Why do you think the Bible was written by God?
I used to think the same thing, but the Bible does seem to have problems, such as contradictions (eg: What with the resurrection?)
Because that is what is written in the Bible (that it was written by God). I don't think there are contradictions; we may just not be understanding them correctly, so therefore they appear to be contradictions. I'm not biblically literate enough to explain all the apparent contradictions though. Mainly it is a matter of trust to me.
It sounds like you believe because you want to believe. But I wont push my beliefs too strongly.
I do want to believe, like I had mentioned--I want to believe very much. There was a time when I was an atheist (or rather, I had thought I was a Christian) and wanted to, but there was nothing there beyond a feeling. Nothing was at the foundation of my faith except what I was doing to try to maintain it; therefore, it went away. Now something has changed to where it, though it can't be described as hardly more than a feeling (similar to before), is so much more than that though only I can understand it that way.
I loved God, the problem is that no matter how much you love someone, it matters whether that person really exists. If God exists, reason should support that. When I was a Christian, I thought I had good reasons to believe in God.
So I wouldn't say it's about liking reason more than God. Reason is how to know if what you are doing makes sense. I loved God, but if I'm loving a fictional character, then it doesn't matter how much I love that character... there's no reason to believe in that character.
Whatever was your experience with God, something overcame it to turn you away from it. Your experience with God was fictional to you then, or it turned that way. What were the good reasons that you thought were sufficient then when you believed in God? Why then did they not become sufficient reasons? Something changed then when those reasons did not become sufficient anymore. When you were a Christian, had you not been exposed to worldly reason and logic?
I would imagine that if one did not depend on God entirely for their fulfillment, to crave nothing more than to know and be with Him, that it isn't too difficult for preachers of worldly reason and logic to tear away someone's belief in God, if God does not sustain it. It is what had happened to me. I wanted to believe in God, but I didn't know Him; I didn't want to know Him. The theology that my family was into sounded neat and interesting, but after a while I got really bored of reading the Bible. Philosophy and logical thinking seemed way more interesting to me, and made a lot more sense too!
I didn't reject God for something else. I just stopped believing in God. Religious experiences could just be psychological... so if someone understands that, they could stop believing the experiences prove God.
That's true--they could stop believing, unless God sustains their belief. It reminds me of a Bible verse where it says that even the elect would be deceived if it were possible. Of all the talk of end times, that is the only thing that makes me wonder sometimes if this is it. From my limited understanding of psychology and what I know of religious experiences, it does seem very possible that that is all it could be, or rather that a person who does not know God would see it as definitely a matter of a person's psychological disposition.
Yet then it all comes down to trust and how much one wants to believe in God--and of course, if He will sustain their belief. To me, it just doesn't matter, the idea that it could be something psychological. What will it gain for me to throw God out of my life because well, it could just be something psychological? It will gain me nothing and I will lose everything. This world has nothing in it that is attractive to me. I have lost my life by gaining it. Why would I throw away the thing that I have gained so that then I will have nothing?
In what will seem like no time at all, we will all be at the time when our lives are ending. No one of us is going to know what is going to happen to us when we die, though many think they have a good idea. At that time, I will--if God sustains my faith--have no regrets for not dispensing with my faith and going back into the world again. If it were up to me, I would have nothing to do with the world at all, but God's plan is for us not to live in isolation; I must suffer through the trials of this life for the glory that is Him. And at the end, my dying thought will (hopefully) be that I will finally rest with my Saviour, that I am "nearly there". What does it matter if, as the atheist believes, it never happens? Am I the worse off at the end for it? I don't see how it is except for some explanation along the lines of "Well, you might have been able to do or have so many things if you weren't a Christian". Well, those things have no interest for me, they are nothing but empty promises and transient pleasures. The only pleasure I have is of knowing God which is His promise to us for eternity. That is the only motivation I have to continue living.
