My problem with believing

[Lavone]

Check out and listen this this guy. Andrew Wommack - awmi.net. He has tons of audio. God if not going to find you. You have to draw close to him. If you don't get close to you. The Truth is its a leap of Faith. You can't have faith without risk. Its hard. God is a spirit you can't see a spirit with any of your 5 senses.

Faith comes by hearing the world of God. Keep reading. You have to choose him. Its hard. Everything is not going to be fairytale. Unless you have incredible faith. DO yourself a favor and listen to Andrew Woomack, Creflo Dollar and Charles Stanley.

 

[Megnev]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of the just do it crowd. Christianity is about a personal relationship with God. We believe in a personal God not one that is far off in the distance. If God is real then He can provide you with the proof that you need. If you are sincere in finding out if Jesus Christ is everything we claim He is, then ask Him to make Himself real to you. If you seek Him, He will meet you where you are at. This is something you can do in private between you and Him. No one else needs to know that you have talked to God. What do have to loose? You can talk to God in you own mind, it doesn't even have to be out load because He can hear your innermost thoughts. If He is not real and we are all delusional then you will only have talked to yourself. You can say something like

Hey God. I'm not sure if you are real or just made up. If You are real I want know that You are, so would you please help me to find the proof that I am looking for and the truth about Jesus Christ.

God looks at the heart of the person and He knows what you need in order for you to come to know Him. In times of trouble you can ask Him for help too even if you are not at the point where you believe He exists. There are times when we need all the help that we can get and since you have nothing to loose except half a minute of your life, it never hurts to ask God.

I really liked this advice, Paul. I agreed mostly with the original poster of the thread, and, in fact, became even more "turned off" of Christianity after reading ephraiman's
judgemental and close-minded reply.
But yours was actually very beneficial and I think I will follow your advice. Thank you for not being a typical Christian Fundamentalist who tries to shove their beliefs down my throat.

 

[fenix144]

Why? There is evidence for God and for the person and deity of Jesus. What evidence do you have that there is a FSM?

You can't choose to believe in the absence of a reason(s) to do so. Is this what you think Christians are asking you to do?

You could say that your disbelief was not a choice if you had no choice to make about whether or not to believe. But the Bible you say you've read asserts very clearly that there is a God. You could have chosen to believe the Bible but, instead, you have chosen not to believe it. However quick and easy it was to dismiss the revelation of God in Scripture, you necessarily had to consider the truth of that revelation and decide to reject it.

Many other rational, educated, thoughtful people have had a different response to the revelation of God in the Bible than you did. Disbelief in God is not, therefore, a foregone conclusion that one has no choice but to adopt. Those who are Christians chose to believe in God and in Christ - just as you chose not to believe.

Selah.

circular reasoning= bad.
As for me I used to be a christian. But it was more because of my parents than anything else. I never felt any god or entity or anything really. I never succeeded in convincing myself to believe. The so-called truth of the scriptures never imposed has truth to me. So I did not just ''dismiss'' the so-called truth. The main difference between you and me is that for you the truth of the bible is self-evident while to me it isn't.

 

[Hakan101]

Disbelief is not a choice, reading the Bible has affirmed my disbelief, and no amount of scripture can change that.

Disbelief is totally a choice. Two years ago I vehemently refused to disbelieve in God, even though every part of life seemed to support that thought. You know how if you consciously try to stop thinking about something and it just won't get out of your head? That's what the temptation to disbelieve was like. But I wrestled with it as hard as I could, and eventually God gave me the relief I needed to have faith again.

Because of this, when I read your post I think you must have wanted to disbelieve all along. There were (and still are) many parts of the Bible I don't fully understand or find hard to believe. But I take it as true anyways out of faith; who knows, maybe these things will be made clear to me before I die. I made the choice to shove away the doubts, just like you made the choice to receive them.

 

[aiki]

circular reasoning= bad.

I agree. Please show me where I have employed such reasoning.

As for me I used to be a christian. But it was more because of my parents than anything else.

