What is it like to believe in god?

[s_s]

It's learning to trust in Him, yet know that if you jump from a 30 story building, don't depend on God to reach out with His giant hand and save you. Believing in God yet retaining common sense is a good idea. lol:

To take that a step further, while retaining the common sense and not jumping off a 30 storey building, I have 100% confidence that if I was pushed off a 30 storey building, God would save me.

To believe in God, for me, is the joy of knowing that my life means something, that I'm loved unconditionally by the only One that is capable of truly doing so. It's an all-encompassing unspeakable joy, comfort, and feeling of loved-ness.

 

[Beautiful Ignorance]

I haven't believed in god since I was about 8 years old. I remember before then god was a fact like all the other facts I knew, not a super important one, just something I took for granted. Adam and eve and Jesus and stuff I was taught and I believed it. After about 8 I stopped going to a lutheran school and stopped being taught about Jesus and God and stopped thinking about it for about a decade.

This may come off as insulting, but god feels to me like the tooth fairy, santa claus, and all the other things I used to believe in when I was a kid.Now, that childlike acceptance of god, santa claus, ghosts, and the tooth fairy is gone and I simply cannot imagine what would replace it. I've experienced many things I could not have imagined as a child, yet I have not experienced faith.

So it's from ignorance I ask:

What's it like to believe in god?

I deconverted at 23 and spent the next 12 years as an atheist and so I can relate. I believe in God now and so I might be able to answer your question.

To me, believing in God is like believing in the law of Gravity. It doesn't change anything really. If you don't believe in Gravity, everything still functions the same way.

The difference comes with religious practice. Religion is not something you "believe" in. Its something you practice for the purpose of changing yourself to be the person you need to be. Of course, you usually need to have some degree of belief because otherwise, you probably wont practice. But its not the belief that makes the difference, it is the practice. If you don't believe but you practice, the result will be the same. But it's better to believe because otherwise, you probably won't practice.

 

[flowers11ful]

Believing in God is the most wonderful thing! 

 

[bulldog129]

Believing in God is having a best friend who would always be with me even when all others have abandoned me. It is having someone gently guide me to show me the correct path. It is having someone lift me up when I am down. It is knowing that I am loved unconditionally and knowing that nothing can ever separate me from that love.