I don't really know what to believe. I want to believe in God, but I'm having heavy, heavy doubts. I'm terrified there is no God. If there weren't any God, life wouldn't have meaning for me, personally. I'm afraid my belief in God is gullible and irrational.
I have a chronic illness and I'm still very young, so if I don't pass away in an accident, or by my own hand, I have a long life ahead of me. I find it hard to cope but one of the things that gives me hope is the idea of an afterlife. A place where you're reunited with your loved ones, and there is no pain, no suffering, and no injustice. The idea of an infinite God, who loves you purely and unconditionally, no matter what your life on earth was like, fills my heart with a sense of peace and awe.
But then, a grim fear enters my mind. The fear that this is hope is just a fantasy. That there is no God, and if you try to talk to Him, you're only talking to the ceiling. That we may only be flesh-covered cartons of organs. That there may be no soul, and our consciousness is just a series of electrical interactions inside of our brain. That when we die and our brains shut off, there is nothing beyond that. We can never feel, think, or dream again. Just black, infinite nothingness. The thought of this fills me with great despair. And it doesn't calm me down to think that if it's true that we're hurtling towards oblivion, then I wouldn't be aware of oblivion because I wouldn't be conscious, because I'm alive now, and I can think, and feel, and I don't want to stop thinking and feeling. I don't want those things to be taken away from me.
I'm depressed by many things in this life, but one of the only things that offers me consolation is the hope of an afterlife. If there is no God, then I can't find any meaning in life for myself, personally. It doesn't help me to try to give my own life meaning, because I can't give my own life meaning due to the circumstances in my life. And if there's no meaning in life, I can't find any point in living. I feel like if life on this earth carries so many struggles, and death is inevitable and we all die, even infants moments after being born, and nothing comes after it, why go on living?
I want to believe in God, because the idea of a loving God and the afterlife gives me peace, but I still have the same nagging doubts. I've heard of near-death experiences, and reading books about them is very relaxing for me but according to some scientists the people who have genuinely experienced these things were only having hallucinations due to oxygen deprivation.
I can't reconcile my hope in God being real with findings according to scientists. If the Big Bang happened, what came before it? Was it God? Or was it really nothing? I'm confused and conflicted. I desperately want God to be real, but I can't fight through the doubts in my head, and this leaves me feeling beyond depressed. I just want to hold onto my hope of an afterlife, but I'm finding it very hard to do.
I appreciate this question and the time you took to elaborate your difficulties. It is very helpful in attempting to satisfactorily resolve your ordeal. I will begin by stating that the dire suspense you have about the nature of our existence and our destiny are fundamental to understanding who God is, what He has revealed to us in Christ and the significance and incommensurable joy of what He offers to us when we trust in Him. But before I address that subject specifically, allow me to attempt to relieve you of the doubts you designated with arguments and evidence presented as succinctly as possible for the sake of the format we are addressing this in, as well as (you may be excited to hear) the overwhelming quantity of substantial answers there are to these questions.
First on the list, we have the doubt of the soul, or, as it's known in philosophy, mind-body dualism. The doubt of the soul can only be grounded rationally if one establishes that there is no difference
whatsoever between the mind and the brain; that is to say, there is no mind but rather the mind is the brain. Brain and mind, in this case, are merely interchangeable synonyms with no distinction except in language. For the soul not to exist, therefore, the brain and the mind have to be as identical as A is to A, for if there is any difference then the mind and the brain are not the same thing and thus there is some other entity involved in the brain's operations. There are many ways to demonstrate the distinction between the brain and the mind, but I will present two here for the sake of brevity:
1. Matter (which constitutes the brain) does not have states of intentionality; that is to say, it can not be
about something. Matter can be of a certain colour, shape, size, potency, nature etc., but it can not be
about these things. For example, water can hydrate a thirsty body, but it can not be
desirous to quench thirst, or
ambitious to satisfy thirst more effectively than another body of water; it can not
wish it was hot or cold, a lake or a pool, etc. The examples are innumerable, and for the sake of not being unnecessarily redundant, insert x matter from any form of matter you can name in the universe and the same truth applies. Contrary to the fatty tissue of your brain, however, you
do have states of intentionality in which you are
about something, such as getting an answer to your
inquiries to satisfy your
fears.
2. The enduring self. While the matter in your brain and body is constantly changing, your consciousness of the self you now are endures despite the incessant changes. If your consciousness were a product of your brain, you would literally be a different person every fraction of a second (atheist scientists actually affirm this). The difference would not be metaphorical, such as the change we mean when we say something like, I'm a changed man," but rather a change of the consciousness perceiving the body you now possess. Thus, for example, you would not have any realistic anxieties of the future, such as your next dentist appointment, or, more severely, your death, because
you would not even be there by the time either arrived, but rather a really good look-alike. We know that this is not the case, however, and that our conscious
self survives all these changes to our physical composition.
