I want to believe

[Myrtle Stics]

Your faith can be restored through the Church of the Latter Day Saints. I recommend finding a Mormon missionary near you and learn about the amazing faith of Mormonism!

 

[crossnote]

Your faith can be restored through the Church of the Latter Day Saints. I recommend finding a Mormon missionary near you and learn about the amazing faith of Mormonism!

This appears to be a blatant violation of the rules for this forum "Struggles by the Non Christian"...

"Only non-Christians may start threads here, and only orthodox Christians may reply to your thread. Christians (orthodox and unorthodox) may not start threads here."

Mormonism has a different Jesus and can in no way be considered 'orthodox christianity'.

 

[Trichakra]

I want to believe in God, but my mind is not letting me.

If you wanna believe in god then what are you waiting for?

I don't have any physical proof that God exists.

Even there is no proof that god does not exists.

 

[nChrist]

The proof of God, our Creator, is all around us. His Creation is intricate and can't be explained by chance or the so-called "big bang".

Psalms 19:1-6 KJV The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. 2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. 4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, 5 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. 6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.

 

[Thir7ySev3n]

I want to believe in God, but my mind is not letting me. I don't have any physical proof that God exists. Is religion something that humans made up to explain things? How do you know that God is real? What causes you to believe? The world is such a horrible place and so many bad things are happening. Where is God through all of this? If he loved us why isn't he showing himself to the world today? Part of me yearns for something to believe in. When I was younger I believed but it seems like the world has jaded me and I have lost my faith.

When I said my mind, I meant logically I don't have any scientific proof of God. That is the main reason I am doubting.

This is a long response, but you asked a lot of questions, so I hope you can endure the answers (this is actually my best effort to provide you my short version of the answers, but I don't like providing answers that leave more questions).

Is religion something that humans made up to explain things?

I am going to assume by religion you just mean the broader context of theological pursuits, rather than groups that adhere to distinct sets of ritual practices in the attempt to satisfy the divine; I make this distinction because Christianity is the former, not the latter, as many theologies are constituted by (such as many eastern religions and "Christian" cults). Given this broader definition, I would say there is no reason to simply presume any religion is made-up simply on the grounds that they attempt to investigate and explain things, any more than the scientific method is a "made-up" way of investigating and apprehending information in it's field of discovery; religion (as broadly defined) and science both endeavor to discover objective information concerning their respective fields in ways that correspond to what is being investigated. This is why we use the historical method for investigating history and not the scientific one, or vice versa, as this would be absurd, and to consign an ostensible monopoly on truth to any particular field would be demonstrably false. Likewise, we will not properly attempt to discover the existence of God within the framework of what science studies itself, but that does not imply that God can not be proven by science, only that He is not to be found within what is studied in science directly.

To return to and repeat an earlier point, there is no grounds to presume a religion is fabricated based on the fact that it attempts to explain things any more than there are grounds to dismiss any other field of study for the same reason. What we must use is all of the tools available to us as human beings to determine if a particular religion corresponds to the facts that we do know and can apprehend rationally or empirically (not all truths are apprehended by one or the other; some truths are perceived solely through the reason, such as morality, justice and other abstract realities, and others are perceived through empirical observation, such as the constitution of aluminum or what produces colour). Besides that, an objection to a theology based on it's motivations is nothing more than genetic fallacy, which is fallacious because the motivations behind the affirmation of a truth claim or set of truth claims is irrelevant to their veracity. But many claims must be examined under the scope of the broad spectrum of disciplines and rational investigation to determine their veracity, and not be ineptly isolated to that of the presumptions of materialism and scientism, which would ironically be destructive to the discipline of science itself.

How do you know that God is real? What causes you to believe?

For Christians, who have the greatest kind of evidence there is, that being personal experience, we believe because we have the self-disclosure of God Himself. As with any testimony, however, being that we are free agents, this does not render the testimony irresistible or indubitable. Also, this in itself is not an argument for Christianity, but rather a testimony as to why personally we believe, in response to your question. I believe in a particularly Christian theism because of my experience with the God of the Bible, but I believe in the existence of God in general because His existence is obvious from what can be seen in the creation, including our own elaborate constitutions. The fact that we are rational, delicately designed creatures who can rationally observe a likewise rationally and delicately designed universe that carries intelligible information and is governed by constants and quantities finely-tuned for the sustaining of life and even matter.