No one is a Christian by association. You may have taken on the label of Christian because of your parents, but that does not make you genuinely a child of God.

I never felt any god or entity or anything really.

So, one must feel God in order to believe in Him? Do you feel the number 7? Or Jupiter? Or protons? If not, do you believe they don't exist? If so, how do you feel these things?

I never succeeded in convincing myself to believe. The so-called truth of the scriptures never imposed has truth to me.

Well, for others it has.

So I did not just ''dismiss'' the so-called truth. The main difference between you and me is that for you the truth of the bible is self-evident while to me it isn't.

Not exactly, no. I think there's rather more to it than this.

Selah.

 

[Guy Rex Rodgers]

I have not looked at this thread for a couple of weeks and I have a question for the people who make it sound as if we are faced with a clear and simple choice between faith (saved) or unbelief (damned) and between God-given morality (good) or moral relativism (terrible): which God are you talking about and which God-given morality?

The world is not divided between Christians and agnostics/atheists. The vast majority of humans on this planet have believed in some kind of God/gods. Does that mean they were all 'saved'? Anyone who has studied the most rudimentary theology will admit the answer is 'no'.

Many Protestants do not think Catholics are 'saved' although they worship the same God and possess the same God-given moral codes. Quite a few Catholics reciprocate by considering Protestants errant heretics. What about our Jewish brothers and sisters who worship the same God and possess the God-given moral codes of the Old Testament. Are they ‘saved’? We could ask the same question about Muslims who are monotheistic. If there is only one God and Muslims worship the sole God, why do Christians presume they worship the wrong God?

Many Christian theologians have claimed, and continue to claim, that it is not enough to worship ‘God’ or obey revealed moral codes. The only people ‘saved’ are Christians who accept Jesus as their Saviour, and even then only a certain type of Christian.

It is misleading to say that an atheist or agnostic has a simple choice to make between faith and unbelief.

It is also misleading to state that all God-worshippers believe the same thing. Even Christians are deeply divided about belief and morality.

A doubter sincerely prepared to make a leap of faith would be hard pressed to know which way to jump.

For those of you who think it all very clear and simple: what exactly are you asking skeptics to believe in order to be ‘saved’?

 

[Hakan101]

=Guy Rex Rodgers;59013816]I have not looked at this thread for a couple of weeks and I have a question for the people who make it sound as if we are faced with a clear and simple choice between faith (saved) or unbelief (damned) and between God-given morality (good) or moral relativism (terrible): which God are you talking about and which God-given morality?

The world is not divided between Christians and agnostics/atheists. The vast majority of humans on this planet have believed in some kind of God/gods. Does that mean they were all 'saved'? Anyone who has studied the most rudimentary theology will admit the answer is 'no'.

This is a Christian Forum, we're talking about Yahweh, God of Abraham, who sent Jesus to the world to give us salvation.

Many Protestants do not think Catholics are 'saved' although they worship the same God and possess the same God-given moral codes. Quite a few Catholics reciprocate by considering Protestants errant heretics. What about our Jewish brothers and sisters who worship the same God and possess the God-given moral codes of the Old Testament. Are they ‘saved’? We could ask the same question about Muslims who are monotheistic. If there is only one God and Muslims worship the sole God, why do Christians presume they worship the wrong God?

I don't know any Protestant who thinks Catholics aren't saved. I know Protestants who have a problem with and traditions, but I've never heard that they are unsaved. The differences between them are on traditions as far as I know.

The Jews are not saved. The Bible teaches that we all need Jesus, no one goes to the Father through him. Only he is the way to salvation, the light of the world.

Muslims are another matter. We do not believe they worship the same God, it is a false god with a different doctrine that among many things, directly denies Jesus as the savior.

Many Christian theologians have claimed, and continue to claim, that it is not enough to worship ‘God’ or obey revealed moral codes. The only people ‘saved’ are Christians who accept Jesus as their Saviour, and even then only a certain type of Christian.

Right. Obeying moral codes is not enough to get us into heaven, we cannot earn our salvation no matter how hard we work. We fail to meet the standard. That is why God sent Jesus to die for us, that through faith in him, we might be saved. The significance here is reliance on our God, we need him.

