So first off, why do you believe in god?
Well I'd start by explaining exactly how I came to believe. For me it all started with simply thinking about why I'm here, where I'm from and what my life purpose is. Resorting to science didn't solve my dilemma. It explained to me how but doesn't tell me why. I looked at nature and started wondering about that. What is its purposes? Why are animals so beautifully created, why are we so wonderfully designed and just in general WHY? I found it incredibly hard to believe that life around me was by chance. Nothing this extraordinary can be by chance. It must have started somewhere, somehow and with some sort of purpose. There must have been a cause. Now what this cause is was the million dollar question. I knew about God prior to that, I wasn't living in a cave and was well aware of different beliefs and religions. I knew about Christianity as my mom is Christian and told me about God but never forced me to believe it. She's really open minded and always gave me space to reason things out by myself. But somehow I become more serious about the idea of God. After the passing of all my grandparents and beloved cat I also started to think more about death and what happens after death. Why are we born to only die? This didn't make sense to me either and the list of why's only become more and more. Reading the Bible didn't help to my questions either. It didn't feel like it was of much help. But then I decided that I'm going to go directly to this God. Trying to make sense of the Bible didn't help, talking to people didn't help and visiting Christian forums also didn't help. I could get good answers but none of them felt "real" so then I prayed. I prayed more and more and told God to reveal Himself to me. I have prayed before many times but none of those times did I really try. It wasn't as heartfelt as these new prayers. I felt something inside of me changing. I felt this intense feeling inside (I don't know where, just inside of me) every time I spent time with God and I found a lot of comfort. The massive hole inside of me started to get filled. It sounds cliche. But before that I felt empty. Before really accepting God I felt alone and hopeless. But then I decided to form a relationship with God and really try. I started reading more scripture and suddenly all the puzzle pieces started connecting and I just knew that I have reached the point where all my questions were answered about the why's. It took plenty of hours of research, talks and prayers to reach the point where I could fully say "I believe in God". Why? Through personal experience and through building up a relationship with God and giving God a chance God revealed Himself to me.
2. Why do you follow god? For me even if he was proven real, i would not follow him.
I follow God because it fills the emptiness in me. I love following God and being able to have a father. My real life father is awful and I can't describe the burden that is on me because of that but God gave me the peace of knowing I do have a father who loves me and cares for me. God gives me a comfort and helps with worries that are beyond my control. It's easy to say you won't follow God if He was proven real but I think it's easier said than done if it happens to you.
3. Do you truly believe god is moral? Throughout the bible god punishes innocent people that arent even involved. With the plagues so many innocent children would have died.
God killed the people who were full of wickedness and evilness. There's a example in Genesis where God was asked if He would destroy the innocent along with the wicked. Prior to destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham asked God if He would destroy the righteous along with the wicked.God replied that He would spare the entire city for 50 righteous people. In the Old Testament the objects of God’s judgments were involved in sin and committed acts of great barbarism, such as ritualistically burning their own children to death as offerings to their false gods. Innocent people? Where? The examples of Gods killings the entire culture had been corrupted by the sin of the adults. The flaw here also is "innocent" people. No one is innocent besides Jesus Christ. Also remember God sees the bigger picture. He may have killed "innocents" in order to spare them later suffering of the consequences that the wicked people have left behind. We see the smaller picture, He sees the big picture and He's the ultimate creator who is entitled to have His own reasons.
4. God promotes slavery many times throughout the bible. Telling you how much you can beat them, sell them for and so on, are you ok with this? If not you dont truly follow your god, and if so you are immoral.
The Bible does not say God supports slavery. In fact, the slavery described in the Old Testament was quite different from the kind of slavery we think of today - in which people are captured and sold as slaves. According to Old Testament law, anyone caught selling another person into slavery was to be executed(Exodus 21:16) . Voluntary slavery was widely practiced during biblical times and therefor the Bible proscribes laws to protect the lives and health of slaves which is outlined in the Bible. God also didn't view slaves as any less valuable than anyone else.( Galatians 3:28) Those who were slaves sold themselves as slaves when they could not pay their debts or provide for their families. They chose it themselves.
5. What makes satan evil? He went against gods authority and wanted to be the new god, what is the matter with this? Pretend god really is bad, would that not make satan good? Throughout the bible god killed over 2 million numbered people, that doesent include the flood etc. satan killed 10, because god made him.
God is the only God. God was the one who created satan. Therefor God is the person with the authority here, not satan. God was there first, not satan. God created everything, not satan. Why should satan take all the credit and be God? He's not God, he wasn't there first and therefor him trying to be god is wrong because he clearly is not. God killed wicked people who did bad things. It would have been more immoral for God back then to just leave the wicked people there and cause more suffering than to punish them. I would rather worship a God who punishes the people for killing others or burning others than to worship a God who ignores this kind of behavior. That's far more immoral in my eyes. Please read answer 3 for more clearance on this matter.
6. Why is it that i can live a great life, be a great person, but not believe in god and so i go to hell for it? How is that fair? If you had a great child, but he didnt like you, would u lock in in the basement and torture him for the rest of his life?
I subscribe to the belief that I'm not God and God will decide who goes to hell and it's really not my place to decide for others where they will go. I can't tell you where good people go. I believe that God knows whether or not a person who has never had the opportunity to know Him, would receive or reject Him, since He alone knows the person’s heart. God knows the "great person's" heart and will be able to make a fair judgement on it.
Also do you know your faith is right? There are so many to choose from. Really by the end of it heaven will account for 1% of the population
Christianity is different for me than all the others. Christianity is the only religion that God (in this case-Jesus) dies to forgive sins and permit a person into Heaven and it's different because it teaches that salvation is by faith rather than by works. These all on a personal level makes more sense to me.