Traversing the gap between general theism and a particularly Christian theism is rather simple upon examining the evidence surrounding the ultimate fate of Jesus of Nazareth, and the authenticity of the person of Jesus Himself, who will prove to be a very attractive and rational option for anyone wanting to reconcile what we know about the nature of humanity and our relationship to God. Christ is the best answer to what we intuitively and empirically observe regarding the sinfulness of man, the righteousness of God, the justice that life demands, and the perfect reconciliation of this absolute justice with absolute mercy that is satisfied in a perfect God through His incarnation, life, death and resurrection.

The world is such a horrible place and so many bad things are happening. Where is God through all of this? If he loved us why isn't he showing himself to the world today?

The answer to the first part of this question is in an understanding of the providence of God, and by providence I mean God's creative decree based upon considerations of creaturely freedom and His middle knowledge of all true conterfactuals (counterfactuals being those things that would be true given different circumstances, i.e., even what would be different in the world if you decided to turn left instead of right at an intersection or avoided a particular conversation).

In creating a universe that would accommodate truly free moral agents (to make an extensive argument brief as possible, moral freedom is necessary for the existence of moral goods), God would have an infinite number of options available to Him with an equally infinite amount of possible outcomes. From what we know about the nature of God, He would naturally choose to create the world which would produce the greatest possible outcome. What is the greatest possible outcome? There is none other than that world which provides the circumstances which leads the largest number of souls to freely accept the grace of God through the salvation provided in Jesus Christ. From what we know about God's nature, particularly that God is omnibenevolent, omniscient and omnipotent, this can be deductively inferred as follows:

1. Because God is omnibenevolent, He would be desire to create the world which would produce the greatest potential good
2. Because God is omniscient, He would know which world would produce the greatest potential good
3. Because God is omnipotent, He would be able to create the world which would produce the greatest potential good

Therefore the world in which we exist is that which would produce the great potential good. To repeat, this greatest good is the largest number of souls that would freely surrender themselves to God and receive His grace.

Again, God would have had a literally infinite number of options present of worlds to create with an equally infinite number of outcomes. By His perfect nature, however, God would not create a world at random in which His will to create concurrently free and absolutely loved creatures was not accomplished. So God would have to narrow His options to feasible worlds which accommodate creaturely freedom and yet lovingly provides the circumstances that permits each person who would freely choose God to do so. Knowing God, once He had narrowed the options to the assortment of great results, He would naturally choose the greatest of these possible outcomes. This is not to say God is predestining our decisions, but the creation of the world which would provide the social, environmental and personal circumstances that are necessary for each individual, in their own times and places as God foreknew, to interact with each other, their environment and God in a way that corresponds to their psychology/personality, ultimately and inevitably leading to the salvation of those who would freely respond affirmatively to God's grace in whatever circumstance they find themselves. In this sense, then, God can literally be said to have elected those who are saved, though their choices as well as those who reject God are entirely free.

As is stated in Acts 17, God placed us within our context because He knew that if given that context we would freely choose to accept Him by the testimony and in-dwelling of the Holy Spirit. It could then be rightly asked "well then could God have not provided a precise set of circumstances that would be those which are necessary to win the soul of every person?", and the answer would be no. For some people, there is no such set of circumstances that would be sufficient for them to freely receive the salvation of Christ by the Holy Spirit's testimony. This is affirmed doubly in the Scriptures. First, in Daniel 12:10 concerning the course through to the end times Jesus says: "Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand." Again, concerning God's providence Paul says in Romans 9:22: "What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?"

It may also seem confusing to think that God has among His human creation "objects of wrath" which He prepares for destruction, until you comprehend these points and Scriptures collectively. There are some souls which God would create that will freely reject Him under any and all circumstances, but are still necessary in the grand scheme of world history to play a role in drawing all those who will be freely saved into that salvation. God Himself illustrates this wonderfully in His statement to Pharaoh in Exodus 9:15-16: "For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

See Acts 17:26-27, Genesis 50:20, Jeremiah 25:8-14 and Judges 14:4 for more Scriptural examples on the providence of God and how it works.

Additionally, the gospel reveals that God is not removed from human suffering, neither emotionally nor physically, nor even perspectively; God is comprehensively acquainted with our suffering (Isaiah 53:3). In the gospel it is revealed that Jesus of Nazareth, the Word (or logos) of God, the second person of the Trinity, incarnated in the body of a man; He assumed the nature of a man and though remaining truly God became also truly man, possessing the divine nature in His Spirit and the human nature in His flesh. Thus, though this man we call Jesus Christ remained perfect in His divine qualities, He subjected Himself to the expression of those qualities by fleshly limitations, though remaining sinless, and to the human experience of our weaknesses.

