that the bible is true. Like you, I tried to make myself believe. I would try to work up some sense of believing in God & Jesus and then say some prayer that I had heard in church, but that never worked for me. I had only doubts, unanswered questions, fear, and misery. Something was missing; a missing link that evaded me. I thought there was NO way I could ever know the truth of the matter. I was lost and living in spiritual darkness. I felt I was doomed.

Sorry, I didn't intend to get into my testimony here. Yes, I did find my answer, and I can give you a link to my testimony if you are interested in reading that. For now, I want to give you a link to an article written by a former atheist. It is lengthy, but is also very good. Hope you will take a look at it.

“From Atheism to Christianity:a Personal Story.”[18 June 2016]

http://www.bethinking.org/is-christianity-true/from-atheism-to-christianity-a-personal-journey

Regards,

John

 

[Marcie]

Anyway, any other questions, feel free to ask.

Hi, it's me again - with questions. Without going into too much detail, at this point I do believe theism is right. However, how do I go from this to believing that I need to participate in a specific set of rituals, on a specific day each week, in a specific building, or else I am doing something immoral? How to go from this to believing that a specific form of theism is 100% right in their interpretation of God?

 

[Silmarien]

Hi, it's me again - with questions. Without going into too much detail, at this point I do believe theism is right. However, how do I go from this to believing that I need to participate in a specific set of rituals, on a specific day each week, in a specific building, or else I am doing something immoral? How to go from this to believing that a specific form of theism is 100% right in their interpretation of God?

Even within Christianity, there's not really one single specific set of rituals, and people don't always meet on Sundays. Some branches are sacramental, so taking Communion regularly is less a matter of correctly following a ritual, and more a matter of... well, actual communion with God. I don't think it's necessarily immoral to belong to a different religion, though many here will probably disagree with that.

I'm going to guess that you're specifically attracted to Christianity, since you're here. At this point, I think it's useful to have a very clear picture of what all of the different religions say, so that you can compare and contrast between them in a more meaningful sense, so... I would say to go read stuff like the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita.

The major question right now is whether you believe that revelation is something that ought to be expected or not. If theism is true, does it make more sense for God to communicate in a more direct sense or not? I've seen atheists make the claim that because there are so many different religions, God cannot be behind any of them since that would make him the author of confusion, but I'd take the opposite approach. Left on our own, we are just going to make up a bunch of stuff, so it makes sense to me that God would speak at some point to push us in the right direction. And if he did, he'd make sure that it was a revelation that survived over time, so to me, that narrows things down to the Abrahamic and Vedic faiths. Vedic faiths are what I would expect from a man-made religion, given that their vision of divinity is largely based in the exploration of consciousness; Abrahamic faiths are much, much stranger, with a number of pretty radical features.

So yeah. I would say to explore the question of revelation vs. non-revelation, and then if you go with the former, explore and compare the various major revelation claims.

 

[Marcie]

I'm going to guess that you're specifically attracted to Christianity, since you're here.

Not really. I just figured that it would be the easiest to find help amongst Christians.

So yeah. I would say to explore the question of revelation vs. non-revelation, and then if you go with the former, explore and compare the various major revelation claims.

But how do I find out which one of them (and which interpretation) is right? I can't just pick whichever seems to suit me the most or "feels right".

 

[Silmarien]

But how do I find out which one of them (and which interpretation) is right? I can't just pick whichever seems to suit me the most or "feels right".

I would look at what they say and try to figure out which one looks most likely to have some truth value behind it. A key part of that is going to be researching the historical aspects of any religion. For example, I don't find Islam at all compelling for a variety of reasons, one of which is that Mohammed's approach towards other faiths seemed to shift depending on how good or bad his relationship with them was at any given time. That indicates that his doctrines are really influenced by what was going on in his life and probably not an angelic revelation.

 

[Marcie]

That indicates that his doctrines are really influenced by what was going on in his life and probably not an angelic revelation.

Doesn't something similar apply to Christianity? The God of the Bible appears to adjust his moral guidance to the culture and mentality of the people. It was ok for the ancient Israelites to do things which nowadays would be considered immoral by almost any human being. In ancient Israel killing a homosexual was the moral thing to do, nowadays treating them with respect and compassion and offering a helping hand in the fight against their temptation is the right thing to do. At least according to most Christians, as some think there is absolutely nothing immoral about homosexual acts. It makes it hard to see the Bible as the word of God, rather than a "very rough draft" of Gods message heavily distorted by the mentality and prejudices of the people who received it.

 

[Silmarien]

Doesn't something similar apply to Christianity? The God of the Bible appears to adjust his moral guidance to the culture and mentality of the people. It was ok for the ancient Israelites to do things which nowadays would be considered immoral by almost any human being. In ancient Israel killing a homosexual was the moral thing to do, nowadays treating them with respect and compassion and offering a helping hand in the fight against their temptation is the right thing to do. At least according to most Christians, as some think there is absolutely nothing immoral about homosexual acts. It makes it hard to see the Bible as the word of God, rather than a "very rough draft" of Gods message heavily distorted by the mentality and prejudices of the people who received it.

Judaism isn't the work of a single individual, though. There is an idea in Christianity called progressive revelation, whereby God's message does unfold over time, finally culminating in the Gospel itself, but that people aren't given more than they're prepared for at any one point. I also think it's a mistake to judge the ancient Israelites against the modern world instead of against the rest of the ancient world, because if you actually look at the Old Testament within the cultural context of what was going on at that time period more broadly, you'll find a lot of interesting, radical stuff. (The negativity towards kingship, the approach to justice based in social justice for marginalized groups like widows, the poor, and the foreigner instead of the more popular vengeance-based picture of justice, etc.)