It is misleading to say that an atheist or agnostic has a simple choice to make between faith and unbelief.

It is also misleading to state that all God-worshippers believe the same thing. Even Christians are deeply divided about belief and morality.

A doubter sincerely prepared to make a leap of faith would be hard pressed to know which way to jump.

For those of you who think it all very clear and simple: what exactly are you asking skeptics to believe in order to be ‘saved’?

Can you show me some examples of how Christians are "deeply divided" about belief and morality? Most of the conflicts I've seen are petty and ridiculous, I've seen no enormous split on beliefs in Scripture.

If you're sincerely prepared to make a leap of faith, it makes sense you don't know which way to jump. That's the point of leaping with faith. Simply pick a direction and leap for it; see if you land on solid ground or sinking sand. What matters is you have enough faith to jump.

 

[Guy Rex Rodgers]

Can you show me some examples of how Christians are "deeply divided" about belief and morality? Most of the conflicts I've seen are petty and ridiculous, I've seen no enormous split on beliefs in Scripture.


Hello Hakan101

Ask around about the number of Protestants who sincerely believe that Catholics are not saved because they are born again into a personal relationship with Jesus. This is quite common in Pentecostal circles. (I attended a Pentecostal church for years). This rupture between Catholics and Protestants caused centuries of fighting and killing across sectarian lines. This was clearly a major difference of belief.

The first major theological upheaveal came in the 4th century when Augustine advocated that original sin (rather than personal sin) be made the basis for condemnation. Augustine taught (wrongly, but coherently) that unbaptized babies would be eternally condemned. That theology creates, I hope, a deep chasm between his beliefs and yours. Many Christians no longer believe in infant damnation but they retain the vestige of infant baptism.

How many examples of drastically different doctrines do you want?

 

[oi_antz]

I just want to jog a thought for you, have you ever noticed that you can observe someone without looking directly at them? That you can notice them and what they are doing even if you aren't directly engaged with them? Ever been engaged in some sort of indirect communication with someone in this manner? I assume you have. A blind man knows this world to be three dimensional even though he can't see it with his eyes, and we can accept the world for what it is, and adapt to it without knowing the laws of physics. This proves that the universe of time and space is a constant and our perceptions are variables, despite that some of us might be more or less enlightened about the purpose of such a reality.

So how do you place God into this picture? How would you expect God to appear to us, an observer and participant in this three dimensional world? I'm asking you to describe to me whether you think God is small enough to be comprehended by a physical mind. Assuming you answer "no, He must be at least as big as the universe" then how do you expect He would get a message through to us humans who are stuck living inside of time and space?

I don't want to preach my own idea, I'm more interested to hear what you think

Bump. Hope you had a great festive season! I'm still quite interested to pick your brain about this.

 

[razeontherock]

And finally, I believe that people have instrumental value

Yeah, I play trumpet (and several other instruments)

 

[razeontherock]

circular reasoning= bad.

There's not a scrap of circular reasoning in what you responded to; you might want to re-think your statement?

As for me I used to be a christian ... I never succeeded in convincing myself to believe.

You should accept the truth that you were never a Christian! Per your own words here, I mean.

The so-called truth of the scriptures never imposed has truth to me. So I did not just ''dismiss'' the so-called truth. The main difference between you and me is that for you the truth of the bible is self-evident while to me it isn't.

Lots of assumptions there. You do know what happens when you assume, right?

 

[SolomonVII]

So many ask me to just accept Jesus as my lord and savior and I will find all the proof I'm looking for.

Well, I can't just choose to believe in Jesus or a god. Even if Pascal's Wager is a logical wager, I still can't sincerely believe that a god is real. It's like me asking you to just accept that the Flying Spaghetti Monster boiled for your sins; I hold the two ideas with the same amount of veracity. I'm sure that you can't just choose to disbelieve, so why would one expect the opposite from me?

Disbelief is not a choice, reading the Bible has affirmed my disbelief, and no amount of scripture can change that.