Christ had to endure the course of the human life, growing from a child into a man, obeying His Father from a truly human perspective. He was submitted like a man to the duties the Father assigned Him in His life and physically and emotionally endured the hardships of human service with the taxing nature of living to glorify, in the flesh, our heavenly Father in a world pervaded by sin, to love enduringly those who did not love Him. Throughout His ministry, Jesus faced hunger, thirst, fatigue, self-denial, rejection, persecution, mockery, hatred, abandonment, physical attacks, brutality and eventually death. To compound the problem, all of this was endured as innocent suffering by a man who had no culpability, and who lived for the exclusive purpose of glorifying His Father through the extension of His grace, mercy, love towards and leadership of lost mankind.

There is no man more acquainted with suffering, and no man less deserving of His fate than Jesus Christ Himself. Yet this is the life Christ endured to provide the unmerrited favour of God towards the world He gave Himself up for; "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)." To emphasize the truly human experience of this suffering, Christ did not endure His road to the cross removed from the depth and perspective of the human experience, but demonstrated intense anxiety, anguish and sorrow towards His impending fate of temporary separation from His Father and physical death (Matthew 26:41-42, Luke 22:44). Despite this, He surrendered Himself to this fate to be offered as the only ransom which is acceptable for our account, the only name under heaven by which we can be saved (John 14:6, Acts 4:12), and was resurrected on the third day following to vindicate His claims before many witnesses, as the gospels testify.

Jesus Christ is the fullness of deity in human form (Colossians 2:9), the complete expression of God and everything He wanted and needed to say to mankind. He is our advocate, our mediator, our saviour and Lord; the Alpha and the Omega, the Almighty. In Christ is the fulfillment of human existence, our purpose, our meaning, our value and our suffering.

God is in the same place He has always been, which is available, ready and waiting with the offer of Jesus Christ to all who will accept His payment on their behalf to reconcile to God and enter into relationship with Him. It is through our circumstances that we find the need for Christ and the facilitation of the testimony of the Holy Spirit regarding sin, righteousness and judgement; "about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned (John 16:9-11)." It is also our circumstances that facilitate our freedom of the will to either accept or reject God upon exposure to these realities; the nature of the world and the capacities of our flesh allow enough room for a person's heart to reveal itself, so that they can both see or choose to be blinded according to the condition of their heart (Matthew 13:15), so that at the end of all things it may be known that God is righteous in all His judgments.

When I said my mind, I meant logically I don't have any scientific proof of God. That is the main reason I am doubting.

After providing as succinct an answer as I know how to your other questions, if this really is your prime reason for doubting, it should be understood that your reason for doubt arises from absurdly irrational expectations. I don't say this to offend by any means, but rather to relieve you, as you say you want to believe.

If I asked you to give scientific proof for the inference of a creator, not physically present, from a part of their creation, would you necessarily look inside of that creation to assert their existence? As an example, if I told you to prove to me that a Dell computer was designed, would I rationally expect that you remove the side panel of the tower and point to the man hiding between the electronic cards, or rather that you reference the signature of intelligence and information within the design? Likewise, if I asked a historian to prove to me that a vacant city was built by human hands, would I rationally necessitate that they produce for me an individual or group of individuals responsible for building it, or should it be rationally sufficient for me to see the order in the architecture? How much more absurd is it to take the whole of existence, which is pervaded by information and order, including the brains with which we assess that information and order that surrounds us, and demand through some ridiculous accusation of insufficiency that we find the designer burried under some stone or hiding in a molecule? It is as Paul in Romans 1:20 says:

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

 

[Just_a_Joe]

Why do you want to believe in God? What do you think is your true motivation? Have you ever considered who you truly are? Like, what do you want from life? What's important to you?

You keep saying that the idea of God does not appeal to you intellectually. Could it be because you are considering some widely accepted notions of God? How about your own attempt at making sense of it all? Starting from square one, coming to your own independent conclusions about all things? Instead of accepting other people's pre-existing ideas and trying to make them fit your own understanding?

 

[rob_aston]

I want to believe in God, but my mind is not letting me.

you don't come to God with your mind, in fact it is a barrier