The real revelation in Christianity is the Gospel, though. That's where it matters that what we see isn't overly distorted by the time period, because it's the lens through which we should really be reading the whole Bible, and what the modern approach to homosexuality is drawn from. That particular message hasn't really changed, even if we're less terrible at picking up on it now than we were in the good old "burn the heretic" days.

 

[Marcie]

I also think it's a mistake to judge the ancient Israelites against the modern world instead of against the rest of the ancient world

I agree. They were far better than the neighbouring nations. Perhaps that was the most people were capable of at the time. That being said, do you really think the Old Testament speaks the truth? That the writers didn't twist the fact in any way? Not telling the people more than they can handle is one thing, but ordering a genocide (the Canaanites) and killing innocent people (Egyptian firstborn) is another. Moreover, how do we extract the message of God from the text so heavily influenced by the limitations, culture and circumstances of the people receiving/interpreting it? What if for example the reason Jews in 1st century couldn't be told "it's ok to be gay" in addition to "it's ok to eat pork and wear clothes made from various fabrics" is because "they were not prepared for it at this point" just like ancient Israelites were not prepared to be told that slavery is utterly immoral? Or maybe they were never told not to do those things and those parts of the Bible are just their cultural heritage unrelated to the Revelation.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

I probably will later on. First I gotta do some reading and wrap my head around some things. Thank you for help.

So, what kind of reading and wrapping have you done so far, Marcie?

 

[mmarco]

Hi Marcie,

I am a physicist and I think that a rational analysis of our scientific knowledges provides strong and convincent arguments supporting the existence of a personal intelligent God.
Let me give you a short summary of these arguments:

1. All what science shows about the universe is that it manifests itself to us as a realization of some specific abstract mathematical models (what we call “the laws of physics”); in fact, the subatomic components of matters (quantum particles and fields) are actually only abtract mathematical concepts. On the other hand, mathematical models are only constructions of the rational thought and a mathematical model can exist only as a thought in a thinking mind conceiving it; therefore the existence of this mathematically structured universe implies the existence of an intelligent God, conceiving if as a mathematrical model. In other words, the universe can be only the manifestation of a mathematical theory existing in the mind of an intelligent and conscious God, i.e. a personal God.
   
   
2. There is another argument from physics that I find strongly convincing; according to our scientific knowledges, all chemical and biological processes (including cerebral processes) are caused by the electromagnetic interaction between subatomic particles such as electrons and protons. Quantum mechanics accounts for such interactions, as well as for the properties of subatomic particles. The point is that there is no trace of consciousness, sensations, emotions, etc. in the laws of quantum mechanics (as well as in all the laws of physcis). Consciousness is irriducible to the laws of physics, while all cerebral processes are. This is for me the most convincing argument against materialism (which identifies cerebral processes as the origin of consciousness) and in favour of the existence of the soul, as the unphysical and trascendent principle necessary for the existence of our consciousness. Since our soul cannot have a physical origin, it can only be created directly by God. The existence of God is a necessary condition for the existence of our soul, as well as for the existence of us as conscious beings.
   
   
3. Since God is the Creator of ourselves, He is certainly superior to ourselves. Since God has the capacity to create our intelligence, our consciousness and our will, He must be intelligent, conscious and He must have a will. In fact, since God is superior to us and He is the Creator of our own capacities, He must possess our own capacities in a superior way. Since God is superior to us, He must have a superior capacity to love.
   
   
4. The reason why I believe that God the Creator of the universe and of our soul is the God of Jesus Christ, is that I find that the christian concept of God and of divine love is the highest possible concept. I find that the idea itself that God loves us so much that He chose to assume the human nature and accepted to suffer crucifission in order to save us, expresses such a high concept of God and of divine love that it can comes only from God. In other words it is the christian concept of God's love that makes me believe that Christ is the true God.

I hope this may help.

 

[mmarco]

Perhaps that was the most people were capable of at the time. That being said, do you really think the Old Testament speaks the truth?

I think that the OT is based on secular oral traditions and therefore it is not reliable as an historical text, but we can find some important spiritual teachings in it; however these spiritual teachings are understandable only in the light of the New Testament.

That the writers didn't twist the fact in any way?

Yes, they did.

Not telling the people more than they can handle is one thing, but ordering a genocide (the Canaanites) and killing innocent people (Egyptian firstborn) is another.

According to the Catholic Church, God never ordered such genocides, but they are inventions of the jews with the aim to prove that their God was more powerful than other deities.

Moreover, how do we extract the message of God from the text so heavily influenced by the limitations, culture and circumstances of the people receiving/interpreting it? What if for example the reason Jews in 1st century couldn't be told "it's ok to be gay" in addition to "it's ok to eat pork and wear clothes made from various fabrics" is because "they were not prepared for it at this point" just like ancient Israelites were not prepared to be told that slavery is utterly immoral? Or maybe they were never told not to do those things and those parts of the Bible are just their cultural heritage unrelated to the Revelation.

You must consider that Jesus taught much more strict moral commandments than the ones of the OT, also as far as sexual behavior were concerned; for example, Jesus said that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart; nothing like taht exists in the OT. The New Testament contains much more strict commandments about sexual issues than the Old Testamente, therefore it is illogical to think that such commandments are due to a cultural heritage; actually the were against the jewish culture. As far as omosexuality is concerned, which is explicitly condamned in the New Testament, you should consider that both omosexuality and bisexuality were allowed and practised among pagans, such as greeks and romans; therefore it is illogial to think that the comdemnation of omosexual practices can be due to the backwardness of the jews; actually, the understanding of the immoral nature of such practices is a sign of the more mature moral conscience of the jews with respect to the pagans.