It is not just belief. It is finding something worthwhile to believe in, to live for, to even die for.
Belief is finding, or even striving for, something that is bigger than —something that you revere more than— your life itself.

We can live at the level of the animals I guess, satisfying our needs and our desires, and following our instincts doing what comes naturally. If we really were animals, that would be satisfying enough. We would be fulfilling our destiny that way—if animals is all that we are.

Now whether by an accident of nature, or by conscious design, people simply are not built that way. There is a hard edge to life, a degree of suffering and a need to make a name for ourselves somehow, to create even, that living through our carnal desires will never satisfy. Sex and drugs and rock and roll are very good indeed, so the saying goes, but good indeed is never good enough.
Not for human beings it is not.

It is both the gift and the curse that our spirit, our essence if you will, cannot ever be fully at home in nature alone. We are creatures of the earth for sure, but our minds comprehend the existence of worlds that lie beyond us, and we long for them as we would long for a long lost parent.

Nietzche once said that if there were no gods, we would have to invent them. Our carnal nature finds a home in nature, on earth, but our spiritual nature seeks out something in the universe that reflects that undeniable aspect of our being.

The god that Christian medieval philosphers invented was a being that which none greater can be conceived, and therefore must exist, because what exists is in fact greater than what exists in the imagination.

So, that is who God is. He is the realization of your highest possible potential.

And that is who Jesus is. He is the Way that leads you to your highest possible potential. Follow his way, and you walk with God every step of the way.

This is not spaghetti monsters of easter bunnies or unicorns that we are talking about. Don't trivialize your potential into thinking that that is as much as exists. This is not about magic, of fairy god mothers, and pixie dust. This is about the reality of who we are as people. Even the clay that we were molded from is stardust.Our potential is vaster than we can ever conceive it to be.
And Jesus has shown us the way to reach that potential. He has shown us that it is possible.

 

[purpledolphin8402]

It is not just belief. It is finding something worthwhile to believe in, to live for, to even die for.
Belief is finding, or even striving for, something that is bigger than —something that you revere more than— your life itself.

You don't need to believe in a supernatural deity to achieve that. I found that in my children. I believe in them, I live for them, I would die for them and I revere them more than my life.

To the O.P. Belief isn't something you choose. I struggled for years with my belief before I became an atheist. I began losing my faith and it terrified me. I WANTED to believe more than anything, I spent nights crying, praying, and pleading for my faith to be strong again. No matter how much I wanted to continue believing, no matter how much I tried to continue believing, I just couldn't believe anymore.

 

[SolomonVII]

You don't need to believe in a supernatural deity to achieve that. I found that in my children. I believe in them, I live for them, I would die for them and I revere them more than my life.

"Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for his friend".

This is not really about magic, or pulling rabbits out of hats, or spaghetti monsters. It is about informing yourself on the wisdom of the ages nevertheless, to firm up the resolve and the foundations that alone would make that kind of love possible in the first place, the kind of love that would sustain us even if the children and the spouse and everything that you cherish in this life were to all of a sudden disappear.

 

[HCrossth2012]

Peace on to you friend in the name of my Lord Jesus Christ.

I didn't read most of the post here, but I did read yours.. To be honest in most ways some christians are none belivers. Why coz nothing changes. So I don't blame you for not believing, but saying that. when God wants to save human he will, there is nothing you can do If he makes you his own. and you will treble in his glory and all your questions will be lost with your doubt, and his presence will say it all even without words. and after that people will not believe you and call you crazy.
You are not swayed by opinions of not believeing, so you would make a stronger believer. God Bless you

Love in Jesus Christ

Hilja

 

[SolomonVII]

Christianity is SO negative...

Why does everything in this religion revolve around people dying, and things "being taken" from you? I've never understood that.

At best, it seems christianity is trying, or struggling, to answer the deep questions of "why we suffer" or "how to cope or deal with suffering". All fair questions, but I feel the answers we are given are inadequate for our current day and age.