Therefore, among other reasons, the mind and brain are not identical and thus not the same thing. The mind possesses qualities inconsistent with matter and this immaterial self is what we call the
soul. Regardless of what you call it, it refers to the part of the human self that endures through physical change and cell death.
Second, you expressed doubts on account of the claims of the so-called scientific community. It is important you recognize that much of what is conveyed as science is nothing more than bad philosophy disguised behind snapshots of material discoveries. What I mean by that is that they present some object that they have discovered more information about, and then connect it to a false implication which the discovery does not actually imply (for example, learning more about the reproductive system and presenting that information to the public with some spin of the assertion that the lack of ethereal knitting needles disproves Psalms 139:13). It is a deceptive tactic that succeeds because most people aren't critical thinkers with an aptitude for applying laws of logic to detect what the evidence actually entails and what we can rightly infer from it. I'm not going to argue any particular theory of creation (though evolution is demonstrably false and by definition unscientific, since alleged millions and billions of years do not permit observation, testability or repeatability) because the arguments for God's existence do not require nor presume a specific duration or method of creation.
Pay careful attention to these following points as I develop the argument for the nature of the first cause. Regardless of duration or method, the universe requires a first cause which is itself uncaused. This first cause can be shown to be necessarily personal from the attributes the first cause must have had prior to creation. First, consider that something can not come from nothing. This is because nothing is not something of any kind, but rather
not anything. Nothing has no properties, no potentialities of any kind because it is
no thing; not a vacuum, not a quantum energy field or anything of the sort. It is the
entire absence of existence (otherwise we are not talking about nothing, which I hope is clear to everyone). Therefore,
something must have
always existed or nothing would ever come into being and there would be no universe of any form to speak (or not speak) of.
Now consider also that an actual infinite amount of time is impossible. For example, if I borrowed money from you and told you I would pay you back after an infinite amount of time, when would you be reimbursed? Never. You would understand it as a joke, as an infinite amount of time can not pass, since infinite by definition is an
endless amount. To ask when we would traverse an infinite is equivalent to asking when we will reach the literal end of the literal end
less. Likewise, you can not have had an infinite amount of time before this moment right now. Combine these facts, and the logically emergent conclusion is that
something must have
always existed, but it can not have existed for an infinite amount of
time; I would reemphasize here that it must have
always existed, however, as explained before. This leaves us with something that must have always existed, but can not have existed always in time. Anything which exists timelessly is eternal, by definition.
But why does such a being have to be personal? Because anything that is timeless must also be changeless, since change entails time (something was like x at moment t-1, then like y at t-2; the moments are produced from a state not remaining static). Something that is changeless by its very nature can not change (or it would not be changeless), unless it possessed some concurrent attribute that could spontaneously override its changeless state to emerge into time at a first moment. Free agency is the only attribute that could accomplish this since something that simply
is changeless can not change, as opposed to something which rather
remains changeless by volition.
Therefore the first cause of the universe must be uncaused, eternal and personal, among other things that were not included or elaborated for the sake of brevity and addressing your specific doubts.
Finally, this brings us to the existential question behind all the sincere inquiring of these sorts of questions or frustrated arguments, which is what, ultimately, we exist for and where we are inevitably headed. After all is said and done, and the smoke clears from the arguments, their counter-arguments and the counters to those, the human heart remains amidst it all. That is what is the source of all of our longings, our hopes and ambitions, and, most wonderfully seems bent by its very nature to be satisfied in who Christ is and what we are promised through life in Him. Certainly it would be the most wonderful thing of all if it were not by design that such desires are endlessly present in the human heart for all such things that can not be satisfied in the universe in which we now live. As the Scriptures say, God has set eternity in the heart of man (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
The arguments considered (of which there is abundantly more than I presented, and beyond that, that I do not yet know to present), ultimately your decision will not have to be ignorantly, but from a heart that desires all of who Christ is. Our circumstances have been established in such a way that those who will receive Christ will do so in a way that is necessary to provide saving faith rather than mere intellectual assent to a set of doctrines, which would only leave us unregenerate and continually dead in our sins. Paul explains God's purpose for our lives and circumstance: "From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us (Acts 17:26-27)."
This is why Jesus also declared: "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do (Luke 10:21)." (Note that the wise and learned in this context are those who are wise in the world's eyes, since true wisdom comes from God, Proverbs 9:10) And elsewhere He warned: "But Jesus called the children to him and said, "Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it (Luke 18:17." This is because, He proclaims: "Now
this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent (John 17:3)."
To repeat, in closing, there are many substantial arguments and an abundance of evidence, enough to make it more transparent than it already was (Romans 1:20), but ultimately (not ignorantly) it is a decision you have to make from sincerity of heart to receive Christ and trust in Him unto salvation. The arguments are there to reinforce your faith, not replace the substance of it, which is the pursuit of Christ Himself, who will satisfy every good desire and longing of your soul.