Christianity is a religion which speaks of salvation, so it does indeed centre on the problems that we inevitably encounter in life.
Dealing with suffering, being able to give meaning to suffering is a very big part of life.
As far as negative, this is the faith where Christ's first miracle was turning water into wine, so that the party could go on. Christ tells people with heavy yokes to follow him, for his load is light. His whole ministry was like a wedding celebration that he ushered in at Cana, with people complaining at times that he did not fast like John the Baptist and the Jewish religious leaders. It was all about fish and loaves and healing, and most of all love.

To think that Christianity is negative would be to be missing the whole point then. It is about life in abundance actually, about living the type of life which is so full that even the suffering is small in comparison.
Man's nature has not evolved in the past 2000 years. We have not someow gotten bigger for all the little ideas of the Bible. The same wrong choices are still being made, and the same Way is still available in order to save us from the consequences of those wrong choices.

 

[aiki]

I have not looked at this thread for a couple of weeks and I have a question for the people who make it sound as if we are faced with a clear and simple choice between faith (saved) or unbelief (damned) and between God-given morality (good) or moral relativism (terrible): which God are you talking about and which God-given morality?

For myself, I'm talking about the God revealed in the Bible and the morality He has commanded.

The world is not divided between Christians and agnostics/atheists. The vast majority of humans on this planet have believed in some kind of God/gods. Does that mean they were all 'saved'? Anyone who has studied the most rudimentary theology will admit the answer is 'no'.

Right.

Many Protestants do not think Catholics are 'saved' although they worship the same God and possess the same God-given moral codes. Quite a few Catholics reciprocate by considering Protestants errant heretics. What about our Jewish brothers and sisters who worship the same God and possess the God-given moral codes of the Old Testament. Are they ‘saved’? We could ask the same question about Muslims who are monotheistic. If there is only one God and Muslims worship the sole God, why do Christians presume they worship the wrong God?

The Bible makes it crystal clear how one is saved, not Catholic or Protestant denominational dogma. There are as likely as many Protestants who believe they are saved and are not as there are Catholics in this same situation.

As a Christian, I believe the Muslim worships the the wrong God because their god is quite unlike the God revealed in the Bible and it is from the Bible that my knowledge of God is defined.

Many Christian theologians have claimed, and continue to claim, that it is not enough to worship ‘God’ or obey revealed moral codes. The only people ‘saved’ are Christians who accept Jesus as their Saviour, and even then only a certain type of Christian.

It doesn't matter what theologians say; it only matters what the Bible says. I am not suggesting that one dismiss out-of-hand what various theologians have to share about their understanding of the contents of the Bible. Very often they have valuable and deep insight into it. Nothing they say, however, can or ought to replace one's own study of the Bible and coming to one's own conclusions about what it says.

The Bible is very plain about salvation being only through faith in Christ as Saviour and Lord. When genuine conversion occurs, it manifests in a process of change that brings a person into greater and greater holiness in their conduct. This is also made very clear in Scripture. Niether of these facts need a theologian to explicate; they are expressed so simply in the Bible even a child could comprehend them.

It is misleading to say that an atheist or agnostic has a simple choice to make between faith and unbelief.

Well, if the Bible is to be believed, this is the essential difference between a believer and non-believer.

It is also misleading to state that all God-worshippers believe the same thing. Even Christians are deeply divided about belief and morality.

Two things:

1. At least in the evangelical Christian community divisions aren't nearly as deep or divisive as those outside the community like to declare that they are. Mennonites, E-Free, Alliance, Baptists, Pentecostals, Nazarenes, Apostolic, Lutherans, Presbyterians and a great many non-denominational groups all hold the same basic doctrines and theology in common.

2. It isn't those who say they are Christians who establish what is truly Christian and what isn't, but the Bible, which is the Word of God.

A doubter sincerely prepared to make a leap of faith would be hard pressed to know which way to jump.

Which is why God does the saving and not man. And which is also why the Bible rather than a denomination must be the foundation of faith in God.

For those of you who think it all very clear and simple: what exactly are you asking skeptics to believe in order to be ‘saved’?

See the Gospel of John.

Selah.